Since you do not need to be a registered member to put loans in your basket, anyone can load up on loans. Auto charging would not work for a lot of reasons.
Tracking cookies are how most, if not all, e-commerce sites keep track of what you are doing online. Managing the basket with cookies is easy. All they have to do is the manage bit.
However, there are ways around it, like deleting cookies, spoofing your IP address, etc. 99.9% of folks would not do that. Simple measures to limit gross problems would greatly improve the current situation.
1) Limit unregistered baskets - you do not want to turn off prospective lemders, but set clear expectations - "Thanks for choosing to help a Kiva Borrower, next step is to register. Please register in the now so your basket can be processed - Thanks"
2) While there are certainly people who do make significantly large loans to a single borrower, I think a sliding scale where the more in a basket the shorter the time to fund would be. Once again set expectaions, "Due to the popularity of loans, we ask you to check out when your basket exceeds $500.00" Someone who is serious about loans would have no problem commiting.
3) to help handle loans with "special value" - time, popularity, un-popularity, etc, Show how much is in a basket. If you want a piece, click on it, it alerts the other basket holder - not too hard to do - "Due to the popularity this loan, we ask you to check out now, as other lenders have requested to fund it as well" - if not funded in 15 minutes, the next in que gets it. Limit this feature to $25.00, so fakes cannot just pass around the whole total.
There are a million ideas. The idea is to make Kiva better, easier to use, fair, get loans funded, - where is the downside to this
