The more you know about your POS and how it works, the better…and the less of a headache it will cause.
Recently, The Wall Street Journal released a story about a mistake from SQUARE that sent millions – not a few – but millions of digital receipts, to the wrong person.
As you may (or may not) know, SQUARE has a huge database that ties a consumer’s credit card to contact info, whether e-mail or mobile number for the purposes of sending a digital receipt.
This means that the data is not yours, as the business owner and the operator of the POS. It is shared. Shared by SQUARE and all of the other businesses who use that POS system.
A person can shop at one store or another, or another one entirely and use their credit card at a SQUARE POS device and have no need to provide their contact information to the retailer, restaurant or service provider.
Setting aside the glitch that sent receipts to the wrong people – people who had acquired someone else’s old cell phone number, e-mail address or had initially received a gift receipt for a single transaction – they don’t know why it happened.
Do you want your POS to send receipts to the wrong people?
Probably not.
Do you want your receipts (as a consumer) sent to the wrong person – like maybe your spouse who shares the card – especially when it is a gift?
Probably not.
Do you use SQUARE and, do you know how that POS works?
Hopefully you do, but if the answer is “probably not” please get in touch with us to have a one on one conversation about how we can help you stay in the know.