WaPo's fact checker has awarded these three ads the "Geppetto Checkmark", finding that all are truthful. From the article:
Hope Hicks, spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said she would provide a response to the ads, but we did not receive one. But Trump was questioned about the ads on Fox News Sunday on Feb. 28.
“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.)
Later, the article continues:
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.
The Daily News published the “script” that the Trump University teachers gave to the attendees about how to raise their credit limits, including urging them to make misleading statements about their “projected income” from real estate transactions (but warning them not to mention that they were in the “real estate” business).
At the Gold Elite retreat, Guillo said, he quickly realized that he had been scammed. Much of the information provided could have easily been gathered from the Zillow website or the IRS. Moreover, attendees were frequently encouraged to sign up for even more programs, costing $5,000 to $9,000.
Guillo said he filled out positive program evaluations because he was encouraged to believe that that was the only way he could receive a certificate of completion for the courses he took. “The evaluations did not reflect my actual opinion of the courses,” he said in the affidavit.
The article provides lots more detail, then concludes with "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
Link to Entire Article Below
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-attack-ads-about-trump-university/?tid=a_inl
Hope Hicks, spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, said she would provide a response to the ads, but we did not receive one. But Trump was questioned about the ads on Fox News Sunday on Feb. 28.
“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.)
Later, the article continues:
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.
The Daily News published the “script” that the Trump University teachers gave to the attendees about how to raise their credit limits, including urging them to make misleading statements about their “projected income” from real estate transactions (but warning them not to mention that they were in the “real estate” business).
At the Gold Elite retreat, Guillo said, he quickly realized that he had been scammed. Much of the information provided could have easily been gathered from the Zillow website or the IRS. Moreover, attendees were frequently encouraged to sign up for even more programs, costing $5,000 to $9,000.
Guillo said he filled out positive program evaluations because he was encouraged to believe that that was the only way he could receive a certificate of completion for the courses he took. “The evaluations did not reflect my actual opinion of the courses,” he said in the affidavit.
The article provides lots more detail, then concludes with "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
Link to Entire Article Below
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-attack-ads-about-trump-university/?tid=a_inl
