An easy way to prevent this, state lawmakers have decided, is to stop printing whole account numbers on receipts. Beginning Jan. 1, all California merchants that put in new point of sale terminals must use machines that print only the last five digits of a credit card account number on receipts. The law, which was enacted by the California legislature to curb credit card fraud, requires terminals that print the entire number to be phased out by January 2004. The credit card expiration date will also be omitted from receipts. Maryland is also developing a law that would allow only the last four digits to be printed on receipts.
Many merchants already use point of sale terminals that crop account numbers.
Chris Johnson, director of products for First Data Corp., said that until now such terminals were confined mainly to specific industries. Oil companies, for example, required receipt truncation at gas pumps. Now, as the equipment required to shield card numbers becomes both standardized and legally required, vendors are designing new models and new software to keep up. Lutfi Effendi, manager of the test engineering department for IVI Checkmate Corp. in Atlanta, which manufactures point of sale terminals, said any company that makes the terminals can also design software to make the terminals comply with the requirements of a merchant or a state law. Coy Christensen, vice president of product development for Hypercom Corp. in Phoenix, which also manufactures point of sale terminals, said all Hypercom terminals in the United States can be easily upgraded simply by dialing into Hypercom and having the software downloaded over the dial-in line.