Alerts

FACTA Credit Card Receipt Requirements, Related Class Actions and Proposed Corrective Legislation

February 8, 2008

The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (“FACTA”), passed by Congress in 2003, amended the Fair Credit Reporting Act to add provisions designed to help protect consumers from identity theft and to generally enhance consumer protection. Among FACTA’s new provisions was a so-called “truncation provision” requiring that machine-printed consumer copies of receipts for credit or debit card transactions display no more than the last five digits of the card number and not display the card’s expiration date. The purpose of the truncation provision is to minimize the amount of personal identifying information on cards’ receipts, which can be lost or thrown away and retrieved by identity thieves. As of Dec. 4, 2006, all businesses that issue electronically printed credit or debit card receipts had to be in compliance.