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  • Hacker News
  • Still waiting for industry fans to comment. But let's get the ball rolling:

    "I would never defend <company/common practice>. But this article is such egregious ragebait that I must speak out. It's a very sad outcome. But it's also clearly <her fault/impossible to legislate a fix/evidence that the system is working>."

    Irony notice. This comment contains irony.

  • I wonder whether this type of situation is an artifact of the US system of law being focused on codification / literalism / textualism, as opposed to the UK and similar systems where common law or judge made law has more weight, which permits the injection of some level of common sense into situations where a literal interpretation of the statutes would lead to ridiculous outcomes.
  • Police never thought to subpoena the ISP for the IP address associated with the cashapp login? This seems like an egregious omission in the investigation. Even if it were a VPN, you could subpoena her email to find payment receipts to the provider, etc. Even that may not necessarily prove guilt if there are no logs. That's all an enormous leap of evidence to assume the account is genuinely hers, especially given how endemic identity theft is.
  • So how exactly does Cash App verify users that signup for new accounts? If the process is so lax, shouldn't they be forced to temporary block it? To say nothing about money laundering charges, that would be raised against any bank in such situation.
  • This is absurd. Would she be able to sue Block/CashApp? She should. For millions and millions of dollars.
    by fjni
  • > Meanwhile, authorities have offered Smith a plea deal including a $1,000 fine, $1,000 in restitution and three years' probation. She has refused, saying she is innocent.

    This is nuts. Is it possible US prosecutors give so few shits about justice?

  • It will never stop until prosecutors/police become liable for gross negligence.
  • >Smith later discovered why she had been arrested: a scammer had tricked someone into sending $1,000 to a Cash App account, one that was in her name but controlled by a criminal.

    And that brings $50,000 bail and days spend in jail before trial? Should just be a civic matter at worst.

    >It turned out that the account had been created using Smith's Social Security number and date of birth. But Smith, who describes herself as not tech-savvy, said she had never used Cash App. The situation sounds like one that should have been resolved quickly. But Smith says she is still being asked to prove her innocence in an ongoing criminal case. One stumbling block was that Cash App refused to hand over details of the account to Smith because she couldn't prove she was the owner. She eventually received the data through discovery in her case.

    Surely some details about her are the same as in the account profile, and not just the name, else they wouldn't prosecute her for an app account that bears no relation to her. Do they prosecute people just for something happening on the same name and surname as them?

    If the account had others details about here to fool people, like her photo or SSN or address, she should have got access to the account, without having to demand it via discovery.

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