Okay, let's say you're an unethical person/corporation rolling in cash, and you see it to be in your interest to give a whole lotta love to the Obama campaign. Like, millions love.
Not a problem!
Here's what you do:
- Find a bank (or ten) that doesn't mind doing transactions on the down low.
- Set up an arbitrary number of accounts that include debit cards.
- Fund those accounts in any way you see fit. Wire transfers are always nice, but you might want to avoid the SWIFT network, all things considered.
- Buy a list of names. Be sure to buy a boring list.
- Buy a list of addresses. This list doesn't need to have anything to do with the first list, and in fact shouldn't.
- Hire a programmer who will:
- Randomize the first list.
- Randomize the second list.
- Pair up items in the two lists.
- Randomly match debit card numbers from the previously established accounts to the new names-and-addresses.
- Write a routine that will post donations (all of which need to be under $200) to the Obama campaign's website, which conveniently doesn't bother validating the cardholder's identity.
- Repeat as necessary.
- When the desired amount of love successfully clears, close the accounts
- Repeat as necessary.
Now the really brilliant thing about this scam is how many firewalls there are between Obama and the original source of funds. Obama's own fraud auditors (ineffective as they may be) still have no real reason to suspect any kind of coordinated dollar-dump. The card companies see nothing but small, cash-based transactions from an issuing partner. Even the Bank or Banks could claim that the agencies setting up the account looked legitimate; Banks aren't in the business of turning away high-volume depositors.
And since there's a definite whiff of Chicago in this scenario, the geek who writes the code can be dealt with.
This is not a far-fetched scheme. If I could think of it, David Axelrod could think of it. And I'm pretty sure it would work.
Change we can believe in. Yeah.