How the Trump Campaign Steered Supporters Into Unwitting Donations

Tom 1

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Which sales pitch do you prefer?

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Unbelievable. Is this kind of language 'We'll have to tell Trump' etc something new, or has the GOP always treated its supporters like idiots?
 
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Handmaid for Jesus

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Unbelievable. Is this kind of language 'We'll have to tell Trump' etc something new, or has the GOP always treated its supporters like idiots?
I heard a rumor that said that Trump moved from the Democratic party to the Republican party before he ran for office because he thought they were easier to con.[/QUOTE]
 
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adrianmonk

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No inconsequential amount, I would imagine. After all, what could be more "red" than making the wealthy wealthier?

Yep, this grift was definitely on brand.
 
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essentialsaltes

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Unbelievable. Is this kind of language 'We'll have to tell Trump' etc something new, or has the GOP always treated its supporters like idiots?

A few of the posts in my Silly Political Solicitations thread may provide you with some evidence of what the Trump-era GOP emails have been like. (for fairness, post #33 has one of Kamala's emails)

POLL ID: 17097149 - 2020
POLL RESPONSE: PENDING
DEADLINE: 9:00 PM TONIGHT

As of today, who will you vote for in 2020?

O President Trump

O A Socialist Fraud


-----

Remember, by becoming a Gold Card Member, you’ll also get your very own PERSONALIZED Gold Card to mark your status as one of the President’s strongest supporters.

Please contribute $35 or more by 11:59 PM TONIGHT to activate your Membership and we’ll send you your very own PERSONALIZED Gold Card. >>


---

You’ve always been a top supporter of mine, and to thank you, I want to offer you a spot on my Trump Presidential Honor Roll.

I’m only extending this offer to my most loyal supporters. The Presidential Honor Roll is a select group and I can only guarantee your spot for the next 3 hours. I hope you can accept your invitation to this distinguished group of Trump supporters.

Please contribute ANY AMOUNT to join my prestigious Trump Presidential Honor Roll.
[/B]
 
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Tom 1

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A few of the posts in my Silly Political Solicitations thread may provide you with some evidence of what the Trump-era GOP emails have been like. (for fairness, post #33 has one of Kamala's emails)

POLL ID: 17097149 - 2020
POLL RESPONSE: PENDING
DEADLINE: 9:00 PM TONIGHT

As of today, who will you vote for in 2020?

O President Trump

O A Socialist Fraud


-----

Remember, by becoming a Gold Card Member, you’ll also get your very own PERSONALIZED Gold Card to mark your status as one of the President’s strongest supporters.

Please contribute $35 or more by 11:59 PM TONIGHT to activate your Membership and we’ll send you your very own PERSONALIZED Gold Card. >>


---

You’ve always been a top supporter of mine, and to thank you, I want to offer you a spot on my Trump Presidential Honor Roll.

I’m only extending this offer to my most loyal supporters. The Presidential Honor Roll is a select group and I can only guarantee your spot for the next 3 hours. I hope you can accept your invitation to this distinguished group of Trump supporters.

Please contribute ANY AMOUNT to join my prestigious Trump Presidential Honor Roll.
[/B]

Seems legit.
 
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essentialsaltes

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You can see how well a sane solicitation works with the die-hard Trump supporters.

(Reading the subtext, this person donated on 12/5, i.e. after the election, no doubt to help the GOP 'stop the steal'.)

EyaKQyoVoAIbIu4
 
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DaisyDay

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Unbelievable. Is this kind of language 'We'll have to tell Trump' etc something new, or has the GOP always treated its supporters like idiots?
Not at all! My dog once signed on to become a "poll watcher" in 2016 which led to a slew of donation pleas but no info on how to actually do what she signed on for.

The solicitation pleas read very much like those of TV evangelists - a lot of fake intimacy. Sort of "we know who you are and we personally value your contribution". One from Eric read along the lines of, "Donate $5 now or my father will miss seeing your name on the list of close insiders". It was seriously bad like this.
 
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KCfromNC

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Not at all! My dog once signed on to become a "poll watcher" in 2016 which led to a slew of donation pleas but no info on how to actually do what she signed on for.

You can't tease us with this and then leave us hanging - was your dog conned into a repeating donation, or is it more savvy than Donald's supporters referenced in the OP?
 
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DaisyDay

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You can't tease us with this and then leave us hanging - was your dog conned into a repeating donation, or is it more savvy than Donald's supporters referenced in the OP?
No, she was not conned but that was in the early days before they perfected the grift.
 
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RocksInMyHead

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It seems counter-intuitive to try to hornswoggle the same people twice, but they actually tend to be the most profitable victims -- rather than admit to themselves that they've been cheated, they'll happily throw good money after bad.
Yep - or they're just gullible. If you fall for one of the call center scammers, for example, a lot of them will continue to milk you for months or years, convincing you that you need to keep buying their "antivirus" products. There are plenty of cases of people getting hoodwinked by multiple scammers simultaneously even.
 
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DaisyDay

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Yep - or they're just gullible. If you fall for one of the call center scammers, for example, a lot of them will continue to milk you for months or years, convincing you that you need to keep buying their "antivirus" products. There are plenty of cases of people getting hoodwinked by multiple scammers simultaneously even.
Sadly, they're proven gulls and their names are resold to other grifters.
 
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essentialsaltes

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You can see how well a sane solicitation works with the die-hard Trump supporters.

(Reading the subtext, this person donated on 12/5, i.e. after the election, no doubt to help the GOP 'stop the steal'.)

EyaKQyoVoAIbIu4

In a similar vein.

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wing2000

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Update:

"The aggressive fund-raising tactics that former President Donald J. Trump deployed late in last year’s presidential campaign have continued to spur an avalanche of refunds into 2021, with Mr. Trump, the Republican Party and their shared accounts returning $12.8 million to donors in the first six months of the year, newly released federal records show.

The refunds were some of the biggest outlays that Mr. Trump made in 2021 as he has built up his $102 million political war chest — and amounted to roughly 20 percent of the $56 million he and his committees raised online so far this year."

“It’s pretty clear that the Trump campaign was engaging in deceptive tactics,” said Peter Loge, the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University. “If you have to return that much money you are doing something either very wrong or very unethical.”

Trump’s Repeating Donation Tactics Led to Millions in Refunds Into 2021
 
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FireDragon76

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Fund raising - the Trump way....

Stacy Blatt was in hospice care last September listening to Rush Limbaugh’s dire warnings about how badly Donald J. Trump’s campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could: $500.

It was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in Kansas City on less than $1,000 per month. But that single contribution — federal records show it was his first ever — quickly multiplied. Another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week and every week through mid-October, without his knowledge — until Mr. Blatt’s bank account had been depleted and frozen.
.....
The Times also interviewed two dozen Trump donors who made recurring donations, as well as campaign officials, campaign finance experts and consumer advocates. Nearly a dozen bank and credit card officials from the nation’s leading financial institutions spoke for this article on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

A clear pattern emerged. Donors typically said they intended to give once or twice and only later discovered on their bank statements and credit card bills that they were donating over and over again. Some, like Mr. Blatt, who died of cancer in February, sought an injunction from their banks and credit cards. Others pursued refunds directly from WinRed, which typically granted them to avoid more costly formal disputes.
...
Jason Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, downplayed the rash of fraud complaints and the $122.7 million in total refunds issued by the Trump operation. He said internal records showed that 0.87 percent of its WinRed transactions had been subject to formal credit card disputes. “The fact we had a dispute rate of less than 1 percent of total donations despite raising more grass-roots money than any campaign in history is remarkable,” he said.

That still amounts to about 200,000 disputed transactions that Mr. Miller said added up to $19.7 million.


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How Trump Steered Supporters Into Unwitting Donations

That doesn't surprise me. Trump shows all the evidence of being a psychopath frequently engaged in white-collar crimes. Ripping off dying people wouldn't cause him to lose any sleep at night.
 
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