This is definitely not a scam, but I'm concerned about the safety aspect. At Christmas I filled in a form for a well-known mid-size charity to make a donation by once-off credit card payment. They got back to me apologetically in January to say their procedures had to change at the request of the banks, and now they needed the CVV number along with the credit card number.
My understanding is that the CC number and CVV number should never be provided together for an offline transaction, because: "Handing over your CVV for purchases completed offline serves no purpose other than providing someone with the opportunity to steal the information. Because if they were to do this, they'd have everything they need to go ahead and make a bunch of fraudulent online transactions - on you!" (link).
I told them the other day that I wasn't happy putting the two numbers together on a paper form. (In fact, I don't want to do it over the phone either because I suspect they may not have the electronic systems to keep the two safely separate). Apart from figuring out a different way to donate (I probably have a cheque book gathering dust somewhere) should I be warning them that they're going to lose donations with the credit card/paper form approach? They are a very solid charity, one of the few with practically 100% volunteer staffing -- I wouldn't like to see them suffer because of a rickety system.
My understanding is that the CC number and CVV number should never be provided together for an offline transaction, because: "Handing over your CVV for purchases completed offline serves no purpose other than providing someone with the opportunity to steal the information. Because if they were to do this, they'd have everything they need to go ahead and make a bunch of fraudulent online transactions - on you!" (link).
I told them the other day that I wasn't happy putting the two numbers together on a paper form. (In fact, I don't want to do it over the phone either because I suspect they may not have the electronic systems to keep the two safely separate). Apart from figuring out a different way to donate (I probably have a cheque book gathering dust somewhere) should I be warning them that they're going to lose donations with the credit card/paper form approach? They are a very solid charity, one of the few with practically 100% volunteer staffing -- I wouldn't like to see them suffer because of a rickety system.