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 en-
acted 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 re-
ceipt provided to the card holder at the point of the 
sale or transaction. 
(3) Many merchants understood that this re-
quirement would be satisfied by truncating the ac-
count number down to the last 5 digits based in part 
on the language of the provision as well as the pub-
licity 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 Re-
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porting Act even where the account number was 
properly truncated. 
(5) None of these lawsuits contained an allega-
tion of harm to any consumer’s identity. 
(6) Experts in the field agree that proper trun-
cation 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 cer-
tification, the continued appealing and filing of these 
lawsuits represents a significant burden on the hun-
dreds 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 lim-
iting abusive lawsuits that do not protect consumers but 
only result in increased cost to business and potentially 
increased prices to consumers. 
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SEC. 3. CLARIFICATION OF WILLFUL NONCOMPLIANCE FOR 
ACTIONS BEFORE THE DATE OF THE ENACT-
MENT 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
NONCOMPLI-
ANCE.—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 be-
tween December 4, 2004, and the date of the enactment 
of this subsection but otherwise complied with the require-
ments 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 viola-
tion 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. 
Æ 
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