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Trump University. By this point, you’ve likely heard of it. Donald Trump’s attempt at creating a “business school” that sounds more like Scientology than Harvard.
At Trump U, you pay $1,495 for three days of classes, and then pay more and more and more for each incremental class and program. Just another 3 days, another week, and on and on and on until you’ve spent over $30,000 on, what several former “students” and employees call, a scam.
What’s worse is new documents made public from a court case, where former employees divulge the pressure techniques they were instructed to use to coerce people of limited means into paying their life’s savings, and then some, to Donald Trump.
First, there’s this from Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:
The Times recounts that one former sales manager alleges that the school “preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money.” And there’s this:
Corrine Sommer, an event manager, recounted how colleagues encouraged students to open up as many credit cards as possible to pay for classes that many of them could not afford. “It’s O.K., just max out your credit card,” Ms. Sommer recalled their saying.
Far worse is this, also from the Post:
“A former Trump University staffer, Ronald Schnackenberg, wrote in a formal statement unsealed Tuesday that he quit the program in 2007 after working there for less than a year, deciding that it was engaging in ‘misleading, fraudulent and dishonest’ practices. His statement said he was reprimanded by Trump University for not working harder to sell a $35,000 program to a couple who could not afford it and would have had to use disability pay and a loan taken out against equity in their apartment to pay for it. He said another salesperson talked the couple into paying for the seminar after he refused.”
CNN did a great broadcast a few days ago about a man and his wife who paid, a lot, for courses at Trump University. It’s worth a watch.
More from CNN:
Team members are given scripted rebuttals to address students and prospective students who express doubt about whether they should enroll or sign up for a more expensive package. For example:
I don’t like using my credit cards and going into debt: “[D]o you like living paycheck to paycheck? … Do you enjoy seeing everyone else but yourself in their dream houses and driving their dreams cars with huge checking accounts? Those people saw an opportunity, and didn’t make excuses, like what you’re doing now.”
I’m going to try this on my own: “The risk isn’t spending 35K – it’s entering into the world of REAL ESTATE without specialized knowledge, guidance and trained professionals in the field holding your hand. WE are the safe decision. Fear is preventing you from investing in yourself.”
It reads like a Donald Trump campaign speech. And rings as true.
Follow me on Twitter: @aravosis — Win a pony! (not really)
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