Square's Receipts Are Going to the Wrong People
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Here's your money briefing. I'm J.R. Whalen at The Wall Street Journal in New York. When a store asks you if you want a digital receipt rather than a long slip of paper, make sure you know where that digital receipt is going. In a lot of cases, they're winding up in the wrong hands and it's stirring up trouble. We'll have more details in a moment. First, these money and market stories you should know. Research published by the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that costs of popular brand-name drugs double every seven to eight years.
What is the Square receipt problem and why does it matter?
In fact, nearly all the roughly 50 most common brand-name prescription drugs in the U.S. got more expensive between early 2012 and late 2017, and 17 of those drugs saw their costs more than double. Among them were Chantix, the smoking cessation aid, also Lipitor, that's a statin used to reduce high cholesterol, Humira, which treats a range of autoimmune conditions, and Viagra. And the Wall Street Journal Real Estate Bureau reports that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is close to plunking down $80 million. on three New York City apartments. Bezos is buying a penthouse and two units directly beneath it at 212 Fifth Avenue. That's near New York's Madison Square Park. The main penthouse alone spans three floors with a private elevator and large terraces, was most recently on the market for $58 million.
If the three units are turned into a single-family home, they would total more than 17,000 square feet with 12 bedrooms. Bezos already has homes in Washington, D.C., Beverly Hills, West Texas, and Medina, Washington.
Square has a secret problem. No, the problem isn't secret. The payments company has an issue in its hands where receipts are forwarded to the wrong person. And in some cases, it has stirred up trouble. Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Rudiger is here with the details. So Peter, just to catch everybody up, Square is a very convenient payment process for both merchants and customers.
That's right. Many of our listeners probably have used a Square device at their local coffee shop or flea markets. It's those white devices. Some of them plug into iPhones. When you hand over your credit card to the business, they'll swipe it. And that tablet they use to swipe the payment will ask you, do you want a receipt? And you can select if you own emails or text it to you. In doing that, what some people don't realize is that that card that you use is forever going to be linked to that email address or to that phone number unless you tell Square not to do that.
And this is a very popular payment process. In fact, in a 12-month period, Square emails out hundreds of millions of receipts.
Right. Over 300 million receipts were emailed the last time they gave that number. And they were able to assemble a customer directory off of those. So just off those emails, the directory could be as many as 90 million people. And now they can do things like if your coffee shop wants to send out a coupon or a loyalty program, Now Square has your email address. They can do that on behalf of their coffee shop or really any business that uses Square and where you've shopped.
But if somebody mistypes an email address or their phone number, that could send the receipt wayward. And sometimes it's not just a fun, innocent moment.
Exactly. So we spoke to someone for the story named Teresa Smith, who was in the process of getting divorced, something that she wanted to keep pretty quiet. But her divorce attorney used Square. And so when Teresa gave the attorney her credit card, unbeknownst to her, it was linked to an email address of a friend of hers. And so the friend was alerted to the fact that she was getting divorced and forwarded the receipt. And the secret was out, unfortunately.
Right.
And I guess there are more innocuous moments in your story on WSJ.com where somebody's buying someone flowers as a surprise, and spouses tend to share credit card numbers and perhaps email addresses, and the secret's out.
Right. That's one of the more common examples we heard.
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