Election Donation Scams?

I get lots of e-mails asking for donations to political causes.  Are these legit?

In my SPAM e-mail box is a plea (almost a threat, actually!) from "uniteDemocrats" to "re-join" their group (I never joined such a group - a first tipoff!) and donate a few dollars.  Curious, I searched online and found that the group was founded in February 2020, but the owners of the website are anonymous and located in Ontario, Canada.

Well, OK, I guess.  They don't want online harassment and maybe their domain name is registered with a Canadian entity for.... reasons.  After all, the Internet knows no national boundaries.

But what do they do with this money they want me to send them?  Not much, as it turns out. So far this year, they have spent about $50,000 on the election - a drop in the bucket in this era of hundred-million-dollar campaigns.  In 2022 they spent about five grand and in 2020 they spent about fifteen grand.

So what's the deal?  Are they just an unsuccessful PAC or is something else going on?  Who runs the PAC and what kind of salaries are they drawing?  We may never know!

In a way, this reminds me of charity scams that are out there.  You set up a charity with a name that sounds like a legitimate charity.  You hire yourself as CEO and your wife and relatives as employees.  You all draw six-figure salaries and then, to make it look "legit" you spend a pittance on the actual charity you claim to be supporting.  I have written about this before.

I am not saying "uniteDemocrats" is along the same lines, but the fact that the organizers of this PAC seem to remain anonymous (even on their website) is a big red flag.  The fact that they have spent only $50,000 so far to "defeat Republicans" is also troubling.  I am sure Peter Thiel is worried! It takes little effort to set up a website and collection donations.

Their physical address on their website (499 South Capitol St SW, Suite 407 Washington, DC 20003) is shown in the lightest of fonts (because, again, reasons) and appears to be little more than a mail drop or office front - we'll never know!  Why white-out the address?  Why no detailed description of what they are doing with their $50,000 spending?  Why so little spent?  Who are these people and why does ACTBLUE take donations for them?

Why does their "contact us" page link do nothing?

If you google their address, you get hits from a plethora of lobbying groups, including:

• Blue Wave Political Partners
• American Indian Impact
• American Association of Interior Designers (wtf?)
• Blue South PAC
• Defeat Republicans
• BFP PAC

And that's just the first page of Google!  Suite 407 is super-busy!

NOTE: UniteDemocrats.org does not seem to be anyway related to UniteDemocrats.com, which is a Maryland Democratic group.  Interesting, though, they have similar names!  The Maryland group seems to have gone dormant since the 2016 election, however.

I have more questions than answers - and throwing money into the void of the Internet is like throwing money away.

NOTE ALSO that I suspect that there may be scam PACs aimed at MAGA-heads.  In fact, I feel certain of this!

Donating to candidates is not a bad thing. Just make sure your donation goes to a candidate and not some lobbyist!