Friends of Scott Walker are involved in credit card fraud? CapitalOne thinks so.
When MaryAnn Nellis tried to pay for groceries on April 14, her credit card was declined. Later, she said, she found out why: Her credit card company, Capital One, had flagged an earlier purchase as potentially fraudulent. The problem? A $5 donation to Friends of Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor’s campaign committee, Nellis said.
Nellis told a Capital One representative she had not made the donation to Walker, who is fighting an effort to recall him as governor in a closely watched, expensive election set for June 5.
“Over my dead body,” said Nellis, a potter and retired teacher in upstate New York who describes herself as “adamantly angry and upset” at Republicans such as Walker. Nellis disputed the charge and she was issued a new card.
Interesting…
We called Friends of Scott Walker and eZcontribution, the Wisconsin company that runs the website handling donations for Walker’s campaign, for an explanation, but no one would answer our questions.
Walker’s campaign spokeswoman, Ciara Matthews, emailed ProPublica on May 10 under the subject line of “follow up.”
“I received a message about the story you are doing,” she wrote. “The campaign does not comment on internal matters.”
“How about allegations of credit-card fraud?” we wrote back. “That’s hardly internal, it’s external.”
Matthews did not reply.
Ultimately, all we can say at this point is that Capital One appears to be flagging donations to Friends of Scott Walker as potentially fraudulent.
How ironic… A governor with a legal defense cooperation fund should have a campaign staff practicing fraud on his behalf. Well, perhaps not ironic. Rather more convenient than anything else.
So, what’s in your wallet?
Wow! What an excellent way to pump up those numbers of individual small donors to make yourself look like a man of the people. The list of legislators using this vendor is astonishing. And why imagine that this activity is confined to Capital One cards for fraudulent charges? Imagine how many people see a mysterious $5.00 charge on their card, but don’t think it’s worth the trouble to launch a full scale inquiry. That’s a big hassle for a lousy $5.00, and involves not being able to use your card until the new one arrives in the mail, etc. What a marvelous scam – it’s almost like a perfect crime!
This is freakin’ awesome. I read the entire A/W post in the classic “palm-to-forehead” pose.