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On December of 2003, Congress signed into law the FACTA, or the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act.It took until December of 2006 for FACTA to become fully effective.FACTA’s intention is to serve the goal of reducing the amount of private consumer credit information that ccriminals can easily access and add to their list of things to exploit. To help accomplish this goal, 15 USC 1681c(g)(1) requires that merchants that issue receipts to individuals truncate all but the last four or five digits of the customer’s credit card or debit card account number and truncate the entire expiration date.
Much confusion resulted from FACTA, and the Act was effectively ignored by some merchants, despite the fact that the Act was widely discussed and publicized before and after its enactment. In response to the many lawsuits that resulted over violations of FACTA, Congress wrote and passed an act to protect businesses that did in fact print expiration dates on credit card or debit card receipts after the effective date of FACTA.
The Clarification Act, or more formally, “The Credit & Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act of 2007,” took effect In June of 2008.After June 3, 2008, any business owner who prints a receipt with a CC expiration date is regarded as being a FACTA Violator.
The Clarification Act, as it is oddly called, actually doesn’t make FACTA any clearer, as much as let previous violators of FACTA off the hook.The Clarification Act created a specified window between December 2004 and June 2008, in which violations of FACTA’s “no expiration date printings” law was effectively not enforced.
As a non-attorney banking consultant, my reading of the current requirements for what is now considered to be willful noncompliance with FACTA is:
- The printing on an electronically generated receipt of more than the last five digits of a credit card or debit card account number after December 4, 2006.
- The printing on an electronically generated receipt of the credit card or debit card’s expiration date after June 3, 2008, whether or not the credit card or debit card account number is properly truncated.
Despite the five and one half year time frame during which the banking, credit card, and retail industries have been dealing with FACTA, today there are, inexplicably, merchants that continue to violate FACTA. These merchants must immediately take the relatively easy and inexpensive steps required to reprogram their IT systems so that they are in compliance with FACTA.If these merchants do not follow what is required you can expect another succession of lawsuits. I have already seen some of these lawsuits.
This Banking Expert Witness Consultant has worked on over 50 FACTA cases nationwide and is available to discuss FACTA matters with attorneys, through Consolidated Consultants Co.