A couple in Portland, Oregon joked that their Amazon Alexa might be listening in to their private conversations. The joke came to an abrupt end when they discovered a conversation was indeed recorded by Alexa - and then sent to an apparently random person in their contact list. "Unplug your Alexa devices right now!" warned the puzzled recipient, according to ABC affiliate station KIRO7, which first reported the story. Amazon has an explanation as to what happened. But first, here's how Danielle - who didn't want to share her surname with ABC's reporter - described the rather alarming chain of events.

On Thursday, Seattle news station KIRO 7 published a disconcerting story. A Portland family discovered that a snippet of private conversation had been recorded by an Amazon Echo and sent to a random person in their contact list. The report instantly sparked concern and outrage that Amazon's Echo smart speaker is listening to and recording much more than the company claims. The woman, who only identified herself as Danielle, said that one of her husband's employees called the family to say that he had received a text message containing an audio recording of one of their conversations about hardwood floors. "I felt invaded," she told KIRO 7. "A total privacy invasion. Immediately I said, 'I'm never plugging that device in again, because I can't trust it.'"

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society. Uneasy smart-home inhabitants have long wondered whether their obliging devices are quietly eavesdropping on their private conversations. After all, if your smart speaker is listening for its wake word, doesn't that mean it's always listening? Now people's paranoia appears to have been confirmed--and then some--with Seattle local news station KIRO 7 reporting that a Portland family's Echo recorded their private conversation and then sent it, as an audio file, to someone in their contact list. A former smart-home enthusiast, named only as Danielle, told KIRO 7 that she and her husband recently received a call from her husband's employee in Seattle, telling them to unplug their Echo immediately.

SAN FRANCISCO – A Portland family's private conversations were recorded by their Amazon Echo smart speaker and emailed to a random phone contact of the father, they told a local TV station. Amazon explained that an unforseen combination of random words in a conversation the family didn't realize was being overheard by Alexa trigged an action no one expected, least of all Amazon, which is now working to make sure it doesn't happen again. The Oregon family contacted Amazon to investigate after a private conversation in their home was recorded by their Amazon Echo -- the voice-controlled smart speaker -- and the recorded audio was sent to the phone of someone in Seattle who was in the father's contact list. "My husband and I would joke and say I'd bet these devices are listening to what we're saying," Danielle, who did not want us to use her last name, told KIRO TV in Seattle. The family's house has multiple Echo devices that control heating, lights and security system. At first they didn't believe it when the colleague called to tell them he'd received recordings of their conversations.

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What makes it particularly unfortunate is the sense that Amazon Echo users will have that there's any prospect that what they say in their private home might end up outside the home,

A family had a private conversation broadcast across the internet to a friend by their Amazon Echo. The horrifying discovery began with an equally chilling phone call, telling them to unplug their devices immediately. "You're being hacked," the voice said. As it turns out, that person had accidentally been sent a full recording of the family's conversation. The sounds had been picked up and then sent by the Echo to a friend, who could then hear the entire conversation.

Be careful of what you say around your Echo devices. A Portland woman was shocked to discover that Echo recorded and sent audio of a private conversation to one of their contacts without their knowledge, according to KIRO 7. The woman, who is only identified as Danielle, said her family had installed the popular voice-activated speakers throughout their home. It wasn't until a random contact called to let them know that he'd received a call from Alexa that they realized their device had mistakenly transmitted a private conversation. The contact, who was one of her husband's work employees, told the woman to'unplug your Alexa devices right now. 'We unplugged all of them and he proceeded to tell us that he had received audio files of recordings from inside our house,' the woman said.

No matter how suspicious it has seemed that Amazon is encouraging us to put listening devices in every room of our homes, the company has always said that its Echo assistants are not listening in on or recording conversations. Over and over again, company spokespeople have promised that they only start recording if someone says the wake word: "Alexa". It's a spiel Danielle, an Alexa user from Portland, Oregon, had believed. She'd installed Echo devices and smart bulbs in every room in her house, accepting Amazon's claims that they were not invading her privacy. But today she asked the company to investigate after an Alexa device recorded a private conversation between her and her husband and sent it to a random number in their address book without their permission.

In case you needed another reminder that Amazon's Echo, an internet-connected recording device designed to listen and respond to verbal commands, can pose security and privacy risks for you and your loved ones, here you go. A family in Portland, Oregon contacted the company recently to ask it to investigate why the device had recorded private conversations in their home and sent the audio to a person in another state. The family did as told, after the employee told them about receiving an audio file containing what seemed like a private conversation. At first the family did not believe the employee, but then the employee was able to relay details of the private conversation. "My husband and I would joke and say I'd be these devices are listening to what we're saying," a woman named Danielle, who didn't want her last name used, told KIRO-TV in Portland.