- Traders, organized and energized on Reddit, bought GameSpot stock to frustrate short sellers.
- But many couldn’t cash out as the apps they trade on were overwhelmed by demand.
- They took revenge by downrating the services on app stores, with one app receiving 100,000 one-star reviews in just an hour.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
First, they came for the hedge fund managers. Now they’re coming for the investment apps.
Day traders, energized by and organizing on messaging board Reddit, rode in to save GameStop’s stock from an attempted short and sent the struggling retailer’s shares soaring.
But they’re now furious they are being denied big rewards after trading apps experienced outages through Wednesday and Thursday, and even halted buys on suddenly popular stocks.
In response, traders set out to tank the apps with a slew of one-star ratings.
Popular trading app Robinhood received more than 100,000 one-star reviews in an hour on Google’s Play Store on January 28, plunging its average rating – the lifeblood of an app – to 1.1 stars out of five. Its average rating on Apple’s App Store remains 4.8.
Robinhood is an online stock brokerage that has grown wildly thanks to its commission-free trading.
It's a turnaround almost as extraordinary as the GameStop stock. Robinhood was the fifth most popular app on Apple's App Store just two days ago, according to analysts App Annie, as interest in GameStop spiked day traders' interest.
But Robinhood and similar apps such as Trading 212 and WeBull struggled to keep pace. Robinhood and others stopped trading altogether on GameStop and AMC Entertainment, another stock being bought by Reddit-driven investors.
Robinhood, which averaged 280 reviews a day between mid-November and January 27, had 400, mostly negative, reviews in the first 12 hours of January 28 alone.
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Some pointed out the irony of a company called Robinhood depriving everyday users of the ability to potentially make big gains.
"The Sheriff of Nottingham is more like it," wrote Joinesse Gaudin, awarding the app one star. "Not letting people trade."
More than 300 reviews of Trading 212, most highly negative, were posted to the Google Play Store in the first 12 hours of Thursday. The app had on Wednesday suspended the ability to buy new GameStop stock after demand forced it offline for hours.
Almost all of the reviews were one or two stars. "It'd be alright if the servers didn't run on a potato," wrote one user, Rhys Furlow. At least 50 reviews mentioned the phrase "market manipulation", "manipulation" or called Trading 212 "market manipulators".
One trader missed out on thousands because of outages
Among the traders angry at Trading 212 was Andy Thompson, a 31-year-old who works in railway maintenance in Leicestershire in the UK, who is among the many to whom stock trading became an option thanks to these zero-commission apps.
Thompson estimated he missed out on around £1,800 ($2,450) in potential profit because of app outages on Wednesday.
On some of his stocks he had set up a "stop loss" that automatically sells when it reaches a certain floor price but on others he hadn't.
"I consider myself one of the lucky ones as I was not in GME [GameStop], however I was financially affected by the servers being down as there seemed to have been a general sell off on most stocks and I was unable to do anything about it," he told Insider.
"This basically feels like the hedge funds and the suits get to have free rein on the stocks while we are left to miss out on being able to take our profits."
The apps' lowered ratings could seriously damage their online visibility when the next group of traders seek out new apps.
"We see all the time when an app goes from no reviews to some positive reviews, their rankings improve," said Duane Brown, who owns Canadian performance marketing company Take Some Risk, which works with companies to improve app install numbers.
"Reviews, negative or positive, are going to impact how an app does," Brown told Insider. "It's no different than Amazon. More real and positive reviews improve your rankings in SERP [search engine results pages]. It's not the only factor but it's an important one."
Unlike the 100,000 who reviewed Robinhood in an hour, Thompson gave Trading 212 two stars, not one.
"Due to the server issues happening a few times now on big trading days, they have definitely cost me money in terms of me being unable to lock in profits," he told Insider.
But he added: "Credit where credit's due, I find the app is very good and user-friendly with helpful tools, especially as it is a free service."