Campaigns that aggressively raise money online are soliciting donations from people around the world—whether they intend to or not. People repost campaign solicitations on blogs that send them sprawling around the globe like digital kudzu. For example, an Obama campaign official posting ended up on Arabic Facebook, complete with a hyperlink to a donation page. In another instance, someone posted videos on Latin American websites featuring Sen. Marco Rubio, and included embedded advertisements asking for campaign donations.
In addition, people around the world are being asked for donations by the campaigns themselves, simply because they signed up for information on campaign websites. The problem: candidate webpages don’t ask visitors from foreign IP addresses to enter a military ID or passport number. Instead, the websites use auto-responder email systems that simply gather up email addresses and automatically spit out solicitations.
(refer to below and my BNN rant about Lolo, a registered Republican, being asked to send money ...typical email:
We cannot let that happen. Thank you for everything you've done to move this campaign forward, but now I hope you'll take one step further. Please donate $5 or more today:
https://donate.barackobama.com/Stand-With-Me
Thanks. It means a lot to know you've got my back.)
My problem is not just that scammers from China know how to bundle donations to hide that they are actually laundered money from big businesses in China, but that there is no way for me to know if the email is true, or if I open the email I'll find my computer infected with a virus, or find that the webpage link goes to a scamster busy stealing money.
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