Dominique Grubisa claims to be radically transparent, relentlessly marching on despite banning orders.
DISGRACED PROPERTY MAVEN Dominique Grubisa is currently the subject of two orders banning her from managing corporations. One, a five-year banning order imposed by the Federal Court. The other, a banning order of 18 months imposed by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
The Federal Court’s banning order came about from the case brought by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) against Grubisa and her company, Master Wealth Control Pty Ltd (MWC), trading as DG Institute.
The Federal Court found MWC to have engaged in misleading and/or deceptive conduct involving the “Real Estate Rescue” program and the “Vestey Trust” asset protection program. Grubisa was found to be knowingly involved in the contraventions. The ASIC ban followed the insolvency of Grubisa’s businesses, DGI Debt Management and DGI Accounting.
Since the banning orders, Grubisa has continued to front videos for Property Lovers Pty Ltd. Property Lovers was incorporated in 2022. From late 2022 its website had terms and conditions for the asset protection service and the Real Estate Rescue program. In early 2023, Grubisa rebranded her “Property Connect” and “Elite Mentoring” Facebook groups from DG Institute to Property Lovers. Property Lovers continued on its merry way flogging the same products that constituted the subject of the ACCC proceedings against MWC.
The sole director of Property Lovers is Grubisa’s husband, Kevin Grubisa. However, a recent judgment in a stay application brought in respect of certain orders dished out by the Federal Court referred to Kevin as Ms Grubisa’s former husband. In April, we reported that Ms Grubisa had transferred her interest in a property to Kevin just prior to the liability hearing in the ACCC case.
In recent months, Property Lovers has been promoting its latest offering — a new version of the Fast Property platform. Grubisa has been reaching out to her database of former clients seeking to sign them up for the platform.
The long-standing strategies of targeting distressed homeowners were again promoted in a recent video published online. Instead of Grubisa doing the sales pitch, this time it was a computerised voice and animation. The strategies promoted by Property Lovers are those that MWC has promoted for years.
At just after 20 minutes into the video, a reference is made to the details of potential downsizers and distressed homeowners, with a data overlay of such people. We have previously exposed that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) does not provide Census data on individual homeowners. Property Lovers' claim is false.
We have reported that the use of homeowners' personal information for direct marketing is prohibited in numerous states. Grubisa simply doesn’t care. IA understands that action is being taken in several states regarding these issues.
Also, as we reported in August last year, MWC and Property Lovers are the subject of Commissioner Initiated Investigation by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC). In May, the Australian Privacy Commissioner, Carly Kind, informed Senator David Shoebridge in a Senate Estimates hearing that she expected the investigation to be concluded imminently.
As part of the latest incarnation of the program sold by Property Lovers, “students” have access to a number of GPT bots. One is called “Erin the Estimator”. This GPT has supposedly been provided with information regarding construction costs in Australia. More about Erin in a moment.
Grubisa recently held a webinar for former students where she tried to sell them the new platform. Grubisa told her former students that she was going to be “radically transparent” with them, referring to a phrase supposedly coined by the founder of Bridgewater Associates, Ray Dalio. Last year, a book critical of Dalio, written by New York Times journalist Rob Copeland was published.
In her recent session, Grubisa told her former students:
“There's always three sides to every story, they say, and that means that there's your side, there's my side and then there's probably the truth somewhere in the middle there. In this case, the truth isn't about blame or regret. It's about objective outcomes. It's about the reality of what comes out of adversity.”
Shortly after, she said:
“This is no longer about what I did or I didn't do, or what I said or what I should have said. It's about us as a community and the next phase.”
In his decision in the penalty phase of the ACCC case, Justice Jackman noted there had been no contrition from Grubisa.
His Honour said:
“As to the question of contrition, there has been no expression or demonstration of contrition by either DG Institute or Ms Grubisa.”
It seems that continues.
Grubisa clearly has no regret that she misled thousands of people. Grubisa and Property Lovers continue to mislead people.
It seems clear from the recent Federal Court decision that those she has misled will never see a cent of the money they paid her for her deception. The $14.8 million of compensation orders is owed by a company with a negative net asset position.
On 13 September, Property Lovers posted a video on YouTube about a supposed $500,000 profit made by one of its clients, Bobby.
That would be nice if it were true. The profit wasn’t achieved. Bobby was interested in a property in Sunshine Beach in Queensland. However, Bobby didn’t even have a contract in place. The property was sold, but not to Bobby.
Back to our GPT friend, “Erin the Estimator”. Knowing how helpful the Property Lovers bots would be, we provided “Erin” with a transcript of sections of Grubisa’s recent sales pitch to her former students. We provided it with Justice Jackman’s decision in the Federal Court and the ASIC and ACCC press releases about the respective banning orders.
“Erin” concluded that Grubisa’s comments in the webinar showed that Grubisa was involved in Property Lovers in a way that amounted to a breach of the banning orders imposed by the Federal Court and by ASIC.
Grubisa has been spruiking the brilliance of the GPT bots created.
In her recent session, Grubisa said:
“AI assistance with more than my knowledge, more than the communal IQ of the whole community and the EQ with all of the resources, they've been trained to do that”.
If the GPT, “Erin the Estimator” (who Grubisa claims has more knowledge than her) is to be believed, then Grubisa is breaching the banning orders imposed.
Grubisa and MWC have appealed certain orders to the Full Federal Court. That appeal is listed for hearing before the Full Federal Court on 20 and 21 November.
The two cases brought by the Council of the Law Society of NSW against Grubisa are scheduled for three days of hearings commencing on 17 March next year.
We await with bated breath the outcome of the OAIC’s investigations.
For readers familiar with Grubisa’s activities and the tireless work of IA in exposing her deception, you might recall how Grubisa plagiarised large sections of a book by Chip Cummings to produce her “Real Estate Rescue” manual.
In December, Cummings is being sentenced in Grand Rapids Michigan for his involvement in a $6 million fraud. He signed a plea agreement on 14 August.
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