Couple Finds Unauthorized Charge on Credit Card from Obama Campaign

By Alex Fees

KSDK -- At least four credit card holders in Missouri have recently opened their statements and found unauthorized transactions, which charged $2,300 to the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack Obama.

It happened to Tom Brown and his wife a couple weeks ago. They became aware of it after Discover sent them an e-mail about an unusually large purchase.

"My wife said, 'Oh my God!' Right away, she called Discover to cancel the card," Brown said. "I talked to Discover about it, and they said it looks like it was keyed in from Chicago."

Specifically, the e-mail indicated the charge came from Obama for America Chicago Illinois. The Browns were able to get the charge refunded by Discover.

"It was under his name. Under 'merchant,' it read 'Obama for America.' And we basically would not give a politician $2,300 dollars. We would not give any politician, probably, a dollar. And I really, basically, don't know who's at fault, for this, or who did what," Brown said. "But someone out there is trying to hit people's charges and collect money. We were just interested in letting other people know that this could happen to them."

Brown pointed out this was not a story about politics; it's about credit card fraud.

"We mainly wanted to make sure it just got to the public that no one else gets taken advantage of?because our feeling is what happens if someone else would not check their charge, and then they're stuck with the charge?" he said.

Officials with the Obama Campaign in Missouri said they were aware of the suspicious credit card charges. Friday, the Missouri Obama Communications Director released this statement: "The Obama campaign is not responsible for these charges, but we have refunded all of the affected individuals and we are working closely with authorities regarding these questionable charges."

It was not known whether that statement was an indication that some of the credit card money did get to the Obama Campaign, even if they did not initiate the charges.

A spokesperson for the Missouri Attorney General's office has told the Associated Press that they were investigating a "handful" of similar incidents.