Ask HN: Are Your Donations to EFF Triggering Bank Fraud Protection Measures?

9 points·wlj··5 comments

HSBC (UK) has erroneously blocked my monthly donations to the EFF on the basis of "fraud protection" for 2 consecutive months now and I'm wondering whether this is a more widespread issue.

Also, is there any good reason why the EFF would be triggering this type of transaction block with banks?

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Donations to charity in general often cause credit cards to be blocked -- my wife and I do this thing[1] where we give large amounts to multiple charities on the same day each year, and last year it took a couple days to get all the charges to be successful and cards unblocked.

I think the idea is that credit card thieves use charitable donations to figure out whether they have a valid card, so they're considered especially suspicious[2].

[1]: http://blog.printf.net/articles/2012/11/27/celebrating-seven...

[2]: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/070607-credit-card-thi...

This is true. I've had donations to Heifer delayed by credit cards before. I've heard is is pretty common.

In case you didn't know, the EFF takes bitcoin donations now.

and depending on your route in bitcoin may cause just as much scrutiny on your financial endpoints.

i haven't had problems, but do it annually (i can't remember how, but i would guess it's credit card). i am in chile.

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