Now 'Not Running' for President, But Trump Still Ripped by Corona del Mar Woman Over Trump University

A Corona del Mar woman has filed a lawsuit against Donald Trump, claiming that the possible GOP presidential candidate's Trump University delivered expensive infomercials disguised as educational classes that preyed on vulnerable Americans in troubled economic times.

This just in: (Trump says he's not running for president.)

Tarla Makaeff, 37, is a former fashion designer from Corona del Mar and the lead plaintiff in the class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego.  Makaeff says that she was convinced to attend the seminars by ads featuring Trump. Three-quarters of the world’s millionaires “made their fortune in real estate," the promos boasted. "Now it’s your turn.”

But soon, Makaeff was pressured to raise her credit card limits so she could purchase the Trump Gold Program for $35,000, which promised “hand-picked” mentors and a year of training. Instead, she spent two days looking at real estate properties and a half day at a local Home Depot, after which the mentors “quickly disappeared,” Makaeff said. In addition, she claims the seminars taught her to snatch up cheap homes by using "bandit signs," which are ads placed along the side of roads—a practice that is illegal in Orange County.

Her lawsuit alleges that Trump University's mentors and associates “guide students toward deals in which they have a personal financial interest at stake—creating a severe conflict of interest, so that the mentors profit while the student does not."

Another plaintiff in the suit, Ed Oberkrom, a 66-year-old retired computer technician living in St. Louis, says that he and a friend each dropped $25,000 on a similar Trump program. It promised access to “exclusive” property listings and the guidance of mentors. But Oberkrom said that the listings were available elsewhere online for $35. Trump University staffers gave him the brush-off, he said, and he didn’t get his money back, due to a three-day window on refunds.

“It’s a fly-by-night outfit and I feel cheated,” he says. “What is really aggravating is that Trump is noted for real estate, and that’s what attracted me in the first place.”

Trump Fires Back

A lawyer for Trump strongly denies the allegations.

“It’s completely ridiculous,” says George Sorial, assistant general counsel for the Trump Organization. “This case has absolutely no merit and we’re confident that we can defeat this in court.”

Sorial spoke to the Huffington Post and provided three separate surveys in which Makaeff rated the program 5 out of 5 and he shared a video taken at a seminar of her praising Trump University.

“I thought today was great. I was very interested in some of the topics," she says in the August 2008 video. "The speakers were really good. It was nice.” Makaeff also lauds her mentor, describing how they recently rehabbed and flipped a property in Las Vegas, adding that “he’s great—he’s really helping me work through things.”

Trump has filed a $100 million counterclaim for defamation against Makaeff. The suit says that she made defamatory statements about Trump University engaging in “illegal predatory high pressure tactics” and “blatant lies,” among many others. The organization alleges that such statements caused a “significant decline” in business, though Sorial declined to get into specifics.

The defamation counterclaim "is nothing more than a class intimidation tactic by a bully," replied Makaeff's lawyer, Rachel Jensen. "It's shameful that Donald Trump's so-called 'university' would sue one of its own students for a million dollars simply for expressing dissatisfaction to the Better Business Bureau and her bank challenging the credit card charges. The counterclaim adds insult to injury as it blames the victim of Trump's scam."

Some real-estate investors say that Trump’s seminars can be useful. “I’ve attended a lot of these seminars and Trump’s was above average,” says Adil Bagirov, an energy consultant in Alexandria, Va. “It wasn’t the most effective, but I learned some things, and I’ve been very successful,” he says.

Bagirov did, however, note that the industry is prone to fraud and that he’s met people who have “been screwed” by unscrupulous instructors.

Vulnerable people can be particularly attracted to such seminars.

The school is under scrutiny in several states, including Texas. After getting 30 complaints about Trump University from the Better Business Bureau in 2008 and 2009, the state attorney general, Greg Abbott, initiated a probe into possible “deceptive trade practices." Early last year, his office sent a civil investigative demand letter to the company, requesting copies of documents, including real estate contracts negotiated by Stephen Goff, one of Trump University’s most prominent instructors. The Trump Organization ultimately decided not to conduct any seminars in the state.

Trump lawyer Sorial says that those complaints have been addressed and that the Texas attorney general never took action against the company: “If you took 11,000 students, you’ll find a handful that weren’t happy with their education,” saying that the same ratio occurs at Ivy League schools like Harvard University.

—Marcas Baram

marcas@huffingtonpost.com