Is it illegal to copy a credit card on a copier?
Dec 29, 2009 in
Credit
nikkibob03
Today at work our credit card machine stopped printing so we took a card, made a copy and wrote out a reciept. The card holder got completely bent out of shape and demanded the copy of his card back saying copying it is illegal. I thought it’d be OK because even a business owner’s reciept will have the card # on it. Does anyone know if it’s illegal to make a copy of a credit card?
Today at work our credit card machine stopped printing so we took a card, made a copy and wrote out a reciept. The card holder got completely bent out of shape and demanded the copy of his card back saying copying it is illegal. I thought it’d be OK because even a business owner’s reciept will have the card # on it. Does anyone know if it’s illegal to make a copy of a credit card?
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7 comments
KA on December 30, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Don’t know but probably not. Nothing on there but the numbers, right?
Kathy A on January 3, 2010 at 10:59 am
I don’t know that it’s illegal, but I would have demanded my copy back too…too many thieves these days…bad business practice…
RB on January 5, 2010 at 5:55 pm
no, that is how they use to do it before we had computers to store the information. Now a days we use the computer to write down all the information for us. When you swipe the card through the computer all of your credit card information is printed out a slip with all you credit card information on it (the merchant copy) and they save it, so it is basically the same thing, except one looks like a card.
SG Elite on January 5, 2010 at 8:34 pm
It is perfectly alright to photocopy credit cards given your current scenario; breakdown of machine. You may even want to take a step further by having the customers signed on the photocopies of the credit card to confirmed the transaction. This is also to protect you and your company should the customer turned-around and denied the transaction.
OC1999 on January 6, 2010 at 1:03 am
No it is perfectly legal to do that. It is no different than taking an Imprint of the card. As long as you did not put the entire number on THEIR receipt you were okay.
abby fth on January 7, 2010 at 12:04 pm
I don/t know about it. Go to: and get all information about credit card.
Cynthia E on January 7, 2010 at 4:26 pm
Hi. I worked tech support for a major CC processor for about 2 years, so I’ve had to advise many merchants of this very issue.
When a credit card machine is out of order for whatever reason, it is not only legal but advisable to get an impression of the card. A photo copy is not good enough, by the way. To cover yourself for liability, you need an actual physical impression of the card as proof that it was handed to you. It’s best to have a manual imprinter on hand, but even laying a piece of paper over the card and using the side of a pencil or a crayon to obtain the impression is ok.
Also-make sure you are calling your CC processor’s voice authorization line to get a valid autho of the card, otherwise you might get a decline later. Have the customer sign a receipt for you, showing the card number, the exp date and the authorization number so there’s no mistake down the road that the customer authorized use of the card.
Getting the authorization number into a working CC machine differs from machine to machine, sometimes labeled “Offline”, or “Post-Auth”. Have your CC processor’s customer service walk you through that if you are unsure.