Merchants,
For all of you small business owners who are even remotely thinking about security let me add one more thing to the heap. If you have a POS system that generates a receipt when you run a credit card transaction the receipt cannot have the full credit card number on it. Sounds simple right?? Let's go a step further! It is against sate and federal law to have the full number and expiration date on any credit card transaction receipt period. That includes the merchant or the customer copy. Why do you need it anyway?? You don't. But we always had it before?? Hey we just realized that the bad guys were watching and we have to make them work for their money like every body else right?? Now just in case someone tells you different like your processor plain and simple their wrong. I was in my local hair stylist and I told them about the rule and they said they would look into it. Well my stylist told the owner and I when I spoke with her she said that her processor said "that wasn't true and she didn't have to do anything", I almost fell over! I said let's make it easy. Call them and tell them you would like to truncate all but the last four digits of each credit card receipt, the customer and merchant's copy. They can do it easily with a partial download of your credit card terminal. Now if you don't feel you need to do this the reality is that you can be fined by the associations (Visa/MC) and or your state up to $1000 per incidence, that's per receipt. Now if someone breaks into your business and steals the receipts that you failed to fix, your liability could be in the millions. Now how do I know you can't afford that type of hit. Easy, I know I couldn't!!! Here is another reason, your customers are getting smarter and smarter when it comes to credit cards and some will not be happy at all to see their credit card number in full on your receipt. Recently I was in a small diner who truncated the credit card number on my receipt but not there's. I told them they were breaking the law so I signed the customer copy and took their copy. They just looked at me funny. So in conclusion take action and get the full number off of your receipts. Your customers will be happy, your processor will be happy and trust me you will be happy!!! James D Jones is the President of NetPay2K International Corp for more questions about payment processing check out CreditCardStore.com or call James @ 301-829-3331