Editor’s note: This article was first published in December 2013, and the events it describes were current then, while the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit was still pending. Donald Trump has since become US President.
In August we reported that Donald Trump had been sued by 5,000 students who accused “Trump University” of swindling them out of their money. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman argued that Trump University, supposedly a school where anyone can become a millionaire by investing in real estate, is a sham that ends up lining Trump’s pockets and impoverishing naive would-be property tycoons.
Vanity Fair magazine has gathered the testimony of Bob Guillo, a man who, drawn in by Trump’s advertising, decided to attend one of those seminars costing $1,500. He says he came out so enthusiastic that he signed up for the “Trump Gold Elite” programme, which costs 35,000 dollars. He was promised that Donald Trump himself would be involved in the programme and that participants would get the practical lesson of buying a property and selling it immediately at a profit.
But he says he realised straight away that he had been taken for a ride, because the information he was being given on this elite programme seemed to come from websites such as Zillow.com, a site that gives advice on the property market and is free to access.
Guillo thought that 35,000 dollars was a lot of money to spend on free information, so he complained to the Trump University instructors and asked for his money back. But they never returned it, even though he repeatedly asked for a refund. He said that all he got out of the seminar was a photo of himself with a cardboard cut-out of Trump, and little else.
See also: Polluting Amazon: when “entrepreneurs” teach others to rip off customers
Guillo says that most of the others there also felt cheated.
The Trump University advert said:
“The most famous businessman in the world, who has earned more in a day than most people do in their whole lives… is willing to share with others the process for making yourself rich by investing in real estate. I can turn anyone into a successful investor. You too.”
You can read the full article (in English) in Vanity Fair
Further reading
- The entrepreneur’s mindset, according to Donald Trump
- Why the poor keep getting poorer and the rich keep getting richer
- The best books on financial education
Featured image: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
