Cash App Referral Codes Sit Inside a $300M Regulatory Reckoning

Block, Inc., the parent of Cash App, has paid or agreed to pay more than $300 million in regulatory and class-action settlements since January 2025. A $12.5 million deal filed in June targets the Invite Friends referral feature, the same program that delivers the Cash App referral codes being promoted across the web.

The filings detail a years-long record of failed fraud investigations, weak anti-money-laundering controls, and a feature that paid users to send unsolicited text messages to strangers’ phones. None of that is visible in the how-to posts that walk readers through entering a Cash App referral code, linking a debit card, and collecting a signup bonus.

Two Days in January 2025: The $255 Million Hammer

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced its order against Block on January 16, 2025. The agency required Block to refund Cash App customers $120 million and pay a separate $55 million penalty to the bureau’s victims relief fund. The CFPB framed the action as the cost of a peer-to-peer payments app that had avoided investigating fraud for years.

The 75-page consent order described Cash App’s fraud investigations as “woefully incomplete,” per the American Banker report on the order. Customers who reported unauthorized transactions were told by Cash App to contact their banks, which were then expected to absorb the loss. For years, the phone number printed on the Cash Card and in the terms of service did not connect to a live agent. Web searches for a customer service number often reached fraudsters impersonating the company, the CFPB found.

Block agreed to the order without admitting the bureau’s findings, saying it had settled to “put it behind us” and focus on customers. Earlier the same week, Block had agreed to pay $80 million to 48 state regulators led by the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. The state action was a separate settlement for compliance failures that, in regulators’ words, “created the potential that its services could be used to support money laundering, terrorism financing, or other illegal activities.” Cash App’s terms of service were last updated on June 4, 2026, and reserve the right to change the referral program at any time. Combined, the two January actions totaled $255 million, the largest regulatory bill Cash App’s parent has faced in a single week.

• $120 million in refunds to Cash App customers (CFPB)
• $55 million penalty to the CFPB’s victims relief fund
• $80 million paid to 48 state regulators (multistate action)
• $255 million combined in the same week

New York’s $40 Million Follow-Up in April 2025

The New York State Department of Financial Services fined Block $40 million in April 2025, the third major regulatory action against Cash App’s parent in four months. The state regulator said Cash App had failed to meet anti-money-laundering and consumer protection standards. The fine required Block to hire an independent compliance monitor.

The pattern drew the same language from the CFPB Director in January. Block reported $7.5 billion in 2023 revenue, of which the CFPB said Cash App generated roughly $4 billion. The penalties landed against a parent company with the balance sheet to absorb them, and against a product line that continued signing up new users through the same referral feature regulators had begun to scrutinize.

Cash App created the conditions for fraud to proliferate on its popular payment platform. When things went wrong, Cash App flouted its responsibilities and even burdened local banks with problems that the company caused.

CFPB Director Rohit Chopra delivered that line in the bureau’s January 16, 2025 press release announcing the order.

The Referral Program Itself Was Named in a $12.5 Million Deal

Of the four major actions against Block in 2025, one was aimed directly at the Invite Friends feature. On June 30, 2025, Block agreed to settle a Washington state class action over unsolicited text messages sent through the referral program.

The proposed $12.5 million settlement covers Washington residents who received a Cash App referral text between November 14, 2019 and a later cutoff date. The settlement awaits preliminary approval from United States District Judge Marsha J. Pechman. Court documents estimate payouts of between $88 and $147 per person, depending on the number of valid claims.

The lawsuit, filed by a Cash App user named Kimberly Bottoms in November 2023, alleged that Block had helped Cash App users break Washington’s commercial email and text message law. The texts, which read “Hey! I’ve been using Cash App to send money and spend using the Cash Card. Try it using my code and you’ll get $5,” were generated when a Cash App user entered a phone number into the Invite Friends form. The text body was reproduced in court filings, along with Block’s data showing the program had targeted approximately 1,975,187 Washington phone numbers. The $5 figure in the template was the bonus offered to the recipient, not the sender.

Block argued in court filings that it had not “initiated or assisted” in the transmission of the texts and that Bottoms had not proven Block knew the messages were unlawful. The settlement does not require Block to admit wrongdoing. Block declined to comment to the trade publication that first reported the deal, and its press office did not respond to subsequent requests.

By assisting (Cash App users) in the proliferation of spam to subscribers at large, that was a violation of the law.

Chris Drake, a senior vice president at the telecommunications firm Iconectiv, offered that view in an interview with Payments Dive. The settlement applied only to Washington residents, leaving the referral feature itself untouched in the other 49 states.

What ‘Invite Friends’ Actually Pays

The text template reproduced in the Bottoms filing offered $5 to the new user, not the sender, for trying the service. Court documents show that the $5 figure was the standing reward at the time. Cash App’s own terms of service reserve the right to set, change, or end the referral program at any time, writing only that the company “may offer referral programs or incentives for inviting others to use the Service.” That language leaves the actual bonus, the qualifying action, and the timing of any reward to whatever Cash App chooses to display inside the app on the day a new user signs up.

Posts promoting specific codes online typically claim larger numbers, but those claims are not endorsed by Cash App in any document the company has published. The $5 figure cited in the Bottoms case is the only referral bonus amount that has appeared in a court filing reviewed for this article. Block’s investor disclosures make no commitment to a referral bonus at all.

The 2025 Security Settlement Has Already Closed

A separate Block settlement, in a case called Salinas v. Block, reached final court approval on March 27, 2025, according to the court-authorized security settlement notice. The settlement resolves allegations that Block and Cash App Investing were negligent and made misrepresentations in connection with a data security incident disclosed in April 2022, a second incident disclosed in October 2023, and unauthorized withdrawals from Cash App accounts. The deadline for filing claims was November 18, 2024, and late claims are no longer being accepted.

The settlement website, last updated April 9, 2026, says the review of claim form deficiency responses and appeals has been completed. Approved claimants will receive payments in the coming months. Block and Cash App Investing deny the underlying allegations, per the settlement notice. Anyone who missed the November 18, 2024 deadline cannot recover from that settlement, even if they were a class member.

What Block Has Said It Is Changing

Block’s statement on the CFPB deal pointed to investments in compliance and risk management. A company spokesperson told The Verge that Cash App has “significantly increased” its investment in those areas while serving millions of customers. The CFPB order also required Block to set up 24-hour, live-person customer service and to investigate disputes in a way that meets the law.

Block’s January statement said it “made the decision to settle this matter in the interest of putting it behind us and focusing on what’s best for our customers and our business.” The CFPB also ordered Block to set aside at least $75 million of the refund total for customers whose unauthorized transfers were not investigated, with the remaining amount reserved for customers whose accounts were locked for an extended period or who did not receive provisional credits. Consumers do not need to take action to obtain the CFPB redress, the bureau said. The order requires 24-hour live customer service and proper investigation of disputes going forward. The CFPB enforcement action against Block remains active.

Frequently Asked Questions

What bonus does a Cash App referral code actually give?

The only referral bonus amount that has appeared in a court filing for the Invite Friends feature is $5, per the Bottoms v. Block complaint in Washington state court. Cash App’s terms of service do not commit to a specific referral bonus and let the company change the program at any time. Posts that promise larger amounts are not backed by any document Cash App has published.

Is the Cash App referral program under regulatory scrutiny?

Yes. Block agreed on June 30, 2025 to settle a Washington state class action for $12.5 million over the Invite Friends feature. The deal awaits final court approval. The CFPB also flagged the dispute-handling practices that affect the same customer base that signs up through referrals.

Can I still file a claim in the Cash App security settlement?

No. The deadline for claim forms in the Salinas v. Block case was November 18, 2024, and late claims are not being accepted. The court gave final approval on March 27, 2025. The settlement administrator is now distributing payments to approved claims.

What did the CFPB say Cash App did wrong?

The CFPB consent order said Cash App’s fraud investigations were “woefully incomplete” and that the company used fine print to push fraud disputes onto customers’ banks. The bureau also found that the phone number printed on the Cash Card did not connect to a live agent for years, and that web searches for a customer service number often reached impersonators.