Fraudulent Barack Obama Sites Taking Money

The Barack Obama campaign is looking into two sites that look a lot like official sites soliciting money on his behalf. These two unofficial sites where up and running and asking for money until last week. The Web sites, named donatetoobama.org and donatetobarackobama.com, were operated by a group calling itself “Concerned Citizens for Obama.” Both are now shut down, but in a google search you can see they were soliciting money on Obama’s behalf. The description of the last site says, “Donate to Barack Obama for President in 2008 online! Support Barack Obama for President and donate today!” The first one was advertised as a sponsored link on Google searches for “Barack Obama,” and would show up right next to the official Obama site. Both had pictures of Obama and displayed the Obama campaign logo. Obama campaign lawyer Robert Bauer wrote to the Department of Justice to ask them to look into these two sites. “These activities … appear clearly intended to deceive supporters of Barack Obama into believing they are contributing funds to our Committee,” Bauer wrote. The letter asks the Justice department to “initiate an immediate investigation of Concerned Citizens and the operation of these web sites.” The web sites are registered to Lou Kheriaty, an Internet developer and so called Obama supporter. He talked to the press and said he didn’t believe he was being misleading saying the banners were clear, saying donations were for “Concerned Citizens for Obama.” Kheriaty is not registered with the FEC, and he gave to George Bush’s campaign during the last election. He also owns a few other URL’s including; donatetogiuliani.com, donatetothompson.com, and anti-Hillary Clinton domain names including hillaryreveled.net. It is pretty clear this guy is a scammer. If you want to donate to any candidate, only go to their official web sites. Barack Obama’s official web site is www.barackobama.com/, and this would be the safest place to donate to his campaign.
Alan Cosgrove