Maine lawmakers, tired of waiting for Congress to act, have passed legislation requiring credit merchants to truncate or partially obliterate customers’ credit card numbers on receipts after Jan. 1, 2004.
The state’s catalogers, retailers, banks, credit reporting agencies and other direct marketers that grant credit would be required to abide by the law.
Under the law, credit merchants would only be able to print the last four digits of a customer’s credit card number, but not the account’s expiration date, said William Lund, director of the Maine Office of Consumer Credit Regulation, in a statement.
Merchants violating the law for the first time face a $250 civil penalty and $1,000 for each subsequent violation.
Two bills that would achieve the same aim are pending both in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.
The measure, S-426, sponsored by Republican State Sen. Betty Lou Mitchell, was introduced to combat both identity theft and credit card fraud. It is believed to be the first bill of its type on a state level, and was overwhelmingly approved by the state Senate and House of Representatives on Monday.
Last year more than 500 cases of identity theft and credit card fraud were reported in the state, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
Gov. Angus King is expected to sign the legislation into law within the next 30 days.
Meantime the two bills pending in Congress, (S-1399) sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), and HR-3053) sponsored by Rep. Darlene Hooley (D-OR), are pending in committee. Feinstein introduced her bill on Sept. 4 and Hooley on Nov. 2.
Both bills would require the FTC to develop new rules for the handling of consumer complaints about identity theft and fraud alerts between and among credit grantors and credit reporting agencies.
Aides to Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), and Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH), chairmen of the Senate Banking and House Financial Services committee, respectively, were unable to say when those committees would take any action on the measures.
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