Indeed, they should be worried about their own skin. The SEC should shut down their operations immediately, at least anything that involves margin. Like today. It's not even about PR, this is a pretty bad violation of federal law. We don't know how many people may be using it.
This is the financial equivalent of forgetting to check password on a login form. It's that stupid.
If they shutdown their operations today, that would be incredibly detrimental to existing users. what if I held an option expiring this week? Am I forced to let it expire because the SEC forced them to shutdown? Seems like a douchebag move. sensible thing would be to remove margin from all accounts. if you want to prevent anymore transactions, at least give people some heads up so they can liquidate time-sensitive positions.
This is the financial equivalent of forgetting to check password on a login form. It's that stupid.