Election season will soon be coming to a close and Political Action Committees (PACs) are busy raising money to funnel to candidates and organizations trying to influence legislation.  Unfortunately, for the last ten years scammers have been setting up phony PACs that promise to use your money on behalf of your favored candidate or cause, but instead keep the money for their own use.  Often the scammers use telemarketing to contact their victims.

One of the more notorious PAC scammers is Harold Taub who set up two phony PACs to appeal to both Republican and Democratic donors, but kept never registered the PACs with the the Federal Election Commission (FEC) as required by law and kept the money he received from donors for himself.  Taub was convicted of wire fraud and of violating the Federal Election Campaign Act and was sentenced to three years in prison and order to pay back more than 1.1 million dollars to the victims of his crime.

In addition, phony charities are also using telemarketing to reach people to contribute to their scams.

It is important to note that even if you are on the federal Do Not Call List, you can be contacted by legitimate PACs and legitimate charities, but unfortunately, you can’t tell when you are contacted by a telemarketer whether or not the call is legitimate or not.  Using a technique called “spoofing” a scammer can manipulate your Caller ID to make their calls appear to come from a legitimate PAC or charity.

Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal is spearheading efforts in Congress along with the Federal Election Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on these scams

TIPS

Legitimate PACs are required to file with the Federal Election Commission so before giving to any PAC you should check with the FEC to determine if the PAC has filed the necessary documents.  If it isn’t registered it is a scam.  Unfortunately, even if you find the PAC soliciting your donation is registered, scammers have registered phony PACs and falsify the financial documentation of their spending which they are required to file so merely because a PAC is registered does not mean that it is legitimate.

Limiting your donations to well established PACs is a good policy to avoid being scammed.

Also, if a PAC doesn’t ask for your employment information and citizenship status it is a scam because legitimate PACs are barred from taking donations from federal contractors or foreign nationals, which is why legitimate PACs will always inquire about your job status and citizenship.

As for charities, since you can’t be sure when you are contacted by a charity whether or not they are legitimate, the best course of action is to go to charitynavigator.org where you can find out if the charity is legitimate as well as how to contact legitimate charities to make a contribution.

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