FACTA violations happen when a business prints more than the last five digits of a customer's credit or debit card number, or any part of the card's expiration date, on a point-of-sale receipt. The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, or FACTA, set this truncation rule at 15 U.S.C.
§ 1681c(g), and it has applied to every card-accepting business since December 2006, under the statute's text at govinfo.gov. The rule sounds simple, but it has generated years of litigation over exactly what counts as a violation and who can sue over one. The answer depends on what printed on the receipt, whether the business knew better, and whether a court finds that the mistake caused real harm.
Official resources:
- Read the official notice from Cornell — Use this primary source to verify the official announcement.
- Read the official guidance from Govinfo — Use this primary source to verify the official guidance.
Table of Contents
- The Two Things FACTA Actually Bans
- Why a Violation Doesn't Automatically Mean Money
- Why Some FACTA Lawsuits Get Thrown Out Before Trial
- What Real FACTA Settlements Have Paid Out
- How Long You Have to Act
- Frequently Asked Questions
The Two Things FACTA Actually Bans
FACTA's truncation requirement covers two separate pieces of information on a receipt handed to a customer at checkout. A business cannot print more than the last five digits of the card number, and it cannot print any part of the expiration date at all. Both restrictions come from the same provision, 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(g) as published by govinfo.gov. The expiration-date ban is absolute. The Third Circuit made that clear in Long v.
Tommy Hilfiger, ruling that printing even a single piece of the date, like just the month, still violates the statute. There is no partial exception, according to Infobytes/Orrick's coverage of the ruling. The card-number rule works differently. A receipt can legally show the last five digits. Anything beyond that, whether it's six digits, ten digits, or the full number, crosses the line. Settlements involving a full or near-full card number tend to be treated as more serious than those involving only an exposed expiration date, since they expose information closer to the full account identifier described in coverage of the Subway settlement from stollberne.com.
Why a Violation Doesn't Automatically Mean Money
Finding a FACTA violation on a receipt is only the first step. The statute only awards statutory damages of $100 to $1,000 per receipt, on top of possible punitive damages and attorney's fees, when the violation was "willful." A merely negligent violation limits a consumer to actual damages, which are often difficult to prove in a receipt-printing case, according to retailconsumerproductslaw.com's analysis of the Tommy Hilfiger ruling. "Willful" has a specific legal meaning here. The Supreme Court held in Safeco Insurance Co.
of America v. Burr that willful noncompliance includes reckless conduct, but only when the company's reading of the statute was objectively unreasonable. A business that adopted a reasonable interpretation of its printing obligations, with no contrary appellate ruling or FTC guidance telling it otherwise, is not reckless as a matter of law, under the Supreme Court's opinion as published by Cornell LII. This standard shapes how FACTA class actions get litigated. A plaintiff's attorney has to show the retailer knew, or should have known, its receipt format was non-compliant, not just that a printing error occurred.
Why Some FACTA Lawsuits Get Thrown Out Before Trial
A business can violate the truncation rule and still face no lawsuit, because federal courts require more than a statutory violation to hear a case. In Fullwood v. Wolfgang's Steakhouse, the Southern District of New York dismissed a FACTA class action for lack of Article III standing. The court held that a printed expiration date alone, with the card number properly masked, did not create the kind of concrete injury the Constitution requires, under the court's opinion as hosted by Consumer Financial Services Law Monitor. The Supreme Court reinforced that principle network-wide in TransUnion LLC v.
Ramirez. The 2021 ruling, decided 5-4, held that only plaintiffs who suffered concrete harm from a statutory violation have standing to sue a private defendant for damages in federal court. That reasoning has made bare expiration-date violations, without an exposed card number, harder to bring as federal claims, according to the Supreme Court's decision summarized on Wikipedia. This is why the size and seriousness of a FACTA claim tracks what exactly leaked. A receipt that only shows a partial date faces a tougher path to court than one exposing most of a card number.
What Real FACTA Settlements Have Paid Out
Despite the standing hurdles, FACTA cases involving exposed card numbers have produced large settlements. Subway agreed to pay roughly $30.9 million after receipts allegedly printed full card expiration dates, according to stollberne.com's report on the settlement. More recent settlements show the pattern holding.
DFS Group, a duty-free retailer, agreed to pay $2.5 million over receipts that allegedly printed the first six and last four digits of customers' card numbers on transactions between May 27, 2020, and June 30, 2022. Bath & Body Works and Victoria's Secret agreed to pay up to $15 million over similar claims that their receipts showed more than the last five digits of card numbers. Both settlements carried the same July 16, 2024, claim deadline, according to consumer-action.org's deadlines calendar.
- Full or near-full card number printed: typically the strongest basis for a claim and the largest settlements.
- More than five digits, even six or seven: still a truncation violation that has supported million-dollar settlements.
- Any part of the expiration date alone: a real violation, but weaker grounds for a lawsuit under current standing rules.
- Last five digits only, no expiration date: compliant with FACTA; not a basis for a claim.
How Long You Have to Act
FACTA claims carry a statute of limitations that limits how far back a consumer or class can reach. A claim must be filed within two years of discovering the violation, and no later than five years after the violation itself occurred, according to Davis Wright Tremaine's analysis of the truncation requirement.
- Check the receipt date against the five-year outer limit before assuming a claim is still viable.
- Note when the problem was discovered, since the two-year clock runs from discovery, not from the purchase date.
- Keep the physical or photographed receipt as the primary evidence of what was printed.
- Watch for a published settlement's own claim deadline, which is often shorter than the statutory limitations period.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does printing the last four digits of a card number violate FACTA?
No. The rule allows up to the last five digits, so four or fewer digits is within the compliant range described in 15 U.S.C. § 1681c(g).
Can a business be sued just for printing the expiration month?
The Third Circuit found that printing even a partial expiration date is a violation, but courts have since required proof of concrete harm to sue over it in federal court, per the Fullwood v. Wolfgang's Steakhouse ruling and TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez.
What determines whether a consumer gets statutory damages instead of just actual damages?
Whether the violation was willful. Willful violations open the door to $100-$1,000 per receipt under 15 U.S.C. § 1681n, while negligent ones limit recovery to actual damages.