Question about Romney team cancelling volunteers' credit cards and phones right after he lost.

[yardwork]

Is it possible to that on short notice? It seems to me that it would be difficult to cancer the credit card accounts and phone accounts for thousands of volunteers in the middle of the night. It seems like this would need to be done in advance, well in advance, not within minutes of conceding a presidential race after midnight.

It seems to me that Romney had planned to cancel the credit card and phone accounts for his volunteers whether or not he won.

[elehhhhna]

1. stop. it's a phone call. prolly from the campaign treasurer.

[yardwork]

9. In the middle of the night?

[Motown_Johnny]

26. sure, all those 1-800 customer services are 24/7/365

You might end up talking to someone in India but that doesn't mean you can't cancel your credit card.

[Botany]

2. They could have done it in seconds w/ one phone call or one email ......

..... the cards were no doubt under a very few accounts and mostly
through one bank ....... Mitt made his money fucking over people
and I have no doubt that he and or his campaign had a "kill switch"
ready to go.

[hedgehog]

3. Has anyone stepped forward to repudiate this story?

[Brother Buzz]

14. What's to repudiate?

No ghost quotes, it happened.

[justice1]

4. Several cards issued under one account holder, could be done quickly.

I read many of the people were from out of state, that this happened to. I would like to hear the reactions, from more workers.

[Not Me]

5. Bill Press had a guest on his show the other day who said

unlike Meg Whitman in CA and Linda McMAhon in CT, Romney didn't have a cent of his own invested in the race.
Telling.

[dorkzilla]

6. From an HR perspective...

I can tell you how incredibly easy this was. The CEO would call me to tell me that she was getting rid of Employee X, and they were meeting with X at 10am. At exactly 10:00, I would call Amex and cancel their card, and cut off their cell phone. At the same time, I would direct IT to change their computer pass codes. By the time they got out of their meeting (10-15 minutes) everything would be done.

If I needed to, I could have cancelled all Amex cards for all our employees with one phone call.

[yardwork]

10. In the middle of the night this could be done instantly?

I really don't know, which is why I posted this thread.

[GoneOffShore]

12. If your card is stolen would you wait until morning to call?

Nope - you call AMEX/VISA/MASTERCARD IMMEDIATELY and they cancel the card.

I've cancelled cards at noon, at midnight, from foreign countries.

[yardwork]

20. Gotcha. It could have been done at the last minute, I see that now.

The bigger question is why this was one of the first things that the campaign leadership thought of in the minutes after Romney conceded. I guess they are just used to firing people.

[dorkzilla]

13. Yep, the credit card companies are there 24/7...

but I have a feeling this was pre-arranged. Someone in the campaign probably arranged to have all cards cancelled at midnight, or they had a drop-dead date pre-arranged when they set up the account.

[yardwork]

15. So you think that they would have cancelled the cards even if Romney won?

I now understand that it is entirely possible that this was a last-minute decision made because Romney lost. However, I would not put it past them to have planned to have cancelled the volunteers' accounts even if he won. It would be typical of Romney. The volunteers were no longer useful to Romney, either way.

[aletier_v]

19. I doubt he would have shut them down if he'd won

For one thing, a number of those people would transition
into perm positions, and there's no reason to annoy them.

[yardwork]

23. Maybe the people who were going to transition didn't have their accounts turned off.

We don't even know if the stories are true. We have accounts on the blogosphere of rank and file Romney volunteers finding that they had no way to pay for taxis, hotels, and airfare home from the convention center. We don't know that the ones who had been picked to be part of the transition team were treated this way.

[aletier_v]

28. That's why I mentioned "a few accounts"

I wouldn't be surprised if there were several accounts
with specific missions - advertising, IT, etc.

So perhaps you're right,
there could have been a "transition team" account
which wasn't shut down
but others were.

[dorkzilla]

27. Except that this would have been a bookkeeping nightmare

The campaign and the transition team would be two separate entities. The probably had replacement cards all set to go for the latter in case of a win.

[dorkzilla]

22. I would think it was pre-arranged

To them and their ilk, it was a business decision. There is no consideration of the human side. I can tell you that this is the reason I no longer do HR work. Its soul-crushing for people like us.

[yardwork]

25. Bain behavior. They invented it.

It is chilling, though.

[Retrograde]

16. Why not? They're staffed around the clock

Credit card companies have customers doing business around the world, so they need to have a way for them to contact the company when they have problems - any time. The more business you do with the company, the better the service - and I suspect an organization like Romney's campaign has a hot-line number directly to a live person. Heck, I have one and I'm not even a Republican!

[JaneyVee]

7. Some of them were probably planning on using it to get home i.e. airplane fare, taxi's, etc.

What an asshole.

[TwilightGardener]

21. Yep--right when they are soon to collect their last checks before

being unemployed, they have to shell out probably hundreds for their own flights home. Imagine how mad you'd be if you were laid off while on a business trip and told to purchase your own flight home.

[aletier_v]

8. You can do it almost instantly.

I imagine that all cards were linked into a single (or perhaps a few accounts).

Flip one switch, BING, all shut down.

[Justice]

11. I agree with you yard work

I think they were set to be turned off win or lose.

[yardwork]

18. We don't have any evidence, but that's what my gut tells me.

I now understand that this could have been a last minute decision, made minutes after Romney conceded, but why? Why would that have been something that the campaign manager was thinking of in those moments of disappointment.

The line of reasoning would have had to be: "OMG we lost!!! How did this happen! I feel shellshocked. Oh yeah, I better cancel all the credit card and phone accounts of our thousands of volunteers. Screw them."

[Viva_La_Revolution]

29. they do it so you can't 'steal' from them

They know if they were in the small guy's shoes, they would run up all kinds of charges on the cards before they got cancelled. So they figure everyone else would do that too.

[The Straight Story]

17. Go online, report it lost/stolen, it is shut off. Done (nt)

[flamingdem]

24. If we don't hear them bitch about having to pay hotel or airfare after then

it's not such a big deal because they probably had those paid already.

Doesn't mean we can't enjoy it!