Donald Trump forced to pay back $122 million in donations after supporters were tricked into...

[ClearSky24]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9434165/Donald-Trump-forced-pay-64-million-supporters-2020-presidential-campaign-scam.html

President Donald Trump has been forced to pay back $122 million to donors who were tricked into making recurring payments to his 2020 reelection campaign.

A New York Times investigation found Trump's fundraising campaign employed deceptive fundraising tactics that saw thousands of his supporters unwittingly sign up to give repeat contributions, when they had only intended to make a one-off payment.

The 'scam', which involves pre-ticked boxes on fundraising emails often buried under lines of fine print, sparked thousands of complaints to banks and credit card companies.

Among the victims were elderly and military veterans, as well as some experienced political operatives, and many have been left with overdraft fees and busted credit card limits.

Complaints from donors prompted the Trump campaign to eventually reimburse $122 million in contributions.

[Firestorm49]

1. So the old fool goes and does it again. Brilliant.

[brush]

4. Just a crook at heart. Old leopards can't change spots.

[Mazeltov Cocktail]

36. The old fools were the cult followers who contributed in the first place...

I have dozens of personalized emails from Eric Trump telling me that his dad is asking him daily why I'm not contributing to the "Stop the Steal"® campaign... I'm sorry for these suckers but...no, actually I'm not... they'll probably donate to Jerry Falwell next...

[StClone]

53. Stop the steal lol

[lame54]

74. It was - he gets to keep 90%...

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=15304011

[Beachnutt]

2. serves them and him right...

[COL Mustard]

65. Just Goes To Show

There really is one born every minute. And a fool and his money are soon parted.

What a way to piss off your base.

[theneworiginal]

80. They could have given all that money to a good cause like Steve Bannon's wall.

Or the Matt Gaetz Sex wit Grownups Fund.

[demosincebirth]

3. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

[malaise]

5. How many of them have publicly condemned this fucking criminal?

Who ran the company that designed this theft? Being conned by a known Con is...what's the word?

[LakeArenal]

20. Fool me once shame on you.

Fool me twice.... won’t get fooled again.

One could almost miss Bushie’s GOP logic.

[malaise]

21. Who would donate to this monster?

I have no sympathy for them

[DontBelieveEastisEas]

30. The Who? "Won't Get Fooled Again"

Who ? No, The Who. It is called "Won't Get Fooled Again"
And it is a political song.

[3Hotdogs]

62. The post refers to George Bush when he was making a point...

Fool me once, shame on me.

Fool me twice... aw... I won't get fooled again.

[COL Mustard]

66. I'm Sure Most Of Them Are Blaming Biden

Or the Dems. T***p would NEVER do anything like this! 🤣😂🤣

[malaise]

68. Ha

[IronLionZion]

78. Deep state is diabolical like that

[COL Mustard]

81. Ain't That The Truth!!!

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

6. AND they probably still support him.

[certainot]

22. this will never be news on RW radio and probably not fox so the rest of the base

will never hear about it except as another example of liberal media lies

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

55. I am talking about the people he stole from still supporting him.

Except for Blatt of course.

[DENVERPOPS]

58. I will bet

there are a ton more of his trumphumpers that are too embarrassed to report he screwed them too.

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

59. I agree.

[NewJeffCT]

70. Trump will turn around & attack the "Failing" NY Times

and his supporters will think it's the fault of the NY Times.

[EYESORE 9001]

7. Who, exactly, 'forced' rumpco to pay back the money?

I didn't see anything at the linked article about who or what forced this payback. It's completely out of character for the orange menace to pay back any amount of money without extreme coercion, such as a lawsuit, and nothing like that was mentioned. Thanks, but I will wait until a reputable news source corroborates this.

[Haggard Celine]

8. I agree.

He usually gets away with his grifts. I'll believe he's paying when I see it.

[groundloop]

54. Worst case is that The Former Occupant of the White House got a huge interest free loan.

[Karadeniz]

11. That's what I was wondering. If he'd been sued, I'd have thought the news would've been all over it!

[AZLD4Candidate]

17. New York Times via Forbes Magazine

Former President Donald Trump's reelection campaign issued a staggering sum of $122.7 million in refunds to supporters in 2020, giving back nearly 11% of the money it raised, according to an investigative report published by the New York Times on Saturday based on an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings.

Key Facts

Beginning last summer, the Trump campaign and the company that processed its online donations, WinRed, began to initiate the use of pre-checked recurring payment boxes while processing online offerings, Times analysis revealed.

According to the report, unless donors inspected the fine print of an online disclaimer and manually unchecked an opt-out box, the donor's credit card would be charged weekly until Election Day arrived.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/04/03/trump-campaign-reportedly-forced-to-refund-more-than-122-million-to-donors/?sh=3736247b58a3

[thesquanderer]

31. "Forced" probably means the credit card companies took it.

When people dispute charges, if the company (Trump in this case) can't convince the credit card issuer that the charge is legitimate, the credit card company will issue a credit to the customer. But credit card companies don't take the hit. They then take the money from the entity that charged it in the first place.

Over-simplified example: Shady business is generating $1 million a day in Mastercard charges. Mastercard refunds $100k to people who said they were duped (since shady business could not convince them otherwise). Mastercard then deducts $100k from the next day's payout to the business. So in that sense, the company is "forced" to give back the money. They're not writing checks or issuing refunds... the money is basically being clawed back out of their account.

[Demsrule86]

32. credit card companies...they take the money back in cases of fraud.

[PSPS]

40. The merchant bank was on the hook

The bank that handles the transactions has very strict rules on these things. They will simply claw back the money and issue the refunds themselves. Otherwise, they'll be out of business because Visa/Mastercard/ACH, etc., will yank their license.

[IronLionZion]

75. Banks received tons of fraud complaints and canceled credit cards

so they must have forced it

[monkeyman1]

9. rite now I don't believe a damn word of it ! where is 255million stop the steal. didn't stop him

[SergeStorms]

10. The Art of the Grift.

He could actually write (or dictate) that book himself. No need of a ghostwriter for that book, Don the Con.

[dflprincess]

26. A good grifter doesn't get caught

Trump isn't any better at being a crook than hge was at being a businessman.

[efhmc]

72. Or a president and in that case all Americans were made to pay.

[multigraincracker]

12. How about lawyer fees and

Punitive Damages? Should double it.

[Shellback Squid]

13. let him keep the money, I feel nothing for those that were fleeced

fuck them

[nattyice]

46. Yup, I agree 100%

[nvme]

14. Caveat Emptor

They blindly give to their dear leader and dont realize that he is malicious at heart. Forgive them for they know not what they do.

[TheRickles]

15. It wasn't Trump, per se, who paid back the donations.

It was the company that ran the fundraiser, per the New York Times (via the Boston Globe):
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/04/04/nation/how-trump-steered-supporters-into-unwitting-donations/

[George II]

16. Hopefully there are hefty fines and penalties involved.

[Irish_Dem]

18. Think of all the times he didn't get caught or have to pay back the money.

$122 million is a drop in the bucket.

[marble falls]

19. Shouldn't that be all it takes to bunk him with say Bernie Madoff?

[UGADawg]

23. Thom Hartmann has talked about this for months**

*

[Dave Starsky]

38. Yep. He discovered this at the very start.

He made a $5 donation to Trump's campaign early on, just to track what they were doing with their mailings. Apparently, the "opt-out" feature was also hidden in minuscule font that would be easily missed by anyone with visual difficulties--like, for instance, an elderly person donating half of their Social Security check to the Moron Messiah.

[Turbineguy]

24. You would think he would figure out a way to scam those

who would not vote for him. Instead he screws those who support him.

[Dave Starsky]

41. Only his idiot cultists would ever fall for his bullshit.

Literally everyone else has his number and has for a long time. He fools no one but the stupid, starstruck, and the willfully ignorant.

[BobTheSubgenius]

25. Another thing that's kinda weird...

The link says "64 million people," and the $122M sum was repeated. For both of these figures to be correct, the average refund was around $1.90.

I think either the fact-checking or the editing came up a bit short.

[progressoid]

57. It's the Daily Mail. They aren't exactly known for their journalistic accuracy.

NYTimes article is more clear. Perhaps this is where they got the 64 million number from?

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/03/us/politics/trump-donations.html

...The tactic ensnared scores of unsuspecting Trump loyalists — retirees, military veterans, nurses and even experienced political operatives. Soon, banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars.

“Bandits!” said Victor Amelino, a 78-year-old Californian, who made a $990 online donation to Mr. Trump in early September via WinRed. It recurred seven more times — adding up to almost $8,000. “I’m retired. I can’t afford to pay all that damn money.”

The sheer magnitude of the money involved is staggering for politics. In the final two and a half months of 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their shared accounts issued more than 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million to online donors. All campaigns make refunds for various reasons, including to people who give more than the legal limit. But the sum the Trump operation refunded dwarfed that of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign and his equivalent Democratic committees, which made 37,000 online refunds totaling $5.6 million in that time.

The recurring donations swelled Mr. Trump’s treasury in September and October, just as his finances were deteriorating. He was then able to use tens of millions of dollars he raised after the election, under the guise of fighting his unfounded fraud claims, to help cover the refunds he owed.

[yardwork]

69. This is important. Trump used the I'll-gotten money he received to pay for his campaign.

All these people still voted for him.

[BobTheSubgenius]

82. Your final sentence is the mind-blowing part!

[BobTheSubgenius]

83. Yes, that makes far more sense. Thanks for the info.

Still weird, though. The average refund is thus a shade over $12.

[orleans]

27. i'm feeling like a bitch today so i'm gonna say fuck those people; idiots who were

so in love with that orange prick they didn't bother noticing the checked boxes.

i can see a court stopping the recurring payments but a refund? i feel like they deserve what they got.

thom hartmann talked about those checked boxes several times.

[monkeyman1]

28. ya nailed it !

[NurseJackie]

45. Your words mirror my husband's words...

... no pity.

[BadGimp]

29. Can you imagine the RageFest if the Biden campaign had done this?

[Crunchy Frog]

33. Well, you need to be a little cautious when interacting financially

with a known grifter and conman.

Not feeling particularly sympathetic.

[FakeNoose]

44. This!

If Chump wanted to rip off billionaires, I'd say "Go ahead and knock yourself out." But of course the billionaires have accountants and lawyers working for them to make sure the rip-offs don't happen. It's the poor senior citizens who sit home and lap up every lie from Faux Noise, who are giving away their social security funds. They're the ones who are getting cheated.

Yes they should have known better than to place their complete trust in a conman.

[Cozmo]

34. Did these fools actually get their money back?

tRump never pays anyone for anything.

[hobby10113]

79. My thoughts exactly

Wasn’t there a piano store he still owes that gave up going after him.

[paleotn]

35. Awww. Poor Donnie Covid and poor magats.

I have no sympathy for the con or the conned.

[Akakoji]

37. There is zero proof this hapoened

Who forced its campaign to give back money? Sorry I don’t believe it.

[TheRickles]

52. New York Times

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/04/04/nation/how-trump-steered-supporters-into-unwitting-donations/

[dchill]

39. "That makes me smart."

[AllyCat]

42. Is this real?

Daily mail

[TheRickles]

51. New York Times

(as carried by the Boston Globe): https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/04/04/nation/how-trump-steered-supporters-into-unwitting-donations/|

[Botany]

43. And how many of the victims of this scam ...

.... still voted for Trump?

[Blue Owl]

47. Nice try Donny, you fat fuck piece of shit

[Wash. state Desk Jet]

48. It was just a matter of time

before the reason they pulled the campaign adds came into full view !!! Paying for it with stolen monies. Begging for those five dollar donations.

[bamagal62]

49. My question is..

Did the idiots vote for him after that?

[peppertree]

50. And most of them would again

This is why most con men who go into politics choose to be Repugs: They're so damned easy.

"The stupidest people you'll ever meet," as Trump himself once put it (not all of them - but a lot, anyway).

[COL Mustard]

67. Of Course They Did!

That nice man would never do something like this...it’s either fake news or Biden was really behind it. Maybe Hunter Biden...he needs a new laptop, you know!

🤣🤣🤣

[LetMyPeopleVote]

56. The Trump campaign accounting for up to 3% of ALL CREDIT CARD FRAUD CLAIMS IN THE ENTIRE US

Link to tweet

[W T F]

60. Conservatives have always been an easy con for republicans.

[mountain grammy]

61. I love this story. Read it several times.

Suckers

[Buckeye_Democrat]

63. Trump: "I love the poorly educated!"

Of course you do, Donnie Disease.

[DFW]

64. It's not a purely Republican disease

It's one of the several reasons i quit using Act Blue many years ago. They often used to check the "make it monthly" box automatically. If I didn't uncheck it myself, I got hit for the charge on a regular basis against my intentions.

There were other reasons as well for me ceasing to contribute through them, but that was something I found particularly irritating. I hear they have stopped doing it, but others who still use them would have to confirm that.

[efhmc]

73. No longer does that. Ask you if you want to but the once only box is highlighted.

[DFW]

77. Makes sense

Enough people must have complained. I can’t imagine I was a lone voice in the wilderness.

[xxqqqzme]

71. And which 'fund raising'

scam did he use to pay back the $122 million? You know that $122 M was spent as fast as it came in.

[Lonestarblue]

76. This scam was perpetrated through the Republican fund-raising site WinRed.

And it was legal! They buried a prechecked box saying tat the contribution would be recurring, and then soon changed the recurrence from monthly to weekly. As the greed by the Trump campaign increased, they added a prechecked box to double the donations. Unlike the Democrats’ ActBlue, which is nonprofit, WinRed is a for-profit business and they refused to refund the fees they earned on all the overcharges, so people who got refunds still paid fees to WinRed. Republicans never miss an opportunity to screw people, even their own supporters. Why on earth would you continue to vote for someone like Trump, who just wants to use you as a cash withdrawal machine!