UPDATE:

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-doctor-letter-clinton-227502

Such scary language! Grrrrr!

Donald Trump’s campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter on Monday to a super PAC unaffiliated with the campaign that has lured more than $1 million in donations by offering the Republican nominee’s supporters a chance at dinner with Trump, accusing the group of “defrauding” its donors.

Trump’s campaign also sent a letter to the Federal Election Commission, the nation’s election watchdog agency, disavowing the super PAC on the same day POLITICO revealed that the group had raised more than $1 million from 20,000 donors in less than three months.

“You are knowingly defrauding every person who gives you his or her email address or who makes a donation through your unauthorized website,” reads a letter from Trump’s campaign attorney, Donald McGahn, to the super PAC.

ORIGINAL POST:

This is a real thing...

From Politico

Meet the man siphoning money from Donald Trump

A 25-year-old with no Trump ties raises $1 million by dangling 'dinner' with the GOP nominee.

At a glance, the two websites look virtually indistinguishable. Both feature a photo of Donald Trump, in a suit and red tie, in front of a giant American flag. Both seemingly offer a chance for two to win dinner with Donald Trump. One is at donaldjtrump.com; the other is at dinnerwithtrump.org.

The first belongs to Trump’s campaign. The second is a scheme run by Ian Hawes, a 25-year-old Maryland man who has no affiliation with Trump or his campaign and who has preyed on more than 20,000 unsuspecting donors, collecting more than $1 million in the process.

Hawes has spent $108,000 in online ads and has raked in $350,000 for his effort. The PAC he created has taken in more than $1 million and hasn't given a cent to Trump.

Politico has been phoning all the folks they can track down (those whose names are listed because they gave more than $200) to let them know they've been had.

Here's what they say about the advertised prize:

Because Hawes’ PAC has zero ties to Trump’s campaign, the dinner they are dangling won’t be very intimate. The fine print — in gray, size 8.5-font on a black background at the bottom of the website — discloses that this “dinner” actually amounts to the PAC buying two tickets “at a Sponsor-selected fundraising evening event held with Donald Trump and other attendees.”

But you gotta give Hawes credit, he did it first and no one has asked him to stop:

Hawes took advantage of a vacuum left by a skeletal Trump operation that had failed to activate supporters online and protect its digital turf; Hawes noted he bought Facebook ads and solicited money via email before Trump ever did, and created the dinner contest first. He noted Trump’s campaign has never contacted them to request they stop using his name, even though the campaign did so to the FEC last fall about some other groups. The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

But as AMAZING (ahem) as all of the above actually is, my FAVORITE line in the piece is that they've spoken to FEC Commissioner Ann Ravel (who's made this statement quite a number of times in the past year or so) who says that the FEC is powerless to do anything about even this...

The two best quotes from Hawes in the piece are
About himself (from his Twitter bio)
"registered genius, board certified hacker, and grape soda connoisseur"

About what he does with the money:
“We use the money that we collect in a way that we feel best creates value for the people who have donated to us,”

Isn't imitation the greatest form of flattery?

If you've been taken in by this prank, you can request your money be returned: help@americanhorizons.org