Is there a GOOD reason many web sites won't accept credit cards with spaces and dashes in them? [closed]

Question

Is there a technical/legal/financial/contractual/design reason for not accepting credit card numbers with spaces in them?

So many web sites do not allow you to put spaces or dashes in a credit card number. I've always put this up to sloppy programming, but I've used merchant APIs before. If you can figure out how to process a credit card you can figure out how to strip characters from a string. The designers know they're generating a user frustration because they put a warning right on the web site. They're right there on the card! There's even a wall of shame for this.

False laziness, bad programming, callousness, sadism... all these assume the worst in the person doing the code. The most generous I can come up with is they're being really conservative with anything involving money. I've always wondered if there's some Deep And Really Important reason why you should not accept credit card numbers with spaces in them? Why you should absolutely not try to apply any heuristics. Maybe some bizarre financial law dating back to the telegraph age? Maybe they're unsung heroes, protecting us from some unknown evil lest we type in the credit card number of Hastur three times.

Answer 1

There really is no good reason other that laziness or time constraints.

Good UI's should adapt to the user and the multiple ways that users think about their data.

It's easy enough for the UI to adapt to the user entering dashes or spaces in the credit card.