[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 4008 Enrolled Bill (ENR)]

        H.R.4008

                       One Hundred Tenth Congress

                                 of the

                        United States of America


                          AT THE SECOND SESSION

          Begun and held at the City of Washington on Thursday,
            the third day of January, two thousand and eight


                                 An Act


 
To amend the Fair Credit Reporting Act to make technical corrections to 
   the definition of willful noncompliance with respect to violations 
involving the printing of an expiration date on certain credit and debit 
       card receipts before the date of the enactment of this Act.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ``Credit and Debit Card Receipt 
Clarification Act of 2007''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS; PURPOSE.
    (a) Findings.--The Congress finds as follows:
        (1) The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (commonly 
    referred to as ``FACTA'' ) was enacted into law in 2003 and 1 of 
    the purposes of such Act is to prevent criminals from obtaining 
    access to consumers' private financial and credit information in 
    order to reduce identity theft and credit card fraud.
        (2) As part of that law, the Congress enacted a requirement, 
    through an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, that 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 card 
    holder at the point of the sale or transaction.
        (3) Many merchants understood that this requirement would be 
    satisfied by truncating the account number down to the last 5 
    digits based in part on the language of the provision as well as 
    the publicity in the aftermath of the passage of the law.
        (4) Almost immediately after the deadline for compliance 
    passed, hundreds of lawsuits were filed alleging that the failure 
    to remove the expiration date was a willful violation of the Fair 
    Credit Reporting Act even where the account number was properly 
    truncated.
        (5) None of these lawsuits contained an allegation of harm to 
    any consumer's identity.
        (6) Experts in the field agree that proper truncation of the 
    card number, by itself as required by the amendment made by the 
    Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, regardless of the 
    inclusion of the expiration date, prevents a potential fraudster 
    from perpetrating identity theft or credit card fraud.
        (7) Despite repeatedly being denied class certification, the 
    continued appealing and filing of these lawsuits represents a 
    significant burden on the hundreds of companies that have been sued 
    and could well raise prices to consumers without corresponding 
    consumer protection benefit.
    (b) Purpose.--The purpose of this Act is to ensure that consumers 
suffering from any actual harm to their credit or identity are 
protected while simultaneously limiting abusive lawsuits that do not 
protect consumers but only result in increased cost to business and 
potentially increased prices to consumers.
SEC. 3. CLARIFICATION OF WILLFUL NONCOMPLIANCE FOR ACTIONS BEFORE THE 
DATE OF THE ENACTMENT OF THIS ACT.
    (a) In General.--Section 616 of the Fair Credit Reporting Act (15 
U.S.C. 1681n) is amended by adding at the end the following new 
subsection:
    ``(d) Clarification of Willful Noncompliance.--For the purposes of 
this section, any person who printed an expiration date on any receipt 
provided to a consumer cardholder at a point of sale or transaction 
between December 4, 2004, and the date of the enactment of this 
subsection but otherwise complied with the requirements of section 
605(g) for such receipt shall not be in willful noncompliance with 
section 605(g) by reason of printing such expiration date on the 
receipt.''.
    (b) Scope of Application.--The amendment made by subsection (a) 
shall apply to any action, other than an action which has become final, 
that is brought for a violation of 605(g) of the Fair Credit Reporting 
Act to which such amendment applies without regard to whether such 
action is brought before or after the date of the enactment of this 
Act.

                               Speaker of the House of Representatives.

                            Vice President of the United States and    
                                               President of the Senate.