Local entrepreneur profits off of Trump and Sanders campaigns

REDMOND, Wash. — A Redmond entrepreneur has not only managed to profit from reselling official presidential campaign merchandise on Amazon, he has also received checks from the Trump and Sanders campaigns to refund what he spent in purchasing the products.

Randy Treibel, the founder and president of Twenty One Twelve, makes a business of selling all kinds of merchandise on Amazon as a third-party seller. Earlier this year, when he saw another third-party seller market Bernie Sanders campaign merchandise, he said he wanted to try that too.

"Customers just bought it up," Treibel said, "Almost literally everything on their site, you can buy from us."

He did the same with Trump products, buying official stickers, buttons and signs from the campaign website.

"We looked at what the customer would buy, you know, generally items that are more irrational that they can show off," he said.

Treibel is very much aware that people can buy some of the same things on the real campaign's website. But he said customers want reliable and fast delivery. People are willing to pay more, for Prime delivery within two days.

Then, Treibel received a letter from the Donald J. Trump campaign.

The letter started with, "Thank you for your generous contribution to Donald J. Trump for president."

Treibel said he had no idea his purchases from their website were being counted as campaign donations. He received a check along with that letter, for about $870. The letter explained that he had exceeded the Federal Election Commission's cap, which limits individuals to donating $2,700 to a campaign per election.

As of the end of July, the Trump campaign has issued checks to Treibel that add up to almost $3,000. For the same reason, the Bernie Sanders campaign cut him a check for more than $11,000.

Not counting these refunds, Treibel said he has so far made about $10,000 to $15,000 in profit on the merchandise.

He said he has unintentionally gamed the system.

"Effectively, I didn't have to pay anything for the merchandise, which is ethically interesting. But there's nothing you can do about it," Treibel said.

He also tried selling Hillary Clinton items, but he said they did not sell nearly as well as Trump or Sanders products.

He told KIRO 7 this has nothing to do with politics; rather, it's simply a business venture.

If Clinton products sold well, he would have stocked them. But he would not have gotten refund checks. He said the Clinton campaign set up their website so that merchandise purchases were done through the Hillary Victory Fund, a fundraising committee authorized by the campaign.

Treibel said a senior Trump campaign official gave him a call. The person explained to him that they had changed their system to also have their merchandise sold by a political action committee, rather than the campaign itself.

"She explicitly stated that there would be no more refund checks," he said.

The Federal Election Commission told KIRO 7 it is each campaign's responsibility to refund the amount in excess of the donation limit and that there are no rules against the resale of campaign merchandise.

Cox Media Group