By James Pero For Dailymail.com
Published: 18:21 BST, 4 June 2019 | Updated: 22:14 BST, 4 June 2019
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Like any online services, Square, a popular mobile payment service, can be prone to error.
And, as detailed in a report from the Wall Street Journal, sometimes that error means emailing receipts with sensitive information to the wrong person.
In the case of Teresa Smith who was interviewed by the Journal, that personal data included a receipt for a divorce attorney who had used Square to process a payment for a retainer.
Instead of her own inbox, however, the receipt ended up in an acquaintance's bin, reports the Journal. At this point, Smith had not yet told anyone of her decision to separate from her spouse.
Customers using Square to pay for products may not always have their receipts sent to the right location. In some cases, those purchases reveal personal information.
'I might as well have put it out on Facebook or took out a front-page ad in the New York Times,' Smith said in the report.
According to Square, which responded to questions from the Journal, Smith's receipt was misdirected due to a previous transaction in which she provided a friend's email address instead of her own, and while anomalous, is far from the only way receipts can end up in the wrong hands.
A Square spokesperson interviewed by the Journal said that many times receipts are sent to the wrong customers when people share credit card information -- married couples are mostly prone to that pitfall -- or sometimes, since Square also logs phone numbers, receipts can be sent to the users of recycled devices.
According to emails obtained by the Journal that are referenced in the report, errant receipts can range from a 'cup of coffee' to a doctor's office visit.
As reported by the Journal, Square sends hundreds of millions of receipts each year and is currently using a glut of data from its customers' receipts to entice company's looking to target ads and market products.
Square has also started to use their ballooning number
