Dominique Grubisa’s mission based on narcissism

Dominique Grubisa finally admits what drives her predatory property program as IA reports.

RECENTLY, property maven Dominique Grubisa did another 5-Day Challenge. This time, jumping on the bandwagon of recent research by Archistar, CoreLogic and Blackfort, the challenge related to granny flats.

The challenge (as all Grubisa’s “challenges” do) concluded with an upsell to her “Elite Mentoring Program”. The upsell involves encouraging people to sign up for her $25K (if you pay upfront) or $30K (if you pay in instalments) program. Again, Grubisa tells her students that she will provide them with lists each week of the names and addresses of distressed homeowners.

It wouldn’t be a Grubisa program unless there was some plagiarism. This time a good part of her VIP upgrade page has been lifted from material promoting “click funnels”. The video she uses for her sales pitch was also “inspired” by the sales pitch for click funnels.

Grubisa’s strategies of targeting vulnerable homeowners recently came under scrutiny in a budget estimates hearing in the NSW Parliament. The Honourable Emma Hurst MLC took up the issue when the Honourable Stephen Kamper MP, Minister for Lands and Property (amongst other portfolio responsibilities) appeared before the estimates committee to answer questions.

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Ms Hurst asked questions of Minister Kamper and the CEO of Valuations NSW, Stewart McLachlan, about the misuse of personal information from the NSW property dataset. Mr McLachlan confirmed that new contracts are to come into place in January of next year and will include enhanced privacy provisions. McLachlan also announced that a new probity compliance and privacy team will monitor the contracts to ensure data resellers are compliant with these provisions. That team should surely have Grubisa in their sights when they return from the Christmas break.

Despite CoreLogic, Archistar, Domain Group and National Property Group severing ties with Grubisa’s business and there being an open investigation under the Privacy Act by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) into her businesses, Grubisa marches on. These days Grubisa’s business uses the platform of Stash Property labelled as Fast Property. A company that only has Grubisa’s business as a client because all their competitors cut her loose.

The avid reader of IA’s stories might ask why Grubisa continues, despite the regulatory action and multiple resellers cutting ties with her business. The answer would seem to be twofold. First, selling lists of the personal details of vulnerable people makes Grubisa a lot of money. The second answer is derived from Grubisa’s character laid bare in her recent video. In her own words, she says it is “narcissism” that drives her.

In a rare moment of self-reflection, Grubisa says:

“There is a narcissistic reason I’m doing this. I want to prove what can be done in property but not the way that everyone else is doing it.”

By “the way everyone else is doing it”, we assume she means not trawling court lists, finding the names of vulnerable people and matching up their names from personal information supplied by government agencies. Not doing what Grubisa did for years, which was distributing lists each week with the names and addresses and Google Maps links to the homes of people who were parties to family law proceedings — matters referred by the Family Court to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) by no later than the first half of 2020.

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In his recent decision in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), Deputy President Bernard McCabe found that Grubisa’s conduct was likely a contravention of Section 121 of the Family Law Act.

We assume by not doing things the way everyone else is doing it, Grubisa also means not using personal information from government datasets in breach of the terms and conditions upon which such information is supplied. Those conditions specifically prohibit the use of personal information for direct marketing purposes. Grubisa just does not care.

Grubisa’s comments throughout the video speak clearly to her mindset. In what can only be described as clear evidence of her (self-described) narcissism, even her children are not off limits when it comes to public criticism by her.

In the video, Grubisa puts her children’s lives on show and then criticises them for being “too soft” and “not hungry enough”. Not like those who hang on Grubisa’s every word. In a recent post on her “Property Lovers” website, Grubisa described her teenage daughter as being ever so slightly annoying and self-centred. In videos for her asset protection product, even the hypothetical future wife of her husband Kevin gets a blast.

Grubisa says [IA emphasis]:

“Should I predecease or die before Kevin does, then should he choose to remarry? Well, that bitch gets nothing. My ultimate act of control will be to control from beyond the grave.”

This is, of course, the woman whose audition at NIDA was unsuccessful and who described Cate Blanchett as a scrawny, skinny girl with tippy tie-dyes clothes, blank, greasy hair and yellow teeth. Cate is apparently off living the life that Grubisa was destined to have.

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This is also the same person who had a paid-for puff piece published by a Dominican Republic-based music news site, Vents Magazine, which described her as having a ‘glittering personality’ and a ‘heart that shines with courtesy and love for others’.

We struggle to understand how anyone, even Grubisa herself, could describe herself in terms of narcissist tendencies, considering such positive reinforcement from an esteemed publication as Vents Magazine.

That publication is across all the big issues, as is clear from some of their recent public interest articles:

For Grubisa, control is a big thing. In her recent video, she proclaims that her best students are those “who just take orders”.

A bit like the military she says, adding her best students:

“...don’t ask questions. They do what they’re told and they don’t ask why.”

Grubisa is on a mission.

She says in the video:

“Nothing else matters. Nothing else matters but the mission, and failure is not an option and victory at all costs.”

And here lies the problem. Grubisa won’t take the hint. It seems not even Deputy President McCabe’s serious adverse findings about her conduct register with her. Trumpian in style, she just doubles down. Trump’s supporters who blindly followed “presidential orders” in January 2020 found themselves in some trouble.

Grubisa’s criticism of others has also extended to her staff.

In a post on an anti-DG Institute Facebook group, one former staff member spoke about how she was berated and fired when questioning the sales strategies of Grubisa’s business.

She is far from the only former staff member to speak up against Grubisa’s ethics. IA is aware of numerous former staff members who have spoken up about the goings on in the business and who left for reasons of conscience. Contrary to Grubisa’s assertions in A Current Affair, numerous of her former staff did leave for reasons of conscience.

Grubisa is, of course, still at it selling her program using a manual plagiarised from a book by Chip Cummings, telling her students to write letters to distressed homeowners when the use of personal information in this way is in patent breach of the terms upon which the data is supplied.

The OAIC wrote to Grubisa nearly a year ago requesting she review her conduct to ensure compliance with the Privacy Act. Given the privacy policies for her businesses – DG Institute and Property Lovers – were themselves plagiarised from that of Benchmark College, we are not convinced that Grubisa is really across privacy issues.

Leaving aside her self-admitted narcissism, Grubisa’s continued trawls of court lists and her mentoring program are financially lucrative to her. Between 8 August and 30 October, Grubisa added 120 people to her elite mentoring program Facebook page. With a price per person of $25,000 or $30,000 depending upon whether you pay upfront or by instalments, that’s between $3 million to $3.6 million added to her coffers.

We trust that the Australian Information Commissioner is taking that into account in her regulatory response as part of her investigation into Grubisa’s businesses.

Nothing matters to Grubisa but the mission. Not the theft of other people’s work. Not the misrepresentations to the public. Not the invasion of privacy of vulnerable people.

Her self-described narcissism is on full show yet again.