(1) A person commits unlawful manufacture of a financial transaction device if, with intent to defraud, he:
(a) Falsely makes or manufactures, by printing, embossing, or magnetically encoding, a financial transaction device; or
(b) Falsely alters or adds uniform product codes, optical characters, or holographic images to a device which is or purports to be, or which is calculated to become or to represent if completed, a financial transaction device; or
(c) Falsely completes a financial transaction device by adding to an incomplete device to make it a complete one.
(2) As used in this section, unless the context otherwise requires:
(a) To "falsely alter" a financial transaction device means to change such device without the authority of anyone entitled to grant such authority, whether it be in complete or incomplete form, by means of erasure, obliteration, deletion, insertion of new matter, transposition of matter, or any other means, so that such device in its thus altered form falsely appears or purports to be in all respects an authentic creation of or fully authorized by its ostensible issuer.
(b) To "falsely complete" a financial transaction device means to transform an incomplete device into a complete one by adding, inserting, or changing matter without the authority of anyone entitled to grant that authority, so that the complete device falsely appears or purports to be in all respects an authentic creation of or fully authorized by its ostensible issuer.
(c) To "falsely make" a financial transaction device means to make or manufacture a device, whether complete or incomplete, which purports to be an authentic creation of its ostensible issuer, but which is not, either because the ostensible issuer is fictitious or because, if real, he did not authorize the making or the manufacturing thereof.
(3) Unlawful manufacture of a financial transaction device is a class 5 felony.
Source: L. 84: Entire part added, p. 551, § 2, effective July 1; (1)(b) amended, p. 1125, § 43, effective July 1. L. 89: (3) amended, p. 838, § 72, effective July 1.
ANNOTATION
Annotator's note. Since § 18-5-707 is similar to former § 40-14-21, C.R.S. 1963, relevant cases construing that provision have been included in the annotations to this section.
Credit card may be forged. In an instruction on the subject of the forgery, a credit card not only has legal efficacy, but also specifically falls within the language of the forgery statute. People v. Couch, 179 Colo. 324, 500 P.2d 967 (1972).
And prosecutor may proceed under forgery or credit card provisions. Since the credit card and forgery statutes have as their subject matter two different kinds of criminal transactions, the existence of the specific credit card statute does not preclude prosecution under the state's general forgery statute and also it is the proper discretional function of the prosecutor to elect to proceed under the felony rather than the misdemeanor statute. People v. Couch, 179 Colo. 324, 500 P.2d 967 (1972).
Reasonable distinctions can be drawn between the two crimes which are the subject matter of the credit card and forgery statutes, and the existence of the specific statute regarding the misuse of credit cards does not preclude prosecution or conviction of appellant under the state's general forgery statute. People v. James, 178 Colo. 401, 497 P.2d 1256 (1972).