Finding out actual items bought via credit card issuer and not the store receipt?
The store keeps track of what you buy. It is all part of their big data. The knowledge of what you buy helps them project future sales. It allows them to target their marketing. But maybe even more importantly they can sell this knowledge to outside companies. They aren't going to give away that information to another company that would love to have that data, just so they could sell it. Stores use those loyalty cards to be able to link your household to those purchases. Those discounts, or free products, are what they use to entice you to give up your privacy.  The fact that in your town young adults love caramel apples, even more than the town next door, makes them confident that your town will love caramel apple scented shampoo. Thus they send you coupons when it become available. They will also sell this knowledge to the shampoo companies. Do some stores make it possible for you to download the data? Yes they do. Apple stores send all receipts via email. Kohls allows me to see detail information about my transactions on line. There must be others. I don't know if any are grocery stores. As a merchant I can tell you that the only thing the bank gets from me.  Is the total amount and a category for my business.  No detail, not ever. The stores track the individual items for inventory planning and marketing purposes. Having worked in the transaction processing business for a time (writing one), I can say with confidence that the credit/debit card companies do not receive an itemized list of the items involved in the transaction. There is usually a description field in the information transmitted to the processor, which may or may not contain useful information. But it is not big enough to contain an itemized grocery list of any size. And it is not standardized in any way that would facilitate reliable parsing. There may be an amount of metadata about the transaction that would indicate the types of products involved in the transaction, which they can also infer from the merchant reporting the transaction. There are efforts to increase the amount of data reported, but they are not widely used yet, due to the overwhelming numbers of banks that would need to be upgraded. These efforts are rolling out only in specific and limited uses where the banks involved are willing to upgrade software and equipment. For now, the best way to know what you bought is to keep your receipts from the store. Shoeboxes work great for this. So do smartphone cameras and a folder on your hard drive. There are also mobile apps that track receipts for you, and may even try to OCR the data for you.
"You should check if your card issuer provides a ""Bill Pay"" service. I have a CapitalOne card, and I know they don't. But Wells Fargo may, I don't know. However, for that to work your biller must accept credit cards as payments, at least that's the restriction I have with such a feature on my USBank card. That means, that if the company doesn't accept credit cards directly - they're likely not to participate in the credit cards' bill-pay system as well. Some credit cards are actually mailing these balance transfer checks quite frequently trying to ""seduce"" you into taking advantage of your available credit. Unless you really don't have any other choice - you shouldn't. But if that's the only way you have of paying - go for it. That willwill not be treated as a cash advance but rather as balance transfer. You can call the customer service and have them a check mailed to you. You may want to consider talking to your bank and checking if they can give you a line of credit. That would be similar to the credit card (i.e.: revolving credit line) from your credit report/score perspective, but may have lower interest rates." My 12 year old routinely makes purchases with cash or a gift card (either a store's card or a Visa/Amex card that acts like credit card but is a gift card) and has never had an issue. Clothing, make-up, bath items, etc. I understand in some areas you need to be over 18 to buy certain markers, spraypaint, or other propellant items that can be fatal if inhaled. I see little issue with buying pet supplies, but it wouldn't hurt to have your sibling nearby if you think there will be an issue. "I don't know that this can actually be answered objectively.  Maybe it can with some serious research.  (Read: data on what the issuers have been doing since the law went into affect.) Personally, I think the weak economy and general problems with easy credit are a bigger issue than the new rules.  Supposedly, there is evidence that card issuers are trying to make up for the lost income due to the new regulations with higher fees.  I believe that your credit rating and history with the issuer is a larger factor now.  In other words, they may be less likely to lower your rate just to keep you as a customer or to attract new customers. According to The Motley Fool, issuers dropped their riskiest customers as a result of the new regulations. Some say that new laws simply motivated the issuers to find new ways to ""gouge"" their customers. Here are two NYTimes blog posts about the act: http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/what-the-credit-card-act-means-for-you/ http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/the-effects-of-the-credit-card-act/ As JohnFx states, it does not hurt to ask." Not clear what you're asking.  Are you trying to figure out their SIC/NAISC classification?  That tells you the business category they fall into, but there's no simple, instant way to find that out.  Much also depends on how the credit card issuer has classified them and how they arrived at that information. They may have a different means of classifying merchants, so you might try to call your bank and ask them, if they're able/willing to tell you.  That'll give you a starting point to figure it out, anyway. Yes, but note that some credit card companies let you create virtual cards--you can define how much money is on them and how long they last.  If you're worried about a site you can use such a card to make the payment, then get rid of the virtual number so nobody can do dirty deeds with it. In practice, however, companies that do this are going to get stomped on hard by the credit card companies--other than outright scams it basically does not happen.  (Hacking is another matter--just pick up the newspaper.  It's not exactly unusual to read of hackers getting access to credit card information that they weren't supposed to have access to in the first place.) So long as you deal with a company that's been around for a while the risk is trivial. It depends on the seller.  If the seller wants, they can collect the information from you and send it to the payment gateway.  In that case, they of course have everything that you provide at some point.  They are not supposed to keep the security code, and there are rules about keeping the credit card number safe.   The first four digits of the credit card number often indicate the bank, although smaller banks may share.  But for example a Capital One card would indicate the bank.   Other sellers work through a payment gateway that collects the information.  Even there, the seller may collect most of the information first and send it to the gateway.  In particular, the seller may collect name, email, phone, and address information.  And in general the gateway will reveal that kind of information.  They will not give the seller credit card info other than the name on the card, expiration date, and possible last four digits.  They may report if the address matches the card's billing address (mismatched addresses may mean fraud).   Buying through someone like PayPal can provide the least information.  For a digital good, PayPal can only expose the buyer's name (which may be a business name) and email (associated with the payment account).  However PayPal still has the other information and may expose it under legal action (e.g. if the credit card transaction is reversed or the good sold is illegal).  And even PayPal will expose the shipping address for physical goods that require shipping. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure buying something at a store does not enter you in a contract with the store.   Also, Target made up the rule about not allowing gift cards and then chose not to enforce it. According to the article, they chose not to enforce it over and over again. In fact, when the promotion ended, Target renewed it with the same terms! Calling these customers cheaters is baseless. In some stores that is done. When I shop at the Apple store or at the Farmers market the receipt is automatically sent to my email address. Why don't others do it? If the target of the itemized receipt is a credit card company they would be sending data that they spent collecting to another corporation. The grocery store is collecting your data so they can sell it to their vendors. They sell to vendors the info that Gen X shoppers that buy cat food are more likely to use brand X laundry detergent then Millennials. The credit card companies could gather even more Meta data that they could sell. Privacy. Some people don't join the reward program at the store because they don't want a company to know exactly what they buy. Even fewer would want the credit card company to have that information.  The credit card companies would have to want this level of data that would have to be stored, maintained, and protected.