Heads-Up: CashApp Can Close Accounts And Freeze Funds For No Reason If You Violate Its TOS
Overnight and into today, you may have seen #CashAppStealsMoney briefly trending on Twitter with several thousand tweets chiming in. This stems from Imani Gandy, who goes by the user @AngryBlackLady on Twitter, who learned the hard way that CashApp can close your account and keep the cash if you happen to violate the platform's terms of service. Thankfully, CashApp rectified the situation but not before Gandy took to Twitter for multiple hours to get the matter resolved.
Yesterday, Gandy had close to $1000 for veterinarian bills and approximately $140 worth of Bitcoin in her CashApp account. Much to her surprise and ire, the mobile payment service sent Gandy an email stating that her account had been frozen and the company used Sections 4 and 5 of the CashApp TOS to block or reverse the transfer of funds. Effectively, this held Gandy’s cash hostage while CashApp investigated her ban.
According to the CashApp terms of service, they claim that they can “terminate or refuse your access to the service at any time, for any reason.” Furthermore, when an account is closed, they may “need to hold your funds if there is an investigation at the time your Account is closed.” Otherwise, CashApp will return the remaining funds in the account to the user.
The alarming part of this dust-up is that CashApp’s customer service appeared to be unwilling to respond or provide any insight when an account is frozen, banned or being investigated. The initial email that Gandy received did not explain what happened from what we can tell and attempts to contact CashApp support for help and clarification did not seem to yield results either. After all the Twitter ruckus happened, though, CashApp released Gandy’s funds and also provided a $1000 bonus for her “inconvenience.”
Also, apparently this is not an uncommon occurrence, as many other people shared their mobile payment horror stories on the Twitter thread as well. Sadly, there are not many other competing options for apps like CashApp, so users beware. It's best not to just leave money sitting in accounts somewhere, in the event the account is frozen and held potentially hostage in some way. In the age of digital transaction platforms, it always pays to read the ToS and keep an eye on your level of exposure.
