Texts asking you to give money to a political candidate could be a scam

With voters riveted on the 2024 election, fraudsters are flooding people with texts and emails that seem like campaign solicitations but link to fake websites that only line scammers' pockets.

Steve Bernas, who heads the Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois, says scammers have pounced in recent weeks — after the attempted assassination of Republican nominee Donald Trump, President Joe Biden's decision to not seek reelection and Vice President Kamala Harris stepping in as the presumed Democratic nominee.

Bernas says he’s seen a rise in the number of reports to the BBB's ScamTracker tool that lets people report scams.

"The con artists have really come out of the woodwork," he says.

He suggests going directly to campaign websites if you want to give money to a candidate.

Fraudulent texts might include a button to click to give money that supposedly would go to a candidate or a link to a phony website that accepts credit cards.

Other election-related scams include fake polls or surveys, sometimes offering prizes for participation, Bernas says.

The scams appear to be widespread. In online forums, people have been complaining about getting deluged this election year. And a Chicago Sun-Times reporter got three texts from a phone number with a 202 area code, apparently from Washington, D.C., but linking to websites whose domains were created this spring and summer in the United Kingdom. All three texts used current political news to try to solicit contributions.

Similarly, spoofed emails can seem to be from a candidate or campaign but actually come from scammers — a ruse that’s easily uncovered on a personal computer by hovering your cursor over the sender’s name to see where the email originated. But it's not possible on a cellphone to hover over a link.

Never click on links in what might be scam texts or emails, Bernas says — that can place malicious software on your device. Unsolicited phone calls that ask for contributions to a candidate also should be a warning sign of fraud, he says.

Federal law allows political campaign calls and texts, but autodialed robocalls and robotexts to cellphones require prior consent, and the law says the callers or texters must stop if the consumer revokes that consent, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

But scammers don’t abide by the law. You can forward those suspicious or annoying texts to 7726, or SPAM, to notify your cellphone provider — but it might take till sometime after November's election for the scam texts to stop.

Another con to watch out for, according to AARP: Some scam artists are offering to help people register to vote as a ruse to obtain personal information that's then used to commit identity theft. If you get a call from someone wanting personal information to help you register to vote, hang up. You can register to vote in person at an election office, online or by mail. For legitimate voter-registration info, go online to usa.gov/register-to-vote.

And if you want to give money to candidates or political organizations, go directly to their websites.

Otherwise, the money you think you’re giving to a certain candidate or cause might actually end up with a scammer, and you might never know that, Bernas says.

"You can't vet them on a cellphone," he says. "You have to do your due diligence: Who's getting the money?"