The size of my wallet tends to grow fat every once and a while, I usually don’t carry a lot of cash so I blame all the receipts I tend to keep. Since I try to avoid carrying cash I pay almost everything with my credit card. Out of curiosity I wanted to see if I could get my credit card number by combining all the different receipts.
The card has sixteen numbers in four groups, not counting the secret three on the back of the card, and an expiration date.
Practically every receipt had the expiration date printed on them, from the rest there was a big variation. Given that my card number would be:
1234 5678 9012 3456
Some would mask all but one group:
**** **** **** 3456
Others would just mask one group:
1234 5678 **** 3456
After going through them all it seemed like group three was always masked, I have a feeling that this would be different if I had more receipts then again I can’t be sure. I’ll be checking this in the future. I’ve read about a law in the US (Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act) that would require that only the last 5 numbers are shown. In Sweden I don’t know if we have such a law.
The last receipt I found in my wallet was the one from the taxi home on Friday when I had had a night out. This taxi company actually printed out my full credit card number on the receipt along with the expiration date.
I can’t imagine how the company can be that stupid, I’ve sent them an email and now I’m eagerly awaiting their response.
I don’t know how many dumpster divers we have in my area, but it would be nice to not have to shred everything you through away, I mean it is a bit hot to use the fireplace during the summer. 🙂
[tags]security, credit cards, stupidity[/tags]
In the US at least, Visa and MC require that there be masking on the customer receipts. Merchant receipts can reveal the full 16 digits. Many merchants run non-compliant terminals that still print out the whole card number on both merchant and customer receipts. Running non-compliant terminals is supposed to result in fees levied against the merchant and/or acquiring bank (the merchant’s bank), but this rarely happens. Here’s Visa US’s requirement on receipt truncation:
http://usa.visa.com/about_visa/newsroom/press_kit/security.html?it=search#anchor_19
Only the last 4 digits are supposed to be revealed on customer receipts.
Thanks for the info, actually that link says “The new receipt truncation policy will soon limit cardholder information on receipts to the last four digits” so it doesn’t seem to be a requirement at this point. I will also check with my bank to see what they think.
I think the current requirement is last 5.
Having worked in several crumy weekend/summer jobs (in the UK) where I’ve had to operate tills I know that the store copy has the full card number plus lots of other useful information. Now if that isn’t bad enough if the custommer gets a refund onto the card company policy dictates they give there full address and name. I’m pretty sure all I need now is a mail box to drop some expencive online orders into which can’t be traced back to me!
On another note, just read through all your stories, very entertaining read. Keep em coming, plus yeah, i know this is an old post!
EdMike: Well, as they say better late then never 🙂
But I think it’s one think if the store has them, hopefully they have some sort of procedure for handling them. Not all of them will have a working one, but I usually just throw away receipts I don’t feel I should have to worry about what has been printed on them.
It’s great that you like my stories!
I dont have a comment but my question is, i know that customer copy of a reciept should be no more than 4 numbers what what is the rule on how many the merchant copy has to have? is it safe when their copy shows your whole creditcard number and expiration date?
Hey, Ive just found out how you can avoid that situation!
Just send me your credit card number,and expiration date, and ill make sure that its safe! You can never be too careful, there are a lot of crazys out there! (but not me 😉 )