The claim: Banks and credit card companies are keeping a ‘de facto registry’ of gun owners
A Nov. 2 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) has a video captioned “Gun and Ammo buyers beware: Credit card companies and big banks are tracking your purchases. Start using cash to stay off this de facto registry.”
“I have just found out that these credit card companies are tracking gun purchases and ammunition purchases, creating what amounts to a registry,” conservative commentator Grant Stinchfield says in the video.
The post was liked more than 8,000 times in four days.
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Our rating: False
The four largest credit card companies announced plans to use a code to identify purchases made at gun stores, but all backed away from implementing the code in March 2023.
Proposed code never used by credit card companies
Stinchfield did not offer any evidence in the post to support his claim. When contacted by USA TODAY, he pointed to media coverage from September 2022 of credit card companies possibly getting the ability to identify transactions conducted at gun shops.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) announced then it would develop a merchant category code for gun stores. Such codes are an optional way “to identify the type of business in which a merchant is engaged,” according to Citi. The codes are used to give instructions on how a transaction is processed, not to identify specific items purchased.
Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover initially said they would use the code, but all of the companies said in March 2023 they would at least pause implementation of it.
Legislation advancing in several states that could ban the use of the code was a factor in the decision to pause implementation, Seth Eisen, a spokesperson for Mastercard, told USA TODAY in an email. Any such bills would create “inconsistency in how this ISO standard could be applied by merchants, issuers, acquirers and networks.”
Fact check: False claim that US is signing treaty to establish international gun registry
Visa posted a statement shortly after the creation of the merchant category code was approved, stressing that the code would not give it “product-level” information on transactions, nor did it want to track purchases.
On March 9, it updated the statement to say the “significant confusion and legal uncertainty in the payments ecosystem” created by possible legislation and litigation led it to pause implementation of the code.
When plans to create the code were announced, gun control advocates hailed the potential to track suspicious patterns of gun and ammunition purchases. But others cautioned it could set a precedent for creating codes to track financial activities, according to CBS News. That same report even said that Visa, Mastercard and American Express all initially resisted creating the code.
Our fact-check sources:
- Seth Eisen, Nov. 3, Email exchange with USA TODAY
- CBS News, Sept. 9, 2022, New way to track suspect credit card sales of guns and ammo approved by international organization
- Money, March 10, Credit Card Companies Drop Plans to Track Gun Store Purchases After Pressure From Lawmakers
- Bloomberg, March 9, Visa, Mastercard Pause Work on Code Aimed at Tracking Gun Purchases
- Payments Dive, March 9, Amex follows rivals in ditching gun code
- Visa, updated March 9, Protecting legal commerce
- Reuters, Feb. 17, Exclusive-Discover to Enable Tracking of Purchases at Gun Retailers From April
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