Dominique Grubisa stashing money as regulators close in

Self-professed property maven Dominique Grubisa is back into selling her predatory real estate rescue program this year.

Grubisa’s latest announcement is her “4D Real Estate Riches” program. The big announcement was on 12 January.

Grubisa loves techniques of persuasion to sell her wares. She is a big fan of Robert Cialdani’s book: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. As we reported in May 2021, chapter 7 of that book is dedicated to the use of scarcity in the art of persuasion.

Once again, her offer is time-limited, with only 20 spaces available.

Even before the program was launched, the website noted that there were only three spots remaining. That text is embedded in the code of the page. Why change the long-term habit of misleading advertising? It’s not as if the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has suggested she is engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct. Oh, it has!

We will leave this link for the reader to watch a discussion between Robert Cialdani and Roger Dooley about the unethical use of scarcity as a persuasion technique. Cialdani shares his views around two minutes into the video.

Grubisa flogs her Fast Property platform as part of her program.

As we reported in November, Grubisa’s Fast Property platform uses the software of Stash Property.

According to an archived page of its website, Stash Property was created in 2018 by Kris Zima. The chief partnership officer, Lee Russell, and chief information officer, Daniel Caldeweyher, are both former staff members of Domain Group. Domain Group offers a discount to their Pricefinder platform to users of the Stash Property platform.

Stash Property describes its system as to ‘locate, validate and communicate all within one affordable platform’.

In her video promoting her latest program, Grubisa says:

“That will be your research tool, the deceased estates, the distressed... will all be on that one platform.”

Grubisa has another video promoting the platform in which she shows data layering of off-market distressed properties.

What she means is that she has uploaded data sets cross-referring the names and addresses of people who appear as parties to family law proceedings, or who face court action by mortgagees. Grubisa gloats about how the platform facilitates bulk letter writing, printing and mailing from a “clearing house”. This is a function available through Stash Property through its partnership with CRM2Print.

Now, while Grubisa describes Fast Property as her proprietary property platform, the truth is quite different.

Amongst the benefits promoted by Stash Property is the ability to add custom data layers.

Grubisa’s Fast Property platform is Stash Property white-labelled with data layers added. Far from her “proprietary” platform.

Readers of IA’s previous stories might recall this was a road that Grubisa walked down in the past. That time, it was with Archistar who severed ties with Grubisa’s business last year. Grubisa was uploading similar data sets to Archistar’s platform.

In a statement to the Financial Review referred to in an article from Max Mason on 13 April last year, a spokesperson for Archistar was quoted as saying:

“Archistar deplored the use of property data in a predatory manner.”

The spokesperson added that Archistar had “restricted the ability of DG Institute and its customers to upload data sets to Archistar and removed all previously uploaded data sets”.

Despite legal proceedings, Dominique Grubisa thinks she's unstoppable

As the ACCC cracks down on Dominique Grubisa for alleged breach of Australian Consumer Law, she continues to peddle her snake oil asset protection product.

IA put questions to Stash Property about data sets by Grubisa’s business. It did not respond to our questions.

Stash Property is not one of the valued resellers to whom personal information is licensed as part of bulk property data. As with Archistar, users have to obtain that information through a subscription from services such as Domain Group’s Pricefinder.

As we have reported previously, the terms and conditions upon which such data is licensed by governments/government agencies prohibit the use of personal information for direct marketing purposes.

The data sets uploaded by Grubisa’s business are based on the off-market leads lists that she has flogged for years.

In the Help section of its website, Stash Property says that it cannot provide ownership details for states other than Queensland, Western Australia and New South Wales.

It says this is because:

‘Stash Property complies with strict legislative rules that do not permit direct mail addressed to the owner’s name.’

ACCC moves against Dominique Grubisa

Dominique Grubisa’s claims are going to be tested in court after the Federal consumer watchdog commences legal proceedings, as Dave Donovan reports.

Stash Property is not quite correct. It can’t provide the details for the other states because personal information is not provided to value-added resellers such as CoreLogic or Domain Group.

And in Queensland, New South Wales and Western Australia, the data cannot be used for direct marketing purposes. Value-added resellers that allow data to be used in this way face having their licence agreements terminated.

With Grubisa uploading data sets with personal information of vulnerable people and Stash promoting bulk letter writing, perhaps it’s time for Stash Property to have a harder look at its business model.

Perhaps the numerous state government bodies investigating the use of personal information by Grubisa’s business and the source of that data might also want to have a look at Stash Property, the use (by subscribers) of personal information supplied by Domain Group for direct marketing purposes and the data sets that Grubisa’s business uploads to the Fast Property platform powered by Stash Property.

If Archistar had the corporate social responsibility to remove data sets, why has Stash Property not followed suit?