Help! My thermal receipt is faded! What to do to protect yourself from thermal receipt fading.

Back in May, I posted a rant about thermal receipts fading. Since that time, I've delved a little further into this annoying happenstance and have found that it is a problem, especially for businesses who need to keep receipts for tax purposes, let alone us normal folks who may want a receipt for a rebate or in case of a warranty issue. I actually performed enough research to write an article about this subject, hopefully it will educate consumers about this annoying side effect of businesses cutting costs by using thermal paper receipts for transactions. Here is an excerpt:

"Many retailers are switching to thermal paper receipts because they print faster and save money. The receipt is printed on specialized paper upon which purchase information is heat transferred onto the receipt. While these thermal paper receipts get us out of the store faster, there is a downside. Thermal paper receipts fade quickly and consumers could be paying the price...." To read the rest of this article, click here.

While researching the article, I was just simply amazed at how many people are affected by receipts fading. One person was horrified to find that his receipts had faded... just after getting a letter from the IRS about an audit. He thought he had a perfectly good defense, but his thermal receipts were no longer legible enough to use to support his tax return. While most people don't really care or keep their receipts long term, others are feeling a lot of pain when one they need is faded away beyond recognition or use.