How I was scammed by Trump University
‘Donald Trump has made it his practice to go after people who are vulnerable’
Currently there are three lawsuits in process against Trump University: two coming out of California and one from New York.
If Trump believes the country should be run like he runs his businesses, it’s important to look at how he has actually run his business.
Enter Cheryl Lankford, a gold-star wife, who says she was scammed by Trump University. She spoke at the DNC to tell the crowd: “Trump University cheated me out of the money I received after my husband’s death.”
We met her at a demonstration outside Trump Tower, where she told us about her time at Trump U.
You said that you were enrolled in Trump University, can you tell me a little bit about your decision?
I was contacted by Trump University to come in and do an initial workshop. The workshop was to explain to the students how they could make money in real estate and do investments. They made it sound like it was something you really needed to do. Something that’s really going to benefit you and your family and you know, at the time, my husband had just died. I had a two-year-old little boy and I’m thinking in my mind “how am I going to make a living for me and my son?” I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do that.
What was the most convincing thing about Trump University for you?
I didn’t know too much about Donald Trump but I knew that he was a very wealthy man who had done real estate, construction and business. One of the things that I thought about him that was that he can help you build the same type of wealth that he has built for himself. Another thing that really got me was that there were big promises like that the teachers were hand picked by Donald Trump himself. So I was thinking that this would be a great way to make some money for me and my son. I quickly found out that that was just a mistake.
After attending the workshop, what happened?
It was about three weeks before I realized that it was a scam.
They would not return my phone calls. They would not return my messages. They just left. They left the state of Texas and were no longer available to work with me. They weren’t even there for me to recuperate my money.
It’s not a real university. He just named it a university. In the state of New York, when you have a university or university status, there are proper procedures that you’re supposed to go through. He never did that. It was never qualified as a university. His teachers were never qualified as instructors. The manuals, everything that they hand out, none of that went through the proper procedures for it to be called a university. That was the deceptive part is that he portrayed it to people as a university and that “I’m going to teach you how to do what I’ve done” and none of that happened.
How much money did you spend?
I spent $35,000. This money was supposed to be for the entire program. I was supposed to have a one-on-one personal mentorship with someone who was hand-picked by Donald Trump himself. [After the workshop] that person was no longer available to me.