Dominique Grubisa goes full Trumpian

Self-professed property maven Dominique Grubisa appears to have an obsession with former U.S. President Donald Trump. David Donovan exposes some concerning parallels between the pair.

PROPERTY AND WEALTH maven, Dominique Grubisa, has taken to writing to her current and potential “students” each week with what she calls her ‘Inside Scoop’. This is to give them a snapshot of what she is focused on, reading, watching, studying and reflecting on.

In the first of such emails, Grubisa told her students she was reflecting on the ten behaviours of high achievers — something that appears to have been taken from Entrepreneur Magazine. These behaviours include having ‘no patience for the status quo’, ‘never [admitting] defeat’, a ‘need to win... desperately’ and having ‘a chip on their shoulder’.

In a recent ‘Inside Scoop’ email, Grubisa tells her students she is focused on the Dunning-Kruger effect. As Grubisa says, this is ‘where incompetent people over-estimate their abilities, knowledge and skill in an area’.

The media has been full of stories in recent years about how Donald Trump is a classic example of this effect.

David Dunning penned a piece for Politico Magazine in May 2016 expressing his views on the relevance of this syndrome to Trump voters and the man himself.

Dunning opined that in this respect:

‘The key to the Dunning-Kruger Effect is not that unknowledgeable voters are uninformed; it is that they are often misinformed — their heads filled with false data, facts and theories that can lead to misguided conclusions held with tenacious confidence.’

Grubisa, in her own writings and in podcasts, refers to how Trump has been somewhat of a mentor for her.

In a podcast interview with Tyrone Shum from Property Investory, published in December 2018, Grubisa commented about how when she hit rock bottom, she read Trump’s The Art of the Comeback and The Art of the Deal. When she got in particular situations she would ask “okay, so what would Donald Trump do now? What would he do in this situation?” Leveraging his knowledge and “modelling herself off things like that”.

A description of Grubisa’s book Managing Debt — Turning your finances around (published in 2010) refers to the strategies in the book drawing ‘to some extent on what Donald Trump did in the late '80s’.

One of the things Grubisa has told her students for years is that if a bank steps in and repossesses a home, it will keep everything and give no change.

Four years ago, decorated consumer advocate Carolyn Bond AO penned a post on her blog, The Naysayer, which referred to claims made by Grubisa in her Real Estate Rescue manual.

Carolyn commented:

‘In one case, the investor explains that the owner “will get nothing of their equity when the property is sold [by the bank]” and that “$220K of equity will be eaten up by the bank and its lawyers as banks do not give change”. In another case study, the investor tells the owner “The bank will sell the property and pocket everything” in relation to $180K equity in a $300K house.’

She continued:

‘This is not true. Banks have legal obligations to pay any surplus to the borrower and this is usually paid. Of course, banks don’t always act fairly, but if a bank doesn’t market a property appropriately, or deducts more than reasonable costs, the owner can raise a dispute with AFCA which would likely result in payment of compensation. [see AFCA Approach to Mortgagee Sales]’

These sorts of claims have been repeated by “mentors” who Grubisa has employed to coach people in her strategies as part of her Elite Mentoring Program. That is quite apparent from comments made online.

On 28 November 2018, one of Grubisa’s students published a post on the Property Connect Facebook page about a comment made by a “distressed” owner.

He said:

‘I was under the impression that in a mortgagee repossession, the distressed homeowner loses whatever equity is in the home. But, this distressed owner says that he will be entitled to whatever equity is left over after all costs [are] factored in a foreclosure.’

He asked for help with this issue.

One student piped up:

‘I think owner is more likely in denial or misinformed.’

Another said:

‘I’d agree. My understanding was the bank takes the equity, owner gets nothing.’

One of the mentors chimed in:

‘Dominique often says “banks don’t give change”. The homeowner will be fighting an uphill battle to recoup anything.’

Another mentor was quickly on the attack, asking the questioner to consider the following questions:

Why do you place more weight on the words of a distressed homeowner or a real estate agent than those contained in the course laid out by a barrister whose niche expertise is in debt recovery and cleaning up bad debt?

 

Why did you pay for and sit the course if you really don’t think the information contained in the course was valid and effective?

 

Are you questioning the validity of a program of information that can help you out of fire rising out of and stepping out of your comfort zone?

The student was quickly on the back foot, saying he

‘...should have gone back to the handbook and videos before getting all excited by what the distressed homeowner did when he threw that curveball at me.’

Of course, the distressed homeowner was correct.

Perhaps the problem for Grubisa’s students, like the Trump voters that Dunning mused about, is not that they are uninformed but have been misinformed.

And not just those who sign up for her Real Estate Rescue program, but also those who have signed up for the asset protection product.

As Grubisa said in a Master Wealth Control video that featured on YouTube for years and was taken down the day before Richard Baker published his first story regarding her asset protection claims:

“Imagine everything you have at the end of the day and imagine that is rock bottom for you. With whatever lies ahead, you can't ever go backwards.

 

You can't lose what you have. So, this is your financial rock bottom. The only way from here is up. By the end of this session, you will be empowered to move onwards without the fear of losing.”

As we reported in March, clients of Grubisa have bought into such claims.

But perhaps just as Trump told us that “China has total respect for... Donald Trump’s very, very, large brain”, we should have total respect for what the Katy News said in May of last year regarding Grubisa’s vast legal knowledge. 

If you are not familiar with that publication, it’s an online news website based in Katy, Texas (population circa 22,000) in the good old USA. Website PrFlare can get you a guest post on the site for only $275.

Surely this is not another example of the sorts of fake reviews/news pieces we wrote about in October 2020 and in May and July last year.

Recently, Grubisa was perhaps drawing on yet more inspiration from Trump when she told her audience in an email in July headed ‘Controversy! (And an apology)’:

‘First of all, I’m joking about the apology part.

 

Mainly because I’M NOT SORRY.’

Later in the email, Grubisa said [IA emphasis]:

‘I make no apologies for what I do and whilst I may offend some or make great fake news headlines, no one can argue with the outcomes of our community to profiting in real estate.’

As Barbara Res said writing for the New York Daily News in January last year, Trump is ‘Never sorry, never wrong, never weak’.

Like Trump, Grubisa is not sorry and is playing the fake news card.

Last year, A Current Affair alleged Grubisa’s business created fake loan amounts in documents provided to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) and other creditors, to manipulate statements of assets and liabilities to suggest the existence of loans that did not exist.  Now, Trump (her mentor) faces a civil fraud lawsuit for falsely inflating his net worth.

We wonder, when her business was engaging in the strategy of falsifying financial records, did Grubisa ask herself once again — what would Trump do in this situation?

Follow IA founder David G Donovan on Twitter @davrosz. Also, follow Independent Australia on Twitter @independentaus, on Facebook HERE and on Instagram HERE.

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