SEVEN Things You Should Know About Your Credit Card Receipt

8 February, 2012

You may know them as those annoying scraps of paper that litter your purse or flutter from your wallet at inopportune moments, but receipts for credit card transactions are actually worth paying attention to.

#1. Receipts are more secure than you think

Unless a merchant made a big mistake, you wont see your whole credit card number on a receipt. Thats because the federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act that took effect in 2006 legislated that for better financial security, only the last four or five digits of your card number can appear. Thats why you see something like XXX-XXXX-1234 instead. Your card expiration date cant show either.

#2. but receipts arent totally thief-proof.

Your truncated card number isnt enough to steal, but those digits “should still be treated as sensitive, confidential information,” says Jamie May, chief investigator at AllClear ID, an identity protection company. Scam artists who get their hands on even part of your card number can use it to phish for the whole number by posing as your credit card issuer or utility company over the phone. “Your card company will never call you and ask you to give them your whole card number,” May says. “A good rule of thumb is to hang up and call them back at a number you know is theirs.”

#3.You can sign as Mickey Mouse, but you shouldnt.

Speaking of signatures, they matter more than you think. In an ideal world, a cashier should compare the signature on your receipt to the one on the back of your credit card. However, that rarely happens these days, and certainly no one at the bank is scrutinizing electronic signatures. That doesnt mean youre free to scrawl whatever you want, though. “This is a legally binding contract,” says Petersen. “It states right on there that the undersigned agrees to pay.” If the seller does notice that you signed a silly name, he can void the transaction. Plus, if you need to dispute a fraudulent charge, the signature can be a key bit of evidence. Signing your receipt “Kim Kardashian” will not help your case.

#4. Your receipt and your bill may not always match.

When your credit card bill arrives, pull out your receipts and make sure what you signed for is actually what you were charged, paying particular attention to transactions where you wrote in a tip. Its easy for a cashier to mis-key the wrong amount or to fraudulently add a few bucks to your tip. Plus, if you messed up on your math, your cashier will generally go by what the total is but not always. “It could be a case where they take the liberty of saying, ‘Im pretty sure they meant $5, so Im going to charge $5,” says May. If something is off, your credit card receipt gives you the ammo to dispute the charge with your credit card company.

#5. Its wise to keep your receipts around.

“By far the best reason for archiving receipts is in case of an IRS audit,” says Jake Brereton, marketing manager for Shoeboxed, a company that digitizes customers receipts. But its also helpful in case you need it to use a warranty, get a refund challenge a charge or (duh!) make a return. With Shoeboxed, you mail in an envelope of receipts and wait for them to be added to your cloud-based archive; basic service starts at $10 a month. To do it yourself, file receipts for a year or two, then shred.

#6. Old-fashioned isnt best.

Remember those clunky machines that cashiers once used to make an imprint of your credit card? Occasionally you still see them (or hand-written receipts) when small businesses lack the infrastructure to process your credit payment electronically. It seems like an innocent throwback, but “those are riskiest kinds of transactions,” warns May, because you have no idea what happens to your credit card number afterwards. If a salesperson hauls out the old-school imprint machine, its best to go get some cash.

#7. You dont have to get a receipt.

If you dont plan on keeping your receipt, dont ask for it. “Its better to not have it than throw it in the trash,” points out Petersen not only because its not secure, but because its a waste. Plus, many retailers have moved toward electronic receipts and ask whether youd like your receipt emailed to you vs. receiving a paper receipt. According to some estimates, it takes approximately 9.6 million trees to create the 640,000 tons of paper that go into receipts each year. So, if you choose an emailed receipt or just hit “no receipt” when you pay at the pump, youll be doing yourself a financial and environmental favor.

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