Whether you like it or not, Hillary Clinton’s message of “social justice” appeals to a large number of people who vote based on their self-interest, including women, the elderly and the poor.
Her campaign has even inspired a number of those voters, many who are already struggling to make ends meet, to donate what they believe is a small, one-time donation to her campaign, which has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars. But a couple of new stories that have recently been reported paint a disturbing picture: perhaps they’re being fleeced for their money without their knowledge.
Back in June, KARE-TV in Minneapolis-St. Paul reported on the story of 81-year-old Carol Mahre of Maplewood, Minn., who thought she was making a one-time $25 donation to Clinton’s campaign. But instead, her credit card has been charged multiple times—for varying amounts of less than $100—and when she has tried to get the charges to stop, no one at the Clinton campaign will respond to her complaint.
Her son, an attorney, attempted to get the matter resolved and actually made contact with someone at the Clinton campaign who pledged to stop the charges and refund the existing payments. Instead, new charges continued to appear on her credit card statements and no refunds were received.
Even KARE’s own investigative news team was unable to get a response from the Clinton camp. The matter remains unresolved as of this writing. According to a more recent report, however, her situation may not be isolated.
The New York Observer, a newspaper owned by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, reported Thursday that an unnamed source working in the fraud department for Wells Fargo stated this is happening to hundreds of Clinton “small money” donors. As Liz Crokin of The Observer says:
The overcharges are occurring so often that the fraud department at one of the nation’s biggest banks receives up to 100 phone calls a day from Clinton’s small donors asking for refunds for unauthorized charges to their bankcards made by Clinton’s campaign. One elderly Clinton donor, who has been a victim of this fraud scheme, has filed a complaint with her state’s attorney general and a representative from the office told her that they had forwarded her case to the Federal Election Commission.
“We get up to a hundred calls a day from Hillary’s low-income supporters complaining about multiple unauthorized charges,” a source, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of job security, from the Wells Fargo fraud department told the Observer. The source claims that the Clinton campaign has been pulling this stunt since spring of this year. The Hillary for America campaign will overcharge small donors by repeatedly charging small amounts such as $20 to the bankcards of donors who made a one-time donation. However, the Clinton campaign strategically doesn’t overcharge these donors $100 or more because the bank would then be obligated to investigate the fraud.
“We don’t investigate fraudulent charges unless they are over $100,” the fraud specialist explained. “The Clinton campaign knows this, that’s why we don’t see any charges over the $100 amount, they’ll stop the charges just below $100. We’ll see her campaign overcharge donors by $20, $40 or $60 but never more than $100.” The source, who has worked for Wells Fargo for over 10 years, said that the total amount they refund customers on a daily basis who have been overcharged by Clinton’s campaign “varies” but the bank usually issues refunds that total between $700 and $1,200 per day.
The fraud specialist said that Clinton donors who call in will attempt to resolve the issue with the campaign first but they never get anywhere. “They will call the Clinton campaign to get their refund and the issue never gets resolved. So they call us and we just issue the refund. The Clinton campaign knows these charges are small potatoes and that we’ll just refund the money back.”
Those calling in are only the donors who find the additional charges on their statements. There could be hundreds—or, likely, thousands—who don’t even bother to look at the statements and didn’t realize they’ve been continuously overcharged by the Clinton campaign.
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