Published: June 7th, 2012 • Last Updated: January 7th, 2021
Author: Ross Taylor on AskRoss.ca

When you’re donating online – check the dollar amount before submitting!

A couple of days ago a friend sent me an email asking me to support his efforts in Relay for Life on behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society. No problem, I clicked the link and quickly sized things up. His campaign goal was a modest $200, and I decided $20 from me was about right, and would help kick start his campaign.

I filled out the credit card authorization form and pressed the submit button and sat back to wait for the transaction to complete. It was then I noticed that my donation was not $20, but for whatever reason I had key stroked in $209! I lurched forward and hit the cancel button before my payment went through.

Darn if this wasn’t the only time in recent memory that an online transaction of mine did not require seven levels of verification. Nope, this one was already in the hopper and nothing was gonna stop it. A few seconds later their confirmation page popped up thanking me for the $209 donation.

I decided I had better nip this in the bud, and immediately sent an email to the site owner, explaining the error, and asking them to reverse the $209 and take the $20 I had intended. By this afternoon I got a friendly email response advising they had reversed the error – no harm, no foul.

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