A stranger opened a Cash App account in her name — now she faces six years in prison
Woman faces six years in prison over Cash App account she never opened
Amanda Smith was arrested at her Pennsylvania home over a scam in Arkansas she knew nothing about. A fraudster used her Social Security number and date of birth to open a Cash App account, then took $1,000 from a Facebook Marketplace buyer. Smith spent three nights in jail and posted $70,000 in bail before learning the charges. Cash App initially refused to hand over the account's records because she couldn't prove she owned it, and the case is still moving toward a November hearing.
They're trying to turn it into my problem, that I need to prove that I'm innocent. That's not what I grew up believing was the way it worked.
- benjiro29
* authorities have offered Smith a plea deal including a $1,000 fine, $1,000 in restitution and three years' probation.*
This is the goal ... They know they are at fault but admitting they made a mistake is damaging to careers.
In a lot of cases a carrot is dangled in front of people ... You can wast a lot of time (and money) fighting for your innocent, and take the risk your still going to get convicted.
Or you can take the plea deal, and it absolves us from our mistakes. And you save money because its cheaper then paying all those lawyers and court costs. And your innocent anyway, so that probations has no effect on you.
I forgot the source but the amount of prosecutions that are plea down is staggering. A lot of actual innocent people take plea's because its cheaper, then the alternative. And there have been plenty of people innocently convicted (even on shaky evidence), so most people take plea deals and they can move on with their lives.
This results in a culture where investigations are annoying. Where pressure is ramped up again and again to break people into taking plea deals. The biggest issue is, if you actually refuse to take a plea deal, then all resources are put against you to get a actual conviction, even if they know your innocent. "Why did you not just take the plea deal". Well, time to punish you for not taking it. Because repeat after me again, careers are on the line and losing cases hurt those future (potential political) careers.
Its the same why prosec […]
- squidbeak
> 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?
- Roark66
It will never stop until prosecutors/police become liable for gross negligence.
- tuveson
This is the original reporting: https://www.404media.co/amanda-smith-opened-a-cashapp-in-her...
- doodlebugging
Time for CashApp founders and C-levels to be held personally liable for creating a system with so few checks that it appears to be designed to facilitate fraud and theft.
Then you sue all the law enforcement officers and local officials who are attempting to lay the blame for this on someone they should know is likely innocent. Make all of the financial liability for this lazy investigation come directly from the pockets of the cops and prosecutors until they have nothing left to their names and then extract every thin dime that you can from the city that hired or elected these clods so that the whole city is bankrupted.
Money is obviously the only thing that talks in this society. Make all these assholes pay with everything that they have managed to accumulate in their lives and kick their asses to the curbs after pointing at a dumpster and telling them that they can likely find some cardboard suitable for beggar signage. They'll need to supply their own writing tools though.
- Good4boothee
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.
- ashleyn
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.
- rawgabbit
Meanwhile, Cash App who facilitated the scam and actually cost the buyer actual money... walks away with no repercussions. There is something horribly broken when tech companies who are ruining people's lives have zero responsibility but are making money in the process.