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.
And Trump, unlike the rest of the Republican Party will smack her right back down with her own scandals AND get the media to cover it.
Nobody but Trump can do that.
So morons and their money soon part?
And the moron money vacuum is Trump?
Watch Trump’s personal 2:16 minute “Trump University” sales pitch.
It’s pure Trump.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvaaeHP9xtQ
As Trump has pointed out, people who have filed complaints left the course giving it a good evaluation. The class-action suit is not thousands of students, as the course had 10,000 students apparently. Lots and lots of happy customers.
Trump could write a check and make this all go away in one second. But he knows he’s being taken for a ride.
It’s a class action lawsuit for God’s sake. No different than ambulance chasing attorneys looking for money for a bus load of people whose bus was rear ended by a kid on a moped.
Conservatives will abandon Trump When Governor Cuomo tries to prosecute him.
Sounds like people are suing because they are too lazy to work and follow the program. Trump could have settled this but has been winning and will not get pushed around like a junior senator.
On a side note, anyone who paid for a subscription to National Review in the past are the ones who should be suing.
If you care to learn about this, you’ll find that there were no lectures by all these “wonderful professors,” it was a money extraction scam. Many people were encouraged to go into debt because “they’d make it back on their first sale” - so they over extended themselves and their credit was ruined.
Watch the slick video of Trump giving his “university” pitch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvaaeHP9xtQ
There was no program.
Is Donald Trump practicing capitalism when he engages in fraud to fleece unsophisticated and likely relatively uneducated folks desperate to improve their lot in a semi-capitalist society? Do you deny the practicing fraud is not capitalism but criminal activity? Do you deny that the allegation is that Donald Trump committed a fraud.
If true it is as damning as it gets for a multi billionaire (we think, he might be lying about that too because he won't release his tax returns) to callously lend his name and resources to a scam to line is already deep pockets with the last reserves of the people he cheats.
With the biography of Donald Trump replete with cheating, fraudulent activities, illegal activities, disreputable associations, bankruptcies, sleazy enterprises, why is it that we find so many people willing to drink the Kool-Aid about this man? Why is it that so many people believe that this mountebank will somehow come to Jesus moment he is sworn in?
Are they as desperate as the poor defrauded souls who believed Donald Trump could help them make a career in real estate?
I got screwed on my first 5 vending machines. Paying for new vending machines is like paying for a new exercise equipment. But I learned and adjusted. But this was devious by Trump. At least a little. I am concerned about the college students who already are Democrats.
Hamburger University.
Exactly.
They know I'm lying, but what can they do?
I am old enough to remember when a university was an institution for tertiary education which offered degrees in both law and medicine, and doctorates in other disciplines. Branches of the universities and all other tertiary institutions were called colleges or polytechnics.
In the early ‘90s, Singapore, notwithstanding the high educational level of its citizens, had the lowest percentage of university graduates of any country in Asia simply because in Singapore a university was a university.
Seems part of Trump's allure is his wealth and power but after hearing a short list of the Wall Street banks he owes major money to, I really wonder if he's as rich as he's implying. Why would a multi billionaire keep going bankrupt?
I have to hand it to you Cincinatus' Wife.. you KNOW how to BUILD SUPPORT for Trump.
An excellent point; though, I don’t agree with the charge. My GSD failed Doggie University — I’m not joking.
I have no problem with objections to Trump. He’s certainly a bombastic, crass know-it-all. But his empire wasn’t derived from taxation. Trump is a reflection of the market he serves. Don’t like his products, don’t pay for them. Can the same be said for the charlatans in DC?
The Clintons have killed countless numbers of people and obama is. muslim communist chosen by soros.
Okay, well let’s just sit out the election since there are no decent candidates in the running.
Problem solved.
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