WASHINGTON -- Many people use Turbo Tax to help them file their taxes, but one woman discovered an error in the program that could cost users thousands of dollars and their identities.

The woman discovered a key to the backdoor of some tax returns filed online through Turbo Tax.

"I knew immediately how big this was," she said. "This is very, very bad."

A Turbo Tax customer herself, the woman attempted to access some past filings and the route she took online opened returns for several others with the same last name but different first initials.

"For a bad guy to get this information would mean they could retire rich and happy," the woman said.

She was able to access tax returns for Turbo Tax customers she never met in different parts of the country. On her screen, she found everything needed for electronic filing from bank account to routing digits and Social Security numbers.

"It's clear that she was able to access information that she shouldn't have been able to," said Gordon Whitten of Turbo Tax.

An Omaha-based official with the Turbo Tax parent company said the inadvertent access to some tax files came as a shock.

"We think it was a quirk, an individual circumstance as far as we know," Whitten said. "So what we did is we took that link down in the product for now until we can fully investigate to make sure the issue won't happen again to anybody else."

The flaw does not involve the Turbo Tax software, only the Web site that allows taxpayers to create an account and do their taxes.

For security reasons, the common last name or how the woman inadvertently gained access to three other Turbo Tax accounts were not revealed.

More Information:

• Tax Section