Receipts Handed 'Under the Table' at Apple Retail Stores

Apple fans and frequent visitors of ifoAppleStore may recall that, sometime during 2006, Apple decided to drop traditional counters used only as the "cash register," swapping them for a more efficient, e-mail-based system handled by the Studio or Genius Bars at the store. However, Apple hasn't dropped the printers for the receipts just yet, but has instead hidden them underneath certain wood display tables.

"Apple has installed tiny printers (highlighted area) beneath selected wooden display tables to allow employees to make hard copies of receipts, without walking to the rear of the store where receipt printers have previously been installed," notes theweb site that deals with news and information about Apple Inc.'s retail stores.

Click on the image above to enlarge it. The highlighted area shows the new small-sized printer. It is used to print a receipt for customers who either don't want to give their e-mail address to Apple (whatever their reason for that may be) or who simply don't have an e-mail address at all. The system seems to be working just fine, since no one is complaining. Well... almost no one.

Last year, after adopting the new system for transactions, three Florida attorneys filed a federal lawsuit against the Cupertino folks for a receipt issued by one of its Web stores that included the expiration date of credit cards. The suit claimed that the credit card data exposed customers to identity-theft and fraud, although it admitted that all loss was "small and difficult to quantify."

"According to the attorneys, federal law prohibits using more than the last five digits of a credit card and the card expiration date on a receipt," ifoAppleStore was reporting last year. Fortunately, Apple's Retail stores were not involved in the lawsuit, that were already been using the new e-mail receipts system, while the printed receipts did not include the prohibited data.