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Picking Seniors’ Pockets: Deceptive Online Political Fundraising Is Dialing Up Discord

I’ve written some of this story before.

Last time I wrote about how a local Missouri politician running for a county office is raising millions through deceptive online advertising that relies on highlighting inflammatory national issues.  

This time I’m writing about how he and his online marketers are dialing up discord while cynically targeting deceptive fundraising pleas at overly trusting and vulnerable retired seniors, exploiting them in a new form of elder abuse other politicians across the country may be tempted to emulate.

William C. (Bill) Eigel, a conservative former state senator from the 23rd District in Missouri’s St. Charles County, lost in 2024’s Missouri Republican gubernatorial primary. Now he’s running to be St. Charles, Missouri’s County Executive, probably to establish a political perch to mount another gubernatorial race in 2028.

William C. (Bill) Eigel

To support his Charles County campaign, Eigel is soliciting contributions for his Believe in Life and Liberty political action committee, BILL PAC. Why doesn’t the PAC’s name say it’s connected to Eigel?

“Some states require PACs backing single candidates or with specific donors to include the politician or the funders in their name,” the Missouri Independent has explained. “Not Missouri. Instead, PAC names can be a set of initials used for a reason no one can remember, a feel-good name that doesn’t have anything to do with the interest being promoted or even the name of a favorite television character.

Not only is Eigel blurring his association with BILL PAC, but his online nationwide fundraising campaign is reaching out to potential supporters by emphasizing inflammatory national hot-button issues, not St. Charles County concerns. Recent email pleas focus on “mass deportations” and deporting “criminal illegal aliens”, federal payment of $5,000 “DOGE checks” to citizens, and “mandatory voter ID in ALL 50 states”.

A BILL PAC email that came today urged me to sign a petition to deport Ilhan Omar, a controversial Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota. An email I received recently went so far as to urge recipients to support President Trump’s use of the Insurrection Act, an alarming move that would gives him broad powers to authorize uses of the military in the domestic sphere while providing neither a role for Congress nor a basis for serious judicial review. Eigel’s message:

We only have until midnight to act, so sign our petition in support of using the Insurrection Act to destroy Antifa once and for all and reclaim our cities from these anarchists.

The Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC) requires that political candidates file quarterly reports on their fundraising and spending. The reports filed by Bill PAC in 2025 reveal that about 99% of the contributions Eigel has reported receiving have come from people who live out of state and identify themselves as “Retired”.  It’s clear that retirees outside Missouri are Eigel’s primary target. 

Seniors are a prime target for all sorts of online scams due to factors like social isolation, a trusting nature and declining cognitive function. Many also live alone, have significant savings and have no one overseeing their spending. (By the way, I’m retired, which is probably why I’ve been getting Eigel’s emails.)

The most recent emails I received from BILL PAC focused on deporting undocumented immigrants and “defunding a United Nations Global Climate tax”, issues that are hardly within the purview of St. Charles’ County Executive.

The deportation email said only:

“122 residents of your neighborhood have signed the GOP petition to deport every illegal alien, but your name is MISSING!

 Join your neighbors ASAP:

JOIN YOUR NEIGHBORS: SIGN NOW“

If you “Sign Now” you’ll be asked for a donation of $12.50 to $250 and up. And if you don’t uncheck a yellow box, you’ll be committing to making a recurring monthly donation of your initial pledge Ad infinitum. This is a practice the ACLU says  “routinely takes advantage of older donors and first-time donors who are unfamiliar with navigating campaign fundraising platforms”.

Most individual online donations to Eigel detailed in reports submitted to the Missouri Ethics Commission in 2025 have been in small amounts, but they add up over time.  Frequently, individuals have been making multiple contributions on the same day, almost as though they have been stuck in a loop, forgetting they’d already given that day:

For example, a retired man from Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey made six separate donations ($10, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $2.50, $4.75) on June 29, 2025. Another retired man from Spokane, WA made seven contributions ($20.24, $35, $10, $10, $10, $9.50, $10) on April 27, 2025.

Many prolific contributors seem almost addicted to online donations. An 86-year-old  retired woman from Lititz, PA made online donations to Bill Eigel’s Believe in Life and Liberty political action committee, BILL PAC, 26 times.[1] A retired woman from Dalton, Georgia made donations 28 times[2].

Then there’s a retired man from Reston, VA, a consistent donor to Republican state and federal candidates and committees, who made an astonishing 65 separate online donations to BILL PAC, according to reports submitted to the Missouri Ethics Commission in 2025[3].

Organizations including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Council on Aging and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) repeatedly warn seniors about financial scams targeting them. The warnings, however, usually caution seniors about things such as funeral scams, phony investment schemes, telemarketing/phone scams and impersonation scams. 

Clearly, it’s time to warn seniors about political fundraising scams, too. 

[1] $36.44, $36.44, $36.44; $18.22; $36.44; $36.44; $36.44;$33.25; $15, $15, $20, $20.82, $10.41, $10.41, $15; $12.50, $13.01, $6.51, $6.51, $15; $12.50, $3.25, $3.25; $12.50; $15; $15.

[2] $10.41, $7.81, $7.81, $7.50, $7.50, $7.50, $20, $14.25, $10, $5.21, $5, $2.50, $5, $10.41, $3.75, $3.75, $3.75, $19, $12.50, $15, $15, $10, $15, $5, $12.50, $10, $15, $10

[3] $5.87, $5.87, $5.87, $6.11, $3.06, $6.11, $4.57, $5.87, $6.11, $3.06, $3.06, $3.06, $4,  $12.50, $13.01, $6.51, $3.25, $18, $9.37, $4.68, $10, $5.21, $5.21, $10.41, $4.16, $4.75, $10.41, $5.21, $5.21, $10.41, $15.62, $15.62, $15.62, $15.62, $15.62, $4.75, $5.87, $6.11, $6.11, $5.87. $6.11, $6.11, $3.06, $6.11, $4.57, $5.87, $6.11, $3.06, $3.06, $3.06, $4, $12.50, $13.01, $6.51, $3.25, $18, $9.37, $4.68, $10, $5.21, $5.21, $10.41, $4.16, $4.75

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High Interest Rent-A-Banks Are Abusing Oregon Borrowers

I still remember a conversation I had a number of years ago with a Starbucks barista in Hillsboro who told me she was paying 28% interest on a loan for a car she’d just bought from a local dealer. I was appalled.

Some Oregonians are being victimized much worse than that today.

Oregon is one of eight states that allow payday loans and have banks that charge as much as or more than state-licensed payday lenders, according to an analysis just-released by The Pew Charitable Trusts, an independent non-profit that aims to serve the public interest by improving public policy, informing the public, and invigorating civic life.

Oregon laws limit payday loan charges, but PEW reports that some payday lenders are partnering with several state-chartered banks supervised by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) under so-called “rent-a-bank” arrangements to issue loans with prices that exceed these limits. The banks originate the loans on the lenders’ behalf.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. supervises the six banks known to  be having these arrangements, some of which have annual percentage rates that typically range from the 90%s to the low 200%s. —rates that are much higher than what banks usually charge or that the laws of many borrowers’ states permit. 

The PEW analysis cited a situation in Virginia where a car title lender makes loans that it contends do not have to comply with Virginia law because they are originated by a Utah-based bank. This lender issued a three-year, $2,272 loan with an annual percentage rate (APR) of 98.7%, and $4,867 in finance charges. That meant the borrower repaid $7,139 on a $2,272 loan.

According to the National Consumer Law Center, cited by PEW, a business called OppLoans  (aka OppFi) uses FDIC-supervised FinWise Bank (Utah), Capital Community Bank (CC Bank) (Utah), and First Electronic Bank, a Utah industrial bank, to make installment loans in Oregon of $500 to $4,000 at 160% APR.  

Here’s what an Oregonian taking out a $4000 five-year car loan from OppLoans with an annual APR) of 160% would pay back:

Monthly Payment: $533.63

Total Paid: $32,017.80

Total Interest: $28,017.80

Figuring out what a loan will cost each payment period and over time can be complicated.

NetCredit (“We’re committed to helping our customers find success in their financial journeys.”), a subsidiary of Chicago-based Enova International, Inc. (NYSE: ENVA), offers a maximum loan of $5000.

Its website says 10% of each Cash Advance is deducted from the amount requested before the advance proceeds are delivered to the borrower.

Each billing cycle, the borrower’s minimum payment includes 5% (if payments are made monthly) or 2.5% (if payments are made bi-weekly or semi-monthly) of the cash balance, plus a Statement Balance Fee based on the cash advance balance. A fee table spells out how the Statement Balance Fee is assessed and the corresponding amounts.

If a statement shows a Cash Advance Balance of $1,000.01 – $1,100.00, the fee is $55.00 if the borrower pays bi-weekly or semi monthly and $110 if the borrower pays monthly. If the statement shows a Cash Advance Balance of $4,800.01 – $4,900.00, the fee is $245 if the borrower pays bi-weekly or semi monthly and $490 if the borrower pays monthly.

Each Billing Cycle, the minimum payment will include a portion of the Cash Advance Balance plus a Statement Balance Fee based on the Cash Advance Balance.

You try to figure it all out.

“Competition in markets, including credit markets, typically drives down costs,” the Pew analysis says. “However, Pew’s prior research has found that people seeking payday loans focus on how quickly they can borrow, how likely they are to be approved, and the ease of borrowing. Payday lenders therefore tend to compete on these factors rather than price because their customers are in dire financial straits. Borrowers’ low sensitivity to cost when they are in distress explains the lack of price competition in payday lending.”

The aggressive loan practices of rent-a-banks has, logically, led to high default rates.In June 2022, The Pew Charitable Trusts analyzed the public filings of three large, publicly traded payday lenders that issue a high share of rent-a-bank loans and found that they had annual loss rates in 2019 averaging 50%. That is not unusual for a payday lender, but it is a startling figure for a bank. The same three lenders’ filings released in the fall of 2022 show that their  annual loss rates are now averaging 55%, despite other bank-issued loans averaging 2% or lower over the same time.

PEW is adamant that action is needed to shut down these abusive loans.

“As the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), FDIC, and other federal banking regulators consider new guidance for how banks can better manage third-party risk, they should take this opportunity to scrutinize the high-cost lending partnerships among a few of the banks regulated by the FDIC,” Alex Horowitz and Gabe Kravitz with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ consumer finance project said in a Feb. 2022 Opinion piece in the Hill.

They’re right on the money. These exploitative high-cost rent-a-bank loans need to end.