When people visit a candidate's website to send a donation via credit card, there are some verifications (matching the card number to the name entered, etc.) that are legally required to be in place to help prevent illegal donations from being made. It's the same system that pretty much all online vendors (like Amazon.com) use to verify valid purchases.
Last week, it was discovered that Barack Obama's website had deliberately disabled those verifications.
John Galt at the conservative blog Atlas Shrugs broke the news late last week. Soon after, any number of right-wingers tested the system using faulty information, then turned around and tested McCain's website with the exact same faulty information. McCain's website booted the attempted donations, while Obama's accepted them. Some people grabbed screenshots of the entire donation process, proving the fraud. Before the day was done, a wide variety of crazy names (or non-names) and addresses (or non-addresses) had been attempted, and it was conclusively proven that Obama's website would accept literally any donation from anyone with any address anywhere, no matter what. For example:
Frankly, its easier than I'd believe to do this. Courtesy of my (real) CC number and expiration date, the Obama campaign has just received a $19.45 donation from mister Adolf Hitler, whose occupation is "Dictator" at the company "National Socialist Party of Ger" (I got cut off). I captured screenshots to prove this.And:No verification required. The listed address wasn't even close to my real address.
Of course, foreign donations are illegal, but that hasn't stopped Obama from accepting them before (here). Also, this loophole on his website would allow anyone to circumvent the caps on donations - any fraudster could simply enter another name while using the same credit card. Given that Obama has refused to reveal the details of all donations less than $200, there could very plausibly be an army of fraudsters sitting around with Soros-provided AmExes donating small chunks of change all day long. Remember, Obama raised $150 million in September. That works out to $5 million per day, $208,333 per hour, $3,472 per minute, and $58 per second! For a nation in the deep depression that Obama claims we're in, that's a heckuva lot of money!I have a credit card issued by a bank in Hong Kong.
I've just made 5 donations of $5 each using the card. I listed fake addresses in North Korea, Iran, Gaza, Venezuela and Kenya. The names and addresses were made up, each was different, I listed real Yahoo email addresses that forward to me.
Fake Name
Not A. Realperson
Finance Violation
Fraudulent Charge
Over Donation LimitAll 5 went through without a problem. I'm already being solicited for more money.
So, was a mistake made, and the software was set up incorrectly? No:
This is quite deliberate. The Address Verification System has to be specifically disabled to allow this fraud:What if their software sucked and just didn't have that verification functionality? No dice there, either:
Having worked for companies that process credit cards online, it is necessary to go through and manually disable the safeguards that they put in place to verify a person's address and zip code with the cardholder's bank. But international banks don't currently have the same safeguards that banks in the US have, which also works in the One's favor.So most likely they've disabled the necessary safeguards for US cards which their merchant bank would be angry about if they found out since it exposes them to risk, as well as international cards which is an even greater risk because there's no way to verify the information electronically for most countries, so they could just say they're in the US with phony info and the card will still process online. The One could then just claim that they said they were from America.
Senator Clinton's website worked with a reputable company that had the same safeguards in place for her online donations, seems like someone just doesn't like to play by the rules that credit card companies have put in place.
They could easily do that through the coding on their website, and an organization like a campaign would have the resources to do it. If I had to guess, it would probably cost 200-400 dollars to get a programmer to add that functionality to a payment gateway if their system didn't have that in place already. But then you can't have someone donating millions of dollars in 100 dollar increments under different names, and we can't have that now can we?
Here's an explanation of the functionality itself:
So, Obama has disabled all verification on his website. Here are a couple suggestions on how to make use of the fraud:Huusker explains the system that Obama disabled. Intentionally.
It's called the Address Verification System (AVS). When you submit a credit card to the processor for authorization you get back one of four responses: zipcode match, address match, both match, or neither match.AVS is automatic and can't be turned off. You can, however, override it in special circumstances. It looks like Obama's web site has the AVS-override turned on permanently.
Is there any legitimate reason to do this? No.
Visa/MC banks hate it when merchants blow off AVS, as it increases the risk of chargebacks (which are a hassle/expense for the bank to handle). Consequently they demand a much higher discount rate to take cards with AVS-overrides.If a merchant's chargeback rate goes above 1% the banks will wallop the merchant with research fees. Merchants with high chargeback rates (like porn sites) can end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in extra monthly fees in order to be able to continue to accept cards, on top of huge discounts on each transaction.
If the donations list is published we could always do a bunch of donations as William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright etc. and then publicize that Obama's taking donations from these indidividuals. The only way to avoid the connection is to admit that they allow anonymous donation which, if I understand correctly, is a violation of federal law. I'd think an amusing ad could be put together from the already published donor list. The tag line is that if Obama would let his contributors lie to give him money who else is lying to him? That plays off the trust, experience and judgement angles all at the same time.
While those are amusing suggestions, the problem is very, very serious. Legally speaking, as long as the Obama campaign makes a few visible signs of returning some of the fraudulent donations, they can probably get away with it. The only thing that would really hammer them is if the media makes so much noise that a big chunk of the American public starts asking questions. Of course, we all know that the media are in Obama's pocket, so there's zero chance of that happening. Newsmax and a few others on the Right have been reporting on donor fraud for months, but unfortunately it's been a fart in a hurricane for all the exposure it's gotten.A reader anticipates Senator Obama's statement on fraudulent donations:
This isn't the credit card machine I knew when I was in the New Party. Anyway, I was only 4 years old when credit card machines were invented.
Meanwhile, don't forget, it's easy and convenient to donate to the Obama campaign with your Visacorn, MessiahCard, God Damn American Express and, for all you investigative reporters out there, your Nothing To Discover card.
Is this just sour grapes from Republicans? Oh, no. There are plenty of Hillary Democrats who are hopping mad about it, too. They've accused Obama of fraudulent donations, fraudulent registrations, and actual voter fraud in the primary caucuses, too.
Already in Iowa, the Obama campaign was breaking the rules, busing in supporters from neighboring states to vote illegally in the first contest in the primaries and physically intimidating Hillary supporters, they say.
In Hawaii, for example, the caucus organizers ran out of ballots, so Obama operatives created more from Post-its and scraps of paper and dumped them into ice cream buckets. "The caucuses ended up with more ballots than participants, a sure sign of voter fraud," Long said.
In Nevada, Obama supporters upturned a wheelchair-bound woman who wanted to caucus for Hillary, flushed Clinton ballots down the toilets, and told union members they could vote only if their names were on the list of Obama supporters.
In Texas, more than 2,000 Clinton and Edwards supporters filed complaints with the state Democratic Party because of the massive fraud. The party acknowledged that the Obama campaign's actions "amount to criminal violations" and ordered them to be reported to state and federal law enforcement, but nothing happened.
In caucus after caucus, Obama bused in supporters from out of state, intimidated elderly voters and women, and stole election packets so Hillary supporters couldn't vote. Thanks to these and other strong-arm tactics, Obama won victories in all but one of the caucuses, even in states such as Maine where Hillary had been leading by double digits in the polls.
Obama's win in the caucuses, which were smaller events than the primaries and were run by the party, not the states, gave him the margin of victory he needed to win a razor-thin majority in the delegate count going into the Democratic National Convention.
I just finished reading David Freddoso's book, "The Case Against Barack Obama", and it was outstanding. One of the many factoids that he presented was that David Axelrod -- Obama's top campaign adviser -- came from the corrupt Chicago political machine established and run by the infamous Mayor Daley. It appears that the same tactics that work in Chicago also work throughout the rest of the country.
First it was ACORN, now it's donor money - Obama is working hard to steal this election! The only antidote to Obama's fraud is the TRUTH. If you're reading this blog, you've been given the truth, and it is now up to you to share it with others. Send them the link to this blog, send them the articles I link to, talk to them, e-mail them, whatever. The key is to spread the truth as far and wide as possible. While the Obots have proved themselves incapable of rational and logical thought (or simply unwilling to engage in it), most Americans won't put up with having their elections stolen by a corrupt politician. Despite his preaching about a new kind of politics, and despite all his hot air about hope-n-change, Barack Obama is simply a thuggish street organizer all dressed up in fancy suits with massive (corrupt and illegal) funding, preying on racial and economic fears to deceive his way into the White House. But, if the truth about him becomes known to enough people, he will not win.
That must be our primary goal for the next eight days. The American way of life as we know it depends on reaching that goal.
There's my two cents.
Sources:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/10/obama-camp-continues-mega-million.html
http://minx.cc/?post=276395 [***language warning***]
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NTEzZTUwZWJkNmQ2M2RkMmMyN2NhYmZhODhlZGRlYmM=
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YmFjNmY0OTMzYjA0YTZkMGE5YjM1MGY2YzVjNDZhNmM=
http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/194544.php
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTI5OTdiZWI1YmZkNDViMmQzYWE2ZDIyMTBlMDhjYjQ=
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10272008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/dubious_donations_135428.htm?page=0
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/obama_voter_fraud/2008/10/27/144303.html?s=al&promo_code=6E3F-1
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