Opinion: This Democratic fundraising group won’t let donors stop giving, even after the election

To the editor: Underscoring Friday’s article by David Lazarus on political donations being automatically charged after the election, I have had ongoing issues with the Democrats lifting unauthorized amounts of money from our credit card account for at least three months. (“The never-ending election: How to stop recurring campaign donations,” Dec. 2)

The amounts vary, as do the titles of the funds for which they’re supposedly marked. Our most recent credit card bill showed that $500 and $100 had been refunded, but in the body of the bill were two more deductions, one of $15, and one of $20. I have had both of these reversed.

I asked the bank whether it was possible to have any charge from the pro-Democratic Party group ActBlue denied, not just a recurring amount, but was told this was not possible. If it happens again, I’ll get a different credit card account, which will of course be tiresome because of the other accounts that are authorized to extract payments.

Thanks to Lazarus for drawing attention to what I find a quite extraordinary chain of events.

Catherine Chambers, Los Angeles

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To the editor: This article demonstrates why it’s not usually a good idea to set up recurring payments through someone else’s website. As Terry Hendricks discovered, the site owner may not be responsive to future requests for change or deletion of recurring payments.

A much better approach, I have found, is to use your own online banking to set up fixed payments. That way, you can specify both the amount and the frequency, plus you have the freedom to easily change either.

Mary Steele, Laguna Niguel

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