4 ms·

At the risk of sounding like a troll, honest question here. Why wasn't the CVV part of this page? Seems like a lot of headaches and bad press could have been av

At the risk of sounding like a troll, honest question here. Why wasn't the CVV part of this page? Seems like a lot of headaches and bad press could have been avoiding by just actually including it (and you know, less fraudulent donations). Great work by the way with the optimizations. As patio11 noted, add a 0 or two to your rate and point people to this blog post.

ceejayoz 14y ago
> Why wasn't the CVV part of this page? Checking CVV isn't required, but may result in a higher transaction fee for the merchant. The campaign likely made a choice of "fewer fields = better conversion".
- clarky07 14y ago
  It's 100% certain that it would be less conversion. It's also nearly certain that they were accepting illegal foreign donations. In this case, conversion probably shouldn't be the deciding factor... (Note I'm sure the OP had 0 say in this, just wondering if there is an explanation other than better conversions) EDIT: To the downvotes, see my comment below http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4843963 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4843963 This isn't just about Obama, it's about all of the campaigns. Obama was just the most visible and highest raising, with a higher likelihood of attracting foreign money. It's also not just the CVV, but many many things that aren't being done (that aren't required yet but should be).
  - ceejayoz 14y ago
    > It's also nearly certain that they were accepting illegal foreign donations. A CVV wouldn't make a difference for that, and given that US citizens live all over the world, there's realistically no way to prevent illegal foreign donations. What would you use? Name? American have all sorts of names. Credit card billing address? Americans live abroad. IP? Americans live abroad. SSN? Fakeable (ask a restaurant dishwasher in NYC), and I dunno if you can ask for it.
    - clarky07 14y ago
      It is a tiny minority of people that live overseas. It's reasonable to make them jump through an extra hoop or two to keep the rest of the money out of our elections. Note this isn't just Obama's campaign, many others have the same problems. The only thing partisan about this is that Obama is the most visible and also the most likely person to be receiving these illegal donations. As such, he should have been working harder to prevent them, not being the most lax in the group. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/08/Report-Illegal-Foreign-Campaign-Donations-Assault-on-American-Sovereignty http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/08/Report-Il... The GAI report recommends election officials: -Integrate safeguards to limit the solicitation of money from foreigners by requiring donors with foreign IP addresses to provide proof of U.S. citizenship before they can proceed to the donate page -Immediately require campaigns to use industry-standard anti-fraud security technologies including, but not limited to, the Card Verification Value (CVV) and a rigorous Address Verification System (AVS) -Immediately require all campaigns to retain and disclose identifying information on all online campaign contributions, including those falling under the $200 nondisclosure threshold currently allowed under federal law -Address the threat of "Robo-Donations": The absence of industry-standard anti-fraud credit card security features render campaigns more vulnerable to so-called “robo-donations.” Robo-donations are large numbers of small, automated donations made through the Internet to evade FEC reporting requirements.
      - ceejayoz 14y ago
        http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/09/977251/why-the-obama-foreign-donation-scandal-is-pure-fiction/ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/09/977251/why-the-o... > Though not required by law, OFA requires a copy of a valid passport from any contributor who has been affirmed as eligible but donates with a mailing address outside the U.S. If they do not offer in one in a timely manner, the donation is returned. The big question, as with voter fraud, is really "is this happening much at all?" I suspect the answer is similar to that of voter fraud - "nope".
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]

ceejayoz 14y ago

> Why wasn't the CVV part of this page? Checking CVV isn't required, but may result in a higher transaction fee for the merchant. The campaign likely made a choice of "fewer fields = better conversion".

clarky07 14y ago
It's 100% certain that it would be less conversion. It's also nearly certain that they were accepting illegal foreign donations. In this case, conversion probably shouldn't be the deciding factor... (Note I'm sure the OP had 0 say in this, just wondering if there is an explanation other than better conversions) EDIT: To the downvotes, see my comment below http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4843963 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4843963 This isn't just about Obama, it's about all of the campaigns. Obama was just the most visible and highest raising, with a higher likelihood of attracting foreign money. It's also not just the CVV, but many many things that aren't being done (that aren't required yet but should be).
- ceejayoz 14y ago
  > It's also nearly certain that they were accepting illegal foreign donations. A CVV wouldn't make a difference for that, and given that US citizens live all over the world, there's realistically no way to prevent illegal foreign donations. What would you use? Name? American have all sorts of names. Credit card billing address? Americans live abroad. IP? Americans live abroad. SSN? Fakeable (ask a restaurant dishwasher in NYC), and I dunno if you can ask for it.
  - clarky07 14y ago
    It is a tiny minority of people that live overseas. It's reasonable to make them jump through an extra hoop or two to keep the rest of the money out of our elections. Note this isn't just Obama's campaign, many others have the same problems. The only thing partisan about this is that Obama is the most visible and also the most likely person to be receiving these illegal donations. As such, he should have been working harder to prevent them, not being the most lax in the group. http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/08/Report-Illegal-Foreign-Campaign-Donations-Assault-on-American-Sovereignty http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/10/08/Report-Il... The GAI report recommends election officials: -Integrate safeguards to limit the solicitation of money from foreigners by requiring donors with foreign IP addresses to provide proof of U.S. citizenship before they can proceed to the donate page -Immediately require campaigns to use industry-standard anti-fraud security technologies including, but not limited to, the Card Verification Value (CVV) and a rigorous Address Verification System (AVS) -Immediately require all campaigns to retain and disclose identifying information on all online campaign contributions, including those falling under the $200 nondisclosure threshold currently allowed under federal law -Address the threat of "Robo-Donations": The absence of industry-standard anti-fraud credit card security features render campaigns more vulnerable to so-called “robo-donations.” Robo-donations are large numbers of small, automated donations made through the Internet to evade FEC reporting requirements.
    - ceejayoz 14y ago
      http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/09/977251/why-the-obama-foreign-donation-scandal-is-pure-fiction/ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/09/977251/why-the-o... > Though not required by law, OFA requires a copy of a valid passport from any contributor who has been affirmed as eligible but donates with a mailing address outside the U.S. If they do not offer in one in a timely manner, the donation is returned. The big question, as with voter fraud, is really "is this happening much at all?" I suspect the answer is similar to that of voter fraud - "nope".
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]