FACTA Credit Card Protections Help Curtail Instances of Identity Theft

FACTA is known as the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act. It was enacted as an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, also known as the FCRA, to further protect U.S. consumers from being victims of identity theft.

Identity theft has affected millions of American. An article by CNBC indicates that roughly 41 million Americans have had their identities stolen. Additionally, another 49 million know someone who have been affected by identity theft, according to the report.

If you have made a purchase and the retailer printed more than the last five digits of your debit or credit card or also included any part of your card’s expiration date, the retailer may be in violation of FACTA.

The FACTA credit card protections require retailers or merchants to follow specific rules and regulations to help protect consumers from credit card fraud or identity theft. The regulations help protect consumers against identity theft that may occur from thieves piecing together parts of the debit card or credit card information from a consumer’s receipt.

Violations of FACTA include printing any part of a consumer’s expiration date on the purchase receipt and printing any part except for the last five digits of a consumer’s credit or debit card number on the purchase receipt.

Additionally, FACTA credit card protections include a technology known as PAN or the primary account number truncation used to protect consumer’s against risks of identity theft. It has been widely used internationally throughout the years. PAN truncation prevents parts of a consumer’s credit card or debit card and bank account number from showing on a consumer’s purchase receipt.

FACTA specifically states, “no person that accepts credit cards or debit cards for the transaction of business shall print more than the last 5 digits of the card number or the expiration date upon any receipt provided to the cardholder at the point of the sale of transaction.”

In 2003, Congress passed FACTA credit card protections in an effort to decrease the risks of identity theft. Symbols such as an *, or #, and any other wildcard character are repeatedly placed to cover up the digits of a consumer’s credit/debit card number (except the last 5) so that this information is now shown.

The majority of credit card accounts are in a sequence of 16 numbers in groups of four numbers. By only allowing the last 5 digits of numbers to show on the purchase receipt, this helps lower the risk of consumers being victims of identity theft.

FACTA credit card protections also help protect consumers from identity theft by disallowing any part of a consumer’s expiration date from their debit card or credit card from showing on the purchase receipt.

Examples of violations of FACTA credit card protections include: EXP: 03/17, EXP 03/2017, or EXP 032017, Exp. Date 03/**, and Exp. **/17.

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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