You would think that a simple act of donating $27 to the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign would be a simple and painless process. In my case, it wasn’t.
Feeling uplifted and motivated, I chose to donate the historical amount of $27 to the Bernie Sanders 2016 presidential campaign. You see, $27 is the reported average donation amount of the historic 2.5 million donations received by Sanders according to a Jan. 2, 2016 news article.
In any case, the positive uplifting bells and whistles did not occur. Instead, my experience was completely destroyed by ActBlue.com’s payment checkout system.
You see, ActBlue.com is the donation processor for Sanders and as part of their electronic online donation collection process they pepper the check out process with a “make it weekly” gimmick that hustles the donor to make their contribution weekly. Well is that so.
Therefore, if your not careful, you’ll click it in obscurity, and turn your simple one time donation into a weekly deduction.
ActBlue.com even makes an attempt to ask for a “tip” during the checkout process.
If you did not intend this, and accidentally clicked the “make it weekly” button, which isn’t hard to do, you may not notice it until 30-days later when the monthly credit card statement comes in the mail.
Though my $27 may appear to be an insignificant amount, what if it was $100?
Getting his weekly for three more weeks, especially if its charging a debit card, is not small potatoes. Then, the reimbursement process takes another wave of time and effort to be made whole again.
Needless to say, my donation experience was a complete let down.
You see, at the very end of the check out process, after working your way through ActBlue.com’s hustle for a weekly contribution, the donor is presented with a strange final check out screen that reads in a large green button “Make it weekly.” Then next to that, a smaller gray button that reads “skip for now.”
Well, after having thought I clicked the skip for now button, it wasn’t absolutely clear that I would not be reoccurringly charged weekly the amount I only intended to be a one time donation.
Especially when feeling uncertain given the ambiguous final screen which prompted to sign up for some kind of subscription. After that screen, a screen indicating the donated amount (without any clarification about any weekly ongoing charges) appeared which presented itself as a receipt. You would think they would have included a “declined the weekly” itemized line on the receipt for the added benefit to the donor. Nope!
Needless to say, I was worried and did not feel confident that my credit card will not be charged any further than the one time donation I thought I was contributing.
Accordingly, I spent another hour navigating ActBlue.com’s website until I reached their “contact” form where I proceeded to type a scathing message explaining to them about my negative experience, to include advising them they were not authorized to charge my credit card for any additional charges other than my designated, one time donation of $27.
Interesting enough, the online contact form had a drop down menu for the subject line to the effect allowing to select an option to change the weekly donation amount. This told me this wasn’t the first time ActBlue.com has had problems with their “make it weekly” gimmick.
So, in a nut shell. I advised ActBlue.com their “make it weekly” trickery ruined my experience to donate to the Sanders campaign. And most likely, will discourage me, on principle, from making any further donations to his campaign. Unless I do so by mail.
Really?
When all is said and done, I am absent of the feelings one would have after having contributed to a worthy cause. Instead, I am combatively, and anxiously waiting for ActBlue.com to affirmatively acknowledge my notice to them they were not authorized to charge my credit card any further.
