While preparing a follow-up post to Nick’s Two Identity Tests You Can Run I was reminded that not only is “donor identity”—the core reason for a person’s giving– powerful, but that it can also be powerfully misused.

Nowhere is this more evident than when it comes to money raising for unethical or scam charities and scam political committees.

I don’t think many folks would fall for an appeal seeking contributions to The Fund for the Widow of The Unknown Soldier. But the scammers are more clever than that.  I saw this six years ago when the Agitator reported on a series of multi-million dollar charity scams.  Particularly when we dug into a dicey and illegal practices involving veterans groups that ultimately resulted in $24 million in penalties imposed by the New York Attorney General.

Almost all these questionable “charities” had the appearance of normal, legit organizations. Strong, moving cases for support, the appearance of good works.  In the familiar parlance, they talked like a duck and walked like a duck, so donors thought they were a duck.  But underneath the ducks’ feathers lurked a wolf. Fake duck.

What those practices had in common whether the appeal was for “cancer”, “veterans”, or “children” was the that the perpetrators concentrated on a narrow, defined lists of donors who had already self-identified with a specific issue through their previous giving.

Of course, under normal circumstances choosing to solicit known donors to similar organizations would be an acceptable, even desirable practice.  But in these “worst charity” cases the same lists of donors were circulated over and over and over within the same telemarketing boiler rooms or direct mail shops controlled by the perpetrators soliciting for a cluster of scam charities that they also virtually controlled.

In short, those perpetrators played on known donor identities and concentrated them in a closed loop solicitation system where “costs” were artificially inflated high and distribution ” for charitable purposes suppressed.

Fast forward to 2019.

Today, with the world far more polarized than six years ago, coupled with ability to pinpoint the likely identities of millions of folks on Facebook, then solicit them quickly and inexpensively online donor (and voter) identities are more useful and valuable than ever–as Nick illustrated in Monday’s post.

And, of course, as is the case with all developments that should be used for advancing the good, the scammers, haters and grifters aren’t far behind or, sometimes are even ahead. (Russian use of identities manipulated through social media and other online channels to manipulate outcomes of European elections and the U.S. presidential election is the most frightening and dangerous example.)

Separating the Ducks from the Wolves.

This week alone , even as we’ve seen the positive side of increasingly sophisticated side of using identity –candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination raise millions of $ for their campaigns…and advocacy citizen organizations raise millions to advance their agendas in the new Congress… or to impeach/defend the President…or deal with/deny Climate Change– we’ve also witnessed its negative use by the scammers.

Increasingly, the scam artists and grifters don’t even bother to hide behind a “charity” label. They simply create and operate their own. And, in this hyper-partisan climate the opportunity for political fundraising scams is rife. Particularly when it comes to independent Political Action Committees (PACs).

As in the case of most false and misleading fundraising schemes it’s difficult to tell the real from the faux.  Talk like a duck…

Take a look at this landing page to which the “fundraiser” is driving potential donors with anti-feminist, anti-progressive, ultra-conservative identities.

This is the work of Dan Backer,  who according to Media Matters, is “ a leading conservative grifter who has been involved with numerous “scam PACs” and is now trying to cash-in on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) popularity by helping start a super PAC against her.”

Media Matters notes that “Scam PACs are political organizations in which the vast majority of donations goes back to the political firms and consultants who help run the group instead of being spent on its stated cause.

“Backer has been involved with dozens of right-wing organizationsincluding Draft Newt PAC;Stop Hillary PAC;Stop Pelosi PAC;Stop Jeb Bush; and The Committee to Draft Judge Andrew Napolitano for President.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Daniel Bice labeled Backer the “master of ‘scam PACs.’” (Backer has disputed the “scam PAC” label, claiming overheads such as fundraising activities and legal services are ‘expensive.’)

In 2015 Politico reported that Backer spent more than 87 percent of the $8 million he raised on operating expenses, including $419,000 to his own law firm. By contrast, the amount the PACs spent on donations and ads was about $955,000 — or less than 12 percent of the total fundraising haul.

No wonder there are days when  I long for times when  a duck really was a duck and it was pretty easy to tell that The Fund for the Unknown Soldier was not.

Roger