… “If they can afford the gold elite don’t allow them to think about doing anything besides the gold elite,” the document states.
If potential students hesitate, teachers are told to read this script.
As one of your mentors for the last three days, it’s time for me to push you out of your comfort zone. It’s time for you to be 100% honest with yourself. You’ve had your entire adult life to accomplish your financial goals. I’m looking at your profile and you’re not even close to where you need to be, much less where you want to be. It’s time you fix your broken plan, bring in Mr. Trump’s top instructors and certified millionaire mentors and allow us to put you and keep you on the right track. Your plan is BROKEN and WE WILL help you fix it. Remember you have to be 100% honest with yourself!
Trump University staff are instructed in how to persuade students to put the cost of the course on their credit cards, even if they have just battled to pay off debts.
Do 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.
…
Collect personalized information that you can utilize during closing time. (For example: are they a single parent of three children that may need money for food? Or are they a middle-aged commuter that is tired of traveling for 2 hours to work each day?)
…
Can I resist the pitch? No trouble. That script is about as convincing as Dianetics (which is the least convincing pile of crap I’ve ever read, to be clear.)
If someone is trying to convince you of something in a scenario that has them financially benefiting from you making the “right” decision you should be on full alert - every time and always. That’s all salesmen, especially those representing their own company and (hard to tell) those working on commission.
I don’t get this. I mean, all I hear/see is a terrible script suggesting people do the exact actions they shouldn’t do-
I mean, do people really not know that taking on debt via credit cards is to be avoided?
I believe in education as a tool to help people lift themselves up, and it bothers me to see it’s name perverted like this.
And by “bothers” I mean “fills me with murderous rage.”
I think it’s possible to underestimate the effect that desperation has on decisions to borrow money — esp. high interest borrowing.
People know that high interest debt is bad. They also know there are worse things than borrowing money.
Sophisticated investors will borrow at disadvantageous rates to avoid a worse alternative — like an onerous margin call.
And reps sing the make-your-own-future, risk-taking-made-our-country-great song when selling predatory debt to desperate borrowers. It’s a much different experience than encountering the rigged debt collection system and the actual abusive debt collector practices.
I wonder if one of the Trump University marks (err… students) said that, what the response would be? I imagine something along the lines of:
“That is generally true, but not for you. This is a special case because this course is going to make you all the money back. It’s going to make you rich. Trust us, we’re really thinking about your success.”
I mean, they don’t let just average people into those sorts of seminars right? Just the special ones, with room on their credit cards.
I’m sure that’s very close to what they’d say. And they’d probably tell as story about how Mr Trump borrowed a million dollars to start his business. Car salesmen get a bad rap. These guys are 10000x worse – at least car salesmen generally have a wide selection. And when shopping for a car at least you walk away with a car.
