Crowcery
A grocery receipt is not anonymous. Below the items it prints the last four digits of your card and the authorization code for the charge, and, depending on the chain, a loyalty or membership number, the till, the cashier's first name, the second you paid, and a transaction id the store can tie back to you. None of it lets a stranger charge your card. A membership or loyalty number is the one field that can reach something of value, and several of the other fields together let a stranger sound like the bank. Here is what each one is, and what to cover before you post a receipt photo online.
This is the bottom half of a Nova Scotia Superstore receipt from 2026, with the digits and names changed. Every chain in our collection prints a version of it.
Every card receipt in our collection masks the card number to its last four digits. The Loblaws-family format is "Card Number: ************4471 P", Walmart prints "**** **** **** 4471" after the card brand, and Dollarama, Giant Tiger and Dollar Tree print the same masked shape. We have never seen a full card number on a Canadian grocery receipt; the payment-card industry standard requires the number to be masked on the customer copy.
Four digits cannot be used to charge the card. What they can do is confirm a guess: a caller who says "I am calling about your Mastercard ending 4471, the $51.35 purchase at Superstore on March 28" sounds like the bank, and that is the whole trick. The receipt also names the card brand and whether it was credit or debit.
Every card receipt in our collection prints an authorization code (the number the card issuer sent back to approve the charge) and a reference or sequence number from the payment terminal. The labels vary by terminal: "Ref. #" and "Auth #" on Loblaws-family receipts, "AUTH #" and "REF#" at Walmart and Dollarama, "REFERENCE #" and "AUTHOR. #" on the Moneris-style block that fast-food and smaller stores print.
These identify the charge to the bank and the store. They are what a store uses to find a payment when you dispute it, and what a scammer quotes to sound like the store. On their own they do not give access to anything.
This is where chains differ most, and where a receipt can print something you would not hand out.
The store is identified on every receipt in our collection, by name and address at the top and usually by a store number as well. Then the visit gets pinned down more precisely than most people expect:
Store plus till plus second is exactly what a store needs to pull the camera footage of a transaction. That is the legitimate use. It is also enough for someone who has your receipt to know where you shop and when.
Separately from the card numbers, most chains print an id for the sale itself: Walmart's TC# (five groups of four digits, the printable form of the barcode at the bottom), Sobeys-family Invoice Number, the TRANS# on fast-food and Moneris-style receipts, No Frills' SLIP #. This id plus the store is what a returns desk scans, and a receipt is what a returns desk needs to refund an item. A posted receipt can serve that purpose for someone who is not you; how each chain guards against that is its own policy, which we do not track.
Food Basics, Dollar Tree, Giant Tiger, Canadian Tire and the fast-food chains print a survey URL, and some print a "Your code" line with a long number tied to this specific visit. Anyone with the code can complete the survey as you, and on chains where the survey enters a draw, claim the entry.
| They have | They can | They cannot |
|---|---|---|
| Last four digits, card brand, amount, store, date | Sound like your bank or the store on the phone | Charge the card, look up the full number |
| Auth and reference numbers | Quote them to sound like the store | Reverse or repeat the charge |
| Costco membership number or PC Optimum card number | Identify your account to the chain; on some programs, attempt to redeem or move points | Get past a chain that asks for more than the number; we do not know each chain's steps |
| Store, till, time, cashier | Know where you were and when; combined with a name from your post, build a routine | Identify you from the receipt alone |
| Transaction id | Attempt a return, at chains that accept a receipt without the buyer | See who you are |
| Survey code | Complete the survey as you; claim a draw entry where there is one | Reach your account or your card |
People post receipts to compare prices, complain about a charge, or ask what a code means. All of that lives in the item lines and the totals. Keep those. Cover:
Cropping is better than scribbling: a thin marker line over digits can often still be read. And if the receipt is on your phone, crop before you send, not after; the sent version is the one that leaves.
The app reads a photo of your receipt to extract the item lines and totals. Before the photo and its transcription are stored, sensitive details such as the card number are redacted, and the stored copy is the redacted one. The item lines, prices, discounts and tax codes are what the app keeps, because those are what it is for. The privacy policy states what is collected, why, and for how long.
How confident are we here? The field shapes and the counts above come from a collection of several hundred receipts that is heavily weighted to Nova Scotia, with Walmart the only chain sampled across most provinces. Every chain named is one we have receipts from; a chain we have not named may print something we have not seen. What a chain will do with a membership number or a transaction id over the phone or at the desk is that chain's policy, which we have not tested. This page is about what is printed, not about what is safe.
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How long should you keep a grocery receipt?
Does your grocery receipt add up? How to check it
How to read a Walmart Canada receipt (ST#, OP#, TE#, TR#)
How to read a Costco receipt
How to read a Superstore or Loblaws receipt
How to read a Sobeys receipt
PC Optimum points on your receipt, explained
Scene+ points on your Sobeys receipt, explained
The Scanning Code of Practice: wrong price at the till
All receipt guides