Is Your Credit Card Receipt FACTA Compliant?

In this day and age, identity theft and fraud is one of the most common crimes. Business are required to be FACTA compliant in order to decrease the risk of customers becoming the victim of identity theft and fraud.

In fact, Congress specifically enacted the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act of 2003 (FACTA), which sets a national standard requiring truncation of credit and debit card receipt information.

According to FACTA compliant rules, credit and debit card receipts cannot include more than the last five digits of the card number and the card’s expiration date cannot be printed or displayed on your credit card or debit card receipts.

What Makes a Receipt FACTA Compliant?

In order meet FACTA compliant requirements, merchants who use electronically printed transaction receipts, must shorten or truncate this information on customer’s debit or credit card receipt. A printed FACTA compliant credit card receipt may include no more than the last five digits of the card number, and the card’s expiration date must not be displayed.

For example, a FACT compliant credit card receipt that truncates the cardholder’s number and deletes the expiration date could look like this:

ACCT: ***********12345
EXP: ****

How Does FACTA Protect You?

While Congress passed this provision in December 2003, it has been phased in gradually, requiring merchants with newer electronic card processing machines to comply by December 2004. Merchants with older machines were given until December 1, 2006.

So now all companies that electronically print credit or debit card receipts must truncate the information on the copy they give their customers in order to be FACTA compliant.

Any merchant that continues to print non-FACTA compliant credit or debit card receipts and that means truncating the credit card number and leaving off the expiration date, could be subject to enormous statutory damages for willful violation of FACTA.

The danger of such a violation being willful is now heightened as a result of the publicity surrounding FACTA lawsuits and the passage of this new law.

The only express exception to the FACTA compliant rules are where the sole means of recording a credit or debit card number is by handwriting or by an imprint or copy of the card.

Additionally, some courts have determined that receipts from on-line sales must also be FACTA compliant. As such, merchants must ensure that the credit card receipt information generated from their online sales as well as ordinary paper receipts comply with the truncation and redaction requirements of FACTA.

FACTA Lawsuits

FACTA prohibits the printing of more than five digits of a credit or debit card number or the expiration date on receipts provided to a customer.

However, many merchants have failed to meet FACTA compliant requirements and consumers have filed hundreds of lawsuits against merchants who allegedly printed a truncated account number and the expiration dates on receipts, arguing that those merchants “willfully” violated FACTA.

Violating FACTA carries a statutory penalty of between $100 and $1,000 for each willful FACTA compliant violation made.

If you were provided an electronically printed debit or credit card receipt at the point of sale or transaction on which the expiration date or number of your credit or debit card was printed, you may be eligible to file a FACTA lawsuit.

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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