How did square know my email?

September 8, 2015 11:14 AM

I used cash to pay for my kids to go through a ropes course. I noticed the person taking payment had an ipad with square. Then 10 minutes later, I received an email from square. The person who accepted payment said that with credit cards, square recognizes email, but didn't know how it worked with cash.

There are many examples online of people using credit cards and getting emails, but so far I have not seen one where the person used cash. I'm just curious as to how this worked.

posted by DTHEASH1 to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

Did you sign up for the ropes course in advance with an email address?
posted by sparklemotion at 11:16 AM on September 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Did you use your phone number?
posted by grouse at 11:18 AM on September 8, 2015 [1 favorite]

Here's the Square page on accepting cash. Like grouse, I was wondering if you or the person accepting the payments entered your phone# which Square has already tied to your email address.
posted by cabingirl at 11:27 AM on September 8, 2015 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Sorry I should have made this more clear. I gave no personal info at any time. We didn't even know we were doing it until 5 minutes before.
posted by DTHEASH1 at 12:50 PM on September 8, 2015

Was the e-mail you received from
Square a receipt, or specific to the transaction in some other way?
posted by nicwolff at 1:32 PM on September 8, 2015

Response by poster: It was a receipt. I received an email receipt for something I bought with cash giving no personal information. Or, my wife is gas lighting me, which she has been known to do.
posted by DTHEASH1 at 2:11 PM on September 8, 2015

Or, my wife is gas lighting me, which she has been known to do.

Player 3 has entered the game. What part did she play in this transaction? Could she have filed out a waiver or something when you weren't looking?
posted by sparklemotion at 2:18 PM on September 8, 2015 [8 favorites]

I paid for something recently like this and they asked for my email to send a receipt.
posted by slightlybewildered at 3:12 PM on September 8, 2015

Didn't someone have to complete a waiver connected to the kids? Perhaps the last time they were there, and it's on file with the email address?
posted by Sukey Says at 7:22 PM on September 9, 2015

Response by poster: Well thanks for taking a crack at it guys, but I guess it remains a mystery. I can't find any info around Square being able to pull an email off a cell phone. I was wondering if it was like Apple's system that can see which customers are in their store.
posted by DTHEASH1 at 8:02 AM on September 10, 2015