Surely the recipient has to create a PayPal or Western Union account first, which constitutes giving permission for that company to take payment on their behalf.
And in fairness, the complaint isn't even that money is being sent to people without their consent. The problem is that the money isn't actually being sent to those people at all — Brave are keeping it.
Western Union can refund money sent if it hasn't been collected by the recipient.
Western Union doesn't require a minimum amount of money be sent to a recipient before they collect.
Really, it is 1 & 2 together that seem to mark this clearly as fraud. 3 doesn't help either.
Strictly speaking, Brave is not doing that. The fact that the originator of the solicitation is Brave, and that the potential end-recipient may not sign up to receive the funds, is disclosed.
It's an escrow fund that would release the funds to a particular party should they choose to claim it. That's how the contribution service is marketed.
Since Tom Scott didn't sign up, how would Brave know to contact him? Some default [email protected] email that may or may not even be registered?
There's a huge difference between sending someone money without their prior permission and creating a system to solicit money to send to someone without their prior permission.