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Hardball politics and campaign trickery are as American as apple pie, but even in that rough and tumble world, some rules apply. A new Republican fundraising tactic reminiscent of “spoofing” telemarketing scams has some asking where the line is these days between clever campaigning and fraud.

At first glance, AnnKirkpatrick.com looks like any normal campaign website. A big picture of the smiling Arizona Democrat stands next to a “Kirkpatrick For Congress” banner above a fat “DONATE” button, all in the same colors as those used by the real website for Kirkpatrick, who’s fighting to keep her House seat. Read closer and the text of the site reveals lines like “Kirkpatrick is a huge embarrassment to Arizona,” but anyone who didn’t bother to read the site closely (or who couldn’t due to bad eyesight) before trying to make a donation to Kirkpatrick’s campaign would find that they’d just contributed to the coffers of the National Republican Congressional Committee—the House GOP’s campaign arm backing Kirkpatrick’s opponent.

Annkirkpatrick.com is one of a series of websites (TIME has found 16, so far) the NRCC has set up that are clearly designed to trick the viewer—at least at first—into thinking they’re on a legitimate campaign website. The tactic smacks of “spoofing” scams, whereby spammers masquerade under fake phone numbers or email addresses to win trust (it’s how you might have once received an email that looked addressed from a friend but turned out to be a plaintive plea from wealthy Nigerian prince). But the line between clever and criminal is an ambiguous one in American politics, and anyone claiming to be shocked by less-than-truthful campaign materials hasn’t been around much.

At least one campaign law expert thinks the NRCC has gone too far.

“The law seems pretty clear to me and the sites along these lines that I’ve looked at the past few months seem to clearly violate Federal Election Commission regulations,” said Paul S. Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center. “In my view it is not the case that these websites clearly and unambiguously show opposition. On the contrary the URLs of these websites would lead a reasonable viewer to think the websites are supporting the candidate.”

“If it were a consumer product we were talking about it would be illegal—or at least you’d get the better business bureau all over you,” said Kathy Kiely of the Sunlight Foundation. “It’s just another example of how un-transparent and shady the system of funding political campaigns has become.”

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks the influence of money in politics and public policy, said it’s not clear the NRCC has crossed a legal line and that regulators need to weigh in on the matter. But don’t expect that anytime soon: The FEC is notoriously gridlocked on a host of enforcement matters.

The NRCC stands by the tactic and mocks Democrats for failing to grab up Internet real estate important to the party’s candidates. “Democrats are behind the game in digital,” NRCC spokeswoman Andrea Bozek said. “They should be buying the URLs for their candidates. I think that’s a pretty basic campaign tactic.”

Not surprisingly, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the NRCC’s counterpart, feels differently. “It’s not the DCCC’s practice to make websites that that could be confused with the opponent’s site,” spokeswoman Emily Bittner said. http://swampland.time.com/2014/02/05/2014-nrcc-dccc-congress-midterm-e
lections-websites/#ixzz2sZb4XuTU

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Ray Bellamy said he wanted to make a political contribution to Alex Sink a Google search landed him at " http://contribute.sinkforcongress2014.com.";

"It looked legitimate and had a smiling face of Sink and all the trappings of a legitimate site," Bellamy, a doctor from Tallahassee who follows Florida politics, wrote in an email to the Buzz. (Here's Sink's actual site, which uses a similar color scheme.)

What Bellamy overlooked was that the site is designed to raise money against Sink. "I failed to notice the smaller print: Under "Alex Sink Congress" was the sentence 'Make a contribution today to help defeat Alex Sink and candidates like her,' " he said.

"After sending what I thought was a contribution of 250 dollars to Sink, I get a page clearly thanking me for attempting to defeat Democrats, Obama, and Pelosi. The new URL is https://www.nrcc.org/contribute/thank you/ and a photo of Greg Walden, Republican Congressman -Oregon 2nd District."

Walden is head of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The NRCC has set up similar sites for other candidates, according to this NBC News report. And National Journal last year reported on other misleading sites, which experts said could violate election rules.

Asked Monday about the Sink site, an NRCC spokeswoman, Katie Prill, did not address the question. "Ms. Sink doesn't want to be honest about her support of ObamaCare or her awful record as CFO, we are happy to inform voters," she wrote in an email.

Democrats have their own misleading URL: Jollyforcongress.com, though the site is clearly against Sink's Republican rival, David Jolly.

Bellamy wrote Monday afternoon: "I got an email from Eric Cantor this am urging some action related to Pelosi and it had their phone # so I called them. The receptionist Kate, who would not give her last name, and would not transfer me to the Finance Dept., said the NRCC let credit card companies handle such requests. She would not refund my money. My credit card company is mailing me papers to register a complaint or challenge the charge."

UPDATE: The NRCC says Bellamy's donation has been refunded. http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/the-buzz-florida-politics/campaign-site-
misleads-man-into-donating-money-against-alex-sink/2163901

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This is the first time I've seen one where they use a banner where by its own terms is actually express advocacy on behalf of that candidate," Birkenstock said. "One word at the end of the line contradicts the banner and contradicts the URL."

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GOP candidates in these districts are lagging far behind in campaign funds.

FL Democratic candidate Alex Sink has raised over a million dollars for her Congressional campaign. On January 14, ABC reported that this figure was more than all of her republican rivals combined.

Likewise, AZ democrat Kyrsten Sinema has raised close to $1.4 million. At least three republicans have entered the race to challenge Sinema. As of the most recent campaign finance reports, one challenger, Republican Vernon Parker, has raised $0 dollars for his campaign. Another republican challenger, Wendy Rogers, has raised just under $230,000. The third candidate opposing Sinema, republican Andrew Walters, has raised just over $202,000.

What this indicates is that republicans are having a hard time raising money for their own candidates. Instead, they are resorting to shady practices, designed to trick unsuspecting internet users into donating to candidates that they don’t support.

Fortunately, information about the shady tactics used by the NRCC is getting out to the public. Voters have a right to expect that the money they donate will go where they want it to go. To protect yourself, always read the fine print in the ad, before donating to a political candidate online. http://www.addictinginfo.org/2014/02/04/gop-trick-website/

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The RNCC isn’t backing down, but said it will offer a refund. “Democrats are clearly pitching stories on these effective websites because they are worried about voters learning the truth about their candidates’ disastrous records,” argued NRCC spokeswoman Andrea Bozek. “We will refund any other Democrat plants who are asked to donate.”

Bozek’s language gives you an idea of how angry and polarizing life on a campaign can be. Instead of looking at it thoughtfully, she immediately goes into attack mode. http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/05/republicans-defend-websites-that-tric
ked-donors-into-believing-they-were-pro-democrat/

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