Wisconsin's Weekend Morning News
Who Are Your Political Donations Really Going To?
So while we know there's thousands of political action committees or PACS registered with the Federal Elections Commission, and these PACS fundraise and solicit donations to campaign for or against federal candidates, and the different issues that they may want to support, but unfortunately, bad actors also create PACS. These are ill-intentioned PACS that also solicit donations, but little to no money raised is spent on the political campaigning. Instead, these scammers pocket the money for themselves. Sometimes a single scammer might create dozens of fake PACS all at one time, and so we really want consumers to be mindful of that, because we want the money that they are going to be providing to these PACS to support the causes or candidate that they desire. Now you know a lot of us, we feel strongly about certain issues or candidates, but how do we know if some of these solicitations are legitimately from the groups that we support? - Well, that's the difficult part here, is it's very hard to track. I mean, scammers ask for small donations, totally less than $200, so they can avoid disclosing donor information to the FDEC, which makes it harder for law enforcement officials to identify them and their victims, and that means it's gonna be more difficult to track how they're using those funds, and if they're actually going to support causes. So we wanna be sure that you are cautious. Do not give money to a PAC unless you can do a verification, and that means checking them out with the Federal Elections Commission, and be sure that it lists the name and contact information of its leaderships and organizations, and only provide donations to the actual organization. Be cautious if a PAC will only accept donations via mail or through a PO box. - And also, there's one important question that these PACS and election committees need to be asking you. - Yes, the PACS do need to verify that you are a citizen, so be sure that they are asking you that question in order to accept that donation money. - All right, so if we need to have more information, if you think maybe this might not be legitimate, who do we need to call? - Paul Consumer Protection at DadCap, 1-800-422-7128, but I do wanna make sure people know to visit the FEC.gov to learn more about any PAC and how it spends its money.