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.

In just its first three weeks of operation, Hawes’ PAC spent more than $108,000 on Facebook ads, offering an opportunity to win “Dinner with Donald Trump” — and netted itself nearly $350,000 in donations, according to federal records.

The biggest chunk of the money raised — $133,000 — went to a company that Hawes founded and owns, CartSoft LLC. The purpose of the payments is described on federal records as “media” and “media purchasing,” though CartSoft’s website describes itself as an online payment-processing platform.

Since its launch, the PAC has collected more than $1 million, Hawes told POLITICO. It has reportedly spent $0 on behalf of Trump.

“I feel ripped off and taken advantage of. This is horrible. That was not my intent,” said Mary Pat Kulina, who owns a paper-shredding company in Maryland and gave $265 to Hawes’ group. Kulina thought she had given to Trump’s campaign until told otherwise by POLITICO. “This is robbery,” she said. “I want my money back and I want them to add up what they stole from people and give it to Donald Trump.”

Of the 156 donors who gave more than $200 to Hawes’ group in June — the threshold for names to be included in federal filings — POLITICO contacted dozens and spoke with 11. Everyone interviewed said they believed they had given to Trump’s campaign, not an unconnected PAC.

“I would say, unfortunately, that’s simply a matter of pure chance,” Hawes said in an interview defending his group and denying it is a scam.

Hours after POLITICO published this story, Trump’s campaign sent a letter to Hawes accusing him of “defrauding” his donors and asking him to cease-and-desist.

But the dinner scheme is just the beginning. By late July, Hawes — who in his Twitter bio calls himself a “registered genius, board certified hacker, and grape soda connoisseur” — had launched another website, crookedhillary2016.org, according to Internet domain registration records, and began promoting a contest to revoke her security clearance. The group’s Facebook page copies the “Crooked Hillary” logo that is used on Trump’s official LyingCrookedHillary.com site.

“We're raising $1 million dollars from small donors to fight Crooked Hillary's campaign of lies,” reads Hawes’ site. Hawes also registered imwithtrump.org in late June, records show, though that site remains dormant.

As of Sunday, Hawes’ group had raised $1.1 million from 21,253 donors, he said. More than 410,000 people had signed up for the dinner contest — giving him a massive email list he can leverage for more money for years to come.

Internet-based scam PACs are hardly new to 2016. In the past, some have made look-alike campaign sites and bought Google ads to lure unsuspecting donors. Facebook, with its vast audience and ability to target users by political ideology, has proved an alluring tool this cycle, and Trump, with legions of passionate fans, has become an appealing target. Facebook declined to comment for this story.

Because Hawes’ PAC has zero ties to Trump’s campaign, the dinner it is 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.”

David Easlick, a lawyer in Virginia, gave more than $1,000 to American Horizons PAC. “I assumed it was coming from Trump and we donated $1,000 because you might have a better chance than if you’d given $100,” Easlick said.

He asked with more than a hint of resignation, “Is it a fraud or something?”

Hawes’ site doesn’t initially ask for money. First, one can enter the dinner contest simply by providing an email address. But it quickly offers a chance to “double your chances” by donating, even though the fine print states, “Contributing will not improve chances of winning.”

One person, Jared Peavler of Indiana, posted screenshots of his correspondence with Hawes’ group on Facebook after he complained it was a scam. “I’d like to point out that it clearly states that contributing does NOT increase chances of winning both in the rules within the link and at the bottom of the email,” Peavler wrote, adding in all-caps, “EAT SHIT!”

An email signed by Hawes replied. “Monetary contributions don’t increase your chance of winning, but we do multiply your entries. We’re also a political action committee, so it’s our job to collect contributions. So you can eat your own shit.”

Peavler told POLITICO: “That was when I knew it was fake. Professionals don't allow themselves to be drawn into an unprofessional conversation like that.” (Hawes said he did not recall writing such an email and that his records did not show any such correspondence. “That’s not something we would say,” he said. “Pissing people off is not something that we’re trying to do.”)

Another donor, Jeanie Boro, an insurance broker in California, gave $1,015 to the group before she saw in the fine print that it wasn’t actually affiliated with Trump. “I thought it was very deceiving. I was very upset,” Boro said. She demanded and received a refund.

If people complain, Hawes said, “We’ll be happy to return your donations right away.” They had processed 110 refunds to date, he said. (Those who want their money back can email [email protected].)

American Horizons PAC, which Hawes registered with the Federal Election Commission on June 10, is actually the second incarnation of a “Dinner with Donald Trump” scheme — though both have ties to Hawes.

The top screen, bearing the Trump-Pence logo, is the official campaign "Dinner with Trump" fundraising raffle. The bottom screen is from a scam PAC. | Screengrabs

An earlier group called the Recover America PAC was created in late November and registered by Michael Williams, a friend of Hawes’, who listed the same website — dinnerwithtrump.org — that the current dinner-promoting PAC is using. The contact number provided to the FEC on that filing was affiliated online with a company called Glexia, where both Williams (CEO and president) and Hawes (executive vice president) are listed as employees. That first effort, however, never reported any further activity, despite three subsequent letters from FEC attorneys demanding additional paperwork.

Then, in June, Hawes revived the idea. The new PAC immediately began buying Facebook ads, starting with $750 per day on June 10 and building up to more than $15,000 on June 29. In three weeks, the group had raised $349,958.

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 said Trump’s campaign has never contacted the PAC to request that it 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.

“I applaud anyone that wants to dig into our financials, but they’re looking at the wrong political organization,” Hawes said.

So far, his group’s biggest expenditure was to his company CartSoft. The next report is due in mid-October. Hawes declined to say what his personal cut has been.

“I don’t want to say the number is zero, because that’s not true,” he said, calling any CartSoft profits “a standard mark-up.”

FEC commissioner Ann Ravel declined to discuss any specific potential cases but said that, in general, the FEC is too powerless when it comes to combating fraud.

“That’s the frustration I have, that there’s very little recourse,” she said. “People give money thinking it’s going to go to a particular person or a particular cause, and it’s a consumer protection issue as far as I’m concerned.”

John McQueen, a funeral home owner in Florida, remembered seeing the ad in his Facebook feed. “I had planned to give a thousand bucks to his campaign, and when my wife saw it also on her Facebook feed she said, ‘Why not do this?’” he recalled.

He gave $1,015 in late June.

“Who really reads the fine print?” he lamented. “If he wants to refund me my thousand bucks, I’m happy to turn around and give it to Mr. Trump.”

Hawes’ PAC ended June with $88,197 cash on hand. It is not clear what activities he has planned on Trump’s behalf this fall. “We use the money that we collect in a way that we feel best creates value for the people who have donated to us,” he said.

Hawes’ most recent activity online was posting publicly on his personal Facebook page that he got engaged in mid-August “on the bow of the yacht overlooking Miami.”

“Couldn't be more perfect!” he wrote, as he posted pictures of himself sipping champagne with his fiancé and of her glittering oval engagement ring.