Credit Card Abuse Under the Texas Penal Code: Penalties and Defenses

Credit card abuse under Texas Penal Code Section 32.31 is a state jail felony punishable by 180 days to two years in a state jail and a fine of up to $10,000. If the cardholder was 65 or older, the offense becomes a third-degree felony carrying two to ten years in prison. The statute reaches well past swiping someone else’s card at a register: possessing a stolen card you never use, buying a card from anyone who isn’t the issuer, and holding blank or partially encoded cards you plan to finish are all separate offenses under the same section.

What the Statute Prohibits

Section 32.31 lists eleven distinct offenses. Some are obvious. Others catch people off guard because no purchase ever has to happen.

Using a Card That Isn’t Yours

Using a card without the cardholder’s consent, with intent to obtain a benefit, is the core offense. The same applies to a card you know has expired or been cancelled, even if it was originally issued to you. A declined charge still counts; presenting the card with fraudulent intent completes the crime whether or not the transaction goes through.¹

Using a fictitious card or a made-up card number is a separate offense under the same section. This one covers situations where no real card exists at all, which most often means online transactions built on fabricated numbers.¹

Stealing, Receiving, Buying, or Selling

You don’t need to use a card to be charged. Stealing one is its own offense, and so is receiving a card you know was stolen. Buying a card from anyone who isn’t the issuer is illegal, and selling a card when you aren’t the issuer is equally prohibited. Simple possession of another person’s card with intent to use it, without permission, is enough on its own.¹

Incomplete Cards

Possessing two or more unfinished cards that were never issued to you, with the intent to complete them yourself, is a standalone offense. A card is “incomplete” under the statute when it’s missing any information the issuer normally stamps, embosses, or prints before the card can be used. The cardholder’s signature doesn’t count. This provision targets blank card stock and partially encoded cards.¹

Merchant Offenses

The statute also reaches vendors. A merchant who knowingly accepts a stolen, forged, expired, or revoked card with intent to defraud the issuer or cardholder commits an offense, and so does a merchant who bills the issuer for goods or services never provided.¹

Pressuring the Cardholder

One provision surprises people. Using, or inducing the cardholder to use, their own card to buy something for your benefit when you know the cardholder can’t afford to pay is an offense. It targets financial exploitation, especially where someone with influence over the cardholder leverages that relationship to run up charges the cardholder can’t cover.¹

Penalties

Most Section 32.31 offenses are state jail felonies: 180 days to two years of confinement in a state jail facility, plus a fine up to $10,000.²

The charge is a third-degree felony if the victim is an elderly individual, defined as someone 65 or older.³ That enhancement raises the exposure to two to ten years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, with the same $10,000 fine cap.⁴

Probation Instead of Jail

A state jail felony doesn’t always mean serving every day behind bars. Judges can order community supervision for up to five years in place of or in addition to confinement. Conditions usually include regular check-ins with a supervision officer, drug testing, community service, and travel restrictions. Violating any condition can send the case back to the judge, who may revoke supervision and impose the original jail sentence.

Restitution

A court can order you to pay the victim back. Under Article 42.037 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, restitution may cover the value of property lost, damaged, or destroyed by the offense. When returning the property isn’t possible, the court orders payment equal to its value at the time of sentencing or at the time of loss, whichever is greater.⁵

Restitution isn’t technically mandatory in Texas the way it is under federal law, but judges must state their reasons on the record if they decline to order it. In practice, most credit card abuse convictions end with a restitution order covering the full amount of fraudulent charges, and the court can add expenses the victim incurred dealing with the fraud.⁵

Asset Forfeiture

Chapter 59 of the Code of Criminal Procedure lets the state seize property classified as contraband: property used in the offense or acquired with proceeds from it. In large-scale fraud cases, that can mean losing vehicles, electronics, cash, and bank accounts tied to the scheme.⁶

How Long Prosecutors Have to Charge You

Prosecutors have seven years from the date of the offense to bring credit card abuse charges. Section 32.31 sits in Chapter 32 of the Penal Code, and the Code of Criminal Procedure sets a seven-year limitations period for most Chapter 32 offenses.⁷

Seven years is a long window. Fraud often goes undetected for months, and an investigation that looks dormant can produce an indictment years after the conduct.

When Federal Charges Also Apply

Credit card fraud that crosses state lines, targets a federally insured bank, or hits a certain dollar threshold can draw federal attention. The U.S. Secret Service has primary authority over access device fraud, which includes credit and debit card fraud.⁸

Federal charges typically come under 18 U.S.C. § 1029. A first offense can bring up to 10 or 15 years in federal prison depending on the conduct, and a repeat offender faces up to 20 years. Federal law also authorizes forfeiture of any personal property used or intended to be used in the offense.⁹

A state charge does not block a federal case for the same conduct. A person can face both a Texas state jail felony and a federal indictment at the same time, and federal sentencing guidelines produce substantially longer terms.

Consequences After the Case Ends

Banking and Finance Jobs

Federal law bars anyone convicted of an offense involving dishonesty or breach of trust from working at an FDIC-insured bank or financial institution without written FDIC consent. The bar covers every employee, from tellers to executives, and reaches independent contractors who influence the institution’s management. For certain Title 18 offenses (including wire and bank fraud), the FDIC imposes a minimum ten-year waiting period before it will even consider granting an exception.¹⁰

Credit card abuse is a dishonesty offense by definition, so the bar reaches broadly. A conviction under Section 32.31 can close off careers in banking, insurance, and financial services.

Clearing the Record

A conviction for credit card abuse cannot be expunged in Texas. Expunction is only available for arrests that didn’t lead to conviction, acquittals, and certain dismissed cases. Deferred adjudication is a different path: if you completed deferred adjudication rather than taking a final conviction, you may petition for a nondisclosure order, which seals the record from most private background checks while keeping it accessible to law enforcement and certain licensing agencies. Section 32.31 isn’t among the offenses that permanently disqualify a person from nondisclosure, so deferred adjudication can leave a real option open.

Defenses That Fit This Statute

Every Section 32.31 offense requires the prosecution to prove a specific mental state, usually intent to defraud or knowledge that the card was unauthorized, expired, or stolen. That requirement is where defenses live.

No Fraudulent Intent

If you honestly believed you had permission to use the card, the intent element falls apart. This comes up in family and household situations: a spouse using a partner’s card after a separation, an adult child using a parent’s card under a long-standing informal arrangement, a roommate borrowing a card for a purchase they thought was authorized. The question is whether the belief was honest, not whether it turned out to be correct.

Weak Identification

Online fraud cases often lean on digital evidence that isn’t as tight as it looks. An IP address shows which network was used, not who was at the keyboard. A shipping address shows where a package went, not who placed the order. When the state’s case rests on that kind of circumstantial evidence without direct identification, the defense can press whether it clears the reasonable-doubt bar.

Duress

Texas recognizes duress as an affirmative defense when a person was compelled to commit the offense by a threat of imminent death or serious bodily injury. For a felony charge, only threats at that level qualify; general pressure, financial coercion, or vague intimidation won’t do it.¹¹

The defense also fails if the defendant recklessly put themselves in the situation where the coercion was likely. Someone who joined a fraud ring voluntarily and was later threatened into staying can’t claim duress. A person with no prior involvement who was threatened into a single fraudulent purchase has a stronger argument.¹¹

Illegal Search

Evidence obtained through an unlawful search can be suppressed, and suppression sometimes ends the case. If officers searched your phone, computer, or home without a valid warrant, or exceeded the scope of the warrant they had, cards, transaction records, and digital evidence they recovered may be inadmissible. Fourth Amendment challenges come up often in cases built on device data or financial records pulled from third-party providers.

1
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 32.31 – Credit Card or Debit Card Abuse
2
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 12.35 – State Jail Felony Punishment
3
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 22.04 – Injury to a Child, Elderly Individual, or Disabled Individual
4
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 12.34 – Third Degree Felony Punishment
5
State of Texas. Texas Code Criminal Procedure 42.037 – Restitution
6
State of Texas. Texas Code Criminal Procedure 59.02 – Forfeiture of Contraband
7
State of Texas. Texas Code Criminal Procedure 12.01 – Felonies
8
U.S. Secret Service. Financial Investigations
9
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1029 – Fraud and Related Activity in Connection With Access Devices
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 12 USC 1829 – Penalty for Unauthorized Participation by Convicted Individual
11
State of Texas. Texas Code Penal 8.05 – Duress