Over the last few years, according to interviews and hundreds of pages of court documents, the real estate mogul has aggressively marketed several luxury high-rises as "Trump properties" or "signature Trump" buildings, with names like Trump Tower and Trump International — even making appearances at the properties to woo buyers. The strong indication of his involvement as a developer generated waves of media attention and commanded premium prices.
But when three of the planned buildings encountered financial trouble, it became clear that Mr. Trump had essentially rented his name to the developments and had no responsibility for their outcomes, according to buyers. In each case, he yanked his name off the projects, which were never completed. The buyers lost millions of dollars in deposits even as Mr. Trump pocketed hefty license fees.
Those who bought the apartments in part because of the Trump name were livid, saying they felt a profound sense of betrayal, and more than 300 of them are now suing Mr. Trump or his company.
"The last thing you ever expect is that somebody you revere will mislead you," said Alex Davis, 38, who bought a $500,000 unit in Trump International Hotel and Tower Fort Lauderdale, a waterfront property that Mr. Trump described in marketing materials as "my latest development" and compared to the Trump tower on Central Park in Manhattan.
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"There was no disclaimer that he was not the developer," Mr. Davis said.
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Alan Garten, a lawyer for Mr. Trump's company, said that, regardless of what Mr. Trump himself or any marketing materials had suggested, his role was disclosed in lengthy purchasing documents that buyers should have carefully scrutinized.
Make no mistake, Trump lied. He said he was the developer when he wasn't, which is proven by the disclaimers in the contracts.
He guaranteed these projects to his customers with his name, which to them stood for quality, and now he claims the disclaimer nullified that guarantee. It is an interesting legal and moral question whether you can make an oral guarantee and then simply go, "April fool!" and revoke it in the written contract. No matter what the courts decide, however, morally speaking, Trump should indemnify his victims at least to the amount that he profited from the deals where they lost.
Instead, The Donald cynically claims that, due to the crash of property values, his victims would have lost even more on the apartments if the developments had gone forward. This is completely immaterial.
After all, if his victims had made a killing with the apartments, he would have claimed it as being due to his "genius." Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.
If his victims had turned a profit, Trump would have taken all the credit for that. Now that they have lost money through him, he blames it on the market.
This kind of deception constitutes a worrisome trend I've seen growing worse over the last couple years. Marketing materials claim that a service is exceptionally A, only for the contract to painstakingly insist that the service provided is not to be considered A in any way, shape, or form.
Don't ever believe anything you see in an ad. All ads lie. (Except for my book ads on the right, of course.)
Read the contract. Read the fine print. That's where the truth is out there.
Trust no one. White-collar criminals will go through all the motions to appear legitimate and respectable to you. You can't go by appearances. Read the fine print, or you will be defrauded.
And no one has anything to give away. If it sounds too good to be true, it very likely is too good to be true. Stay the fuck away.
No, you don't need the government to protect you, even if you're not a Randian hero. In the fine print, there will be a very clear disclaimer saying that the service advertised as A is not in fact A and that you can lose all your money. If you read such a disclaimer, run like hell.
It's in fact those white-collar criminals that clamor to be regulated by the government, so they can advertise the fact that they're regulated. But all the government regulation in the world doesn't help you none if you sign a contract where you waive your right to receive the service you paid for. And once you sue them for deceptive advertising or the like, they're already in Brazil with your money.
"Trump. Owning here is just the beginning." What a threat. Do you really want to own a property that's infested with Foxes Mulder?
The sad thing is that even an unethical businessman like Trump would be a better
Trump's borderline fraud is chicken shit against Obama defrauding auto company bondholders and thereby revealing that the village idiot has no clothes and that the "rule of law" was a myth all along. And at least Trump knows there's no such thing as "shovel-ready projects."
What's Trump's conduct compared with social security, the largest Ponzi scheme in history? What's losing a deposit compared with income tax?
Trump for president. A skyscraper on every corner. A dead cat on every head.
I mean that sincerely. No joke.
Well, a sad joke. Or rather, sad, but no joke. Or a joke, but not as sad or as big a joke as Obama.
At least things will not get boring with The Donald as village idiot. And you can make fun of him without the moon bats automatically bestowing the title "racist" on you.
Trump says that when he's elected village idiot, the world will no longer laugh at America. True. The world will be busy laughing at Trump.
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