“Mystery” Records
While reviewing your contact records in Donor Management, you might come a particular contact that you just don’t recognize. There are a couple of reasons that this might happen:
Someone did not complete their transaction on Fundraising Pages.
If someone makes a donation on one of your Fundraising Pages, they are prompted to enter their name and email address during the checkout process.
However, if that potential donor doesn’t actually finish the transaction, the name and email address that was entered during the checkout process is still added to Donor Management. After all, they may intend on completing that donation another way (such as a check), or may be looking to get involved with your organization in other ways – so retaining that potential donor’s info is important!
In instances such as this, you’ll be able to see information on that contact’s donor record, in the “Activity Feed” box, that indicates that they were added to your system via "integration sync.”
Someone filled out a Donor Management form that automatically adds contacts.
In some cases, a contact might be added if they’ve filled out a form – like a mailing list sign-up, or a volunteer interest survey.
When set up correctly, our forms allow you to automatically add a contact’s name and email address directly into Donor Management. (We’ll show you how to do this in a future module!)
In instances such as this, you’ll be able to see information on that contact’s donor record that indicates that they were added to the system via the form.
Someone is attempting to test credit cards on your Fundraising Pages.
If you’re noticing that there are several instances of unfamiliar contacts – particularly if the contact’s email address seems “spammy” or full of jibberish – it's possible that there may be someone attempting to test a credit card “script” on your donation page with the intention of performing further fraudulent activity in the future.
If you believe that this may be the case for your organization, please reach out to our Support Team and we will work with you to put safeguards up to deter this type of attempt in the future. We usually are aware of this type of attempt right away, particularly if there are multiple attempts being made over a short period of time – but it’s important to report these concerns, just in case we haven’t seen it quite yet!