I just purchased some text-link-ads for kicks because they had a $100 off coupon, but when I went to pay I saw this:

Oh, Text Link Ads. If you aren’t already swamped with fraudulent credit card purchasing, you should be. I’ve never seen a credit card form that told you specifically which information was wrong. Doesn’t that help someone with bad intent? Most web companies won’t even tell you these days whether you typed your password OR your user ID wrong, but TLA is showing you which field on the credit card authorization is bad!

Imagine this as an in person dialog between Evil Eve and Benign Bob:

Eve: Here, I’d like to buy this sweater
Bob: That will be $25.
Eve: *hands over a card*
Bob: Credit, right?
Eve: Wait, I am not sure.
Bob: I’ll try credit.
Eve: Thanks.
Bob: It didn’t work, would you like to try debit?
Eve: It’s a stolen card–maybe that will work?
Bob: OK. YAY! You’ve bought your sweater!

This is a story for Bruce Schneier and Boing Boing, both of which would get a kick out of this hilarious but scary error message.