[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 83 (Tuesday, May 20, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4439-S4440]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  FAIR CREDIT REPORTING ACT AMENDMENTS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate 
proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4008, which was received 
from the House.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will state the bill by title.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 4008) 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.

  There being no objection, the Senate proceeded to consider the bill.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the bill be

[[Page S4440]]

read the third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon 
the table, and that any statements relating to the bill be printed in 
the Record.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  The bill (H.R. 4008) was ordered to a third reading, was read the 
third time, and passed.
  Mr. SCHUMER. Mr. President, I am glad we have just passed H.R. 4008. 
I thank all of my colleagues and Representative Mahoney in the House, 
who authored the Credit and Debt Card Receipt Clarification Act. I 
introduced an identical bill on the Senate side, which was S. 2978. The 
House passed this bill last week by the unanimous vote of 407 to 0.
  H.R. 4008 is a narrow, commonsense bill that will smooth the 
transition to new rules for printing credit card receipts under the 
Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act, or FACTA.
  FACTA says the credit card receipts can only display one of two 
things: either the last five digits of the credit card account number 
or the expiration date.
  Unfortunately, the law was not as clear as it could have been, and 
many companies misunderstood this requirement. They redacted account 
numbers in order to comply with FACTA but mistakenly left expiration 
dates in place.
  But unlike the State laws after which it is modeled, FACTA is tied to 
a statutory damages provision that sparked the filing of hundreds of 
class action lawsuits against companies whose sole error was printing 
expiration dates on receipts.
  Let's be clear. These lawsuits are not alleging that consumers were 
harmed in any way. I will repeat that. The lawsuits are not alleging 
that consumers were harmed in any way. In fact, experts on identity 
theft will tell you that printing the expiration date doesn't present 
any risk of fraud or identity theft, as long as the account number is 
truncated.
  Yet companies are facing sky-high liability of up to $1,000 per 
receipt. Some of them are large retail businesses; most of them are 
small mom-and-pop stores. The damages in these cases are so huge that 
judges have refused to certify class actions because the lawsuits could 
actually destroy the companies--small and large.
  The long list of defendants in these cases includes many major 
corporations--we have all heard of the hotels, restaurant chains, et 
cetera--as well as little mom-and-pop stores.
  It is fair to say that these lawsuits will actually hurt consumers 
because companies will be forced to raise prices, or even close stores, 
in order to cover the cost of legal fees and expensive settlements. 
This is at a time when our economy and businesses--particularly those 
dealing with retail--are already struggling to rebound from tough 
times.
  So the bill is a win-win proposition for everyone. It stops 
destructive lawsuits against companies that made a harmless error in 
the past, but it also ensures that consumers can still sue in any case 
where they were actually harmed.
  Going forward, companies will still have to meet the same strict 
rules Congress originally passed in fact. I am glad the Senate was able 
to take quick action on this important bill.

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