Robinhood restricted my account for pattern day trading - $18K locked, can't withdraw

I need help understanding what just happened and what my options are.

I've been trading stocks on Robinhood for about 6 months. Started with $5K, grew it to $18K through a mix of swing trades and some day trades. I'm not a professional trader, just someone trying to make some extra money.

Last week I got flagged as a "Pattern Day Trader" because I made 4 day trades in a 5-day period. My account was under $25K at the time (it was around $16K).

Robinhood sent me a warning and restricted my account. Now I can only close positions, not open new ones. They're saying I need to either:

1. Deposit enough cash to bring my account to $25K, OR
2. Wait 90 days for the restriction to be removed, OR
3. Close my account and withdraw my funds

Here's the problem: I tried to initiate a withdrawal to close my account and they're saying it will take 5-7 business days to process, but my account is showing "withdrawal restrictions" and the transfer keeps failing.

I called support and they told me I have unsettled funds and can't withdraw until they settle (2-3 more days). But then they also said something about a "90-day restriction on account closure" if I'm flagged as PDT?

So I'm stuck with $18K I can't access and can't trade with? This seems illegal. What are my options here?

For the future: You can avoid all of this by converting to a cash account instead of a margin account.

In a cash account:

• PDT rules don't apply (you can make unlimited day trades)
• You can only trade with settled cash (no instant deposits, no instant settlement)
• Trades settle T+2, so you have to wait 2 days to reuse proceeds from sales
• No margin calls, no day trade calls, much simpler

The tradeoff is you lose "instant" features and have to wait for settlement. But if you're doing this casually, cash account is way better than dealing with PDT restrictions.

On Robinhood you can switch to cash account in settings, but you have to liquidate all positions first and it takes a few days to process.

I liquidated all my positions this morning. Account is now 100% cash ($18,247.19 to be exact).

Tried to withdraw and got a new error: "You cannot withdraw funds while you have a pending day trade call. The call must be satisfied or your account must be restricted for 90 days."

So they're saying I literally cannot access my money for 90 days? How is this legal? This is extortion.

I'm reading Robinhood's customer agreement now and it says they can restrict withdrawals "to comply with regulatory requirements" but this seems extreme.

Do I need to lawyer up? File a complaint with FINRA? This is a substantial amount of money for me.

The ERC (Employee Retention Credit) situation is a mess right now. The IRS is auditing these claims aggressively. If you claimed ERC through a "mill" that charged a percentage fee, you should probably talk to a tax attorney.

I just went through an IRS audit for my small business. The auditor was actually pretty reasonable. Have your records organized, answer only what's asked, and don't volunteer extra information.