May 13, 2008
The Honorable Tim Mahoney
United States House of Representatives
1541 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Congressman Mahoney:
On behalf of the National Federation of Independent Business, the nation's leading small business advocacy group, thank you for introducing H.R. 4008, the Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act of 2007. This legislation will help to protect small businesses from frivolous lawsuits by making a needed technical correction to the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act (FACTA).
Congress passed FACTA in 2003 to provide greater consumer protection by limiting information printed on a receipt. Unfortunately, the truncation provision in this act was written in a confusing manner and many businesses attempted to follow the law by truncating the card number, but not the expiration date. This ambiguity has left small business owners open to frivolous lawsuits. According to a 2005 NFIB National Small Business Poll, the average small business spends about $5,000 to settle a single lawsuit. H.R. 4008 will protect small business owners who had printed a customer's credit card expiration date on a receipt while making a good faith effort to comply with this new law.
Passage of the Credit and Debit Card Receipt Clarification Act will help to reduce the ongoing threat and costs of frivolous lawsuits to small businesses that previously printed card expiration dates on their receipts. We look forward to working with you to see this legislation signed into law.
Sincerely,
Dan Danner
Executive Vice President
Public Policy and Political
