Why is the credit card entry usability of ecommerce web sites so bad? "Enter card number: (no spaces or dashes)" says the form, over and over again, on site after site.

Isn't this what computers are for? Can't the code remove the punctuation for me? And why do I have to tell them whether the card is a Visa, Mastercard, or Amex? The first digits on the card make that clear.

It's like the site wants to make it hard for me to buy something. Is this some sort of Visa requirement, to only accept the number exactly as typed by the user?

techbad
  2003-03-13 16:25 Z