Why wouldn't the Obama campaign prevent them?
John Galt of Ayn Rand Lane (zip code: a nonexistent 99999) was able to donate with no problem.
Despite the fact that the card holder's name and address do not match the name he provided.
John McCain's website? Rejected the same non-matching-information donation.
I guess when you're gathering up tens of millions from the Saudis and Gazans you have to be a little lenient on matching up credit card donations.
Incidentally-- when I f***ing order cheesesteaks from my local deli, I get dinged when I forget my current zip code and give them my old one.
Again, though: If Obama were demanding that credit card information matched donor information, he couldn't draw in $150 million largely from fraudulent overseas donors.
Oh, such suspicious minds.
Why isn't this as big a story as the Palin family wardrobe?
More at Powerline.
[Update a few minutes later]
Mark Steyn has further thoughts:
I was interested in the subject because I also have an online credit-card operation over at my website (obviously a little smaller than Senator Obama's), and so I looked into what our CC processing requires. In order to accept financial donations from "John Galt" and "Saddam Hussein", whoever runs the Obama website would have to modify the default security checks required by their merchant processor.
Now sometimes you do have to do a bit of modifying. My website has a lot of customers from overseas, and the default security settings can sometimes be a bit too eager to reject credit cards from countries where the "state or province" box is non-applicable or the postal code is in a non-American format. In other words, the default settings on a US online processing operation (with their bias toward US address formats) should be just what a legitimate US political campaign (anxious not to accept illegal foreign donations) is looking for. Instead, the Obama site appear to have intentionally disabled not only all the address checks (thereby facilitating overseas contributions) but the most basic criterion of all: the card name match (thereby enabling entirely fake contributions).
Yes. This doesn't happen by accident.
So, where are the indictments?
Why doesn't Obama produce his birth certificate and have the Berg case dismissed as McCain did the case against him?
Did we wake up in an alternate universe where the rule of law no longer applies in America? Or is that only for the little guy as some now suspect?
WTF? WTF? WTF? As much as I hate pills, what color pill do I need to take to wake up from this nightmare?
Perhaps it's the same as both party's view on voting: Republicans want to follow the law even if legal votes get rejected, Democrats want to count every vote even if illegal ones get counted.
I believe if a credit card transaction is rejected eventually by the company then the retailer has to pay a penalty. My company spends lost of money on security to get PCI Complaint, which means we pay lower fees per transaction. But to make mistakes like that? You're looking at tens of dollars for each and every one, which adds up fast.
So if these are stolen cards being used then Obama's campaign will face hefty fees from Visa and Mastercard for each transaction.
If he is not fined, then we'll know that either:
1. they were not stolen and it was a scheme to give him more money
2. they were not willing to treat him the same as they treat everyone else, which will open the floodgates for other politicians to commit fraud and get away with it.
I wonder what POS system he is using.
The link made up of the credit card report appears to be incorrect.
I also read somewhere that even if a transaction is rejected, Obama can just substitute other funds (from whatever source) equal to the transaction. So even if he gets 100% fraudulent transactions that the credit card company reject and return those funds. He still has the funds (from whatever source) minus some minor penalties.
So even taking $2300 from some unsuspecting people by some operative stealing there card number and returning the funds gives Obama more money.
This seems to align with his historic principle of back and forth funding with allies taking taxpayers money.
I would urge everyone here to verify that this is true by contributing to the Obama campaign in very large amounts with a valid credit card and using a fictitious name.
Let us know what happens. Save your receipt so you can take leagal action later.
I would urge everyone here to verify that this is true by contributing to the Obama campaign in very large amounts with a valid credit card and using a fictitious name.
No one is stupid enough to do what you propose Anonymous Moron number who-knows-how-many, both because we have better things to do with the money, and because contributing to a campaign under a false name is a violation of election law.
Not to imply, of course, that violating federal election laws will be any deterrent to Obama supporters...
Well, really, who cares? This is the inevitable result of the hideous 20th century debacle of "campaign finance reform." It was never going to be possible to prevent people with money who urgently wanted their candidate to get that money from giving it to him. All the various silly laws have succeeded in doing is creating this black market in campaign donations, not to mention all the idiotic 527 crap.
It's time to just junk these laws entirely. You want to donate your entire fortune to Obama, you just go right ahead. As a McCain man, I'm all in favor of it. At this point, extra money is pointless for the Obama '08 campaign. What's he going to do, run TV ads in North Carolina every 2 minutes instead of every 4?
But if you donate all your money to Obama, that's that much less dough you have to cause mischief elsewhere, e.g. by helping a Democrat win election to the Senate, or contributing to some MoveOn or ACORN madness next year.
I note that although that the Obama voters cannot afford to pay any taxes, heaven forbid - but they can afford to give him hundreds of millions in cash each month...
Ken Anthony may I recommend the red ones.