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Are
Your Printers Breaking the Law? If
you provide point-of-sale (POS) equipment to California merchants, you need to
know about a new California law that mandates truncating credit card numbers on
customer receipts. California
Senate Bill 930, introduced by Senator Hughes and co-authored by Senator Solis
and Assembly Member Thomson passed the Senate in August of 1999. However, the
section of the law relating to the printing of credit card numbers on customer
receipts went into effect on January 1 of this year. The law
relates to credit card issuance and unauthorized use. However, the last sections
directly affect ISOs because they prohibit one who accepts credit cards from
printing more than the last five digits of the credit card account number or the
expiration date on any receipt provided to the cardholder. This is important to
anyone who sells POS equipment, especially printers. The
addition to the Civil Code reads, “Except as provided in this section, no
person, firm, partnership, association, corporation, or limited liability
company that accepts credit cards for the transaction of business shall print
more than the last five digits of the credit card account number or the
expiration date upon any receipt provided to the cardholder.” This
means that printers that print the entire account number are no longer
acceptable. This
applies only to receipts that are electronically printed, not handwritten card
numbers or imprints of a card. If you
think you are in violation, you may still have some time to get your merchants
in compliance, depending on when the printers were first used. The law states
that if a “cash register or other machine or device that electronically prints
receipts for credit card transactions” was in use prior to January 1, 2001,
then the rule is effective on January 1, 2004. However, the effective date is
January 1, 2001, if the device was “first put into use on or after January 1,
2001.” One
solution is the IVI Checkmate eN-Scribe 612
thermal printer. After application changes are made to the terminal, the eN-Scribe
612 prints the merchant receipt with the entire account number (for the
merchant’s records) and the customer receipt with the truncated account
number. The terminal application changes are easy to make and can be downloaded
to the terminal. Although terminals with P250s attached can be changed to adhere
to the law, the two-ply paper is wasteful and potentially confuses the sale with
more receipt copies than necessary. As an added benefit, the thermal printer
reduces the merchant’s ongoing operational costs. If
you’re not in The Golden State, and you think you are immune, don’t tune out
this alert. While California is currently the only state with such a law, others
may soon follow—which means you need to know the law and how to prevent your
merchants from violating it. |
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© Copyright 2001 · The Green Sheet, Inc. |
