[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2978 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







110th CONGRESS
  2d Session
                                S. 2978

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.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                              May 6, 2008

  Mr. Schumer introduced the following bill; which was read twice and 
    referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
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 2008''.

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 one 
        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.
                                 <all>