MONTPELIER — Vermont will receive $1.3 million as part of a multistate settlement with Cash App over allegations that the popular currency transfer platform failed to protect its users from fraud and misled them about the platform’s safety.
Charity Clark, Vermont attorney general, announced the settlement with Cash App’s parent company, Block, on Wednesday. She said it was the culmination of a yearslong investigation by her office and attorneys general in other states. In all, Block will pay 46 states a total of $45 million.
The company knew that fraud had been rising on its platform for years, Clark said. Block could have taken more steps to curb it, she said, but instead rolled out promotions to hype its services that exposed users to even more scams. Cash App also told users its platform had similar security features to traditional banks, Clark said, but in reality offered far fewer protections.
“Who was Cash App’s sweet spot? It was people who were underbanked or unbanked — i.e., people who were more vulnerable than the average person,” she said at a press conference at her office Wednesday. “And those users were hit hardest by Cash App’s lack of support.”
Vermont’s slice of the settlement will be deposited into the state’s General Fund, Clark said, which can be used for a wide range of spending purposes. Clark’s office could not estimate how much money Vermonters lost to scams perpetrated using Cash App.
Clark noted that the multistate agreement comes on the heels of a $175 million settlement Block reached with the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in January 2025 over similar allegations that it failed to protect its users from fraud.
That settlement was announced under former President Joe Biden’s administration, she noted. As part of that deal, Cash App was required to pay its users $120 million as well as pay $55 million into a government-run fund for people harmed by companies that break financial protection laws.
The latest complaint, compiled by Vermont and other states, says that Cash App’s “minimal screening” of users’ identities during the sign-up process made it easy for scammers to create accounts.
At the same time, Cash App did not offer live phone support that users could call for help with their accounts, according to the complaint. Scammers knew this, the complaint says, and took advantage by creating fake support numbers users would find and then call when looking up Cash App support options online. Block knew this was happening, too, Clark said, but it would be years before the company made a live phone line accessible.
Clark said she was especially troubled by a promotion the company ran called “Cash App Fridays,” during which users were encouraged to publicly post the tag identifying their accounts in hopes of being selected for a weekly prize. Scammers would sometimes contact those users and tell them they had won the promotion before tricking users into handing over access to the account, she explained. Block also knew about those scams but continued running the promotion anyway, Clark said.
Block did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement, according to court filings made public Wednesday. It did agree to offer live customer support 24 hours a day to resolve fraud claims, stop marketing practices known to increase fraud on its platform and directly educate its users about common types of fraud, among other steps, the agreement states.
In a statement Wednesday, a Cash App spokesperson said the company “has made significant investments in consumer protection, customer service, and compliance in order to safeguard and serve the tens of millions of Americans who rely on Cash App to meet their banking and credit needs.”
The company will also “continue to invest in operations and technology to promote a safe and healthy financial ecosystem,” the spokesperson said.
