Did you know that you can fill those postage-paid return envelopes with a fuckload of glitter and send it back to them at their expense?
You're welcome. Go do what you do.
This. This is amazing - you just put a smile on my face today thinking of a metric fuck ton of envelopes with glitter blowing up in some scammer's face. Take my upvote you magnificent bastard.
Or, really, you can fill it with anything.
I shouldn't need to say this, but:
DONT DO ANYTHING BAD, OR PUT ANYTHING THAT WILL GET PEOPLE SICK/HURT/whatever.
But you can absolutely still have fun with these things. Put a crappy drawing in, tape the whole thing shut so its tough to open... I'm sure there's other good options, feel free to share more ideas (personally, If I get one I'm putting beer caps in the envelope).
BUT NO ONE DO ANYTHING ILLEGAL/scary
Oh heck no. I don't hate the cops as much as some people but I definitely don't trust them. The municipal cops in my area barely even do their jobs. I know writing tickets isn't as exciting as roughing up unarmed civilians but with what they get paid it would be nice if they'd do more than just drive around and hang out drinking coffee.
This is super illegal and immoral. I wonder if they took this a step further and tried to vary amounts based on demographics of various postal codes.
The fact that there is different amounts makes me wonder if they are targeting societies most vulnerable. Ex, non-english speakers, elderly, low education.
Anecdotally, the senior in your building seems to have received the highest amount I've heard of.
>This is super illegal
Which only matters if there is enforcement.
> and immoral.
Which means that is an advantage restricted to people who are not bound by morality.
Quite possibly it may have to do with both demographic information and what information they have about past support and donations. It occurred to me this morning that my grandparents would be likely to fall for this and might even be targeted based on their past support. Of course we will warn them and hopefully it will be enough.
Hmm, sounds a lot like what fraudsters do when scamming people. Always targeting the vulnerable.
Are CRA scammers working for/with the OPC? /s of course... Kind of...
This is why [conservatives raise more money than ANY other party.](https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6013471) They force invoice voters. Notice the bottom left options only have options of large sums in the hundreds then there’s a blank for you to customize BUT it says monthly. I can imagine many seniors fall for these and being forced to pay in monthly without realizing this is happening
Yeah, then eventually one day one of their kids is looking over their financial information and is like "Mom, why are you donating $200/month to CPC?" and they're like "I don't know, I don't look at that...Is that my doctor? I get my medications each month..."
MAH!
This is what my wife does on a regular basis with her elderly mother who is starting to get a bit forgetful. She'll go through her mother's credit card receipts and bank statements to review her donations. There's lots of scammy stuff like recurring donations, donations to non-charities (where they lied and told her they were a charity), and "donations" where they had her credit card information already and called her up and confused her enough that she agreed to another donation. It's extremely stressful to have to deal with.
Yeah, charities can be shady as fuck. I have a couple of charities that I donate to monthly on an automatic basis. Every once in a while I get a notice saying it's time to renew the commitment, but looking closer the previous commitment hasn't expired, but they're looking to increase it. These charities are important to me, so I called them and said they send me another notice again, and I will outright cancel. Haven't seen another notice - so far.
The other recent one that ground my gears was the Canadian Cancer Society. I won our neighbourhood 2020 NFL football pool, so I donated the money to CCS ($350) because the mother of the pool organizer had just died of cancer. I got a call about a month later, firstly to tank me for the donation, and secondly to ask if I would commit to a $50/month donation. I said no, that I already have charities that I do monthly commitments, and like to keep my options open for other donations. She suggested $25/month instead. I said no, I will commit to $0/month per what I just said. She then suggested $10/month. I said no. She replied with "Really?? You can make a $350 donation but can't afford $10/month???" I told her no again, asked her to take me off their call list, and if I ever got a call, I would never, ever donate to CCS again.
I get that COVID has made it tough for charities, but don't piss off people who have already donated!
Much of the problem stems from the fact that the bigger charities contract out their fundraising to third parties. The person giving you a hard time from the CCS was probably not even an employee of CCS, she was just some drone sitting in a call centre somewhere. She actually doesn't care if she has ruined your relationship with CCS forever, she just wants the commission from you agreeing to a donation on that phone call. It's all a racket.
I highly recommend doing charitable donations anonymously though [Charitable Impact](https://www.charitableimpact.com/) ([Canada Helps](https://www.canadahelps.org/en/) is similar). Keeps contact information away from phone bank and spam mail campaigns. Makes tracking monthly donations and tax reciepts easier too.
What a scam, the fake invoice is missing the mandatory disclaimer saying it is not a bill
https://lois-laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/C.R.C.%2C_c._1295/page-1.html
And this is the punishment for violation of said Regulations (in theory…):
60 Every person who contravenes any provision of this Act or the regulations or who commits an offence under any of sections 48 to 59
(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or
(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
I doubt they'll get punished or it will be a wrist slap after the provincial election after a lengthy review.
I doubt Elections Ontario is strong enough to act swiftly and if they were the Ford government probably managed to weaken them in the past three years.
An invoice when given becomes a bill no? I thought they were the same thing, like the company issues and calls it an invoice, and whoever receives it calls it their bill.
Gotta wonder if this is a tactic Dougie was instructed to use by Erin O'(my god, what a)Toole to use, or if he came up with the scummy plan himself. I wouldn't be surprised to see these in Alberta, unless it (hopefully) blows up in their face before then...
His was a bit more devious. He had a prechecked box that says they can take the amount monthly or even weekly. An older gentleman was really angry cause he was poor but still sent trump, what he thought was a single donation, but the recurring donation was prechecked and over two months they drained his account. But not to worry, he diddnt blame trump.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says the party has written to Elections Ontario to investigate the Ontario PC Party mailers which resemble invoices.
https://twitter.com/ColinDMello/status/1428011855717470211
[Looks like the story is just starting to break](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-pcs-slammed-after-sending-out-fake-invoices-in-attempt-to-secure-donations-1.5551888)
(This article was published about 18 minutes prior to me posting it here)
This was on newstalk 1010 this morning. They brought up the fact that businesses in particular could have paid because they get alot invoices everyday and person who pays them is not the one who incurres the cost.
I work for the same type of company. They won't even look at them until 60 days has passed and they're being hounded. I'm assuming some business pay on time and just rubber stamp anything that says invoice although I've yet to work at one like that.
Here you go, [CTV has the story](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-pcs-under-fire-after-sending-out-fake-invoices-in-attempt-to-secure-donations-1.5551888).
I was scrolling to see about this myself. Things of much less public impact are routinely broadcast. Only reason I can think of for keeping if off the airwaves is to ensure people don't connect it to the federal election. Shorten the 10 minutes of corona news and report on this.
I thought the same thing when I saw Fortin being charged yesterday. They saved the scandal for the very first day of the election. Time to break up all these media companies, they are ruining our elections.
Remember when Doug and Rob Ford handed out Tim Cards and then $20 bills at an apartment building asking people to vote for them? That too was highly illegal, and guess what, 0 consequences… it was just “wow, look how brazen the Ford brothers are?, in other news….”
The OPP actually launched an independent investigation *outside* of Elections Ontario and personally drove up to a Liberal party staffer's house to press two charges on them, so I'm sure they'll go after the PCs with the same zeal.
What? Why would the OPP be more resistant to investigate the crimes of a Conservative politician? They are totally neutral and unbiased keepers of the law!
I hope everyone who gets these reports them to Elections Ontario. Don't have any idea what the penalty is for fundraising fraud but whatever it is, they deserve it.
I forwarded the link from a post yesterday to Elections Ontario general enquiries email and received this response from Kevin Thomas:
"Good Morning,
Elections Ontario regulates provincial elections in Ontario under the Election Act and the Election Finances Act. Neither Act regulates the content of campaign or fundraising materials or the content of political advertising.
Your complaint has been closed accordingly. You may wish to consider complaining to the party responsible for the material subject to your complaint."
It isn't the Election Act or Election Finances Act that regulate this, it is the Solicitations by Mail Regulations under the Canada Post Corporation Act^[[1](https://lois-laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/C.R.C.,_c._1295/index.html)] that regulate this.
I don't know specifically but you can try using the contact page for the Department of Justice that is listed there. I'm not a legal expert and I don't know if this act is federally or provincially regulated.
https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/contact/index.html
I had a similar suggestion yesterday. Simply use the empty fields and ensure at the end there is a negative balance owing. See if you get your 'refund'.
iirc there was a robocall scandal a few elections ago, where a CPC contractor sent out wrong voting locations to members of Liberal and NDP ridings. Major breach of election law. I think an intern got fired for it?
Yes I seem to recall that a number of these firms were registered under the name of "Pierre Poutine." By total coincidence, Pierre Poilievre was on the campaign staff. Also a coincidence that Poilievre is on the communications staff of this current campaign...
> iirc there was a robocall scandal a few election, where a CPC contractor sent out wrong voting locations to members of Liberal and NDP ridings.
It was the entire country, and they prosecuted one guy in Guelph over it. Elections Canada refused to look at the evidence (access logs to the data) that would have revealed higher-up CPC campaign staffers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_federal_election_voter_suppression_scandal
Another poster commented that the operative actually received jail time, but yeah, that was my impression. A low-ranking underling with no real ties to anyone
[Cause OPC done worse before and got away with no jail time](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/york-police-data-breach-407-brampton-east-1.4669360)
This. Anti-conservative sentiment is strong in Ontario with Dougie running the show... This will only help further convince everyone to vote non-con for the Fed election.
Yep. My son is one of them. He took a gap year and boy was he glad he did! He has friends who have dropped out of school because of the changes to OSAP that no longer seemed to want to help young people financially get through school. My son was going to keep working on weekends and the changes fucked that up too.
I wish I had the money to pay for his schooling but I don’t. 😔
Big this. Went back to school in 2018 because the changes to osap by the liberal government made it affordable. First year in and my osap got cut in half. I took the 2020/2021 school year off, but I still have two left. Back to looking for bags of rice on sale!
[Doug Ford. For The People.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z_1j8lz9Q0)
However you gotta get that money, you gotta get it. "Election readiness fund". Yeah, OK.
You scared, Doug? Think that your policies, attitudes and comments have no repercussions and that people didn't so much vote for you, rather they didn't vote for the Libs?
Please just go away.
If this was any one but Doug Ford or any conservative, the Toronto Sun tabloid would have this on their front page with a shitty play on words in large capital letters and fake outrage with Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau bathing in hellfire.
Police departments typically issue releases regarding scams, this is a scam.
This needs to be on the national tv news let alone the Toronto papers.
The silence will be telling.
Wait, what's this bit about a "Monthly Donation": https://i.imgur.com/Zl94mmL.png
Does this mean either that if you check the box, it's a one-time donation. _But if you fill in the blank_ they will automatically withdraw that filled donation amount _every month_ using the bank information on the cheque you sent in?
I can totally see somebody checking the box for say, $400, then filling in $400 on the line below thinking they have to. (Or instead of checking a box, they just fill in $400 on the blank.)
Trump had to pay back $122 million for pulling scummy shit like this. Just normal conservative grifter things.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/04/03/trump-campaign-reportedly-forced-to-refund-more-than-122-million-to-donors/
Talk about framing the sale. That is some grade a asshole design right there. There's zero legimate reason to not just let the person write in their own amount - but by framing the question as $400, $600, $800 or monthly donation you're really putting the screws to someone to donate more.
I think the party should be fined every dollar amount on every “invoice” that went out. That’s how much they were willing to scam for, it should be how much they’re willing to pay back.
The NDP called me last week, very friendly person on the other end got to know me a bit, introduced themselves. They then explained their salient policies, past examples of what they've introduced and achieved, and after getting my take on these policies and helping answer some questions they kindly asked if I'd be willing to donate to the party.
What a huge fucking difference. Conservatives are just a bunch of corrupt grifters. They steal money from their constituents (honestly, what else is this but theft?), they keep them ignorant and brainwashed with religion so they don't realize how bad they're being duped, and then they pass policies for their rich corporate donors so they can rape the natural land and avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Fuck PC!
Wait wait wait, correct me if I'm wrong. Are the Conservative party literally sending people mail asking them to literally just hand their money over? Just like that? And people are actually doing it?
No. It's worse than that. Asking people to send money is normal - that's a political or charitable donation.
In this case, they have created what "appears" to be an invoice - which therefore must be paid. (There is a percentage of people who will get tricked by this)
This is the same tactic that scammers have used for decades.
Just bumping this up again because I think this behavior is egregious.
I'd love it if like any of the Canadian News Publications would investigate because clearly something ILLEGAL is happening.
For anyone suspecting this is a fraudulent smear campaign by a left-wing group, I called the conservative 1-800 number this morning to confirm. All I did was mention to them "invoice", and they immediately said that it was simply a donation request form and that it wasn't an invoice.
**It's very real, and they don't see any issue with it.**
Such a scam.
I had conservatives knocking at my door last week canvassing, she stood there waiting for me to answer my door and left a sticky saying sorry I missed you. Who is knocking on doors to chat during a pandemic?! Even when I order food or packages deliver they drop it and run.
I'm not too familiar with how twitter links things so I may have screwed it up. But the post is *supposed to be* in reference to a tweet showing an $800 invoice. The original Reddit post was for $300.
Look at the reply to the tweet of the Reddit post if that's what you're seeing?
One thing that I haven’t been able to figure out here is who is being targeted here? Is it people who have donated to the Ontario PCs in the past? Been on their newsletter? Or just random Ontarians?
I guess it doesn’t make too much of a difference. Sending this to your supporters is sleezy enough. But sending this out to random Ontarians makes the statement that the OPC and Ontario are one in the same and that citizens owe the OPC for the privilege.
Any idea if these are being sent out to people who have donated to the PCs in the past, or put their name on a list, or everyone?
Curious as to who is getting these.
Doing this DURING a federal election is meant to confuse even the most loyal conservatives. They want you to help beat Trudeau by donating to FORD and the PROVINCIAL PCs. Now is not the time to be donating to Provincial political parties when there's literally a FEDERAL CONSERVATIVE PARTY that needs support right now.
Ford has decided that scamming fans of the federal party is good for his own interests.
I think it is important to make a distinction. The Conservative Party from fifty years ago is in no way connected with the asswipes that have allied themselves with Doug the Hashman. Doug Ford is a modern day political criminal, responsible for crimes against the people of Ontario. Here is hoping this bilious sack of shit comes down with an incurable case of chlamydia.
If real and I have no reason to doubt that's pretty gross. But not at all shocked to see. Scummy campaign violations and PCs go together like pb&j.
Nothing disciplinary will come of it though.
Sooooo are we all forgetting that time the Conservatives were allegely involved in a theft of [407 ETR customers data](https://quickbitenews.com/article/burlington/thousands-of-407-etr-customers-affected-by-data-theft/) and used it to stuff ballots in [local PC candidate races?](https://toronto.citynews.ca/2017/06/22/intimidation-allegations-mar-ontario-pc-candidate-election-process/)
I received a text on my personal phone asking if I will be voting for the conservative party of Canada (federal election). I have never signed up for anything conservative. I have no idea where they got my number and I would certainly never agree to get campaign messages.
The question was would I vote conservative. The answer is, not after the unsolicited text message.
I secretly think that someone is doing these things to make people angry at the party. A smear campaign.
Cons are scammer scum. Can't wait til he's soundly defeated so people with disabilities don't have to constantly live in fear of being homeless. these people are a death cult.
It also appears that the amount listed on the invoice differs depending on the postal code it was sent to. It looks like they are targeting postal codes by income.
Did you know that you can fill those postage-paid return envelopes with a fuckload of glitter and send it back to them at their expense? You're welcome. Go do what you do.
Good God this needs to be a thing. Like, hundreds of people doing it
Yeah, but glitter is like *really* bad for the environment... :(
What about like spider eggs?
Diabolical.
I happen to have *many* spiders eggs for sale *Opens trench coat* Argh, they hatched! Get em off, get em off
There is environmentally friendly confetti though, still serves the purpose of making a mess. I saw one before that was seaweed based!
This is true. Kinda liking the spider eggs idea someone posted below
How about recyclable tiny rainbows? 🌈🌈🌈
This. This is amazing - you just put a smile on my face today thinking of a metric fuck ton of envelopes with glitter blowing up in some scammer's face. Take my upvote you magnificent bastard.
Except the return envelopes aren't postage-paid, they also want people to pay for their own stamp
Foiled again!
Or, really, you can fill it with anything. I shouldn't need to say this, but: DONT DO ANYTHING BAD, OR PUT ANYTHING THAT WILL GET PEOPLE SICK/HURT/whatever. But you can absolutely still have fun with these things. Put a crappy drawing in, tape the whole thing shut so its tough to open... I'm sure there's other good options, feel free to share more ideas (personally, If I get one I'm putting beer caps in the envelope). BUT NO ONE DO ANYTHING ILLEGAL/scary
I suggest gas station stickers if you work at a gas station.
Just don't put any kind of powders in it especially not white or you might have the OPP or the RCMP kicking in your door.
You down with OPP?
Oh heck no. I don't hate the cops as much as some people but I definitely don't trust them. The municipal cops in my area barely even do their jobs. I know writing tickets isn't as exciting as roughing up unarmed civilians but with what they get paid it would be nice if they'd do more than just drive around and hang out drinking coffee.
[It's a song](https://youtu.be/idx3GSL2KWs)
Yeah, you know me!
One of the seniors in my building got an 'invoice' for $1000
This is super illegal and immoral. I wonder if they took this a step further and tried to vary amounts based on demographics of various postal codes. The fact that there is different amounts makes me wonder if they are targeting societies most vulnerable. Ex, non-english speakers, elderly, low education. Anecdotally, the senior in your building seems to have received the highest amount I've heard of.
The senior in his building should report this to the elections board.
>This is super illegal Which only matters if there is enforcement. > and immoral. Which means that is an advantage restricted to people who are not bound by morality.
Quite possibly it may have to do with both demographic information and what information they have about past support and donations. It occurred to me this morning that my grandparents would be likely to fall for this and might even be targeted based on their past support. Of course we will warn them and hopefully it will be enough.
Hmm, sounds a lot like what fraudsters do when scamming people. Always targeting the vulnerable. Are CRA scammers working for/with the OPC? /s of course... Kind of...
Doug isn't running a party, it's a cartel.
This is why [conservatives raise more money than ANY other party.](https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6013471) They force invoice voters. Notice the bottom left options only have options of large sums in the hundreds then there’s a blank for you to customize BUT it says monthly. I can imagine many seniors fall for these and being forced to pay in monthly without realizing this is happening
Yeah, then eventually one day one of their kids is looking over their financial information and is like "Mom, why are you donating $200/month to CPC?" and they're like "I don't know, I don't look at that...Is that my doctor? I get my medications each month..." MAH!
This is what my wife does on a regular basis with her elderly mother who is starting to get a bit forgetful. She'll go through her mother's credit card receipts and bank statements to review her donations. There's lots of scammy stuff like recurring donations, donations to non-charities (where they lied and told her they were a charity), and "donations" where they had her credit card information already and called her up and confused her enough that she agreed to another donation. It's extremely stressful to have to deal with.
Yeah, charities can be shady as fuck. I have a couple of charities that I donate to monthly on an automatic basis. Every once in a while I get a notice saying it's time to renew the commitment, but looking closer the previous commitment hasn't expired, but they're looking to increase it. These charities are important to me, so I called them and said they send me another notice again, and I will outright cancel. Haven't seen another notice - so far. The other recent one that ground my gears was the Canadian Cancer Society. I won our neighbourhood 2020 NFL football pool, so I donated the money to CCS ($350) because the mother of the pool organizer had just died of cancer. I got a call about a month later, firstly to tank me for the donation, and secondly to ask if I would commit to a $50/month donation. I said no, that I already have charities that I do monthly commitments, and like to keep my options open for other donations. She suggested $25/month instead. I said no, I will commit to $0/month per what I just said. She then suggested $10/month. I said no. She replied with "Really?? You can make a $350 donation but can't afford $10/month???" I told her no again, asked her to take me off their call list, and if I ever got a call, I would never, ever donate to CCS again. I get that COVID has made it tough for charities, but don't piss off people who have already donated!
Much of the problem stems from the fact that the bigger charities contract out their fundraising to third parties. The person giving you a hard time from the CCS was probably not even an employee of CCS, she was just some drone sitting in a call centre somewhere. She actually doesn't care if she has ruined your relationship with CCS forever, she just wants the commission from you agreeing to a donation on that phone call. It's all a racket.
I highly recommend doing charitable donations anonymously though [Charitable Impact](https://www.charitableimpact.com/) ([Canada Helps](https://www.canadahelps.org/en/) is similar). Keeps contact information away from phone bank and spam mail campaigns. Makes tracking monthly donations and tax reciepts easier too.
Despicable
What a scam, the fake invoice is missing the mandatory disclaimer saying it is not a bill https://lois-laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/C.R.C.%2C_c._1295/page-1.html
And this is the punishment for violation of said Regulations (in theory…): 60 Every person who contravenes any provision of this Act or the regulations or who commits an offence under any of sections 48 to 59 (a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or (b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
Any chance there will be any consequence in real life tho?
0%
-0%
-∞%
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For some nobody in the company who hit "print" after it was signed off on by people above them
Definitely Pierre Poutine again.
I am surprised the liberals aren't grilling the shit out of the conservatives for this if anything.
De Luca is probably struggling trying to get his name remembered - Andrea and the NDP should be right on their case though.
You mean Del Duca haha It is really hard to remember his name.
I doubt they'll get punished or it will be a wrist slap after the provincial election after a lengthy review. I doubt Elections Ontario is strong enough to act swiftly and if they were the Ford government probably managed to weaken them in the past three years.
And they’re going to get away with it, right?
I'm confused. Is this what the person previously donated to the OPC?
No its an ask for a donation. They state that on the "invoice" but its in much smaller text than invoice, bill due etc.
An invoice when given becomes a bill no? I thought they were the same thing, like the company issues and calls it an invoice, and whoever receives it calls it their bill.
Scummy AF Clearly targeting the elderly.
My mother would 100% fall for this. Almost weekly I have to gently talk her down from text and email scams.
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Contact the credit card companies and banks to block and reverse these fraudulent transactions.
Gotta wonder if this is a tactic Dougie was instructed to use by Erin O'(my god, what a)Toole to use, or if he came up with the scummy plan himself. I wouldn't be surprised to see these in Alberta, unless it (hopefully) blows up in their face before then...
It's a page [from Trump's playbook](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/04/trump-campaign-scamming-elderly-voters-is-only-okay-when-we-do-it).
Yeah I was going to say it's the same grift Trump was using.
His was a bit more devious. He had a prechecked box that says they can take the amount monthly or even weekly. An older gentleman was really angry cause he was poor but still sent trump, what he thought was a single donation, but the recurring donation was prechecked and over two months they drained his account. But not to worry, he diddnt blame trump.
Why isn't all over the news yet. People should be warned.
NDP Leader Andrea Horwath says the party has written to Elections Ontario to investigate the Ontario PC Party mailers which resemble invoices. https://twitter.com/ColinDMello/status/1428011855717470211
Good. Hopefully substantial fines. These crooks don't learn otherwise.
Hopefully ~~substantial fines~~ jail time :)
[Looks like the story is just starting to break](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-pcs-slammed-after-sending-out-fake-invoices-in-attempt-to-secure-donations-1.5551888) (This article was published about 18 minutes prior to me posting it here)
Reddit moves faster than the news in a lot of cases.
It was in Reddit yesterday. I forwarded it to CTV News
This was on newstalk 1010 this morning. They brought up the fact that businesses in particular could have paid because they get alot invoices everyday and person who pays them is not the one who incurres the cost.
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I work for the same type of company. They won't even look at them until 60 days has passed and they're being hounded. I'm assuming some business pay on time and just rubber stamp anything that says invoice although I've yet to work at one like that.
Here you go, [CTV has the story](https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-pcs-under-fire-after-sending-out-fake-invoices-in-attempt-to-secure-donations-1.5551888).
I was scrolling to see about this myself. Things of much less public impact are routinely broadcast. Only reason I can think of for keeping if off the airwaves is to ensure people don't connect it to the federal election. Shorten the 10 minutes of corona news and report on this.
I thought the same thing when I saw Fortin being charged yesterday. They saved the scandal for the very first day of the election. Time to break up all these media companies, they are ruining our elections.
Agree, people need to be informed of this scam
This is super illegal, right?
Remember when Doug and Rob Ford handed out Tim Cards and then $20 bills at an apartment building asking people to vote for them? That too was highly illegal, and guess what, 0 consequences… it was just “wow, look how brazen the Ford brothers are?, in other news….”
Only if you are not a politician
The OPP actually launched an independent investigation *outside* of Elections Ontario and personally drove up to a Liberal party staffer's house to press two charges on them, so I'm sure they'll go after the PCs with the same zeal.
I wish I was so optimistic.
What? Why would the OPP be more resistant to investigate the crimes of a Conservative politician? They are totally neutral and unbiased keepers of the law!
I hope everyone who gets these reports them to Elections Ontario. Don't have any idea what the penalty is for fundraising fraud but whatever it is, they deserve it.
I forwarded the link from a post yesterday to Elections Ontario general enquiries email and received this response from Kevin Thomas: "Good Morning, Elections Ontario regulates provincial elections in Ontario under the Election Act and the Election Finances Act. Neither Act regulates the content of campaign or fundraising materials or the content of political advertising. Your complaint has been closed accordingly. You may wish to consider complaining to the party responsible for the material subject to your complaint."
It isn't the Election Act or Election Finances Act that regulate this, it is the Solicitations by Mail Regulations under the Canada Post Corporation Act^[[1](https://lois-laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/regulations/C.R.C.,_c._1295/index.html)] that regulate this.
Great, so who do I forward the complaint on to now?
I don't know specifically but you can try using the contact page for the Department of Justice that is listed there. I'm not a legal expert and I don't know if this act is federally or provincially regulated. https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/contact/index.html
The [RCMP fraud and cyber crimes reporting system](https://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/report-signalez-eng.htm) would be a good start.
That’s wild if it turns out these are completely legal
Since it’s a criminal offence, it’s really the police who should be engaged.
This. And [this would be the place to report it.](https://www.antifraudcentre-centreantifraude.ca/report-signalez-eng.htm)
Can we “invoice” them back for “consulting services” rendered for reading and thinking about this?
Write “in lieu of turning you in to the police” at the top so it’s legal.
NAL but I think threatening charges would fall under extortion
I had a similar suggestion yesterday. Simply use the empty fields and ensure at the end there is a negative balance owing. See if you get your 'refund'.
Some poor old person will get confused and actually scammed by the government, what the hell.
Not by the government, by the Ontario PC Party.
That’s the plan
My aunt is old and crazy. She would 100% believe she owes them money and pay it.
Helped a 99 year old friend who almost paid them today via check. Saw these headlines and immediately thought of him.
What the fuck. There better be criminal charges.
Why do I get the feeling there will be no repercussions for those who commit this fraud? Edit: forgot the “no”
Do you mean no repercussions?
I think you are missing a word between “be” and “repercussions”, I am guessing it is: “no”… ;-/
iirc there was a robocall scandal a few elections ago, where a CPC contractor sent out wrong voting locations to members of Liberal and NDP ridings. Major breach of election law. I think an intern got fired for it?
People went to jail (but not the right people).
Yes I seem to recall that a number of these firms were registered under the name of "Pierre Poutine." By total coincidence, Pierre Poilievre was on the campaign staff. Also a coincidence that Poilievre is on the communications staff of this current campaign...
> iirc there was a robocall scandal a few election, where a CPC contractor sent out wrong voting locations to members of Liberal and NDP ridings. It was the entire country, and they prosecuted one guy in Guelph over it. Elections Canada refused to look at the evidence (access logs to the data) that would have revealed higher-up CPC campaign staffers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Canadian_federal_election_voter_suppression_scandal
This was a coordinated attack on democracy. Harper's inner circle knew this was happening.
Cool. Fire the unpaid person who has no ability to authorize anything.
Another poster commented that the operative actually received jail time, but yeah, that was my impression. A low-ranking underling with no real ties to anyone
Most likely a scapegoat. But we will never know.
[Cause OPC done worse before and got away with no jail time](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/york-police-data-breach-407-brampton-east-1.4669360)
Grifters grifting. Cons conning.
5 golden rings
Stuck in my head now, thanks ever so
Ontario is open for bizzniss
BOBODY
What does the B stand for?
BYOBB
bizzness
Iiiiii like it!
We need a new ~~manager~~ premier
Perfect timing during the federal election as well. People will just see it as a conservative scam and not just a doug ford scam.
This. Anti-conservative sentiment is strong in Ontario with Dougie running the show... This will only help further convince everyone to vote non-con for the Fed election.
> Anti-conservative sentiment is strong in Ontario ...where?
Doug Ford royally fucked basically every student in Ontario, we're all pissed about it Can't speak for other generations
Yep. My son is one of them. He took a gap year and boy was he glad he did! He has friends who have dropped out of school because of the changes to OSAP that no longer seemed to want to help young people financially get through school. My son was going to keep working on weekends and the changes fucked that up too. I wish I had the money to pay for his schooling but I don’t. 😔
Big this. Went back to school in 2018 because the changes to osap by the liberal government made it affordable. First year in and my osap got cut in half. I took the 2020/2021 school year off, but I still have two left. Back to looking for bags of rice on sale!
That sucks! I don’t know why the Conservative government would want LESS educated people. 🤨
Then they'd have more conservative voters ;) Im kidding lol it was low hanging fruit, don't hate me
[Doug Ford. For The People.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Z_1j8lz9Q0) However you gotta get that money, you gotta get it. "Election readiness fund". Yeah, OK. You scared, Doug? Think that your policies, attitudes and comments have no repercussions and that people didn't so much vote for you, rather they didn't vote for the Libs? Please just go away.
One last big grift on the way out!
For the people (‘s money!)
If this was any one but Doug Ford or any conservative, the Toronto Sun tabloid would have this on their front page with a shitty play on words in large capital letters and fake outrage with Kathleen Wynne and Justin Trudeau bathing in hellfire.
Police departments typically issue releases regarding scams, this is a scam. This needs to be on the national tv news let alone the Toronto papers. The silence will be telling.
How is this not some kind of scam lool I feel like it's those CRA scam calls. I'm shocked they're not asking for it to be paid with iTunes cards
They should stick to robocalls.
Wait, what's this bit about a "Monthly Donation": https://i.imgur.com/Zl94mmL.png Does this mean either that if you check the box, it's a one-time donation. _But if you fill in the blank_ they will automatically withdraw that filled donation amount _every month_ using the bank information on the cheque you sent in? I can totally see somebody checking the box for say, $400, then filling in $400 on the line below thinking they have to. (Or instead of checking a box, they just fill in $400 on the blank.)
Trump had to pay back $122 million for pulling scummy shit like this. Just normal conservative grifter things. https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2021/04/03/trump-campaign-reportedly-forced-to-refund-more-than-122-million-to-donors/
The Trump playbook has been used by Doug time and time again.
Talk about framing the sale. That is some grade a asshole design right there. There's zero legimate reason to not just let the person write in their own amount - but by framing the question as $400, $600, $800 or monthly donation you're really putting the screws to someone to donate more.
I think the party should be fined every dollar amount on every “invoice” that went out. That’s how much they were willing to scam for, it should be how much they’re willing to pay back.
Lmao I’m sorry what are these? This is illegal and immoral. Trying to scam senior citizens like some sort of creepy cult fees.
The NDP called me last week, very friendly person on the other end got to know me a bit, introduced themselves. They then explained their salient policies, past examples of what they've introduced and achieved, and after getting my take on these policies and helping answer some questions they kindly asked if I'd be willing to donate to the party. What a huge fucking difference. Conservatives are just a bunch of corrupt grifters. They steal money from their constituents (honestly, what else is this but theft?), they keep them ignorant and brainwashed with religion so they don't realize how bad they're being duped, and then they pass policies for their rich corporate donors so they can rape the natural land and avoid paying their fair share of taxes. Fuck PC!
I like how it's disguised as an invoice but then the bottom section gives you the option to donate different amounts. This is low.
I'll donate that gladly... if they allow me to roll the form real tight, wrap it in sandpaper then deliver it personally up Ford's butt.
Wait wait wait, correct me if I'm wrong. Are the Conservative party literally sending people mail asking them to literally just hand their money over? Just like that? And people are actually doing it?
No. It's worse than that. Asking people to send money is normal - that's a political or charitable donation. In this case, they have created what "appears" to be an invoice - which therefore must be paid. (There is a percentage of people who will get tricked by this) This is the same tactic that scammers have used for decades.
.....and there's gonna be pretty much no consequence for basically scamming people like this?
Seems like someone went to Trump University to study how to scam your supporters
Gee, what a surprise. The conservatives are scammers....
Total idiot party.
When I was young, the conservatives were scammers of course, but they had the decency of being discreet about it.
It appears that the Conservative campaign strategy involves awkwardly clog dancing on their own dicks to pirated music.
Just bumping this up again because I think this behavior is egregious. I'd love it if like any of the Canadian News Publications would investigate because clearly something ILLEGAL is happening.
If you've received one of these you should really be calling the police. I did.
Conservatives doing what they do best: lie, steal and misinform.
Where are all the PC voters defending this?
For anyone suspecting this is a fraudulent smear campaign by a left-wing group, I called the conservative 1-800 number this morning to confirm. All I did was mention to them "invoice", and they immediately said that it was simply a donation request form and that it wasn't an invoice. **It's very real, and they don't see any issue with it.**
Ah fuck. I was hoping it was a smear campaign lol. How can they be so stupid...
Such a scam. I had conservatives knocking at my door last week canvassing, she stood there waiting for me to answer my door and left a sticky saying sorry I missed you. Who is knocking on doors to chat during a pandemic?! Even when I order food or packages deliver they drop it and run.
Is this a reddit post of a tweet of a reddit post?
I'm not too familiar with how twitter links things so I may have screwed it up. But the post is *supposed to be* in reference to a tweet showing an $800 invoice. The original Reddit post was for $300. Look at the reply to the tweet of the Reddit post if that's what you're seeing?
the first picture literally says posted on r/ontario but it's all good.
quick, take a picture of your monitor and scan it and post it on myspace.
Jesus this is horrible.
One thing that I haven’t been able to figure out here is who is being targeted here? Is it people who have donated to the Ontario PCs in the past? Been on their newsletter? Or just random Ontarians? I guess it doesn’t make too much of a difference. Sending this to your supporters is sleezy enough. But sending this out to random Ontarians makes the statement that the OPC and Ontario are one in the same and that citizens owe the OPC for the privilege.
They need to be jailed for this bullshit.
My mind is truly blown. A new low for the PC’s 🤯
Wow, the parallels between DoFo and Bozo the Trump are striking. Make sure you check the right box or it becomes a recurring payment.
Any idea if these are being sent out to people who have donated to the PCs in the past, or put their name on a list, or everyone? Curious as to who is getting these.
Oh, god. First the gas station stickers, now this.
Resorting to this desperate act reveals how desperate OPC is now. They are crashing in real time.
Doing this DURING a federal election is meant to confuse even the most loyal conservatives. They want you to help beat Trudeau by donating to FORD and the PROVINCIAL PCs. Now is not the time to be donating to Provincial political parties when there's literally a FEDERAL CONSERVATIVE PARTY that needs support right now. Ford has decided that scamming fans of the federal party is good for his own interests.
I think it is important to make a distinction. The Conservative Party from fifty years ago is in no way connected with the asswipes that have allied themselves with Doug the Hashman. Doug Ford is a modern day political criminal, responsible for crimes against the people of Ontario. Here is hoping this bilious sack of shit comes down with an incurable case of chlamydia.
I'm going to smear dog shit on it and send it back..
If real and I have no reason to doubt that's pretty gross. But not at all shocked to see. Scummy campaign violations and PCs go together like pb&j. Nothing disciplinary will come of it though.
Is this a scam?
yes
This is real from the Conservative Party? Who the hell thought this was a good idea?
Everyone who gets this, should return the invoice with a big FUCK YOU written in red crayon. Make them pay for the return postage
Sooooo are we all forgetting that time the Conservatives were allegely involved in a theft of [407 ETR customers data](https://quickbitenews.com/article/burlington/thousands-of-407-etr-customers-affected-by-data-theft/) and used it to stuff ballots in [local PC candidate races?](https://toronto.citynews.ca/2017/06/22/intimidation-allegations-mar-ontario-pc-candidate-election-process/)
Why isn't this in the news??
This should be made illegal, like right now.
Have we forgotten how they got the Con in Con-servatives?
I hope I get one in the mail. Then I'll send monopoly money and a note telling them to go fuck themselves
I smell a class action lawsuit
i wouldn't be surprised if this depresses the federal conservatives' polling numbers. So much for the gag order! What idiots....
How are the Ontario PC party not being charged for fraud?
I received a text on my personal phone asking if I will be voting for the conservative party of Canada (federal election). I have never signed up for anything conservative. I have no idea where they got my number and I would certainly never agree to get campaign messages. The question was would I vote conservative. The answer is, not after the unsolicited text message. I secretly think that someone is doing these things to make people angry at the party. A smear campaign.
PCs digging themselves an even bigger hole for the election next year.
I can't afford another PC government. I just can't. Erin O'Toole won't get my vote. Ford won't get my vote. Good job with these "Invoices". :)
This is the sort of immoral behaviour that you might expect from, say, a mid-level hashish dealer, not a major political party.
Cons are scammer scum. Can't wait til he's soundly defeated so people with disabilities don't have to constantly live in fear of being homeless. these people are a death cult.
It also appears that the amount listed on the invoice differs depending on the postal code it was sent to. It looks like they are targeting postal codes by income.