Given that a key feature of Trump’s presidential campaign is his pledge to hire the “best of the best” as president, the fraud allegations surrounding Trump University may stick in ways that other attacks have not. Trump has misleadingly claimed that he has won most of the lawsuits concerning the program — and on Feb. 27, he devoted a lengthy portion of a campaign speech to offer a defense, including suggesting that a Hispanic judge in one of the proceedings was biased against him.
In 2013, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a $40 million fraud lawsuit against Trump and Trump University, alleging that Trump had defrauded more than 5,000 people through an unlicensed, illegal education institution. Two other class-action lawsuits have been filed against Trump by former students demanding their money back.
A Trump University internal playbook obtained by the Atlantic shows how the main goal of the instructors was to “sell, sell, sell,” as it declared on page 23. People were invited to a free introductory course, at which various tidbits of real estate secrets were offered, with the express goal of getting people to sign up for a three-day seminar costing $1,495. (The playbook set a “Minimum Sales Goal” of $72,500 per seminar, meaning that the speakers needed to persuade at least 50 people to sign up each time.)
Then, at the three-day seminar, the hook was set for a purported year-long mentorship program costing $35,000 (supposedly discounted from $49,000). That then led to even more sales pitches for even more products, such as a $3,500 bus tour of real estate properties. Schneiderman has alleged that Trump personally earned $5 million from the enterprise, although Trump has claimed the money was destined for charity.
“I’ll tell you about the school. It had an A rating from the Better Business Bureau, and the people that I think you even have on there have given a great report card,” Trump said.“Ninety-eight percent of the people that took the courses, 98 percent approved [of] the courses. They thought they were terrific.”
Actually, the BBB rated Trump University a D-, its second lowest grade, according to a 2010 N.Y. Daily News article; similar reports appeared on CBS News in 2010, in the New York Times in 2011, and The Washington Post in 2011. The state of Texas in 2010 ran the program out of the state after BBB was flooded with complaints. Similarly, the Federal Trade Commission, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, has disclosed 35 complaints that mirror the concerns made by the people in the ads. (As we have noted before, the “98 percent” approval claim generally is based on surveys after the free presentation. They were not anonymous, and people were encouraged to give positive ratings in hopes of receiving program discounts or a certificate of completion. It is not a credible figure.)
Simpson, a lawyer, said she was bewitched by The Donald. In 2010, as real estate markets hit bottom after the Great Recession, she thought it would be “the perfect time” to buy real estate. She considered a variety of real-estate investing course and settled on what was then called Trump University.
“I chose it because of Trump,” she said in an interview. “He said he only hires the best, the best experts, the best advisers. I figure it would be the best — the best contacts, the best contracts. It was 100 percent based on his reputation.”
Simpson and her partner, Laure Marmontel, ended up paying a total of $38,525 for information they considered practically useless, such as videos that could be accessed or informational documents that were out of date or inaccurate. The mentorship was only three days, during which the “mentor” just spoke about his real estate exploits.
The documents she submitted to the New York attorney general show how the $35,000 “Gold Elite” package was billed as being discounted 30 percent.
This reminds The Fact Checker about Trump’s false claims that he publicly opposed the Iraq war before it started, because we can find no evidence that Trump made such a statement about real estate in 2007 or 2008. But we did find a September 2005 Trump blog post using the Wayback machine on the Trump University website, saying the housing bubble would not burst:
In fact, as our colleagues Tom Hamburger and Michael Kranish documented, Trump in 2006 started Trump Mortgage — which closed shop in 2007.
Guillo has often been interviewed by reporters about his experience with Trump University, including by our colleague Emma Brown in her exposé about the program in September.
Guillo described how, at the $1,495 seminar, the “professors” pressed attendees to increase their credit lines right then and there so they could afford the higher-priced package. There were hints made that there would be great opportunities as part of an “in-the-know group” that would receive first dibs on Trump condos, which then could be flipped instantly for a profit. “That was a lie,” he said in an interview.
Guillo paid for his $35,000 Gold Elite membership on his American Express card so he did not need to increase his limit. But he said it was amazing to see the line of people waiting to use pay phones during the seminar to contact their credit card companies
Scott says he fell for the Trump pitch in 2008 during the free seminar, hoping to earn extra money to pay off outstanding debts. And after paying the $1,495 for the three-day seminar, he followed the advice of the presenter to increase his credit-card limit so he could afford the $25,000 Gold Elite program. He says he was told he could pay off the loan quickly with the insight he would gain through a three-day mentorship.
The Pinocchio Test
All three victims in the ads tell a similar story of falling for the Trump brand name, and then discovering that they needed to keep paying more money to gain insight and expertise — which was not forthcoming. In other words, Trump University appears to have been a classic bait-and-switch operation, designed to lure people into paying increasing sums of money.
In the 2012 election-year debate about Mitt Romney’s management at Bain Capital, we warned repeatedly about campaign ads that may have stretched the facts about Romney’s involvement in particular deals that led to job losses. But this collection of super PAC ads avoids that obstacle, in part because Trump said he was involved and selected the “professors” — which was not the truth. As the university executive testified, none were chosen by Trump.
Moreover, Trump University is the subject of a fraud investigation by the New York attorney general and two class-action suits that are headed to trial. The accounts of these three alleged victims are backed up by many other similar accounts of woe — as well as by the court filings.
One could quibble that the travails of Trump University do not directly prove that Trump himself is a “BS artist,” as Scott claims. But our own experience in fact checking Trump during this campaign suggests he has little regard for factual accuracy.
We award these ads the coveted Geppetto Checkmark.
The Geppetto Checkmark
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-top-stories_factchecker-315am:homepage/story
In 2013, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a $40 million fraud lawsuit against Trump and Trump University, alleging that Trump had defrauded more than 5,000 people through an unlicensed, illegal education institution. Two other class-action lawsuits have been filed against Trump by former students demanding their money back.
A Trump University internal playbook obtained by the Atlantic shows how the main goal of the instructors was to “sell, sell, sell,” as it declared on page 23. People were invited to a free introductory course, at which various tidbits of real estate secrets were offered, with the express goal of getting people to sign up for a three-day seminar costing $1,495. (The playbook set a “Minimum Sales Goal” of $72,500 per seminar, meaning that the speakers needed to persuade at least 50 people to sign up each time.)
Then, at the three-day seminar, the hook was set for a purported year-long mentorship program costing $35,000 (supposedly discounted from $49,000). That then led to even more sales pitches for even more products, such as a $3,500 bus tour of real estate properties. Schneiderman has alleged that Trump personally earned $5 million from the enterprise, although Trump has claimed the money was destined for charity.
“I’ll tell you about the school. It had an A rating from the Better Business Bureau, and the people that I think you even have on there have given a great report card,” Trump said.“Ninety-eight percent of the people that took the courses, 98 percent approved [of] the courses. They thought they were terrific.”
Actually, the BBB rated Trump University a D-, its second lowest grade, according to a 2010 N.Y. Daily News article; similar reports appeared on CBS News in 2010, in the New York Times in 2011, and The Washington Post in 2011. The state of Texas in 2010 ran the program out of the state after BBB was flooded with complaints. Similarly, the Federal Trade Commission, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, has disclosed 35 complaints that mirror the concerns made by the people in the ads. (As we have noted before, the “98 percent” approval claim generally is based on surveys after the free presentation. They were not anonymous, and people were encouraged to give positive ratings in hopes of receiving program discounts or a certificate of completion. It is not a credible figure.)
Simpson, a lawyer, said she was bewitched by The Donald. In 2010, as real estate markets hit bottom after the Great Recession, she thought it would be “the perfect time” to buy real estate. She considered a variety of real-estate investing course and settled on what was then called Trump University.
“I chose it because of Trump,” she said in an interview. “He said he only hires the best, the best experts, the best advisers. I figure it would be the best — the best contacts, the best contracts. It was 100 percent based on his reputation.”
Simpson and her partner, Laure Marmontel, ended up paying a total of $38,525 for information they considered practically useless, such as videos that could be accessed or informational documents that were out of date or inaccurate. The mentorship was only three days, during which the “mentor” just spoke about his real estate exploits.
The documents she submitted to the New York attorney general show how the $35,000 “Gold Elite” package was billed as being discounted 30 percent.
This reminds The Fact Checker about Trump’s false claims that he publicly opposed the Iraq war before it started, because we can find no evidence that Trump made such a statement about real estate in 2007 or 2008. But we did find a September 2005 Trump blog post using the Wayback machine on the Trump University website, saying the housing bubble would not burst:
In fact, as our colleagues Tom Hamburger and Michael Kranish documented, Trump in 2006 started Trump Mortgage — which closed shop in 2007.
Guillo has often been interviewed by reporters about his experience with Trump University, including by our colleague Emma Brown in her exposé about the program in September.
Guillo described how, at the $1,495 seminar, the “professors” pressed attendees to increase their credit lines right then and there so they could afford the higher-priced package. There were hints made that there would be great opportunities as part of an “in-the-know group” that would receive first dibs on Trump condos, which then could be flipped instantly for a profit. “That was a lie,” he said in an interview.
Guillo paid for his $35,000 Gold Elite membership on his American Express card so he did not need to increase his limit. But he said it was amazing to see the line of people waiting to use pay phones during the seminar to contact their credit card companies
Scott says he fell for the Trump pitch in 2008 during the free seminar, hoping to earn extra money to pay off outstanding debts. And after paying the $1,495 for the three-day seminar, he followed the advice of the presenter to increase his credit-card limit so he could afford the $25,000 Gold Elite program. He says he was told he could pay off the loan quickly with the insight he would gain through a three-day mentorship.
The Pinocchio Test
All three victims in the ads tell a similar story of falling for the Trump brand name, and then discovering that they needed to keep paying more money to gain insight and expertise — which was not forthcoming. In other words, Trump University appears to have been a classic bait-and-switch operation, designed to lure people into paying increasing sums of money.
In the 2012 election-year debate about Mitt Romney’s management at Bain Capital, we warned repeatedly about campaign ads that may have stretched the facts about Romney’s involvement in particular deals that led to job losses. But this collection of super PAC ads avoids that obstacle, in part because Trump said he was involved and selected the “professors” — which was not the truth. As the university executive testified, none were chosen by Trump.
Moreover, Trump University is the subject of a fraud investigation by the New York attorney general and two class-action suits that are headed to trial. The accounts of these three alleged victims are backed up by many other similar accounts of woe — as well as by the court filings.
One could quibble that the travails of Trump University do not directly prove that Trump himself is a “BS artist,” as Scott claims. But our own experience in fact checking Trump during this campaign suggests he has little regard for factual accuracy.
We award these ads the coveted Geppetto Checkmark.
The Geppetto Checkmark
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-top-stories_factchecker-315am:homepage/story
