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The project can be funded but if he used a wrong cc # or expired the funds won't transfer, even though the project was 'funded.'

I don't think he would be liable for KS and Amazon fees for that as they are paid instantly when the transfer happens.

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Yeah, apparently this happened to a jewelry project on Kickstarter a while ago - one of the big backers turned out to have used a card without enough funds and the creator wound up on the hook for all the rewards, but without enough money to make them.

So a margin in funding to anticipate on such "bad luck" situation would be wise.

It seems like this scenario could be prevented even within the one-week pre-auth limit cited above. That is, pre-auth every donation a week before the campaign ends. The pre-auths that fail would then be subtracted from the total, and a week is long enough to either pay your credit card bill or decide that you can't contribute that much.

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