Anyone receiving 1 cent donations?

[WebGoddessNH]

We are a non-profit, animal rescue group using PayPal to take donations through our website.  In the past couple months, I am seeing 1 cent donations come through.  Of course, the fees wipe this out and the donation becomes non-existent to us on our end, but I am becoming suspicious that these donations are perhaps being done in order to verify whether a credit card number is valid or for something illegal purpose in some other way.  Is anyone else seeing these 1 cent donations or an increase in the amount of them you encounter and what might be going on?

[robertswww]

They could be using your donate button to check on a credit card, but many credit card companies have fraud protection software, and a low purchase like that will throw up a red flag.

To eliminate the problem, you could set your button to have a minimum donation (for example $1) and put a note that the minimum to donate is $1.

Use the example code in the following thread...

Minimum Donation:
http://paypal.lithium.com/pdn/board/message?board.id=basicpayments&thread.id=12268

[upgar]

I have three theories about this:

1. The 1 cent donations are people testing PRE-PAID credit cards. These are a new type of card that is charged with money before use, rather than working on a credit basis. The fraudster donates 1 cent because they want to test the card without losing any of the money on it.

2. The people making 1 cent donations mistakenly believe that the donations incur charges that are paid by the recipient. In other words, they're jokers who are trying to cause the recipient to lose money. Let's be honest -- this kind of malicious person is not unusual on the Internet.

3. People are clearing out their accounts which have 1 cent left in them. In my case this appears to be wrong because I had several 1 cent donations from two identical sources.

Whatever the case, a 1 cent donation makes no sense at any stage for anybody. The receipient doesn't receive anything because Paypal's charges wipe it out. It probably costs Paypal more than the 1 cent they take to make it all happen. And it appears to be wide open to abuse.

[PennStateMtnMan]

I didn't read the entire thread, but maybe people are putting in 1 for 1 dollar thinking they are donating a buck, but in reality they are only donating a penny.

[skier]

Nope, there are dishonest folks testing your sites.  Code your item button code for a fixed amount.  It is what it is, fix your code.   Note, there are ways to script your code to prevent the 1 cent donation.  If you can't figure it out or don't want to code you're own stuff, no worries, simply contact a Developer.  This is the type of work these folks do for a living.

Regards,

skier

[BigKahuna97]

Wow......I guess the fraudsters have finally left the red cross alone now that PayPal non-profits are easier.  Looking at the chargeback list of fee's incurred by it........................just sad.  I think I will go ahead and transfer some sites to AlertPay today.

[mrsallikat]

This is obviously someone trying to get your credit card info. This happened to me last year. Unfortunately I didn't check my account until AFTER someone charged $1500+ to my credit card for a hotel catering service in New Mexico ( I live in NY & have never been any further west than Ohio). Long story short, it's a scam. I would cancel your existing Paypal account & also your credit cards associated with the account. It's a pain in the arse, but worth the trouble.

[nabbunchingu]

lol, it's most likely from the promotion Bank of America has been running for the past 4 years I believe called Keep the Change.  It basically states that by spending 1 cent they get the other 99 cents for free added to their account.  You can do research but it's most likely that and nothing to worry about.