Check Your Debit and Credit Card Receipts for FACTA Violations

A simple way to protect your accounts from fraud and identity theft is to regularly check your debit and credit card receipts for FACTA violations.

The rules put in place by the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA) are meant to protect your information safe from fraud and identity theft. Reporting violations of FACTA that you find on your debit and credit card receipts can protect not only your account, but others’ as well. It may even result in a monetary award.

FACTA Basics

FACTA requires a process called truncation to censor essential information from our debit and credit card receipts. Put simply, truncation is the shortening of a consumer’s information meant to limit the information available to fraudsters.

Truncation cuts most of the information on debit and credit card receipts, and must be done in a specific way in order to properly comply with FACTA rules.

Debit and credit card receipts must not reveal any more than the last five digits of a card’s number. Receipts that display any more than these five digits, or digits from anywhere else in the number, violate FACTA.

Many businesses choose to show only the last four digits—just to be safe. The other digits are censored, often with symbols such as an asterisk.

Credit card receipts and debit card receipts, when following FACTA rules properly, should look like this:

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

or this:

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

Including numbers outside of the last five digits—even five or fewer—violates FACTA rules.

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

On top of the card number truncation, FACTA rules also require that debit and credit card receipts exclude the card’s expiration date completely.

Because debit and credit card receipts are printed by machine, hand-written receipts and those that take a mechanical imprint from the card are exempt from these FACTA rules. Businesses need only make sure that their machines are up-to-date and set to comply with FACTA regulations.

FACTA Lawsuits

Businesses ranging vastly in size have been targeted in FACTA lawsuits. Because FACTA violations are tied to electronically printed receipts, FACTA violations are committed via an improperly programmed machine which can print thousands of these receipts.

This means that hundreds or thousands of customers can be affected by FACTA violations at once. Given that each individual violation can result in a substantial fine, class action lawsuits can result in damaging fines for businesses.

It is simple enough to prove company noncompliance in FACTA cases because the proof of FACTA violation is found printed clearly on the bottom of debit and credit card receipts.

Take note of whether or not your debit and credit card receipts follow FACTA regulations for both card numbers and expiration dates. If they do not, then you may be able file a FACTA lawsuit against the business at fault. Of course, it’s important to keep any debit and credit card receipts that violate FACTA rules as proof.

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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