How to Tell if a Receipt is FACTA Compliant

Checking if a receipt is FACTA compliant is fairly simple, but it’s essential to first know the rules of FACTA. A FACTA compliant receipt can help protect your account information from potential fraud or identity theft, and you play a vital role in ensuring this compliance is met.

FACTA Basics

The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, more commonly known as FACTA, was first passed in 2003 with the intention of protecting credit card receipt information by regulating what can be printed on receipts. While businesses were given a grace period of a few years to ensure that their machines were FACTA compliant, these rules have been in full force since 2006 — that is, over a decade.

Being able to spot whether or not a receipt is FACTA compliant will help protect your sensitive information and the information of countless other consumers that may have been affected by the same FACTA violation.

Checking for FACTA Compliant Receipt Information

The requirements for a FACTA compliant receipt are fairly simple. Receipts must truncate (or shorten) credit card information in a particular way to obfuscate details.

According to FACTA regulations, only the last five digits of a card’s number may be displayed on a receipt. The rest of the card’s digits should be censored. Many businesses censor everything except for the last four digits, since credit card numbers come in four digit segments.

According to these simple rules, these card numbers would be considered FACTA compliant:

**** **** **** 1234

**** **** ***1 2345

But these card numbers are not allowed under FACTA regulations:

1234 **** **** ****

**** **** **65 4321

The other piece of a FACTA compliant receipt is the card’s expiration date. Receipts are required to completely censor customers’ card expiration dates to be considered FACTA compliant.

Despite the simplicity of the requirements for FACTA compliant receipts, many businesses still violate these rules.

Filing a FACTA Violation Lawsuit

For the vast majority of businesses today, the printing of receipts is now an automated process. It should be noted that, while hand-written receipts are exempt from these FACTA rules, these are a rare enough phenomenon that it is not generally a concern.

Businesses only have to make sure their machines are up-to-date to ensure that all of their receipts are FACTA compliant. Conversely, if a machine does not follow FACTA regulations, all of the receipts it prints will be affected by these errors. Therefore, when a customer reports the FACTA violation they find on their receipt, they are often able to protect the information of others that may have been exposed as well by the same violation.

Those who report FACTA violations may be eligible for a financial award of up to $1,000 per violation of FACTA receipt rules.

Always check to see whether or not your receipt is FACTA compliant by checking for the proper truncation of your card number and total censorship of the expiration date. If you find a FACTA violation, you may be able to file a FACTA lawsuit against the business at fault.

Free FACTA Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you made one or more purchases and the retailer provided you with a receipt that contained more than the last five digits of your credit or debit card number or the expiration date, you may be eligible for a free class action lawsuit investigation and to pursue compensation for these FACTA violations.

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