ORLANDO, Fla. — A Volusia County man lost thousands of dollars using a popular investing app after he claims his account got hacked. Action 9 has been following the complaints and government actions taken against Robinhood Financial since last year.
It’s a platform Bob Agledor said seemed like a great opportunity.
“I’ve been using Robinhood for seven years,” he said.
For him, the mobile stock trading and investment platform was easy. He could make transactions with the tap of his phone.
Agledor told Action 9 consumer investigator Jeff Deal, “Everything was working fine for the first six years.”
But things really started to turn south in September when Agledor said someone hacked his account, sold his investments, then transferred money from his account to purchase cryptocurrency.
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He said, “Then as soon as they bought it they transferred into their crypto wallet. So, I called Robinhood and they said, “Well you need to talk to the fraud department.”
Robinhood later sent him an email saying its investigation indicates he “fell victim to a scam” and he authorized the transaction so he’s “ineligible for reimbursement.”
“I don’t have a crypto wallet. So, I don’t know how to transfer between crypto and crypto,” Agledor said.
He told Action 9 the crypto couldn’t be traced and now he’s out around $3,200.
The Better Business Bureau website shows other complaints of accounts getting hacked and about accounts being restricted so investors can’t access their money.
An Action 9 investigation last year showed federal regulators have gone after Robinhood before, ordering the company to pay nearly $135-million in penalties for failing to properly manage millions of accounts.
Last year, the company agreed to pay out $20-million as part of class action lawsuit after around 40,000 customers claimed their accounts were hacked in a 2020 data breach.
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Joe Bert with Certified Financial Group told Action 9, “My advice would be understand that it is a high risk, high reward proposition.”
He said these kinds of platforms are geared more toward short-term speculation rather than long-term investing, but believes accounts often get hacked when consumers let their guard down.
“Just be extremely careful when you’re out on the internet because it’s the wild west out there. And when in doubt, delete,” he said
Agledor wants others to know about the risks, too. Still, he’s holding out hope that he’ll somehow get his money back.
“You should in some way, refund my money or have some kind of guarantee that my account is safe,” he said.
Action 9 reached out to Robinhood for answers about what’s going on. So far, it hasn’t responded to questions about this case or the history of complaints and government actions that have been taken against Robinhood.
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