Jun. 07, 2021
I am a Robinhood customer who has been negatively affected by various actions taken by Robinhood Securities. Having read through File No. 3-20171, I have to express I do not find the $65 million fine to be an acceptable penalty. Consider the events in the 2021 calendar year. To clarify, I am referring to Robinhood's prevention of purchasing certain stocks (e.g. GME, AMC) in January. As a result, many Robinhood customers transferred accounts to other brokers like Fidelity. Upon doing this, retail investors discovered concerns in the cost basis as a manipulation of wash sale rules. In my personal experience, my cost basis from Robinhood suggested I purchased my shares in the year of 2020, which is verifiably not true. It also showed transactions for fractional shares that I did not make. However, the concern is much larger than that. While shareholders of the aforementioned were probably the ones most affected by this, payment for order flow affects all Robinhood customers. Additionally, shareholders of GME, for example, who were investing through other brokers were also negatively affected by this. These actions affected the global economy in a negative sense. Given the circumstances, I strongly encourage a precedent to be set. A fine of under $100 million for a business that deals with billions is not enough. Retail investors deserve better representation. I strongly encourage licenses to practice be revoked, and people (including, but not limited to Vlad Tenev) are tried and imprisoned for these actions. How many laws must a corporation break before they are held accountable? Trust in the US market hinges on holding these corporations accountable. Thank you.