MONEY PROBLEMS

A coffee plantation in Bali, growing coffee beans, buying coffee beans, getting scammed at the coffee plantation.

This traveler didn’t buy $4,800 of coffee beans. Or did he?

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Simon Khin is a victim of a scam aimed at international travelers. He’s sure of it. While touring a Balinese coffee plantation, he bought two small tins of fresh beans for $48. He didn’t think much about that purchase until several weeks later. That’s when his Capital One statement revealed that the merchant had actually charged his credit card $4,800.

But the worst was yet to come.

Can Robinhood freeze a customer's account and keep their money?

Robinhood froze my account and kept my $3,000 inside! Is this legal?

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Robinhood, the online millennial-focused brokerage site, brags that “Investing is simple here.” That sounded great to Bryan Bryan when he was looking for an easy way to invest some cash. So, he followed the onscreen prompts, transferred $2,400 into his Robinhood account and prepared to make his first transaction.

Of course, as is true with any investment, Bryan knew there would be some risk involved. But what actually happened, he never saw coming. That simple investment he hoped to make turned into an instant nightmare. Robinhood accepted his money, immediately froze his account, and refused to explain why.

That was four months ago.