3 ms·

I tried to donate, but apparently I am not human: > 1 error prohibited this submission from being saved: > Looks like you are not a human Good to know.

by jchw 1y ago

autoexec 1y ago
I'm not sure why they'd try so hard to keep bots from paying them anyway. If someone wants to write a bot that constantly pays me good money I'm fine with that. I might rate limit it if the stream of payments coming in can't cover the cost of keeping the server from being DoS'd, but that's not going to inconvenience a human trying to submit a payment one time.
- bmacho 1y ago
  [deleted]
  - mjhay 1y ago
    Is there a problem with fraudsters donating to OSS projects?
  - dietr1ch 1y ago
    Well fraudsters need to have their time in sync for their business right? Who are you to deny their donations?
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    Money is money. How do you know the cash you are using is not "blood money"? Come on.
- op7 1y ago
  Then when too many of the fradulent payments get charged back then your payment processor drops you
  - michaelt 1y ago
    Sure, chargebacks cost money. You know what else costs money? When someone wants to give you money, and you misidentify them as a bot and refuse their money.
    - Akronymus 1y ago
      With donations being blocked you keep sitting at 0, with chargebacks you can actually go negative, in a potentially unbounded way.
      - zinekeller 1y ago
        I really hope that the sole reason that michaelt concluded this is simply due on not having any experience how to manage credit card payments (on merchant's side). For those who does not handle these things: I am not sure on what processor Network Time Foundation is using, but Stripe's $15 fee is actually on the low side of chargebacks (some processors even use the fixed fee + percentage model). Worse, this is unconditional: if you somehow won this, you won't get the chargeback fee.
    - bawolff 1y ago
      Yeah, but one probably costs more money then the other, and it seems plausible its the chargebacks.
- JimDabell 1y ago
  If you have small payments that can be made by bots easily, then your service can be used by thieves as an oracle to determine which of their stolen credit card numbers still work. Then you get lots of chargebacks to deal with.
- slv77 1y ago
  Bots use sites like this to validate lists of stolen cards with low dollar donations to validate the cards before using them on the target site. Without some one of protection sites like these are quickly flooded with fraudulent transactions and then fined and shut down by Visa and Mastercard.
  - lapsis_beeftech 1y ago
    This sounds like a problem where cryptocurrency could actually be the solution. Next time I want to make a charitable donation I will ask for an XMR address to preserve my privacy and work around commercial payment processor issues.
    - lez 1y ago
      I was thinking the same. Seems HN is now pro-bank and anti-cryptocurrency.
      - FabHK 1y ago
        HN is anti-nonsense, anti-hype, anti-crime, so, yeah, pretty anti-cryptocurrency.
        dlahoda 1y ago
        until one's society started to collapse, one does not think crypto is good
        mynameisash 1y ago
        When society collapses, will we still have reliable infrastructure (internet and electricity, to be specific) on which cryptocurrency depends?
        dlahoda 1y ago
        another one from high trust stable place. glad for you being there. have you heard about decentralization? society is not civilization. local vs global.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  That's because the bots will use such services to 'taste' cards to see if they work. Then if they do the criminals can resell them for a higher value than for which they bought them for.
landgenoot 1y ago
You are thinking to much in emoji's and emdashes.
fghorow 1y ago
Yeah, I'm not a human either. (Edited to add: that was from Safari. Chrome worked. YMMV.)
zelphirkalt 1y ago
I had similar trouble, back when I tried to donate to the Internet archive. Donation box would simply not let me donate. I even wrote them an e-mail and nothing changed half a year later, so I gave up. Too bad that good projects mess their donations up by doing web BS.
zimpenfish 1y ago
Same - first time the requirement for first name + last name bounced me, the next two times reCAPTCHA bounced me. Gave up then.

I tried to donate, but apparently I am not human: > 1 error prohibited this submission from being saved: > Looks like you are not a human Good to know.

by jchw 1y ago

I tried to donate, but apparently I am not human: > 1 error prohibited this submission from being saved: > Looks like you are not a human Good to know.

autoexec 1y ago

I'm not sure why they'd try so hard to keep bots from paying them anyway. If someone wants to write a bot that constantly pays me good money I'm fine with that. I might rate limit it if the stream of payments coming in can't cover the cost of keeping the server from being DoS'd, but that's not going to inconvenience a human trying to submit a payment one time.

bmacho 1y ago
[deleted]
- mjhay 1y ago
  Is there a problem with fraudsters donating to OSS projects?
- dietr1ch 1y ago
  Well fraudsters need to have their time in sync for their business right? Who are you to deny their donations?
- johnisgood 1y ago
  Money is money. How do you know the cash you are using is not "blood money"? Come on.
op7 1y ago
Then when too many of the fradulent payments get charged back then your payment processor drops you
- michaelt 1y ago
  Sure, chargebacks cost money. You know what else costs money? When someone wants to give you money, and you misidentify them as a bot and refuse their money.
  - Akronymus 1y ago
    With donations being blocked you keep sitting at 0, with chargebacks you can actually go negative, in a potentially unbounded way.
    - zinekeller 1y ago
      I really hope that the sole reason that michaelt concluded this is simply due on not having any experience how to manage credit card payments (on merchant's side). For those who does not handle these things: I am not sure on what processor Network Time Foundation is using, but Stripe's $15 fee is actually on the low side of chargebacks (some processors even use the fixed fee + percentage model). Worse, this is unconditional: if you somehow won this, you won't get the chargeback fee.
  - bawolff 1y ago
    Yeah, but one probably costs more money then the other, and it seems plausible its the chargebacks.
JimDabell 1y ago
If you have small payments that can be made by bots easily, then your service can be used by thieves as an oracle to determine which of their stolen credit card numbers still work. Then you get lots of chargebacks to deal with.
slv77 1y ago
Bots use sites like this to validate lists of stolen cards with low dollar donations to validate the cards before using them on the target site. Without some one of protection sites like these are quickly flooded with fraudulent transactions and then fined and shut down by Visa and Mastercard.
- lapsis_beeftech 1y ago
  This sounds like a problem where cryptocurrency could actually be the solution. Next time I want to make a charitable donation I will ask for an XMR address to preserve my privacy and work around commercial payment processor issues.
  - lez 1y ago
    I was thinking the same. Seems HN is now pro-bank and anti-cryptocurrency.
    - FabHK 1y ago
      HN is anti-nonsense, anti-hype, anti-crime, so, yeah, pretty anti-cryptocurrency.
      - dlahoda 1y ago
        until one's society started to collapse, one does not think crypto is good
        mynameisash 1y ago
        When society collapses, will we still have reliable infrastructure (internet and electricity, to be specific) on which cryptocurrency depends?
        dlahoda 1y ago
        another one from high trust stable place. glad for you being there. have you heard about decentralization? society is not civilization. local vs global.
jacquesm 1y ago
That's because the bots will use such services to 'taste' cards to see if they work. Then if they do the criminals can resell them for a higher value than for which they bought them for.

landgenoot 1y ago

You are thinking to much in emoji's and emdashes.

fghorow 1y ago

Yeah, I'm not a human either. (Edited to add: that was from Safari. Chrome worked. YMMV.)

zelphirkalt 1y ago

I had similar trouble, back when I tried to donate to the Internet archive. Donation box would simply not let me donate. I even wrote them an e-mail and nothing changed half a year later, so I gave up. Too bad that good projects mess their donations up by doing web BS.

zimpenfish 1y ago

Same - first time the requirement for first name + last name bounced me, the next two times reCAPTCHA bounced me. Gave up then.