Posted on 02/27/2016 12:19:21 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Many people believe that higher education is a de facto scam. Trump University, Donald Trump's real-estate institution, was a de jure one.
First thing first, Trump University was never a university. When the "school" was established in 2005, the New York State Education Department warned that it was in violation of state law for operating without a NYSED license. Trump ignored the warnings. (The institution is now called, ahem, "Trump Entrepreneur Initiative.") Cue lawsuits.
Trump University is currently the defendant in three lawsuits - two class-action lawsuits filed in California, and one filed in New York by then-attorney general Eric Schneiderman, who told CNN's New Day in 2013: "We started looking at Trump University and discovered that it was a classic bait-and-switch scheme. It was a scam, starting with the fact that it was not a university."
Trump U "students" say the same. In his affidavit, Richard Hewson reported that he and his wife "concluded that we had paid over $20,000 for nothing, based on our belief in Donald Trump and the promises made at the [organization’s] free seminar and three-day workshop." But "the whole thing was a scam."
In fact, $20,000 is only a mid-range loss. The lead plaintiff in one of the California suits, yoga instructor Tarla Makaeff, says she was "scammed" out of $60,000 over the course of her time in Trump U.
How could that have happened? The New York suit offers a suggestion:
The free seminars were the first step in a bait and switch to induce prospective students to enroll in increasingly expensive seminars starting with the three-day $1495 seminar and ultimately one of respondents’ advanced seminars such as the "Gold Elite" program costing $35,000.
At the "free" 90-minute introductory seminars to which Trump University advertisements and solicitations invited prospective students, Trump University instructors engaged in a methodical, systematic series of misrepresentations designed to convince students to sign up for the Trump University three-day seminar at a cost of $1495.
The Atlantic, which got hold of a 41-page "Private & Confidential" playbook from Trump U, has attested to the same:
The playbook says almost nothing about the guest speaker presentations, the ostensible reason why people showed up to the seminar in the first place. Instead, the playbook focuses on the seminars' real purpose: to browbeat attendees into purchasing expensive Trump University course packages.
To do that, instructors touted Trump's own promises: that students would be "mentored" by "handpicked" real-estate experts, who would use Trump's own real-estate strategies. Here’s Trump making the pitch himself:
But according to the New York complaint, none of the instructors was "handpicked" by Trump, many of them came from fields having nothing to do with real-estate, and Trump "'never' reviewed any of Trump University's curricula or programming materials." The materials were "in large part developed by a third-party company that creates and develops materials for an array of motivational speakers and seminar and timeshare rental companies."
Furthermore, Trump's promises that the three-day seminar ($1,495) would include "access to 'private' or 'hard money' lenders and financing," that it would include a "year-long 'apprenticeship support' program," and that it would 'improve the credit scores' of students were empty.
Those empty promises are the subject of a new series of anti-Trump ads by superPAC American Future Fund:
According to Bob, "I never heard from anybody about giving me a list of hard-money lenders":
Kevin, another Trump U "student," says Trump University "ruined" his credit score:
And according to Sherri, a single mother who participated in Trump U: "It was all supposedly supervised by Donald Trump, run by Donald Trump. All of it was just a fake."
In fact, Sherri isn't alone. No student ever met the Donald. Despite hints from Trump University instructors that Trump was "going to be in town," "often drops by," or "might show up," he never did. As Matt Labash recounted in The Weekly Standard: "At one seminar, attendees were told they’d get to have their picture taken with Trump. Instead, they ended up getting snapped with his cardboard cutout." Bob.., had such an "opportunity":
There could be many more ads to come. The New York lawsuit alone represents some 5,000 victims.
Meanwhile, Trump - who maintains that Trump University was "a terrific school that did a fantastic job" - has tried to bully his opponents out of the suit. Lawyers for Tarla Makaeff have requested a protective order from the court "to protect her from further retaliation." According to court documents, Trump has threatened to sue Makaeff personally, as well as her attorneys. He's already brought a $100 million counterclaim against the New York attorney general's office.
But it's not working. Trump himself will have to take the witness stand in San Diego federal court sometime during the election season - and because of the timeline of the cases, a "President Trump" would be embroiled in these suits long after November.
Meanwhile, if there is any doubt that Trump U was designed to be a scam, The Atlantic puts that to rest with a few other choice tidbits from that "Private & Confidential" playbook used by Trump presenters:
Every university has admission standards and Trump University was no exception. The playbook spells out the one essential qualification in caps: "ALL PAYMENTS MUST BE RECEIVED IN FULL." Basically, anyone with a valid credit card was “admitted” to Trump University....
If a member of the media happened to approach the registration table, Trump staffers were instructed not to talk to him or her under any circumstance. "Reporters are rarely on your side and they are not sympathetic," the playbook advises.
And:
At one point, the playbook advises Trump staffers: "If a district attorney arrives on the scene, contact the appropriate media spokesperson immediately."
Sounds legit.
Your engrams are a quart low...
And in response to your very long message
Yes the average Jo or someone with no experience can’t make money on tax liens fire laurel and flips
And that Is why so MANY get rich on real estate companies other than Trump sell their seminars and packaged lectures on how to do it
They have services that cull properties to avoid the problems you mention
That is why you pay $2,000 or so for the course
Of course you have to be smart aggressively follow their protocol and never get greedy which is where many folks probably fail
“ but the tax assessor says this house that I got for a $600 unpaid tax lien is worth $200k and I ain’t gonna sell it to a lowball investor for $30k cash in 2 days! “
Btw I got a degree in English from a major university and never got a job as an English teacher or in publishing .... Waaaa!
Call me a defrauded consumer, get me a lawyer and lets go file a class action suit
Tax liens foreclosures and flips
dang spell corrector!
Unitarian?
ping
I just know you’re going to have a very happy Super Tuesday!
Look under your seat...
Your case of TDS has gotten much worse since last week.
We will pray for your recovery.
HAHAHA!
How did you ever fit a ‘16 Lambo under there?
Me too TerrisFriend.
I read your recount of your “timeshare” experience yesterday, but time did not permit me to answer - I was heading out the door.
Thank you for taking the time to comment.
It’s a real eye-opener to live through one of these “sessions” and I can see how some are pulled in and place themselves in a dubious financial situation - it can happen to them in many ways.
However, Trump is running to the the president and his character counts - he knew, or darn well should have cared enough to know, that what he told these people was a lie - they did not have wonderful professors and adjunct professors - the best people to teach them how to be successful like himself - it was a boiler room, high presser money extraction scam, where professional pitchmen pushed and pushed these people to take out more and more credit to buy the “classes” that were in the tens of thousands of dollars, and they didn’t get a timeshare where, if nothing else, they had some “fun vacations.” They were fleeced, their credit was ruined and they got nothing (while Trump banked that money).
If that's true, then this civil suit is obviously total crap.
No, mental dyxlexia.
Not ‘mage orders’ but mega-orders.
Weisneheimer!
[Stern look, fighting back smile.]
Uh ... I mean, ‘weisenheimer’.
I can see how some are pulled in and place themselves in a dubious financial situation - it can happen to them in many ways.
One thing that really concerns me about any of these high pressure sales situations is that people with abuse in their past are woefully vulnerable to them. The problem is that I don't know how to write a law that protects the vulnerable without going too far in the interfering with honest business people direction.
Timeshares do have some very specific limitations on them. In most states, the salespeople have to go through a sheet explaining exactly what the person is getting for their money, with the person initialing each point, AND they record both that presentation and the buyer's responses. So even if the salesperson promises the moon, the buyer is clearly warned that the contract does not cover that, and that the salesperson's verbal promises (or what they thought were the salesperson's promises -- timeshare sales always present the most expensive package, but rarely sell people that particular deal) do not apply unless those promises are backed by writing.
I am not at all sure that Trump University jumped through as many hoops as timeshare companies have to. And, while the people who went to Trump University didn't get saddled with a lifetime of yearly maintenance fees (some timeshares have an end point, but I think lifetime is still the average), I think you're right that most people who went to Trump University did not benefit financially from the experience.
Also agree that character counts, and that Trump's character looks to be pretty flawed. I think he sticks to the right side of the law, but when it comes to morals he falls seriously short. He says a lot of things that sound good, but I have little faith that he'll follow through. And he has a long, long history of ignoring, or walking over, "the little guy."
It amazes me how many people think he has their best interests at heart, ditto on those who see him as a political outsider. In my eyes, he's just another crony capitalist, and the difference between crony capitalists and self-serving politicians is negligible.
One of the things I like about Trump is that I think he does sincerely love America, and that he loves an America that actually exists (or has existed), which puts him way ahead of the current inhabitant of the oval office. But I'm not always sure that the America Trump loves is the America I love. :p
Thanks for you reply, and hope you don't mind the ramble.
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