Cash App Suffers Glitch Causing Duplicate Charges, Negative Balances

Mobile payment service Cash App is investigating issues with its software after users noticed that it was duplicating payments, leaving some users with negative balances.

The company said in an update at 5:47 p.m. ET on Monday that it was "aware of an issue causing duplicate Cash Card transactions, which is making some customers see a negative account balance." The message came a minute after it told users it had restored its in-app support channel, while phone support remained "unavailable."

Cash App is one of a growing number of digital payment services, allowing users to transfer funds to and from other bank accounts in the United States.

Since its launch in 2013, the app has grown to have over 51 million monthly active users across the U.S. and the United Kingdom, Reuters reported in March. The company said in 2021 it had over 70 million users in total.

Cash App has also more recently allowed users to buy and sell bitcoin, a cryptocurrency, and those in the U.S. to invest funds in stocks. According to its latest status update, those services, as well as sending and receiving money, remained unaffected by the technical issues it was experiencing.

Some social media users who have the app posted examples of their transaction amounts being doubled.

On Monday, Twitter user Amanda Wilson posted a screenshot of a Cash App payment to Google which had been "updated" from $16.28 to $32.56, and another shortly after to QuikTrip, a convenience store, which had gone from $23.73 to $47.46.

"Now I'm in the negative thanks cash app," Twitter user Daniel Carrasquillo wrote, along with a screengrab of a transaction at Best Buy which had been doubled from $37.79 to $75.58.

"Thanks a lot, I'm so screwed," another Twitter user, Rachel Lynn said in response to Cash App's duplicate transactions update.

Cash App said on its website that it was "looking into this matter." However, it remains unclear what caused the glitch to occur.

When asked to comment, a spokesperson for Cash App referred Newsweek to its status updates. In a tweet on Tuesday, it pledged to notify customers who had been impacted and "refund any duplicate charges that resulted from this issue."

On Monday, the company also said that its in-app support function was "back up and running," but warned that waiting times "may be increased right now due to phone support being currently unavailable." It did not say when the in-app support had been initially reported as down.

As of Tuesday, Cash App's phone support channels were still unavailable. "We appreciate your patience," the company said.

Most banks and payment providers allow customers to retract a duplicate payment due to technical glitches.

In 2018, a fault in the Deliveroo app meant some customers in the U.K. inadvertently made multiple identical orders. The glitch caused an error message to appear saying an order payment had not gone through when it had, and asked the user to try again—each time creating a new order.

The food delivery service said the following day that it would be apologizing to customers who had been affected and told the British finance website Money Saving Expert that customers who had been overcharged would be given refunds.

In January, Bank of America apologized to customers after being flooded with online complaints that transactions on its Zelle app were being delayed which made them seem to "disappear."

Update 06/27/23, 10:09 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include a response from Cash App.