Hillary Clinton 'Systematically Overcharging' Her Poorest Donors to Fund Her Campaign

Hillary for America processed a total of $94 in unauthorized charges to Carol Mahre's US Bank account. This follows a pattern in which unwitting donors are charged multiple times, but always for a total of less than $100, which is a key trigger point for banks' internal action systems.

Hillary Clinton's campaign is stealing from her poorest supporters by purposefully and repeatedly overcharging them after they make what's supposed to be a one-time small donation through her official campaign website, multiple sources tell the Observer.

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 $1200 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."

The source said that pornography companies often deploy a similar arrangement pull. "We see this same scheme with a lot of seedy porn companies," the source said. The source also notes that the dozens of phone calls his department receives daily are from people who notice the fraudulent charges on their statements. "The people who call us are just the ones who catch the fraudulent charges. I can't imagine how many more people are getting overcharged by Hillary's campaign and they have no idea."

The New York Times reported in 2007 that Clinton’s first presidential campaign had to refund and subtract hundreds of thousands of dollars from its first-quarter total often because donors’ credit cards were charged twice. Additionally, it was reported that Clinton had to refund a stunning $2.8 million in donations, three times more than the $900K President Barack Obama’s campaign refunded.

Another bank source told the Observer that Clinton’s motivation in purposefully overcharging donors is not only to rake in more money for her campaign but also to inflate her small donor numbers reported to the FEC. “This gives a false impression about how much money Clinton has raised,” the source said. “The money that the bank has refunded would not be reflected in the FEC filings till after the election. This gives off the illusion to the public that her support and the amount she’s raised is much greater than what it is in reality.”