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SCAMMED!
Unmasking Suze Orman
and Her Crooked Cabal
From Fraudulent FICO Fables to Corporate Cons,
How Suze Orman and Her Crooked Cabal
Manipulated the Media, Plundered the Poor,
Stole from the Middle Class, and
Damaged the United States Economy
An exposé about much more
than just Suze Orman
S.K. Janis
Based on the documentary film: How Suze Orman SCAMMED The World
A Tragedy, Comedy, and IQ Test, all in One Watch the film here: https://youtu.be/wZJh25-­‐sO98 and access multimedia links on: www.suzebook.com
Table of Contents
Introduction: The Suze Orman SCAMvenger Hunt 1 1: From Waitress to “Financial Expert”: Orman’s History of Shams and Shenanigans 19 2: Seducing Corporations, Banks and Billionaires 41 3: Trumping Up Her Bank Account With a Gold “Pump and Dump” Scheme 85 4: Distortions of the “Queen Of Crisis”: Damaging the Economy for Personal Gain 119 5: The “Approved” Card Scam And Media Wide Fraud 143 185 223 8: Sociopathology and a Twitter Meltdown 249 9: And The Scams Go On… 339 6: Capitalizing On The Financial Illiteracy Of The Poor, Minorities, and the “Occupy” Movement 7: The Scam-­‐Ridden Card’s Demise and Cover-­‐Up This is a multimedia book.
Throughout the text, you’ll find underlined links
to videos, articles, and other supportive documentation,
such as (Link 1-3) and (Link 5-3).
On this web page you’ll find
a clickable list of all the links in this book:
www.suz eb ook.com
A paperback copy, Kindle version, and DVD of the film
are all available on Amazon.com
Introduction:
The Suze Orman SCAMvenger Hunt
How many con artists are allowed to blast through the media
landscape, telling blatantly false lies and getting some of the top
journalists, politicians and media figures in the United States to
knowingly or unknowingly lie to the public on their behalf?
Harry Markopolos, the whistle-blower who uncovered Bernie
Madoff’s Ponzi scheme ten years before the rest of the world learned of
the biggest financial crime in history, published his account in the 2010
book, No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller. As you will see from
the evidence in this book and the companion documentary film, con artist
Suze Orman’s schemes rival Madoff’s in breadth, if not depth.
Markopolos explained that he had to step forward about what he
could clearly see was an illegal scheme, because no one else, including the
Securities Exchange Commission, had shown any interest, even after he
alerted them with evidence of what was going on.
I know the feeling. One cannot just stand by silently when a shyster is
stealing, lying, scamming the public, and causing damage to the United
States’ economy. That’s why a nice spiritual author like me has had to take
time and energy from more positive projects to alert and educate the
world about the “Suze Orman problem.”
While Madoff’s scheme stole mostly from the wealthy, Orman’s
victims have been poor and middle class citizens who were simply trying
to be responsible and learn from a widely proclaimed financial “guru,”
“expert,” and “wizard,” who is actually a con artist and actress supported
by ghostwriters, behind-the-scenes experts, and some of the most
powerful publicists, political lobbyists, damage control specialists, banks,
corporations, and media figures of our time, including Oprah Winfrey,
who has pushed Suze Orman on the world for nearly twenty years.
1
Talk about stacking the decks against people who either couldn’t
afford a real financial advisor, or who were convinced by Orman to avoid
those “crooked advisors” altogether and “look in the mirror” to find their
best financial advisor—using her books, kits, and corporate-sponsored
deceptive headlines as guides, of course.
This book and film offer a stunning study of the kind of dishonest
media and political webs that have corrupted our society, fooled the
public, rigged the system, and damaged our world. It is truly a lesson for
humanity. College courses are welcome to use this material for class
studies, including topics involving psychology, media manipulation, and
criminal justice.
Anyone who wants to read positive takes on Suze Orman can turn to
the many articles and press releases crafted by her publicists, echoed by
their shills, and repeated by journalists who didn’t undertake enough due
diligence to see the obvious and well-documented damage Orman was
causing to individuals, our economy, and the fabric of society.
Thankfully, much of what bears Suze Orman’s name is produced by
behind-the-scenes experts and ghostwriters, so her books and kits do at
least offer some useful information and services along with whatever paid
endorsements and tainted advice Orman adds into each book and
product, depending on who has “paid the piper” that year.
I’m sure many would say that watching Suze Orman’s shows and
reading her books has helped them to organize their finances. Some may
have enjoyed getting their financial advice mixed with a touch of
sociopathy, and the entertainment of Orman’s over-the-top shaming,
emoting, fear mongering, and overly confident commands.
Can you imagine the state of mind of someone who makes a face like this
while advising a fan about whether to buy a laptop computer?
2
Although “financial expert Suze Orman” never took a single financerelated college course and has no current credentials, she’s been in the
game long enough have learned about topics such as Roth IRAs and longterm care insurance, mixed with some common sense advice about
spending less than you earn, topped off with a few meaningless platitudes
she herself doesn’t follow, and a whole lot of scamming.
In our book and film, you will see Suze Orman pushing corporatesponsored infomercials disguised as trustworthy advice, pitching
mediocre and downright predatory products with evangelical fervor,
selling FICO kit customers’ private information to creditors (based on a
successful lawsuit), and running a gold “pump and dump” that decimated
the savings of anyone who listened to her passionate advice, while Orman
had bought a ton of gold stock before her mediawide “pump,” that she
sold on the very day it hit the top.
In our book and film, you will see “financial guru” Suze Orman
drumming up scary headlines to create fear and increase her public
influence rating, and blasting her snake oil throughout today’s media
landscape, with blatantly fraudulent misinformation campaigns,
including her “Approved” prepaid debit card scam that that fooled poor
and middle class citizens into believing that moving their hard-earned
money from banks and credit unions onto Orman’s fee-laden, shoddily
run prepaid debit card was going to improve their FICO scores.
A financial fraud like Orman’s “Approved” card would have certainly
landed any other scammer in prison. Many have been convicted for far
less. Therefore, I’ve included abundant examples from that especially
ubiquitous, elaborate, and fraudulent campaign in this book and film.
3
Orman’s endless obfuscations are also a well-documented study of
con artistry by a master of the arts. It is my hope that readers and viewers
of this book and film will learn to be more savvy in the face of con artists
like Suze Orman and other past, current, and future scammers and
schemers who cause tremendous damage to many lives and to our world.
I invite readers to have your own “Suze Orman SCAMvenger hunt” as
you read through her latticeworks of predatory pitches and publicity
cover-ups. Once you understand how she works, Suze Orman’s scams,
shams, and shenanigans are easy to find in nearly every appearance and
headline she generates.
In 2014, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo bravely called out Orman and
the predatory political lobbyist, media broker, damage control expert,
publicity strategist gang that supports her, when Cuomo challenged his
colleague John King to stop shilling for the “Orman Cabal.”
4
To view a video clip of Cuomo’s “Orman Cabal” comment in a bizarre
and interesting context that will be explored further in upcoming
chapters, go to www.suzebook.com, where you can access a list of all links
from this book, and click on: Link Intro-1.
As much as this book is about problems with Suze Orman herself, it is
equally about the problems with a media and political landscape that can
turn a narcissistic sociopath’s overconfidence and penchant for lying into
extreme public influence and an expert status for which she has neither
the personal nor professional credentials, and certainly not the integrity.
It would be one thing if Orman was just selling kits on QVC and
telling people how to get a Roth IRA, but this financial advisor—who
claims to not be a financial advisor when it is convenient—has the ear of
top journalists, politicians, and government agencies, including the same
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that should be protecting the public
from her scams.
Orman has received massive image support from former FDIC chair
Sheila Bair and former General Electric CEO Jack Welch and his wife
Suzy, who nominated Orman to be named to Time magazine’s list of the
one hundred most influential people in the world. Orman has recently
been playing kitchee koo with Secretary of Labor Perez, who specifically
added a disclaimer into his 2016 financial ruling, stating that Suze Orman
is—by name—exempt from his new regulations requiring financial
advisors to give advice that is in the best interest of their clients. Orman’s
scams have been eagerly hosted by top-notch journalists on nearly every
television station, who have either been fooled or somehow convinced to
play host to scams that have caused harm to the economy and to the
financial lives of poor and middle class citizens.
Most of the information I present comes from research on media and
social media. I have done my best to only present as fact what is supported
with documentation, and welcome notification of any inaccurate
information that may have slipped through, so we can make corrections as
needed.
Who this book and film are for
This book and film are for all the people who have been defrauded
into thinking that Suze Orman was a trustworthy financial expert,
including those who were convinced by Oprah and far too many
journalists to give Orman their trust, and often their money.
5
This book and film are also intended for the many who could easily
see that Suze Orman was a scammer and had enough sense to turn the
channel whenever she came on. When these perceptive folks turned away
from Orman’s bad energy and dishonest demeanor, they didn’t see how
much public influence this obvious scammer had amassed, and how much
damage her schemes were causing to others who were not savvy enough
to avoid getting caught in her widely endorsed net of scams.
I would also like to ask for some explanation from those entrusted
journalists and politicians who have enthusiastically hosted and pushed
Orman’s con games for all these years. We may not be able to unravel and
stop all the corruption in today’s world, but this logjam could be stopped
as easily as not giving Orman and her cabal any more exposure or power.
I’m speaking to you, dear Senator, Secretary, and perhaps President
Clinton: Should the same “mean girls” lobbyist strategists who helped
Suze Orman steal from the poor and middle class of this country be
guiding your campaign? Making your main platform that a President
Donald Trump would be far worse isn’t good enough, and could lead to
that very outcome. You’re better than that. Our country deserves better.
As a citizen of this country, I ask you to get rid of the “mean girls” cabal,
including Hilary Rosen and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. Go for integrity.
For those who have followed and believed in Suze Orman over the
years, I encourage you to read this book and watch the film with an open
mind. It’s difficult to find out terrible information about someone you
feel has been a friend and guide, and no fun to discover you’ve been
conned. I too was charmed and conned by Orman’s well-rehearsed
manipulation techniques and false promises into spending two years
helping her onto the public stage at a time when she was unpublished,
unknown, and deeply in debt.
The Suze Orman I knew in the early 1990s was every bit as devious,
deceptive, and damaging as she is today, though with a smaller circle of
victims on whom to prey. Though I felt foolish for being duped by a con
artist, Orman went on to con many other assumedly intelligent and savvy
people, including Oprah Winfrey, Arianna Huffington, Tavis Smiley,
Michael Moore, Juju Chang, and far too many others who you will see in
our film and this book, knowing or unknowing co-conspirators in Suze
Orman’s scams.
It has been laziness and forgetfulness of Orman’s previous shams and
false headlines that have allowed her to jump from scam to scam with
sociopathic glee and almost no scrutiny from journalists or government
agencies. Fortunately, today’s media landscape allows a simple author
and filmmaker to gather and present this evidence to inform the public
and hopefully finally stop these damaging scams.
6
This book explores many facets of the Orman problem, including her
lack of education and credentials, and her significant personality
aberrations that have resulted in greed-based and often heartless social
memes.
You will see examples of Orman’s corrupt use of harrowing headlines,
deceptive declarations, sales pitches disguised as trustworthy financial
advice, and her intentionally and unintentionally bad advice that ruined
people’s financial lives and contributed to damaging the economy, while
bringing an endless stream of corporate sponsored offers to Orman’s door.
That bad advice has included Orman doing big media blasts to
confidently and passionately tell people to buy homes just before the
bubble burst, to buy stocks just before the stock market crashed, and to
buy gold just before gold crashed.
Orman’s bad advice came entangled with her “pump and dumps,”
corporate kickbacks, FICO fables, and a whole lot of deceptive schemes
that have filled Orman’s pockets and the coffers of her wealthy corporate
and bank sponsors with millions from the pockets of the poor and middle
class for over fifteen years.
Orman has made tens, more likely hundreds of millions of dollars
from putting her face and corporate-sponsored pitches on a wide
assortment of products and books, most of which were primarily created
by others.
One example is the Money Navigator Newsletter that Orman claimed
to be personally writing, before admitting to only putting her face and
name on the product after critical press from the Wall Street Journal and
an investigation and fine by the SEC brought misfortune to her partner,
while teflon Suze Orman once again got of scot free.
Orman then lied and said she had nothing to do with the newsletter,
even though she had pitched “her” newsletter throughout the media
landscape, was still giving it away for free in the new edition of her book,
and continued to directly receive all the money that came in from
subscribers. More on that Suze saga in Chapter Three.
For years, Orman has propagated the incorrectly low official estimate
that she is worth thirty-five million dollars. However, you’ll hear Orman
in our film boasting about how she paid cash for her five homes, showing
off her yacht and luxurious life, and bragging to a classroom of
unimpressed low-income, at-risk teenagers that, “Everybody thinks I’m
worth fifty million dollars, and they’re way short. I am a seriously, seriously,
wealthy woman.”
(Link Intro-1a)
7
Suze Orman’s intentionally and unintentionally bad financial advice
has sopped up untold millions from:
— Those who followed Orman’s strongly delivered advice to buy
stocks just before the stock market crashed. Orman later bragged
that she had not made the mistake of following her own advice to
buy stocks, and instead had kept her mega-millions in safe
municipal bonds.
— Homeowners who followed Orman’s emphatic advice to quickly
buy a house and lock in a 7% rate, just before the bubble burst and
rates fell below 4%. After that, Orman’s advice changed to
dictating that people walk away from underwater mortgages and
be renters for the rest of their lives (you will hear her say these
things in the documentary film). This is one of many ways
Orman’s bad advice played a significant role in the severe
economic downturn and the devastation of the middle class.
(Watch the documentary section about Orman’s role in the
housing crisis: Link Intro-1b.)
— Families who moved their retirement savings into gold during
Orman’s media-fueled “pump and dump” scheme that she
bragged about making a mint on when she withdrew her fortune
exactly at the top of the roller coaster she contributed to creating,
before the artificially pumped price of gold plummeted, taking
with it the retirement accounts of many victims, who were
intelligent enough to have earned and saved the money, but not
financially savvy enough to know that pseudo-expert Suze
Orman’s overly enthusiastic promises that gold was going to soar
by November 2012 were not to be trusted.
Watch the documentary film section about Orman’s Gold Rush
“Pump and Dump” here: Link Intro-2
Obviously, there are bound to be some issues with following any “one
size fits all” financial advice. That is especially true when the information
is often corporate sponsored advertisements, espoused and disguised as a
financial expert’s trustworthy proclamations and commands. Orman also
delivered her corrupted advice as though it could be expected to suit
everyone’s circumstances, whether a callers’ wishes, hopes, or dreams got
“Approved,” or whether almighty Suze decided to shout, “Denied!”
(For those who haven’t heard Orman shouting “Denied,” here you go:
Link Intro-3.)
8
More trustworthy financial advice would likely come from the
personal financial advisors Orman has regularly decimated as “crooks”
and “sheep”—advisors who unlike Orman are credentialed and have
taken at least one finance-related college course, and can look at
someone’s unique personal circumstances and individual goals, and
suggest specialized and specifically geared steps to achieve them.
Media complicity
Orman and her handlers have given her various glorified titles,
including “personal finance expert of the world” and “financial guru,”
which I’m sure Orman herself coined, since she and I have studied with
the same spiritual guru. I would like to suggest that a “guru” is intended to
designate someone who gathers and presents the most important and
essential information about what a student wants to learn, whether
spiritual, musical, artistic, scientific, or financial. A corrupt guru is one
whose motives are to use their position of trust as a façade to control and
plunder rather than to empower and uplift.
Orman and her publicists pitched her as a “finance guru” in so many
press releases that journalists started to use the term in their headlines.
Although most of Orman’s schemes are obvious with the slightest
research and effort of observation, only a few in the media have been
willing or able to speak up about this Empress's lack of knowledge or
integrity. Instead, we’ve seen major journalists knowingly or unknowingly
hosting and espousing completely false information on Orman’s behalf,
supporting the “Orman cabal” scams like ignorant puppets.
One clear example of this troubling alliance that you will see in our
documentary film took place on ABC News in 2012.
Journalist Juju Chang, while giggling at Orman’s audacious lies about
how using her prepaid card might be expected to give users a good FICO
score, acted as a veritable snake oil host for Orman’s predatory,
deceptively pitched “Approved” prepaid debit card that had 20 fees from
$1 to $30, and a whole lot of undisclosed shenanigans that stole money
from card users left and right, including lost accounts, improper fee
charges, and a $2 fee for every customer service call to Orman’s
intentionally incompetent call center in the Philippines by frantic card
users trying to access their lost accounts.
Nevertheless, Juju Chang falsely pitched Orman’s card to ABC News
viewers as a product that would only cost users $3 per month, “with no
hidden fees.”
9
Did Chang not do an ounce of research for her story? Did she not read
nearly one hundred articles that had already sprouted to warn readers
about Orman’s “Approved” card, with titles such as, “Stay Away from Suze
Orman's Approved Prepaid Debit Card,” “Beware of Suze Orman Card!”
“Suze Orman’s Prepaid Cards are Part of Immoral Money Scam,” and, “Prepaid Debit Card: Is Orman's Evil?” Did Chang know she was helping to
perpetrate a scam that was going to defraud the poor and middle class?
Orman claims to be neither a financial advisor nor journalist
Orman has primarily used her undeserved position of extreme public
influence—not to improve people's lives or have a positive effect on the
economy or the world—but to fill her coffers with tens of millions of
dollars in well paid pseudo advice, covered up by some generally useful,
basic financial information. Orman has intentionally generated fear,
shame, and anxiety with her angry demeanor and dire predictions, to
convince people to give their hard-earned money to her and her corporate
sponsors.
One might wonder how someone who plays the role of a financial
advisor or journalist could get away with violating the rules of ethics of
both those professions as Suze Orman has done time and time again. In a
2004 Chicago Tribune article, “Ad puts adviser's advice in question,”
Orman answered that question by claiming to be neither a financial
advisor nor a journalist, with therefore no requirement to follow any of
the ethics rules of either vocation.
What is she then, you might ask? (Link Intro-3a):
“I have now become a celebrity,” she said. “Whether the reporters who
have bashed me for years want to believe it, Suze Orman has become...
somebody that America has embraced.” And, as such, she says she should
be held to the same standard as other celebrities who endorse products.
Eric Tyson, author of many finance-related “For Dummies” books, is
one of the few who spoke up early and often to warn his readers not to fall
for this charlatan. In Personal Finance For Dummies, Tyson wrote about
Orman under the heading, “Recognizing Fake Financial Gurus.”
10
On his blog article, “Suze Orman’s Financial Advice and Career,”
Tyson offered some helpful insights into her past (Link Intro-3b):
I have had a bird's eye view of Suze Orman's “career” as a supposed
personal finance “guru” because I was based where she was in the San
Francisco Bay Area during most of the 1990s. At that time, I worked as a
financial advisor who strictly provided advice on an hourly basis.
Orman doesn't make claims to being a rocket scientist and her own
website biography states that she was “surprised” to be admitted to the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign “...even though I didn't score
well on my SATs,” she says. She actually says in her biography that it took
her seven years to complete her degree because she dropped out of school
unable to successfully complete the school's language requirement.
According to the University of Illinois, she graduated in August of 1977
(at the age of 26) with a bachelor's degree in social welfare…
As far back as 1998, Forbes' columnist William Barrett did a review
of Orman's background compared with her claims. Barrett found and
documented major misrepresentations and falsehoods about her
background. At the time of his column, he exposed the fact that while
Orman claimed 18 years of work in the financial services industry, she
had in fact only 7 years of experience.
Orman claims to have been operating a small financial planning
practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. Actually, she was selling
commission-based products and Barrett actually exposed the fact that her
own license to sell such products was expired so she wasn't even doing that
legally! Barrett told me in an interview she was selling single premium
deferred annuities to laid off workers. So in addition to grossly
misrepresenting her credentials and a thin educational and work
background in the financial field, she sold inappropriate products
(retirement account money is already tax sheltered) to laid off workers so
that she could earn hefty commissions.
The fear mongering and economic damage done by Orman’s
corporate-sponsored histrionics (along with other factors) fed the beast,
contributed to crashing the economy, and filled Orman’s voracious
pockets and those of her sponsors, as every economic downturn increased
her public influence and corporate shilling price.
The worse our economy got, the higher price Orman could get for her
corporate and bank sponsored “price for advice” shenanigans, with some
mostly ghostwritten financial books and products sprinkled on top to
bolster the façade and distract from the scams she was running.
11
12
As Orman herself often likes to say about how she got the idea to go
into the financial business, “I thought, ‘I know, I can be a broker, because
they just make you broker.’”
What do you think that means, all you journalists and media outlets
that have hosted this statement, and the millions who have heard Orman
say it once, twenty, or a hundred times? She decided to become a broker
to make people broker, and that’s what she did, first selling inappropriate
products to a few clients, and eventually to millions; making a whole lot of
people broker with her intentionally and unintentionally bad advice.
Orman and her political lobbyist PR team frequently blasted out fearmongering headlines and memes that kept her in the news, such as her
widely proclaimed mantra, “The American Dream is Dead!”
For years, Suze Orman was unavoidable in television and print media,
to the point where many complained about her extreme overexposure.
Articles called her “the ubiquitous Suze Orman,” and journalists marveled
at all the schemes she was able to run at the same time.
Yet, no matter how questionable the shams Orman and her partners
were pushing, the public heard barely a peep of warning from journalists
who were apparently too afraid of stepping on the toes of Oprah Winfrey
and Orman’s other powerful protectors to speak up about troubling
issues that must have been obvious to many journalists.
One disappointing example of journalistic complicity came when
Tavis Smiley pushed Orman’s predatory prepaid debit card right in the
middle of a poverty conference and at the prestigious National Press
Club, where Smiley declared his undying support for Orman’s
shenanigans, saying, “I am here now, as I have always been and always will
be, by Suze’s side and behind Suze to support her in all of her endeavors.”
Really, Tavis? How many of Orman’s other “endeavors” have you
supported, because most of Orman’s endeavors are predatory scams and
shams.
Watch a shocking clip from Tavis Smiley’s “Approved” prepaid debit
card infomercial at the National Press Club here: Link Intro-4
13
Such unabashed loyalty toward Orman has been especially intriguing
to see when nearly all of the people I've spoken with about this matter
over the years could see that something was seriously wrong with Suze
Orman. Most have used the exact same words, saying they “change the
channel whenever she comes on.”
These responses showed me that many others could see the problem,
but because they were turning channels to avoid her deceptive
mannerisms, abrasive voice, and bad energy, these people missed the
scams she was running that they could have warned others to avoid. Most
had no idea that Suze Orman had any significant influence in the world—
they certainly didn’t know that Time magazine had named Orman as one
of the 100 most influential people in the world (Link Intro-5), or that
Forbes had declared Suze Orman as the ninth most influential celebrity in
the world. (Link Intro-6)
Most of the people I’ve discussed Orman with had no idea that
millions of fellow Americans not only watch this shyster to learn some
basic financial information while being entertained by Orman’s emotive
expressions, but that millions of poor and middle class citizens were
making some of their most important family and life decisions, and
investing their hard-earned money, based on Orman’s profit-motivated
infomercials that she disguised as insightful financial expert wisdom.
You can see another interesting example in this next clip, where
George Stephanopoulos doesn't seem too thrilled to be playing host to
Orman spreading her prepaid debit card scam on Good Morning America.
Stephanopoulos seems almost fearful about asking proper questions,
letting Orman’s histrionics and obvious deceptions go on without
properly calling her out. (Link Intro-6a)
Beyond wanting this book to be interesting and educational, I hope it
will inspire second thoughts for the many news and other media figures
who have knowingly or unknowingly given Orman pass after pass for her
shenanigans while pushing her onto the public stage as a bonafide
financial “expert,” “wizard,” and “guru,” in spite of the fact that her only
college education was a B.A. in Social work that she took many extra years
to get.
In fact, Orman loves to brag that she never got even one grade above a
“C” in any of her classes while pursuing that bachelor’s degree in social
work. She wears her lack of credentials as a badge of honor to show what
an amazing con artist she must be to scam her way into a completely
undeserved position of respect, power, and public trust.
Watch a clip of Orman bragging about her lack of credentials:
Link Intro-7
14
Obviously, Orman has enough intelligence to have learned basic
financial information over the years, and much more “scamtelligence” to
arrange all the webs of deception she has run on the American public for
the past fifteen-plus years.
As for the question of who has been writing Orman's books, you can
find one clue in this article from Woman’s Wear Daily about how thrilled
Orman’s agent was, in the mid 1990s, to find an easily manipulated
“author” figurehead with hypnotic eyes who knew she couldn’t write:
(Link Intro-8)
One day, at a friend’s suggestion, Orman went to see Binky Urban,
ICM’s legendary book agent. “I didn’t want to see her and she didn’t want
to see me,” says Orman. “She didn’t need a financial author and I didn’t
see why I needed a [new] book agent. Especially with a name like Binky.
So I go into Binky’s office in jeans because I didn’t care about it. She had
her back turned and was talking to somebody on the phone and she said,
‘Well, you can just go tell that person to go f–k themselves.’ And I thought,
‘That is a great woman.’
Then she turned around, looked at me, and said, ‘Kid, those eyes of
yours will make us millions of dollars but you’ve gotta lose 30 pounds.’
And I said, ‘OK. Done.’”
“She looks fantastic now,” says Urban, who had no trouble
auctioning Orman’s second book.
“The bidding was going up and up and up,” says Orman, “I said,
‘Stop the bidding, Binky. I can’t take it anymore. Somebody’s going to pay
me $800,000 to write a book. I can’t write. I’m a finance person.’” She
continues: “I told Chip Gibson [then the head of Crown Publishing], ‘Sir,
before I sign this contract I have two things to tell you. Number one: I
don’t know how to write. So I don’t want you giving me $800,000 to
write. And number two: Are you aware that I’m a lesbian?”
As it happens, neither turned out to be roadblocks. For one, Orman
was a personal finance expert, not a movie star. And for another, Gibson
says, “We weren’t hiring Suze to win the Nobel Prize in literature.”
Urban seconds that. “I just thought, ‘Great. Finally an author who
knows she can’t write.’”
“Finally an author who knows she can’t write” is quite a clue into how
the wider Orman façade of ghostwriters and behind-the-scenes experts
began. The same article also describes Orman’s fear and shame-based
platform:
15
Suze Orman is in a television studio chewing out America. In three
hours of satellite appearances, she has scolded the residents of nearly every
major city in the United States about what they’re doing wrong — in her
estimation, more or less everything. She has castigated the people of
Hartford for eating out too much: “You have got to cut back like you have
never cut back before.”
She has told folks in San Antonio that unemployment is going up, up,
up, and that credit card debt is going to bring them down, down, down:
“You can’t say the word hope and 2009 in the same sentence.” And as for
the population of Phoenix, they might as well start stockpiling the food,
because, “The economy is beyond help.”
Each time she does an interview, her sentences become increasingly
staccato, her warnings more ominous. “If. You. Don’t. Face. Your. Debt.
In. The. Mirror. You. Are. Going. To. Be. In. So. Much. Trouble.”
Mommy still loves us, but we have been bad little kiddies and She.
Has. Got. To. Tell. Us.
You’d think all this doom and gloom might not go down so well at a
time when there is more than enough doom and gloom to go around. But
make no mistake about it — the global economic meltdown has been
fantastic for television’s ubiquitous money lady and her brand of
perpetual disapproval.
One of Orman’s business partners told me she would call him to ask
what she should say the next day on an interview or in social media. This
actual expert described how incredulous he would be to hear Orman
confidently espousing his advice as though it were her own.
Eric Tyson, author of books including, Personal Finance For Dummies,
Investing For Dummies, Mutual Funds For Dummies, and Real Estate
Investing For Dummies, pointed out another correlation between Orman
and Madoff:
As with Bernie Madoff, for many years, there have been major
concerns raised about Suze Orman's representations and stated
background which have largely been ignored and kept underground.”
The information presented in this book and film should at minimum
give pause to the millions who have simply trusted that today's popular
media figures who have pitched Orman as a trustworthy advisor have
done so after undertaking proper background and other checks regarding
the supposed expert they have presented as being credentialed and
trustworthy.
16
It is time for victims of Orman's “Approved” card scam, gold rush
“pump and dump,” and other schemes to receive restitution, and for
government agencies entrusted with protecting the public good to bring
justice, stop the damage, and properly investigate the mechanisms that
allowed Orman and her cabal to use our media landscape to distort the
economy and funnel money to corporations, banks, and the one percent,
from the pockets of poor and middle class citizens.
Not only should the victims of Orman's “Approved” card, “gold rush,”
and other scams be reimbursed for their losses, but every United States
citizen deserves to be part of a class action against Suze Orman and those
who have pumped up her undeserved extreme influence such that Time
and Forbes magazines have honored Orman as one of the top one hundred
most influential people, and the ninth most influential celebrity in the
world, respectively.
Some who have enjoyed my more positive works might wonder how a
nice spiritual author and filmmaker like me became obliged to produce a
book and film like this. The answer is that I couldn’t sit back without at
least trying to stop the serious damage I saw Orman perpetrating upon
the public, year after year. The price we have all paid for allowing a con
artist to be elevated into a position of extreme public influence should
become clear as you read through the webs of deceptive shenanigans I’ve
gathered in this book and the adjacent film. If one Suze scam doesn’t
convince you, just turn the page to find plenty more.
One of Orman’s recent business partners told me that all the
information I’ve gathered is still the tip of the iceberg of her troubling
nature and actions, and I’m sure that is the case. This partner said he was
planning to write his own Suze Orman book that would include some
emails from her that would shock the public and prove her fraud. He told
me Orman’s lawyer had been calling him practically every day at one
point, trying to pay him off to sign one of Orman’s ironclad confidentiality
agreements that have kept many others from telling what they know.
Hopefully my book and film will open the door for more information
to come forth, for justice and restitution to take place, for the media and
government agencies entrusted with protecting the public good to be
more honest, fair and vigilant, and for the public to become educated so
they won’t be as easily swept away by the emotings and pretenses of every
predatory con artist who comes down the pike.
I look forward to a day when Suze Orman and the cabal that supports
her are gone from the public consciousness, so our country and world can
move forward with a more conscious, more honest, and less abrasive
approach to finances, politics, and life choices—one that includes
intelligence, kindness, and respect for each other and for ourselves.
17
18
Chapter One
From Waitress to “Financial Expert”
Orman’s History of Shams and Shenanigans
“I thought, I know, I can be a broker. They just make you broker.”
—Suze Orman (in many talks and interviews)
Studying Suze Orman's path to extreme fame and fortune as an
example of success might be inspiring for someone who is looking to
climb to the top at any cost, even if it would mean ruining the lives of
many people and damaging the United States economy.
For those who are not interested in being con artists in training, there
are still important lessons to be gleaned from Orman’s back-story. For the
sake of the well being of society, it is educational and beneficial to look at
how someone with neither education nor ethics managed to con her way
into being declared a “trusted financial advisor” by some of the biggest
names in today’s news and media. This con artist actually has the clout to
direct and distort large streams of income, and has used that power to
move money from the poor and middle class into her own pockets and
those of the many corporations and banks with whom she has forged
often-predatory partnerships.
Orman’s thieving nature didn’t just suddenly appear when she stole
from millions who were not financially savvy enough to see through her
twisted labyrinths of words enough to avoid entering her prepaid card’s
minefield of fees and a long list of other schemes that could at minimum
be called shady and low integrity, but in reality were closer to corrupt,
fraudulent, and criminal.
Just as Orman used her prepaid card scam to steal money directly
from the pocketbooks of United States citizens, so young Suze Orman
stole money on a regular basis from her struggling father’s wallet,
beginning at age eight. Orman described her youthful thievery on Hay
House’s webpage: (Link 1-1)
Orman: When I was about eight years old, I asked my mother for a
dollar to go to the swimming pool with friends. My mother said, “Suze,
I’m sorry. We don’t have a dollar to give you right now, but don’t tell your
friends because if they find out they’re not going to like you any more.”
19
That very night I began to take money from my father’s wallet—$1
or $2 or $5. I took the money, and rather than spend it on myself, I would
buy my friends gifts—a comic book, candy, a taffy apple. I did it because I
wanted them to like me. And I continued to do that until I was 20 or 30
years old—not stealing money from my father but stealing from myself—
taking friends out to lunch or dinner and charging it on my credit card
even though I didn’t have the money to pay for it. Buying birthday gifts,
Christmas gifts, and Hanukah gifts for them even though I didn’t have
the money.
While Orman tried to paint her thievery as having an altruistic goal of
giving to others, her future behavior of holding on to her millions so tight
as to not want to even hire or pay people for serving her bottom line, and
her history of indulging in extravagant luxuries even while borrowing
money from friends and refusing to pay that money back according to
their agreed-upon schedule, casts doubt on that altruistic claim.
A Business Journal article points out whom it was that young Suze
Orman was stealing from: (Link 1-2)
Orman grew up in Chicago with a father who ran a poultry shop and
a mother who was a secretary. “Daddy was a failed man,” she says. “He
had a curse on his head. He succeeded as a businessman, then his [shop]
burned down.”
What effect did being poor have on her? “I learned that money was
the key to happiness. That's what I learned.”
Orman’s big revelation that the main thing she learned was, “Money is
the key to happiness,” is the kind of distorted thinking that would make her
regularly compromise her integrity to get more of that all-important
money. Her obsession was also behind Orman’s “Courage to be Rich at any
cost” meme that has distorted society’s views about money and created a
more greed and miserly-based world.
20
Here are some additional details about Orman’s early years from the
New York Times: (Link 1-3)
Ms. Orman grew up on the South Side of Chicago. Her father had a
store where he killed, plucked and sold chickens. And Ms. Orman, along
with two older brothers, helped out.
She remembers riding to school in his truck. “He would put his foot
on the brake and the blood of the dead chickens would slosh forward and
he would tell me to pick up my feet,” she said. “He had this smell about
him because he worked with the chickens. And I would have to jump
down from this truck and go to school.”
This photo was taken during the years when Orman first indulged her
thief archetype by regularly stealing money from the wallet of her father, a
poor deli owner on the South Side of Chicago.
Orman’s relationship with her father seems to be the one in which she
learned to say, “Yes Sir,” and be overly obedient to those in power who
might want to use her charms to pluck and kill some chickens, or to be a
good foot soldier for CEOs of corporations and banks who might like to
use Orman’s Oprah-bestowed clout to scam and pluck some retirement
accounts and life dreams.
Many times, I saw pre-famous Suze Orman behave in this overly
obedient way to people she perceived as powerful. She even did it to me
when she was still conning me to help her onto the public stage.
21
One of Orman’s favorite things was when I’d correct her about some
spiritual or philosophical idea or fact she’d put forth, saying, “It’s not like
that.” Orman would squeal with glee, repeating, “It’s not like that; I love
that,” in the baby talk voice she would use almost exclusively while
speaking with some of her friends.
Pre-famous Suze Orman and her lawyer friend would literally speak as
though they were toddlers, which gives some insight into her approach to
power and fame as a child’s and “mean girls” game. I hadn’t heard this kind
of baby talk communication style before, and wondered if it might have
some therapeutic effect, based on my earlier studies of psychological
approaches that regress patients back into early childhood behaviors to
help them re-access and learn stage-specific developments they may have
missed.
We’ll get more into Orman’s behavioral issues in Chapter Eight, but
one sign of a sociopath is that, “The sociopath usually has a history of
behavioral and academic difficulties, yet ‘gets by’ by conning others.”
Regarding academic difficulties, Orman has detailed some of her
history of academic failings in her biography:
In grammar school on the South Side of Chicago, I had to take
reading exams, and would always score among the lowest in the class.
One year a teacher decided that he would seat us according to our reading
scores. There were my three best friends in the first three seats of the first
row, while I was banished to the last seat in the sixth row. If I always
secretly felt dumb, it was now officially confirmed for everyone to see. Talk
about feeling ashamed.
This feeling that I couldn’t make it scholastically continued to haunt
me throughout high school and on into college. I knew I would never
amount to anything, so why even bother to try? Nevertheless, in my family
and in the families of my friends, it was a given that we’d all go to college.
In my case, I knew that I would have to pay for college myself, because my
parents were having a hard time with money. The only options for me
were community college or a state school.
I applied to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and to
my amazement, even though I did not score well on my SATs, I was
accepted. When I arrived, I met with a guidance counselor who asked me
what I wanted to study. I told him that I wanted to become a brain
surgeon. He looked at my grades and said, “I don’t think so. You don’t
have what it takes. Why not try something easier?” I did a little
investigation and found out that the easiest major was social work, so I
signed up for that. Why not take the easy way out? Why try harder?
22
…I was supposed to graduate in 1973, but my degree was withheld
because I hadn’t fulfilled the language requirement. Once again, it was the
shame of my grade-school years holding me back. If I had trouble with
English, what made me think I could learn a foreign language? I decided
to leave school without my degree. I wanted to see America. I wanted to
see what a hill looked like… a mountain … the Grand Canyon!
I borrowed $1,500 from my brother to buy a Ford Econoline van
and, with the help of my friend Mary Corlin (a great friend to this day),
converted the van into a place I could sleep during the drive across
country. I convinced three friends—Laurie, Sherry, and Vicky—to come
with me; I was way too scared to try this on my own. With $300 and a
converted van to my name, we set out to see America.
For years, Orman has turned those two months of youthful camping
fun in a van with friends into a Horatio Alger rags-to-riches story by
claiming she was once “homeless and living out of a van.” In our
documentary film, you’ll also see pre-famous Suze Orman lying to a group
of retirees, telling them she has a master’s degree in social work and
geriatrics, and has worked with older people for most of her life. (Watch
the clip in our documentary film: Link 1-4)
After moving to San Francisco, Orman worked at the Buttercup
Bakery, where she claims to have never received a single raise in seven
years, earning only four hundred dollars a month, which works out to less
than two dollars and fifty cents an hour. With Orman’s history of lying
about the facts of her life, this sounds doubtful. Even if her claim is true,
you can be sure she was raking in big bucks by using her charm to get tips
and implementing Orman-style con artist schemes like the one this
Buttercup Bakery customer recounts in a comment on our YouTube film:
23
Note how the con game Blanca describes resembles some elements of
Orman’s later ploys, such as the “Approved” card scam that also sold
people something they didn’t need for a lot more money than they
expected to pay.
Orman worked as a waitress for many years, before “inspiring,” or
more likely conning her Buttercup Bakery customers into loaning her fifty
thousand dollars with no interest or due date, just as she has conned many
(including moi) into giving and loaning her resources, using her palette of
well-honed manipulative tactics, including extreme flattery, extravagant
promises, and woeful begging. In this case, it was woeful begging.
Orman says that she had phoned her parents to ask if they would loan
her twenty thousand dollars to open her own restaurant, even though she
knew they didn’t have anywhere near that kind of money. Then she went
back to the Buttercup Bakery, where customers were used to her chipper
charming smiles, and started to noticeably mope around, looking sad and
depressed. From Orman’s bio:
The next day at work, a man I had been waiting on for six years,
Fred Hasbrook, noticed that I wasn’t my usual cheerful self. “What’s
wrong, sunshine? You don’t look happy,” he said.
I told Fred about having asked my parents for a $20,000 loan. Fred
ate his breakfast and then talked to some of the other customers I’d been
waiting on all those years. Before he left the restaurant, he came up to the
counter and handed me a personal check for $2,000, a bunch of other
checks and commitments from the other customers that totaled $50,000.
Con artist gold! After convincing her restaurant customers to give her
a loan with no interest or due date, Orman’s Merrill Lynch broker lost
much of the fifty thousand dollars, after she probably begged him to
generate as much as he could from it. Knowing Suze Orman, she most
likely pushed him to put her money into risky investments against his
better judgment, because Suze Orman thinks she has magical powers—
and based on her ability to scam the world, maybe she does.
Although Orman’s story gets fuzzy in places, it appears that she
threatened to sue Merrill Lynch for losing her money, but then ended up
negotiating a deal where Merrill Lynch would instead give her some free
financial training and a six-month position that would bring her a 400%
raise in income from her waitress job.
It’s at this point in the narrative that Orman likes to use her oftrepeated line, “I thought, I know! I can be a broker, ‘cause they just make you
broker.”
24
Orman has shared this same story and quote in most talks and
interviews for the past fifteen years, but I’ve yet to hear anyone question
what it even means, and why making people broker would be her
motivation to go into the financial services industry.
Orman has explained that Merrill Lynch only hired her because they
had to fill the new women’s quotas laws at that time, which were causing
Merrill Lynch a lot of headaches, given an almost total lack of female
stockbrokers at that time. That’s why when this woman with zero
financial education or experience showed up at their door, the
receptionist ushered this waitress into the manager’s office. The manager
told Orman he was going to hire her for only six months to fulfill their
quota, and after that, she would be fired. Orman agreed to those terms,
but of course found a way to scam them too.
During her stint at Merrill Lynch as a barely trained stockbroker,
Orman used her deception skills to fake it, and became known for
choosing stocks for clients using a crystal pendulum. (Click here to see
Orman laugh about giving advice to clients without having any idea what
she was doing: Link 1-5)
Due to her well-proven skills of boldness and persuasiveness, Orman
surprised Merrill Lynch by bringing in many people she’d meet around
town as new clients. These were often lower income workers who had not
previously considered investing in stocks, and perhaps some who should
not have been doing so, but that mattered not to Orman, who was going
to prove herself at all costs.
Just before her six-month employment was about to end, Orman
sneakily sued Merrill Lynch, creating a situation where they couldn't
legally fire her, as the case sat for the next two years. You can hear Orman
gleefully share this story and brag about scamming Merrill Lynch in this
clip from a talk at the National Council of La Raza convention. (Link 1-6 )
“So I did the only thing I knew what to do back at that time, and I
sued Merrill Lynch while I was working for them…’cause I sued them,
they couldn’t fire me.”
Eventually, another manager came to the branch and apparently
realized it was worth it for them to pay Orman her the original $50,000
investment plus 18% interest to get rid of her.
25
After Merrill Lynch, Orman was hired by Prudential-Bache—she has
said it was again because they had those new woman’s quotas to fill, with
almost no women in the field to fill them. Orman had at least managed to
get a simple broker’s license while working at Merrill Lynch, and because
Prudential was so desperate to fill their quota, she talked them into giving
her a title of “vice president.” What else could they do?
Then came more shenanigans that Orman doesn't include in her ofttold narrative, including conning various financial and political expert
devotees of our mutual spiritual path, and convincing me with
extravagant false promises to use my Hollywood colleagues to get Orman
booked on her first two television shows and to produce, film, and edit the
deceptive video that helped Suze Orman get a first book deal after her
book proposal had already been turned down by over thirty publishers.
Mea culpa.
From the beginning and throughout our two-year association, red
flags about Orman’s troubling behaviors were waving all over the place,
with alarms blaring, but I was too naïve and “nice” to deal with them
properly. I had just moved to Los Angeles after nearly a decade of
monastic ashram life, where I had produced and edited hundreds of
videos about spiritual wisdom and practices for a worldwide spiritual
community. In fact, it was the ashram foundation that had phoned to ask
me to produce a video for their worldwide retreat, specifically requesting
that I work with a woman devotee in Oakland California who had no
filmmaking experience, but would be able to help arrange the logistics.
By the time Suze Orman and I met, I was two years out of the ashram,
with a bright, Hollywood career already in bloom, having worked at
Disney, Paramount, FOX, and CBS. I’d helped Charlie Rose come up with
the idea for his PBS show, edited one of the last “Candid Camera” specials
with Alan Funt in his house, and was about to win many local, national,
and international awards for my television news editing.
Orman saw that I had media contacts, award-winning video skills,
access to studio equipment, and spiritual-based counseling and coaching
abilities that gave me an opportunity to help many famous and nonfamous people achieve greater success. She knew I could help her get what
she wanted, and used all her well-polished manipulation skills to sink her
claws in, knowing I had no choice but to keep things friendly enough to
work together on what was a wonderful and positive video project to do
for our mutual spiritual community.
Orman was already proficient in taking advantage of the trusting
ashram devotees and, unbeknownst to me, had a reputation around the
local community as a cheat. Orman later told me that she had previously
26
been asked by the ashram head to leave the women devotees alone, due to
numerous complaints they had received about her predatory behaviors.
In the next link, you can watch Suze Orman tell Anderson Cooper
about her ruthless climb, explaining: “I didn't care what other people
thought, because I knew what I wanted and I was going to go after it at all
costs, I got what I wanted.” (Link 1-7)
She certainly did get what she wanted, and the costs of Orman’s
ruthless ambition for many individuals and the world have been severe.
At the time, I thought I was assisting Orman to publish a book that
was going to help people, titled, You’ve Earned It, Don’t Lose It. Little did I
know that the title really should have been, You’ve Earned It, Now Lose It
to Me, by Suze Orman.
Orman also used another of her common tactics of manipulation by
lavishing praise on me. She would tell me over and over that I was the
most brilliant woman she had ever known.
I wasn’t one to be easily swept away by praise, but the high esteem
Orman showed gave me some confidence in her frequent reminders that
the first money that came in from the book would be used to repay me
with a one hundred and fifty thousand dollar video editing system, and
her oft-repeated promise that, “If this book takes off, I’ll take care of you for
the rest of your life.” Based on her deplorable subsequent actions, she must
have meant “take care of you” in a mafiaesque way.
On the very week that her book was completed and at the printer
being published, Orman ran one of her scams on me that began with her
behaving more abusively than usual and ended with her taking an actual,
official vow to never speak to me again, because I had commented on her
abusive behavior. How convenient! That was Orman’s way of escaping
from keeping her word and paying her debt, so she could move on to con
her next victims. She never even bothered to send me a copy of the
published book.
From Wikipedia:
A confidence trick (synonyms include confidence game, confidence
scheme, scam and stratagem) is an attempt to defraud a person or group
after first gaining their confidence, used in the classical sense of trust.
Confidence tricks exploit characteristics of the human psyche such as
dishonesty, honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naïveté
and greed.
27
Although it was disappointing to have Orman callously steal from me
after two years of helping to start her writing and public speaking career, I
wasn’t going to let her theft distract me from moving on with my life.
Some have asked why I didn’t take legal action against Orman to get
what had been promised, but that was not my way. Orman specifically
targets people who won’t fight back for one reason or another, and who
don’t know to get all promised repayments in writing.
At least one person I know of whom Orman used to expand her career
did receive compensation through a legal arbitration that surely included
signing one of Orman’s ironclad confidentiality agreements. When this
woman and I met several years later, we joked that we should have at least
gotten “I survived Suze Orman” t-shirts.
Even though I had paid all production expenses for the promotional
video I produced, filmed, scripted, and edited that helped Orman get that
first book deal, including taking a day off from my job plus airplane fare to
fly up north for a day to film her presentation, I wasn’t even going to go
after Orman for reimbursement. It was a bitter lesson, but I really just
wanted this sociopath out of my life. It was well worth the six-figure loss
to be free of Suze Orman’s clutches.
Another reason I didn’t worry too much about going after Orman for
the promised pay was because I was still fresh out of nearly a decade of
monastic life, where I’d offered my work as service. The freedom from
greed in that lifestyle made it easier for me to let go of the stolen money
and stay focused on my television career, which by that time involved
editing and producing many more shows, including X-Men and The
Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.
Nevertheless, Suze Orman couldn’t just steal from someone without
giving some extra kicks at the end. After taking a vow to never speak to me
again, Orman spent years using her cronies to destroy my reputation in
our worldwide mutual spiritual community, just as I was told she had
done to another devotee of the path, Cynthia Oti, the main person who
helped to spark Orman’s financial career before I came into the picture.
Oti was a successful stockbroker and host of a popular San Francisco
radio show called “Financial Fitness.” From what Orman told me at the
time, Oti had helped to educate her about finances, and helped to build
Orman’s initial financial platform. Oti also gave Orman her first
experiences of being on radio, just as I got Orman booked on her first two
television shows. We both also helped with various aspects of Orman’s
first book.
28
29
After thanking Cynthia Oti in the short list of acknowledgments of
her first book, Orman caused serious damage to Cynthia's life, just as she
would subsequently do to the lives of many others after using them to
spark and expand her career. One of Oti’s friends, a respected church
minister and government agency head, told me about some of the
troubles Orman had caused for his friend Cynthia Oti, adding regarding
Orman, “She has damaged so many lives.”
This mutual minister friend told me that one of the ways Orman
caused harm to the woman who had seriously helped to begin her career
was to start a false rumor campaign about Oti in our mutual spiritual
community, just as she did to me.
Years later, after Cynthia Oti died in the plane crash of Alaska Airlines
Flight 261, Orman got one last kick in by denigrating her memory on
CNBC.
On that despicable episode of “The Suze Orman Show” on CNBC,
Orman was pressuring a guest whose ex-fiancé had committed suicide,
encouraging her to say that she felt relieved he was gone.
Orman then described her experience of Cynthia's death, saying, “I
didn't feel bad about it, and everybody was saying to me, 'Suze Orman, what is
the matter with you?' And I was like, ‘What do you want me to do? I didn't like
the person! The person screwed me over! Why should I like this person — I
don't care, that's their problem.’”
See it for yourself, with the worst part at the end of this clip: Link 1-8
That is how Orman spoke about a woman who seriously helped
create her success. I saw this CNBC clip at a time when I would
occasionally record Orman's shows out of curiosity, because she would so
often use the forum to publicly insult and trash her ex-lovers and exfriends (here is one more example: Link 1-9).
In a sense, this presentation, though primarily intended to help
protect individuals, the economy, and society from more damage, is also
an offering on behalf of Cynthia Oti's memory.
30
At the time Orman and I met in the early 1990s, Oti was still helping
her, and Orman was borrowing massive amounts of money from friends
and ex-girlfriends. Soon after we met, I was present as Orman argued on a
phone call with a wealthy ex-girlfriend who had loaned her fifty thousand
dollars. Orman was arguing that she was not able to pay the money back
according to their agreed-upon schedule.
Yet, at the same time that she was claiming to be unable to repay the
borrowed money from this friend and others, Orman was spending huge
sums of that borrowed money on a long list of ongoing extravagant and
unnecessary luxuries, including leasing a BMW, getting weekly maid
service at $70 a pop, going for frequent visits to salons for hair frostings,
manicures, pedicures, massages, and waxings, purchasing expensive
clothes and jewelry, and eating out in expensive restaurants, sometimes
several times a day.
Suze Orman has never followed the advice she gives, and like most
narcissistic sociopaths, thinks she is better and inherently deserves more
than other people. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders) describes that characterizing symptom of narcissistic
personality disorder in this way: “Has a grandiose feeling of self-importance
(e.g., exaggerates achievements, talents, overestimates abilities, expects to be
treated as special and recognized as superior)…Believes that he or she is
“special,” different & unique and can not be understood by “regular”
people…Has a sense of entitlement, unreasonable expectations, expects others
to comply with his/her expectations and becomes furious and puzzled if it
doesn’t happen, always expects special treatment…Shows arrogant,
patronizing attitudes, overconfident & everknowing behaviors...expects others
to bend their backs to help him/her achieve their goals; manipulates and takes
advantage, is very likely to enter relationships for the sole purpose of achieving
his/her goals or fulfilling their personal selfish needs.”
The only reason Orman got out of her extreme debt in the early
1990s was because PG&E paid her huge sums of money to give some
retirement seminars and meetings to encourage their older employees to
go through an early retirement process, which I’m guessing was not
necessarily something that was going to be beneficial to all those early
retirees, based on the extremely high amount of money they were paying
barely credentialed Suze Orman to convince their employees to do what
the corporation wanted them to do.
Orman got that job in part through my efforts of getting her on her
first two television shows, which gave her the prestige of a false but
impressive media presence. (Watch an unedited clip of Orman’s first
interview in the newsroom of one of the news stations where I was
working at the time: Link 1-10)
31
Orman spoke about her PG&E windfall in this interview with the New
York Times Magazine – (Link 1-11):
“As soon as I started to tell the truth, and everyone knew what the
situation was”(that she was $250,000 in debt) “the phone rings and it’s
Pacific Gas and Electric having another early retirement.” The company
hired Orman to advise its employees, and “in one month I got a check for
$250,000 and went, ‘Oh, my God,’ and paid off all my debt. I started
getting checks like that again, and my whole life turned around.”
I can assure you from personal experience that even though Orman
claims in this quote that she had “started to tell the truth,” it was like Jodi
Arias saying she had finally started to tell the truth about how her
boyfriend was really murdered by two ninjas.
At the time she claims to have started telling the truth, Orman was
weaving her usual webs of lies, including having me continue to pay for all
the expenses to create her video, even though she’d received this secret
$250,000 windfall that she never told me about, while using my much
smaller resources to produce the video that got Orman her first book deal.
This is another frequent pattern I’ve heard about from other Orman
associates and victims, getting them to spend a lot of money, skills, time
and resources to create products that are really meant to benefit Orman,
with grand promises of repayment and extravagant benefits that would
supposedly be coming to the person she was conning. Eventually Orman
would start invoking Oprah Winfrey’s name to promise false repayments,
including lying about having the power to get her partners’ products on
the coveted list of “Oprah’s Favorite Things.”
From what I’ve heard and read,Orman’s usual deal is for her business
partners to pay all the money and create the products. In exchange for
them being able to use her name and face and have Orman’s extreme
influence pitching their products, Orman would get fifty percent of the
gross proceeds. Assuming Orman had a similar deal in her subsequent
association with Fair Isaac Corporation, that would translate into tens of
millions of dollars or more going to Suze Orman just for telling people
over and over again that their FICO scores were the most important
things in their financial lives. Click here to watch Orman’s self-described,
“FICO frenzy”: Link 1-12. More on Orman’s deal with Fair Isaac in
Chapter two.
I’m sure one of the most difficult things for Suze Orman is to not brag
too much publicly about how much money she has really made by
conning the world, although she has enjoyed sharing many videos of
herself laughing while yachting around the Cayman Islands that are
known for offshore accounts.
32
In fact, Orman’s main publicity strategist is known for helping
corporations move their accounts to the Cayman Islands to avoid paying
taxes in the United States.
In our film, you’ll see Orman brag about having way more than fifty
million dollars, but as much as she would love to brag about the real
amount, she usually gives the relatively low figure of thirty-five million, to
not draw attention that might bring about justice.
Perhaps this book and film will make Orman proud in a narcissistic
sociopathic way, as millions who were fooled by her cons wake up and
realize they’ve been outsmarted by someone who loves to brag that she
never got above a grade of “C” in any college course, and who would
barely be able to write even a proper essay on her own, much less many
bestselling books.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Orman would prefer to go down in history
as a gangster who fooled many of the most trusted journalist, media, and
political figures in today’s world, than to be remembered as a sometimesuseful financial advisor.
“Scarface Orman”
33
In the early 1990s, Orman and I had discussed her desire to write a
book during our many hours of conversation. She found a ghostwriter
who was also an agent, Linda Mead, who agreed to write Orman’s first
book, with some input and stories from Orman and Mead’s own financial
knowledge and writing experience. Soon after, Orman needed something
bigger from me.
More than thirty publishers had already turned down their book
proposal, and there was one top-notch publisher they hadn’t yet
approached, Newmarket Press, a small but prestigious publisher who
specialized in marketing their authors.
Newmarket Press would only consider authors who already had a
strong media presence, but Orman had none. That’s when she asked me to
help with my Hollywood contacts and award-winning skills, conning me
with all those promises of extravagant repayments.
Even though I would rarely request such favors even to further my
own career, with Orman’s prodding, I asked favors from television
producer colleagues in different Hollywood studios to get Orman booked
on her first two television appearances.
I ended up producing, filming, scripting and editing a professional
video presentation of Suze Orman that projected a deceptive image of her
financial knowledge and media experience. I can’t claim to have had no
idea that we were fudging things a bit, but Suze Orman is an absolute
expert in getting good people to push the boundaries of their usual
borders of honesty and integrity to help her get what she wants. I have
certainly paid a serious price for that lapse of judgment.
Once Newmarket gave Orman her first book deal, I continued to give
more assistance toward Orman’s quest to be a published author and
speaker, including copyediting, coaching, and requesting endorsements
from prominent friends.
During our production of the video that got Orman her first book
deal, I flew up to San Francisco for the day to film Orman's PG&E
presentation—on my dime, since Orman had hidden from me how much
money she was making, and claimed to still be in debt. Since she was
promising lavish amounts of her money from the published book, I ended
up being one of now millions of people who have lost a lot by investing in
Orman’s worthless promises and supporting her deceptive schemes.
Orman’s job was to give the retirees a presentation of whatever
information PG&E wanted her to give, and to also give personalized
consultations to those who were going to take the early retirement
package.
34
It was an early version of Orman's “price for advice” schemes that
would eventually draw a long list of corporations to make use of her
willingness to shill and deceive, with passion.
As I recall, part of Orman's deal with PG&E was that she couldn't bill
the retirees for their personal consultations, because those consultations
were meant to be covered by all those big checks PG&E was sending her
way.
PG&E had allowed that if retirees wanted to give Orman a tip on top,
that would be allowed, as long as she didn't bill them. So, during the
presentation, Orman told these PG&E early retirees that she wouldn't
charge them a specific fee for the consultations, without telling them that
PG&E was already paying her for them.
With pure con artistry, Orman told these retires, who were already
going through enough with this major life change and many decisions to
make, that they could decide how much they wanted to pay her for the
consultation, but that she wasn’t going to give a specific invoice or charge.
Since these early retirees had no idea that Orman had already been paid
$250,000 from PG&E for giving the presentation meetings and
consultations, they expected to pay for their consultation, especially with
the way Orman minced words to make it clear that they didn’t have to pay
her, but if they didn’t, they were basically choosing to rip her off.
Since I was filming that presentation, it appears to be the first Suze
Orman con game caught on film. Orman told the retirees that they could
pay her as much or as little as they wanted to pay, and that if they didn't
want to pay her anything for the two-hour consultation, they could just
stiff her, and I guess feel guilty about it, not knowing that Orman had
already been paid for their consultation.
Depending on the investments she recommended, she would also
receive additional money in commissions, which you can be sure
Orman—who was mainly selling insurance at the time—took full
advantage of for her pocketbook.
Orman was being paid all the way around with deception all around, a
pattern she would repeat time and time again on her way up the ladder of
public influence and deceptive corporate deals.
At this next link, you can watch the earliest known recording of con
artist Suze Orman in action at the PG&E retirement meeting. You will
see her lying about several facts regarding her career history and being
confronted by one savvy fellow who could smell the scam and was bold
enough to speak up, in spite of being put down by another retiree who had
fallen for Orman’s snake oil. Play the video here: Link 1-14
35
Two minutes into the clip, that retiree could clearly tell that Orman
was a shyster—it’s not like her shenanigans are that difficult to spot, but
that she uses charm, praise, fear-mongering, and other manipulative
techniques to bypass people’s usual discernment faculties.
Since Orman was the person PG&E had officially set up for them to
consult with, the man was trying to be polite as he persistently asked
Orman to tell him how much he should pay her, what range would be
appropriate, or how much others have paid her, also asking where does
the money go? (Hint: into Orman’s personal checking account)
This “financial advisor” tells the man that she never even knows how
much any client pays, because her secretary deposits all the checks
anonymously into her checking account, and that she has no idea how
much has ever been deposited or any range of what people have paid. It's a
bunch of Suze Shenanigans, and that fellow smelled the stinky scam.
In a not surprising additional point, Orman also lied to her
Newmarket Press publisher about the fact that her book had already been
turned down by over thirty publishers:
(From the New York Times, 2006: Link 1-15)
“Suze never told me the book had already been turned down by 30
publishers,” Ms. Margolis recalled.
I also remember, during our well over one hundred hours of
conversation, Orman asking me for information about neuro-linguistic
programming and the subconscious mind. I’d been brought up by
psychology teachers and was reading Freud and learning about hypnosis
by age seven, before studying neuroscience and film in college.
Even all those years later, I had some knowledge about neurolinguistic techniques, although it was never my nature to use them to
manipulate others, a sentiment strengthened by years of monastic life,
where an understanding of the universal nature of humanity and life had
inspired me to give, share, serve, and certainly strive to never scam anyone.
As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Each man takes care that his neighbor shall
not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat
his neighbor. Then all goes well — he has changed his market-cart into a
chariot of the sun.”
Along with regretting my role in producing the deceptive promo
video and other assistance that contributed to Suze Orman’s first book
getting published, I carry the burden of knowing I gave her psychological
and metaphysical information that may have helped her to perfect her
manipulative tactics.
36
One other sign of Orman’s approach to life came in 1992, when I won
a Los Angeles Emmy award for my news editing work.
With four nominations that year, I had been hoping to win at least
one. Orman flew down to join two other friends and me at the Emmy
awards ceremony.
At the after party, Disney’s photographer came around to take official
photos of the winners with their Emmy awards. Orman and another
friend were standing with me, so I invited them to join in the photo.
As the photographer prepared his camera, Orman took my Emmy
award from my hands, saying, “I want to win an Emmy!”
Then she held it up for the photographer, looking proud as can be
with crazy eyes, taking credit for my win with the same ease as she has
taken credit for the work of so many others since, including the
ghostwriters and behind-the-scenes experts who have maintained her
“financial expert” façade.
The photographer only took one photo of each winner, so this is my
Emmy award photo:
Crazy eyes much?
37
Orman's subsequent extreme influence, which twice earned her a
seriously concerning spot on Time Magazine's 100 most influential
people in the world, is mainly due to the “Oprah factor.” Oprah Winfrey
enthusiastically pushed Suze Orman upon her millions of trusting fans—
on her shows, in her magazine, and in other Oprah friendly media venues.
Winfrey had Orman on her show fourteen times to publicize her second
book, Nine Steps to Financial Freedom.
In 1998, Forbes ran an article, Sizzling Suze, that called Orman out for
outright lying in her biographical descriptions in that book. (Link 1-16)
Orman’s bio in 9 Steps says she “heads her own financial planning
firm,” Suze Orman Financial Group of Emeryville, Calif. But neither she
nor the firm has done any paid financial planning work in years. Besides
books and other royalties, Orman’s earned income has come mainly from
selling insurance—which gets much more attention in her book than do
stocks or bonds.
Also in the bio, she claims a current Commodity Trading Advisor
license that actually lapsed in 1990. The jacket of her video says she has
“18 years of experience at major Wall Street institutions.” In fact, she has
7. The “nearly 1,000 new clients each year” touted on her publisher’s Web
site are simply fans making inquiries by mail.
Little did the Forbes journalist know that even these glaring lies were
just tips of a much more troubling and exponentially growing iceberg of
deceit.
38
Nearly every major talk and news-based show joined the Oprahblessed Suze Orman bandwagon, with millions more viewers believing
Orman must have the proper credentials to be giving all that advice,
assuming she wrote those best selling books herself, and trusting the many
top journalists on various networks who have called Orman all kinds of
laudatory terms pushed by Orman and her publicists, such as “expert,”
“guru,” and “wizard,” in spite of her serious lack of credentials and almost
no official financial education. I would love to know if Oprah received any
percentage cut from the profits of her protégé.
Millions of United States citizens who fell for Orman’s snake oil lost a
lot after making important financial and life decisions based on Orman's
advice and decrees that mixed basic financial information with her
harmful views, personality aberrations, corporate sponsored schemes, PR
orchestrated headline blasts, and irresponsible predictions and decrees.
This set Suze Orman up to be a darling of corporations. Like Orman’s
agent, who said, “Great. Finally an author who knows she can’t write,”
corporations and banks were thrilled to find an influential public figure
who was not only easy to buy, but voraciously peddling her Oprahbestowed influence for big bucks.
39
40
Chapter two
Seducing Corporations, Banks and Billionaires
After Oprah lifted Orman onto a
pedestal of untouchability, Orman hung
out the “pseudo-pitches disguised as financial
advice for sale” sign, and began to court
corporations, banks, and companies of all
kinds to plaster her hypnotic eyes and
crazed grin on their products. “You too can
buy a piece of Oprah’s influence for
pennies on the dollar.”
Orman made millions upon millions
from these shady corporate deals, bragging
to a classroom of low income at risk youth
in 2013 (in between trips to the Cayman
Islands) that, “Everybody thinks I’m worth
fifty million dollars, and they’re way short. I
am a seriously, seriously, wealthy woman.”
(Watch the unimpressed teens in this clip:
Link 2-1)
A 2004 Chicago Tribune article
clearly showed the kind of word
and identity changing games
Orman plays while trying to cover
up her corporate sponsored
unethical actions, and how she gets
powerful media figures to play
along with her lies. The article is
one of several outcries from the
media in response to this “Lock and
Roll” commercial Orman did for
GM, advising people to buy a new
Cadillac.
(Watch Orman’s “Lock and Roll” commercial: Link 2-2)
41
From the Chicago Tribune, 2004: (Link 2-2a)
“Ad puts adviser's advice in question”
In addition to her usual outlets--the eight-hour run of “The Suze
Orman Show” on CNBC each weekend, her occasional appearances on
QVC, her pledge-drive specials for PBS--an estimated 180 million people
saw the financial guru pitching General Motors' “Lock 'n Roll” financing
plan in an ad campaign that ran for 20 days in November and December,
according to GM.
Besides being inescapable, the ads, for which Orman was paid an
undisclosed sum to endorse the carmaker's zero percent interest rate offer,
raised questions about how Orman could claim to give unvarnished
advice to CNBC viewers while taking money from GM.
“Her entire persona revolves around giving fair and wise advice to
people who rely on her,” said David Bernknopf, a media consultant and
visiting professor at the University of Colorado's School of Journalism and
Mass Communication. “And if she's taking money from someone whose
business touches on the advice she gives, how can that not raise questions
about her fairness and honesty and independence? “
Ronald Duska, an ethics professor at The American College, a school
for financial professionals, agreed.
“Just because you're getting paid to say something doesn't mean you
shouldn't say it,” he said. “But in a sense, she's using her financial
credentials to help a company sell a product. That creates problems if
she's supposed to be able to stand back and evaluate financial options.”
Indeed, those credentials are precisely what made her attractive to
GM: “We approached her because she is a widely recognized and
respected financial adviser,” said GM spokeswoman Deborah Silverman.
Orman bridles at the contention that the ads compromised her
integrity. They were, she says, just another way to provide people with
financial advice. Besides, she's not journalist.
“I have now become a celebrity,” she said. “Whether the reporters who
have bashed me for years want to believe it, Suze Orman has become ...
somebody that America has embraced.”
And, as such, she says she should be held to the same standard as
other celebrities who endorse products.
42
In 2009, Woman’s Wear Daily offered these insights into the machine
behind Orman’s continuing corporate shenanigans:
(Orman shares five homes) with her partner, Kathy “K.T.” Travis,
56. The two met eight years ago when Travis, a former advertising
executive at Ogilvy & Mather, moved back to the Bay Area from Hong
Kong. “We had mutual friends,” Travis says. “They said, ‘She writes
about money.’ I said, ‘That sounds boring.’ I’d been in China. We didn’t
have CNBC. I didn’t watch Oprah. But Suze is electric. Within a week,
she made me throw out all my credit cards and things I didn’t need.”
Travis now runs Orman’s company, a burgeoning media empire that
includes books, tapes, the Saturday night CNBC show, a column for O,
the Oprah Magazine, and a partnership with credit reporting agency Fair
Isaacs Corp. Fair Isaacs’ credit model, known as a FICO score, is the most
widely used in the United States and the arrangement between them and
Orman has been a source of controversy in the financial press, since
Orman promotes the importance of a good FICO score in her books at the
same time she is earning money from the very company that sends that
score to potential lenders.
Another source of controversy is Orman’s relationship with TD
Ameritrade, with whom she has a business partnership. To convince
viewers of her show to begin saving, Orman has suggested going to
Saveyourself.com (a Web site she set up) and opening an account with
that firm. If you deposit $50 a month in each of the first 12 months, the
bank will match you — up to $100. “It’s a savings rate of 15 percent,”
Orman has said repeatedly. The trouble is, after the first $600, the
interest rate drops to an ordinary one, making the offer more of a
marketing ploy for the bank than anything else.
Also in 2009, the New York Times featured Orman’s wife and brand
manager, Kathy Travis explaining, assumedly with a straight face, that
Suze’s interest “is not to gain wealth or money—her interest is in helping
people.” (It is worth reading this article for many other signs of Orman’s
behavioral and other problems: Link 2-2b)
Travis also negotiated a deal for Orman with the developers of FICO,
the credit-score formula, for whom Orman now produces an instructional
kit that she sells on QVC. And Travis has taken over the management of
Orman’s brand. She occasionally lays it on a little thick. Explaining that
Orman herself rarely seeks out new business opportunities, Travis says,
“Oh, no, Suze doesn’t do that, because her interest is not to gain wealth or
money — her interest is in helping people.”
43
Contrast that with what Orman said to The Chicago Tribune a few
years back, when she was criticized for shilling a zero-percent-interest
campaign for General Motors in a television ad that ran for a few weeks.
Critics charged that she was compromising her objectivity (and that she
hurt her credibility by implicitly endorsing the purchase of new cars,
which she, like most financial planners, characterizes as a money-losing
proposition). “You think they don’t know I was paid to do the G.M.
commercial?” Orman said of her viewers. “I’m not in this for charity. This
is a business, and anybody who thinks that it’s not a business is an idiot.”
It’s a more candid take on her motives than Travis’s, but in its nononsense way, it’s pitch-perfect Suze.
Get that, anyone who thought Suze Orman might have a particle of
kindness or generosity? “I’m not in this for charity. This is a business, and
anybody who thinks that it’s not a business is an idiot.”
The same Chicago Tribune article quoted by the New York Times is
also filled with Suze SCAMvenger hunt clues that help to paint the
picture of Orman’s shenanigans in the early 2000s, including how she got
people like CNBC’s top brass to violate their own intelligence and
integrity to play along with her shams:
…CNBC is usually scrupulous when it comes to ethical guidelines.
Every financial professional who appears on the cable network's daytime
shows is required to disclose interests in any company they may discuss,
including holdings by family members.
Employees are under stricter guidelines--reporters and correspondents
are barred from holding individual securities, lest the prospect of personal
enrichment influence their coverage.
“It raised a lot of eyebrows around here when we first saw the GM
commercials,” said one CNBC staffer. “Clearly it's not something that in
general we would be able to do.”
The guidelines do not apply to Orman, explained CNBC
spokeswoman Amy Zelvin, because Orman owns her show, and CNBC
pays her a license fee to air it.
“Suze Orman appears on CNBC as an expert commentator,” Zelvin
said. “She is not an employee of CNBC and she is not a journalist. As
such, she is able and permitted to pursue outside business ventures.”
But CNBC's Web site suggests otherwise: Orman is listed as the
network's “personal finance editor,” a title that suggests both employment
and journalistic decision-making.
44
“I recently resigned from that position,” Orman explained. “When all
this started with the GM thing, I called up [CNBC Enterprises general
manager] Bob Meyers. I said `Bob, this is ridiculous.' I don't do anything
as personal finance editor. It was an empty title really. Why even have it?”
Orman said she retired the title sometime in late November, and that she
had been personal finance editor for about three years.
Zelvin, who expressed surprise when informed of the title, said: “We
should have been clearer that she's a commentator and not a journalist.”
(At press time, CNBC's Web site still identified Orman as personal
finance editor on the site's “Anchors and Reporters” page.)
Then came an example of one of Orman’s favorite ways of dealing
with valid criticism:
Barbara Lippert, the advertising critic for Adweek, a trade magazine,
said Orman is a “hypocrite.
“Suze Orman claims to give uncorrupted advice, yet she's being paid
by one of America's largest corporations to flog its brands,” she said. “It's a
complete conflict of interest.”
Orman dismisses such criticism as sour grapes.
“They hate Suze Orman and love to bash me because they're so
jealous of my success,” she said. “They just cannot understand how it is
that I've sold millions of copies of books, I won an Emmy Award this year,
my show on CNBC is the highest-rated show on weekends. How is any of
that possible? They hate me because I tell people the truth.”
As a certified financial planner, Orman is required by the Certified
Financial Planner Board of Standards, a private industry regulatory
body, to disclose her sources of income to clients. That rule applies to oneon-one paid consultations, but not TV shows. Asked why she doesn't offer
a similar disclosure to her viewers, Orman said: “I'll tell you the sources of
my income—everything I do is a source of income to me.”
There it is: “I'll tell you the sources of my income—everything I do is a
source of income to me.” You can’t say Orman didn’t warn everyone that
everything she does is a source of income to her.
Although the Chicago Tribune described Orman as having a CFP
certification, she had let any credentials lapse before their 2004 article,
and apparently hasn’t had a single financial credential for over a decade.
45
Suze Orman doesn’t have to follow ethical rules required from
accredited financial advisors, because she has no current credentials, and
is nothing more than a celebrity. That was said while nearly every major
television news and talk show personality was touting Suze Orman as a
financial expert, wizard, and guru.
More from the Chicago Tribune article:
Three years ago, Orman briefly sold long-term care policies on QVC
and her site. The fact that Orman earned a commission off sales and that
the policies were underwritten by a division of General Electric, which
owns CNBC, caused a squall of press criticism that led her to abandon
the project.
Orman said such criticism is unfair. Why, she asked, does nobody
question the motives of Meredith Vieira of “The View”—a show that
Orman frequents when selling her books—for appearing in ads for Bayer
aspirin?
Or put another way, how much integrity does a celebrity need?
Not much, apparently.
December 2012 brought the end of a full year of Suze Scams that
included over one hundred articles from financial journalists top to
bottom who finally spoke up to warn readers about Orman’s “Approved”
prepaid debit card scam.
One might think someone caught with their hand in the cookie jar of
poor and middle class Americans might hang low for a while, but not Suze
Orman when there is a buck to be made.
In December 2012, Orman capped a long year of using the media to
defraud United States citizens to make one more greedy cash grab for the
holiday season.
This financial advisor, who has often told people not to buy even a
cup of coffee, was paid big bucks to star in a campaign and urge consumers
to consider buying a new Acura luxury car as a reasonable and smart
investment for their financial lives, just as she had done years earlier in her
widely criticized “Lock and Roll” campaign for GM, when she called
buying a new Cadillac, “the smart money.”
Click here to watch Orman’s “Season of Reason” commercial, where
she drives a car like a maniac while advising people to buy a new Acura:
Link 2-3.
46
Note how Orman drives the Acura car just as recklessly as she has
driven the US economy and individual lives for the past fifteen years.
From “Suze Orman Thinks You Should Consider an Acura,” by Pound
Foolish author Helaine Olen in Forbes: (Link 2-4)
In the spot, which began airing earlier this month, Orman, driving a
brand new Acura TL, pulls up to a shopper eying a striking pink evening
gown in a store window. “Hey girlfriend, get in,” the first lady of finance
says, before taking her fan on a careening ride, all the while lecturing her
to avoid an “emotional money mistake” like the dress and instead be
“reasonable” and “spend smart.”
And what might qualify as “smart” spending? Well, if you guessed a
$40,000 2013 Acura TL, you guessed right. When the commercial ends,
we hear actor James Spader proclaim in a voiceover, “This holiday, listen
to the voice of reason. Acura’s Season of Reason sales event.”
How a dress—which simply cannot cost more than several hundred
dollar —is an “emotional money mistake” but purchasing a car costing
tens of thousands of dollars is a smart and savvy financial move is never
addressed.
Of course, buying a new car goes against the advice of most financial
advisors, including Suze Orman, but if the company pays enough, Suze
Orman's pseudo advice can be bought.
Disappointedly, this Acura “Season of Reason” ad even played during
The Daily Show, which should have been exposing Suze Orman's
plundering shenanigans to protect the public, rather than taking money
and allowing Suze Orman to fill her pockets while advising Daily Show
viewers that buying a new Acura is a good financial decision.
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With Suze Orman's price for advice” schemes, if a corporation puts
enough money into Orman's pockets, she will use her undeserved extreme
clout as someone on the “most influential” lists of Time and Forbes
magazines to say whatever the company wants her to say, fooling those
who have been convinced by media supported shams to consider
“financial expert” Suze Orman's advice as honest and trustworthy.
Another one of Orman’s predatory shenanigans was to sell her name
and public trust to the University of Phoenix, a controversial for profit
school with many complaints and a high default rate that is nearly double
that of a public four-year school.
From David Halperin on the Huffington Post: “Suze Orman Teaching
Personal Finance Class—At the University of Phoenix” (Link 2-5)
If you were teaching a course on how to manage personal finances,
one of the best pieces of advice you could give is to avoid attending a forprofit college. A series of government and media investigations have
exposed that signing up with a for-profit college could well be one of the
worst financial decisions a person could make in his or her entire life.
Many of these schools offer a toxic mix of ultra-expensive tuition, lowquality classes, high dropout rates, and poor job placement. As a result,
they often leave students -- single parents, veterans, immigrants, and
others struggling to earn a living -- without jobs and deep in debt from the
loans they've taken out.
For-profit colleges have 13 percent of U.S. college students, but an
astonishing 47 percent of student loan defaults. So why is Suze Orman -who calls herself “undeniably America's most recognized expert on
personal finance” -- teaching an online personal finance course at the
University of Phoenix, the biggest of these controversial for-profit colleges?
Around the same time, came announcements that the University of
Phoenix was being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission in an
example of government agencies going after Orman’s partners and
sponsors, apparently deeming her to be untouchable because she has no
credentials that would require her to be honest or act in the best interest
of her clients. From CNN Money, “University of Phoenix is the latest
college under investigation” (Link 2-6)
The struggling school is now facing a probe from the Federal Trade
Commission. The agency is looking into whether the school engaged in
deceptive marketing tactics, its parent company, Apollo Education Group
(APOL), said Wednesday.
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Ten years earlier, University of Phoenix was fined by the U.S.
Department of Education for violating the rule banning pay incentives for
recruiters in an effort to boost enrollment.
Wikipedia states that, “University of Phoenix students owe more
than $35,000,000,000 in student loan debt, the most of any US college,”
and notes that, “In 2016, stockholders of Apollo Education Group filed a
class-action lawsuit against the corporation, arguing that the company
withheld information that led to significant losses in stock prices. Several
of the allegations are related to University of Phoenix's recruiting of
military personnel and veterans.”
This wasn’t the first time Suze Orman used the military as part of her
scams, nor would it be the last.
This next quote from another article by Halperin shows one example
of how Orman’s political lobbyist publicity strategist uses politicians and
other government agencies and officials to help Orman run her scams on
the American public, in this case, getting Orman appearances with
congress members on Capital Hill to lobby for this predatory for-profit
school:
49
Suze Orman not only was hired by the University of Phoenix to teach
an online personal finance course, but also last year she appeared at a
Capitol Hill event where she promoted the school. It's difficult to
understand how a person who proclaims herself “undeniably America's
most recognized expert on personal finance” could accept such a role
when, for many people, enrolling at a for-profit college can be the worst
financial decision they make in their entire lives.
Orman running her University of Phoenix shenanigans on Capital Hill
The University of Phoenix has received loads of complaints from
students who ended up with huge student debts that cannot be
discharged even through bankruptcy, with nothing to show for all their
time and money. U of P has nearly all one-star reviews on the Consumer
Affairs website.
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Two reviews right off the top of the page include this description by a
University of Phoenix professor:
My experiences at the university as a professor and as a student have
both been horrible. The university accepts students who cannot be
successful, takes their money because this is only a business and not an
institution of higher learning and pressures professors to pass students
who cannot do the work. I quit teaching for that reason. As a student, the
university did everything possible to make my experience horrible and to
keep me taking class after class to complete a dissertation proposal. When
I complained about the external reviewer, they assigned a new one who
complained about everything approved by the previous reviewer. Do not
go to this fake school or you will be sorry. They will take your money, you
will waste your time, and you will get nothing out of it.
And this from a student:
My experience with this school has been a complete nightmare. They
will tell you ANYTHING to get you enrolled into classes. I was lied to in
so many ways. Being greatly deceived, I decided not to return to class after
taking a Leave of Absence. This must have gotten under someone's skin
because they Administratively Withdrew me then sent an email a week
later demanding payment for Resource Fees. This was my second attempt
to complete their MBA program so I honestly tried to give them a chance.
This school is only concerned about making money and could care less
about your success. Attending U of P was a waste of my time!
More reviews about this nightmare school here: Link 2-6a
As she often does, Orman set the stage for this corporate paid sham by
praising the scandal ridden University of Phoenix in this obviously
ghostwritten article titled, “Suze Orman: Redefine your child's 'dream
school,’” that ran in USA Today in December, 2011: (Link 2-7)
Suze Orman: Redefine your child's 'dream school'
By Suze Orman
Between the Greek debt crisis, the collapse of the congressional
“supercommittee” and a ballooning budget deficit, it's hard to remember
sometimes how much the average family is suffering. Perhaps the best
example of that is a silent crisis that is taking place in America: the
student debt crisis…
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It's such a rampant problem that the new Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau is working with the Department of Education to come
up with a standardized one-page document that clearly spells out to every
student and parent what it will cost to attend college. Fortunately, a few
universities are realizing their duty to step up to the plate by themselves.
The University of Phoenix, for example, makes all its students go through
a free and mandatory three-week orientation course to make sure they
understand the full costs of college before they sign on the dotted line.
This is an example of Orman’s common tactic of appearing to be
protecting the public from exactly what she is doing to rip them off, just as
she warned people about fee-laden prepaid debit cards as part of her
fraudulent pitches for her even more predatory card.
The USA Today article came out soon before Orman announced the
commencement of her new “class” at the University of Phoenix, and most
likely around the time when
she signed the deal and started
putting out her “advice for a
price” on their behalf. Note
that Orman’s class consisted of
videos of her reading words off
a teleprompter, as she does in
this enthusiastic pitch for the
University of Phoenix: Link 27a
Gangster Suze's got it
down to a formula, and the companies who use her shenanigans, as well as
media outlets that served it up to the public, should all look at the damage
they have contributed to creating for their audiences, for the economy,
and for the world.
With all her pseudo care for the educational system, note that in her
2009 interview with the New York Times, Orman—who likes to brag that
she never got above a “C” in a single college class and took many extra
years to get a bachelor's degree in social work—showed her disrespect for
doctors, universities, students, and teachers in one fell swoop: (Link 2-8)
Orman has strong opinions in general. She won’t speak before many
doctors’ groups, because they get on her nerves (doctors always think they
know better, she says). Until recently, she didn't like to speak at
universities, because they generally don’t charge students to attend her
lectures, and she says that people don’t value things they haven’t paid for.
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She has been reluctant to work on school curricula on personal
finance, because she says students can’t learn empowerment from people
who aren't empowered, and teachers, she says, are too underpaid ever to
have any real self-worth. She told me: “When you are somebody scared to
death of your own life, how can you teach kids to be powerful? It’s not
something in a book—it ain’t going to happen that way.” She once
delivered pretty much the same message at an anniversary celebration of a
private school—she seems to recall calling the school a “travesty”—and
was all but escorted to the door when she was done.
Orman hasn't ever hid her almost complete lack of credentials—in
fact, she gloats about conning the world into thinking she is an expert in
something she barely studied. In nearly every talk for more than fifteen
years, Orman told tells the same “inspiring” story about how she barely
made it through school to get a B.A. in social work after many years, never
received above a “C” in ANY class, grew up in the South Side Chicago
hood, lived in her van, and was working as a waitress for $400/month.
(Watch Orman gloat about her lack of credentials: Link 2-9)
Of course, it is intriguing and in a sense for some inspiring to see how
someone with no credentials has made her dreams come true, until you
realize that her impressive con artist skills placed her in a position where
she had enough power over the economy and society to be named one of
Time magazine's 100 most powerful people in the world in 2009 and
2010, thanks to her mega-supportive team of right wing corporate CEO
Jack Welch and his wife Suzy, who wrote this ridiculous essay about why
Orman deserved to have so much extreme influence. (Link 2-10)
Let me tell you what it's like to be named Suzy, no matter how you
spell it. People expect you to be perky. “Suzy Sunshine” they call you, as if
you might like it, or worse, “Suzy Cream Cheese.” People expect you to be
frivolous, frothy and not particularly smart. They expect you to be, well,
ordinary. Suze Orman, 57, is none of those things.
Take ordinary. Oh, please! Here is a woman who sleeps four hours a
night because she thinks the world is too exciting to turn off. Here is a
woman whose idea of relaxation is watching the surf in front of her
Florida home while listening to stock-market reports.
Frivolous? Frothy? Again, no. Suze Orman can't let a stranger walk
by — and I have seen this firsthand — without asking, “Do you have
credit-card debt?” She needs to know so she can help. So she can change a
life. And not later or a little bit. But now, profoundly. And as for not
particularly smart — look, you do not become the personal financial
adviser to the world by giving stupid advice.
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Which leaves perky, and all right, maybe Suze Orman is perky. But
she's perky with an edge. Her optimism comes from a belief that all of us
have the power within us to improve how we save and spend our money
and thus the power to forge lives that are better, fuller and richer in every
way.
So call Suze Orman Suze if you must. Just know that her name hardly
does her justice at all.
Welch is the author of 10-10-10, a guide to managing life decisions
Here is Orman with her friend and supporter Jack Welch, previous
chairman and CEO of General Electric, who you’ll see in our film claiming
that, “Corporations are people.” Welch’s wife, Suzy, is the one who
nominated Suze Orman to be named one of the one hundred most
influential people in the world by Time magazine.
54
Corporate CEO and republican candidate Steve Forbes has also
shown quite a protective penchant for Suze Orman, including posting
this photo of their meeting when Forbes’ daughter was trying to
rehabilitate Orman’s reputation after she had been eviscerated by the
press for running a fraudulent prepaid debit card scam on the American
people.
Forbes magazine has published many shill pieces on Orman, including
her headline blast that, “The American Dream is Dead.” They also hosted
one of the only positive articles about Orman’s predatory “Approved”
card, titled, “You Suze Don’t Lose: Approval for the Approved Card.”
55
Just a year after more than one hundred journalists had warned their
readers about Orman's prepaid debit card scam, with many assuming her
career was over, Forbes declared Suze Orman the ninth most influential
celebrity in the world for 2013. I don’t know about their behind-thescenes liaisons, but it certainly looked like a corporation trying to
rehabilitate that busted con artist’s reputation.
As a side note, in our film, you can watch Barbara Walters hosting
Orman’s prepaid debit card scam on The View, with a truly bizarre snake
oil conversation that even a first year reporter could have seen as the fraud
it was, much less a seasoned journalist such as Barbara Walters.
Moira Forbes’ interview took place in 2012, after Orman had already
been called out and eviscerated by the entire financial journalist
community for running an obvious prepaid card scam on the American
public. The whole interview is worth watching for it’s many narcissistic
and deceptive moments. Orman wants a new credit scoring system that
she doesn’t detail beyond counting her prepaid card, and she wants it to
be called the “S.O. score” in her honor. She calls the “Approved” prepaid
debit card the most important thing she’s ever done, a line Orman uses for
nearly all of her products and schemes.
Orman also tells Forbes that this prepaid debit card is her “last stand”
(though certainly not her “last scam”) before her planned retirement
from the financial business in 2015, which would come to bring a whole
lot more scams and shams. Watch the interview: Link 2-11.
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Note the extreme deference paid to Orman by Forbes, daughter of
Orman supporter Steve Forbes. Why would right wing corporate heads
take such care to put left wing con artist Suze Orman on a pedestal of
extreme influence and continually protect her from justice and public
revelations about her financial crimes?
Orman’s FICO Shenanigans
FICO (Fair Isaac Corporation) has had its finger in the Suze Orman
pie for two decades, with many examples of Orman’s usual high-school
level games of, “You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.”
In a sense, Orman put Fair Isaac on the public consciousness map by
exuberantly pushing FICO scores as the most important issue for
everyone’s financial lives. Orman has pushed FICO products for the past
two decades, aside from the time she took some revenge pot shots at them
for not being complicit enough in covering up her “Approved” card scam.
FICO is clearly indebted to Orman for using her Oprah-bestowed,
undeserved clout to put them on the map, which may be why they let her
fool and steal from the public by deceptively using their name to pitch her
“Approved” prepaid debit card scam—something FICO would surely
have sued anyone else for doing.
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In a 2005 press release, FICO proudly announced that Orman's
pitches had taken them “from a one-product experiment in consumer
education,” to selling tens of millions of FICO scores in four years.
I don’t have documentation for this, but have heard that Orman got
her usual deal percentage of 50% from FICO for each fifty-dollar kit. If so,
that would add up to tens of millions of dollars into Orman’s pockets in
just those four years. (Link 2-12)
MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 4, 2005
Fair Isaac Corporation (NYSE:FIC), pioneer of the FICO(R) credit
score used by most lenders to evaluate consumer credit risk, today
announced that its myFICO(R) consumer division and its partners have
sold the 10 millionth FICO score to U.S. consumers. The milestone
coincides with the fourth anniversary of www.myFICO.com.
“In four short years, myFICO.com has grown from a one-product
experiment in consumer education to become the most trusted source in
the country for people wanting to learn their real credit rating and the
kinds of actions they can take to improve it over time,” said Cheri St.
John, vice president of Global Scoring and Consumer Solutions for Fair
Isaac. “As a consumer destination, myFICO.com is unmatched in the
industry for the product innovation, educational tools and information it
provides.”
As an example, St. John cited Suze Orman's FICO(R) Kit, the
industry's first collaboration with a celebrity financial expert to provide
consumers with personalized information to help them understand what
they can do to improve their credit standing and potential over time.
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“That little three digit number -- your FICO score -- is the most
important number you have when it comes to your financial future,” said
Suze Orman, Emmy award-winning talk show host and author of The
New York Times best-seller, The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous &
Broke. “Just about every financial move you make for the rest of your life
will be somehow linked to your FICO score. Knowing and improving your
FICO score is the most important way to make more out of your money.”
Orman’s coffers got a huge windfall from her deal with FICO,
including their obvious reluctance years later to call Orman out on her
blatantly fraudulent claims in 2012 that buying her crummy, fee-laden
Approved prepaid card could be expected to improve users’ FICO scores.
(Watch video of Orman perpetrating her fraud on college students,
specifically lying and saying that FICO was on board with her scheme—
Link 2-13)
In the Twitter messages at this link, you can see examples of poor and
middle class citizens who were fooled by Orman’s prepaid card fraud and
conned into scamming their friends and family with false FICO claims on
her behalf: Link 2-14.
2012 put FICO in a pickle, with their golden girl spreading lies about
them having interest in using her “Approved” card to improve users’ FICO
scores, and hundreds of articles warning people about Orman's prepaid
card scam. Journalists wanted to know what Fair Isaac had to say.
FICO clarified the truth as gently as they could without getting their
queen scammer upset. They gave this single response to only one
journalist of the many who were questioning Orman's obviously
deceptive pitches. Why FICO is not interested, from the Baltimore Sun:
Link 2-15
FICO, which produces a widely used credit score, also questions the
value of the information.
Spokesman Anthony A. Sprauve wrote in an email that FICO
considers only credit history information on reports from the major
bureaus—and spending on prepaid cards isn't part of that.
“In our experience, spending is not actually a great indicator of the
thing that the FICO score tries to measure, which is the likelihood you're
going to default on a credit bill,” he said.
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When FICO didn't back up Orman’s prepaid debit card scam by
staying completely silent or playing along like TransUnion did, Orman
went into her “Mean Girls” modus operandi of trying to destroy them.
When FICO didn't fully get on board to fully support Orman's
fraudulent pitch throughout the media landscape that fooled people into
thinking that her “Approved” card would improve their FICO scores,
Orman turned against the company that has paid her tens of millions of
dollars thus far. Seriously, they could hardly have done less to save victims
of her fraud than they did by issuing one fairly mild statement to only one
journalist. I guess she wanted them to outright lie for her.
During the Money2020 conference in October 2013, Orman used
attendees as pawns to spread her revenge against FICO. It is just one
documented example of Orman’s spiteful nature.
This Money2020 conference event took place while Orman was still
pushing her “Approved” card scam, in spite of mountains of bad press. At
the same event, Orman used her usual tactic of sounding as though she is
altruistically against exactly what she herself was doing:
At this link, you can watch an interview titled, “Suze Orman's Snake
Oil Schemes” with journalist David Shuster and Helaine Olen, two of
very who have spoken up about Orman’s snake oil schemes: Link 2-16
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Once political lobbyist Hilary Rosen and SKDK started representing
Orman, her scams hit new levels. I had never heard of Hilary Rosen
previously. You may have seen her on CNN during the 2016 election
cycle as a democratic strategist for Hillary Clinton and the DNC, whose
controversial head, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Rosen calls, “a friend.”
Wasserman-Schultz paid Rosen and SKDK hundreds of thousands of
dollars, and many of the dirty tactics the DNC used to push Bernie
Sanders out of the race had Rosen’s fingerprints all over them.
When I saw those dirty tricks—including deceptive headlines
intended to paint Sanders as anti-woman and portray his supporters as
violent, insisting on holding only a few debates at times when the fewest
people would be watching, and voters who would be likely to vote for
Sanders being disenfranchised—it all rang very familiar after these years
of watching the scams, shams, and shenanigans of Suze Orman and her
“Cabal.”
Rosen brings big advertising dollars to CNN from her clients, and
CNN repays her in various ways, including giving Rosen’s clients free reign
to scam CNN viewers, as they did while hosting Suze Orman’s blatantly
61
fraudulent pitches for her ridiculous prepaid card on many of their most
popular news shows, as though Orman’s predatory low end financial
product that is on the level of those payday loans that WassermanSchultz has been criticized for supporting would be a worthy news story.
CNN also used deceptive headlines to pitch Orman’s scam, including the
blatantly false headline: “Prepaid debit card to help credit score.”
As someone who generally aligns with democratic principles and who
donated my time and skills to co-produce, script, and edit a documentary
video titled, “Real People, Real Healthcare Needs,” with President Obama’s
Organizing For America in 2009 to support his healthcare initiatives, I am
far more concerned about the corruption this exploration has revealed in
the democratic party than in the significant issues taking place on the
“other side.” One reason I have rushed this book through is with the
intention of inspiring the democratic party and media field to clean up
the Rosen-related corruption now, rather than later.
Nobody who helped Suze Orman scam the poor and middle class
with a misinformation campaign of blatant fraud that you’ll see detailed
in Chapter Five could possibly have the best interests of our country and
the American people in mind. It was a good sign in July and August of
2016 to see candidate Hillary Clinton replace the DNC chairperson and
some of the other top people at the DNC after Wikileaks revealed some of
their improper communications.
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Numerous articles have criticized Rosen for being paid big bucks by
BP Oil as a crisis management consultant to make the public all but forget
about BP’s gulf oil spill, and to lobby politicians so they would easy on BP
and not create new regulations that might cost BP Oil some of their
massive profits while helping to preserve our planet earth. This effort
included a big ad campaign painting BP in a favorable light for all the
good they were doing in the community they had devastated—ads that
were often hosted by Rosen’s pals at CNN.
Here are some interesting points about this Orman cabal partner and
democratic strategist in an article titled, “The Real Hilary Rosen Scandal,”
published by The Nation: (Link 2-17)
From the article:
We've compiled a partial list of SKDKnickerbocker’s clients. Since the
firm refuses to register as an ordinary lobbying firm, we don’t know their
full roster of clients:
— SKDKnickerbocker was hired by Kaplan Education to block
Obama’s reforms on for-profit college companies, an industry
plagued by low quality education, false promises to students, and
fraudulent business practices. (Note the connection between this
SKDK client and Orman’s troubling association with the
University of Phoenix.)
— SKDKnickerbocker was hired to push for billions in tax breaks for
already profitable corporations. As Bloomberg reported,
SKDKnickerbocker manages a lobbying campaign called “Win
America,” an effort by companies like Google and Pfizer to receive
hundreds of billions in tax breaks on profits made overseas.
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— SKDKnickerbocker was hired by a coalition of food manufacturers
to fight the Obama administration’s proposals on food nutrition
standards. As the Washington Post reported, the firms paying Dunn
(SKDK) include General Mills and PepsiCo.
None of those questionable associations apparently bothered Rosen
pal Arianna Huffington, who has also hosted many of Orman’s scams and
shenanigans on Huffington Post, including a long personal interview where
con artist Suze Orman exuded snake oil from every pore about her
“Approved” card, while Arianna Huffington nodded foolishly.
This video clip from that interview shows Huffington looking on with
a blank stare as Orman calls her predatory prepaid deal with MasterCard
a “grassroots project” that will make America great again: Link 2-17a
Huffington did, however, suspend Hilary Rosen from her usual access
to Huffington Post for a time, when Rosen crossed the line and was being
paid millions to cover up BP’s oil spill in the press, to lobby to protect BP
Oil from repercussions and regulations, and to remove the gulf oil spill
from the public consciousness.
From “HuffPost cuts ties with BP consultant Rosen” from Politico:
(Link 2-17b)
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The liberal news site Huffington Post has cut ties with its former
Washington Editor at Large, Hilary Rosen, because of Rosen's new role as
a consultant for the embattled oil company British Petroleum.
Rosen, a Washington figure and former chief music industry lobbyist,
now heads the Washington office of the Brunswick Group, which is part
of a phalanx of lobbying and communications firms retained by BP to
battle Congressional and Administrative retribution and new regulation
for its massive Gulf oil spill.
“Hilary is no longer our Washington Editor at Large, a mutual
decision we recently reached given her involvement with BP,” wrote
Arianna Huffington in an email today, responding to a query from
POLITICO. “However, we still have a great personal relationship. And,
of course, Hilary’s work with BP has had zero effect on our coverage of the
company or the disaster in the gulf. Comprehensive and hard-hitting, our
coverage speaks for itself.”
Don’t worry about BP Oil though, they had plenty of money to pay
Rosen, while using prison labor instead of displaced workers who needed
jobs to clean the spill, according to this article in US Uncut, titled, “These
7 Household Names Make a Killing Off of the Prison-Industrial
Complex”: (Link 2-17c)
When BP spilled 4.2 million barrels of oil into the Gulf coast, the
company sent a workforce of almost exclusively African-American
inmates to clean up the toxic spill, while community members, many of
whom were out-of-work fishermen, struggled to make ends meet. BP’s
decision to use prisoners instead of hiring displaced workers outraged the
Gulf community, but the oil company did nothing to reconcile the
situation.
If you didn’t previously hear about this disgusting greed in the face of
BP Oil’s own disaster, you have Hilary Rosen and her crew to thank for
covering it up with many commercials, including ones that played on
Rosen’s often-complicit channel, CNN, celebrating how beneficial and
helpful BP Oil was to the local people.
Rob Copeland from the Wall Street Journal laughed about Rosen
saying her help in moving controversial company Herbalife to the
Cayman Islands was not related to the fact that the move would allow the
U.S. company to avoid paying taxes:
65
Gay publication QUEERTY outed one of their own when they
published the article: “Power Lez Hilary Rosen Is Helping BP Confuse the
Public About Oil Devastation”: Link 2-17d
From the article:
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Just who is BP looking toward to help spin its way out of the Gulf oil
spill crisis? None other than former HRC and RIAA head Hilary Rosen,
one-half the lesbian power couple with Randi Weingarten.
BP has spent some $625 million in the past six years lobbying D.C. to
keep oil regulation lax. And it’s found room in its budget to send some
cash into gay pockets, relays WSJ.
After the spill, the company brought on crisis communicator Hilary
Rosen, former Democratic congressional staffer, former chief executive of
the Recording Industry Association of America, and a current editor-atlarge for HuffingtonPost.com. Ms. Rosen heads the Washington-based
office of U.K. communications firm the Brunswick Group. Public records
are not yet available on the new Brunswick contract. Ms. Rosen declined
to be interviewed on the record.
It’s unclear what Rosen’s role with BP is, but undoubtedly it’s to use
whatever pull she has in Washington (and that’s up for debate), working
in tandem with BP’s lobbyists, to keep lawmakers from tightening offshore drilling rules. That, and seed stories to the media that highlight any
single positive thing BP is doing to control the spill.
More of Rosen’s background from Wikipedia:
(Hilary Rosen) presided over the RIAA during the period of when
the rise of the Internet notably conflicted with the established recording
industry interests. She was paid to lobby the US legislature and was a
regular presence on behalf of her employers in the recording industry at a
time against proponents of file sharing and new Internet technologies.
During her tenure the RIAA filed lawsuits against early peer-to-peer
file-sharing communities including Napster, Audiogalaxy, and Grokster.
The organization lobbied the US Congress to pass controversial
legislation supporting Recording Industry interests, such as the Digital
Millennium Copyright Act, the Record Rental Act, and numerous trade
treaties (see Societal views on intellectual property)…
In 2002, Rosen began to argue that the recording industry should
begin even more aggressive tactics aimed at individual citizens engaged in
file sharing. The content industry, already facing an anti-copyright
backlash, opted against Rosen's approach…
Next comes an important admission from this democratic party’s “Koch
sister” fundraiser and fundraiser of massive contributions:
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In 2010, Rosen gave an interview and spoke candidly on her career:
“When I gave $1,000 or $2,000 to a lawmaker, I wanted him to
listen to my business proposition. And when I helped organize an event
that raised $50,000 or $100,000, you bet I expected their vote. Why else
do it?”
Why else do it? Maybe to serve our country and help the best person
to win? You can bet Rosen had many motives for making sure Bernie
Sanders never came anywhere close to getting the 2016 democratic
nomination.
Regarding Rosen’s activities as a political lobbyist, Wikipedia adds:
White House visitor logs list 35 instances where a “Hilary Rosen”
visited the White House. In 2009, the AP reported that Rosen was present
at a White House meeting between health care industry lobbyists and
senior White House strategists. In 2012, the Wall Street Journal reported
that Rosen was consulting with DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
Rosen attended the March 2012 White House state dinner with her
client John Kelly of Microsoft. Rosen supported the Stop Online Piracy
Act. In April 2012, The Nation's journalist Lee Fang penned an article
entitled “The Real Hilary Rosen Scandal” in which Rosen's firm is
described as “an unregistered lobbying firm that has become one of the
biggest names in the influence business by using its ties to President
Obama and leaders in Congress.” An unnamed senior Democrat was
quoted as saying: “It’s an open secret in the Dem consultant community
that [Rosen's firm] has been signing up clients based on ‘perceived White
House access’ tied to prior relationships and employment.”
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Of course, Rosen got Orman into the White House:
I’m sure when President Obama entertained Rosen’s request to take a
photo with con artist Suze Orman, he never imagined they would use the
photo to insinuate that Orman is one of his financial advisors while
setting up other countries to run her scams, but that’s what they did.
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Listen up Australia, America’s darling of family finances is in the
country with a very clear money message
Suze Orman went from being a broke 30-something waitress to an expert
on household budgets with the ear of everyone from blue collar Americans
to the President.
This is the same Hilary Rosen who received a large wave of criticism
from republicans and democrats alike in 2012, after stating a presidential
candidate’s wife had never worked a day in her life, even though she had
brought up five sons while stricken with muscular dystrophy.
These “mean girls” with far too much power are not a compassionate
lot—this Orman/Rosen cabal, who set up a gold pump and dump that
plundered retirement accounts, and a prepaid debit card scam that stole
from the poor middle class. Rosen’s fracas with Ann Romney was a rare
time when journalists paid attention to what Rosen, the democratic
party’s “Koch sister,” was doing, and what she had previously done.
DNC chairwoman Wasserman Schultz has poured money into Hilary
Rosen's coffers for years, including a six-figure payment during just one
cycle in 2012.
From the Daily Mail in 2012: (Link 2-17e)
Oh and then there was a person called Debbie Wasserman Schultz,
who just happens to be chair of the Democratic National Committee. And
as chance would have it was advised by, er, Hilary Rosen.
Rosen does not represent the Obama campaign, a Romney adviser
Eric Fehrnstrom and former First Lady Barbara Bush have claimed. But
she has visited the White House at least 35 times since Barack Obama
became president and her firm SKDKnickerbocker (what a comically
Washington name) has been paid $120,864 by the DNC this cycle alone.
Among the people she met in the White House have been President
Obama, Michelle Obama, and inner circle aides David Axelrod (now
chief campaign strategist) and Valerie Jarrett.
The DNC says that the contract with SKDKnickerbocker was
exclusively for the services of Anita Dunn, former Obama
communications chief in the White House (and who also advised David
Cameron during the 2010 UK election). Well, we haven't seen the
contract and the Rosen's work for Wasserman Schultz means this hardly
passes the smell test.
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I couldn’t help but wonder how much the DNC may have paid Rosen
in 2016 to strategize against Bernie Sanders and coronate Hillary
Clinton, with tactics that included announcing that Clinton won the race
with big headlines the day before big primaries, including California. It
appears the DNC’s strategists decided it would be worth losing some
Clinton voters who might respond by staying home, because nothing
would hurt the Bernie Sanders campaign more than a low voter turnout.
From Politico, “Democrats turn on Debbie Wasserman Schultz”:
Public relations firm SKDKnickerbocker also has a large contract
with the DNC through which consultant Hilary Rosen works directly
with Wasserman Schultz, though Rosen says she does so only as “a
friend.”
This interesting tidbit shows Rosen’s buddy Wasserman-Schultz in
convoluted, Suze Ormanesque entitlements and shenanigans:
In 2012, Wasserman Schultz attempted to get the DNC to pay for
her clothing at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte,
multiple sources say, but was blocked by staff in the committee’s Capitol
Hill headquarters and at President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign
headquarters in Chicago.
She asked again around Obama’s inauguration in 2013, pushing so
hard that Obama senior adviser — and one-time Wasserman Schultz
booster — Valerie Jarrett had to call her directly to get her to stop.
(Jarrett said she does not recall that conversation.) One more time,
according to independent sources with direct knowledge of the
conversations, she tried again, asking for the DNC to buy clothing for the
2013 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Wasserman Schultz denies that she ever tried to get the DNC to pick
up her clothing tab. “I think that would be a totally inappropriate use of
DNC funds,” she said in a statement. “I never asked someone to do that
for me, I would hope that no one would seek that on my behalf, and I’m
not aware that anyone did.”
Tracie Pough, Wasserman Schultz’s chief of staff at the DNC and
her congressional office, was also involved in making inquiries about
buying the clothing, according to sources. Pough denies making, directing
or being aware of any inquiries.
But sources with knowledge of the discussions say Wasserman
Schultz’s efforts couldn’t have been clearer. “She felt firmly that it should
happen,” said a then-DNC staffer of the clothing request. “Even after it
was explained that it couldn’t, she remained indignant.”
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The New York Daily News offered other observations of the DNC and
SKDK’s dirty strategies in, “Hillary Clinton’s dream debate is one nobody
watches”: Link 2-17f
Busy Saturday night? Probably, what with the NCAA bowl games,
the Jets’ must-win battle in Dallas and opening weekend for “Star Wars:
The Force Awakens.” So you’ll skip the Democratic presidential debate
— just as Hillary Clinton hoped.
Long, long ago, Clinton set out to ensure she wouldn’t be robbed of
the nomination by some interloper, the way she lost to Barack Obama in
2008.
The party’s power-brokers played along, handing the Democratic
National Committee to Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a co-chair of
Clinton’s ’08 campaign. Fix, in.
And so the DNC did its best to see nobody would watch the debates,
lest voters dare think for themselves. Tomorrow’s is the second in a row on
a Saturday night — easily the worst evening for TV viewership.
Over on the Republican side, they’ve delivered the three largest
audiences ever for prez-primary debates. And seven more Republican
debates are ahead; the Democrats have just three after Saturday.
The saddest thing about this “shield Hillary” approach is that it robs
Democrats of a fair primary fight. Yes, it’s hard to see how socialist
dinosaur Bernie Sanders or lightweight prettyboy Martin O’Malley is
going to beat her — but they could at least push her to stand up for the
party’s principles. (Assuming it still has some.)
Worst of all is the message this sends about the front-runner: Namely,
that the last thing her supporters want is for the American public to hear
what she has to say.
Some political commentators have suggested that the “cabal” made
sure other candidates, including Joe Biden, didn’t even run for president. I
don’t know if that was the case, but Rosen has certainly shown a history of
threatening and bullying those who don’t do exactly what she wants them
to do.
In the next Twitter posts, the recipient of Rosen’s threat was New
York City mayor Bill deBlasio, who hadn’t endorsed Rosen's client quickly
enough for her and became a target of Rosen’s bullying, with Rosen
threatening, “Bill deBlasio’s self aggrandizing on Meet the Press at Hillary
Clinton’s expense won’t go unnoticed.” DeBlasio soon after got on board and
saved himself from whatever dire fate Rosen was threatening.
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At this link, Rosen threatens a congressmen who was not going to vote
the way she wanted him to, saying, “You have lost your credibility before you
even cast a vote. I think your career is over”: Link 2-18 Isn’t this a little too
much power for someone who has demonstrated low integrity? The
congressman changed his vote to suit Rosen’s wishes.
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Rosen even threatened Caitlyn Jenner in the “Orman/Rosen cabal’s”
high-school “mean girls” style, for not bowing down to her client! What a
bully, with way too much power in our country, the world, and the
democratic party.
Once Rosen and SKDK began representing Suze Orman, their job
was to protect her from justice for her scams, to help her create big
headlines that would increase her public influence, to sell that influence
to corporations, and to get Orman deals with and effusive praise by
government agencies and lawmakers from the Secretary of Labor to the
Secretary of the Army, both of whom appeared to be repaid with money
or prestige enhancing headlines.
Rosen’s strategies of making the government complicit in the Suze
Orman juggernaut have thus far kept Orman free from proper
investigation and justice for her fraudulent crimes.
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In 2008, Orman’s political lobbyist PR firm got her booked as the face
of the FDIC on billboards and in commercials—talk about a serious
conflict of interest to use this scammer as a representation of trust, and to
use the government to give false faith in a con artist.
A year after Rosen got Orman this gig as the face of the FDIC is when
Suze Orman was first named as one of Time magazine’s one hundred most
influential people in the world. One commenter on Bloomberg shared this:
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In 2016, the Department of Labor finally made a big conflict of
interest ruling on retirement investment advice, insisting that financial
advisors must give advice that is in the best interest of their clients.
I was so happy to hear this ruling was coming. Finally, a government
agency was going to put in place a ruling that would keep predators like
Suze Orman from defrauding people and giving advice that would harm
her clients, while filling her pockets.
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Imagine my surprise to see that Secretary of Labor Tom Perez
literally added to that major legal government document a paragraph that
specifically, by name, excused Suze Orman from being bound by any of
their rules!
According to Perez, Orman’s business was not financial advice, but
part of the “entertainment industry,” and is therefore exempt from any
rules and regulations. This, while Orman was still selling her trust and will
kits and giving all kinds of good, bad, and corrupted financial advice to
millions, far beyond just speaking on a television show as part of the
entertainment industry or even meeting one-on-one with clients. If the
purpose of the ruling was to protect the public, they really missed the ball.
The paragraph that was actually inserted into the United States law
specifically declared that Suze Orman was not a financial advisor after all.
One can imagine it may have taken some high-level work from Orman’s
political lobbyist strategist to wrangle this one. This, from a legal decree
of the United States Department of Labor: (Link 2-19)
“Commenters specifically raised the issue of whether on-air
personalities like Dave Ramsey, Jim Cramer, or Suze Orman would be
treated as fiduciary investment advisers based on their broadcast
communications. The concern is unfounded. With respect to media
personalities, the rule is focused on ensuring that paid investment
professionals make recommendations that are in the best interest of
retirement investors, not on regulating journalism or the entertainment
industry.”
Someone needs to tell those millions who have lost their money from
following financial “expert,” “guru,” “wizard” Suze Orman’s widely-touted,
tainted, corporate sponsored advice that they must have missed the
disclaimers that said, “For Entertainment Purposes Only.”
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Orman praised the Secretary of Labor, thrilled that they left her out
of their ethics rules, and Labor Secretary Tom Perez gave con artist
Orman, who had already plundered the poor and middle class with many,
some seriously undeserved props. Check out Orman’s chutzpah and the
Labor Secretary’s complicity:
In June 2016, Perez was (repaid?) with the honor of being named
fourth on a list of possible vice presidential running mates for Hilary
Rosen’s and her friend Wasserman-Schultz’s client, Hillary Clinton:
(Link 2-19a)
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No worries about being unknown, Thomas Perez, Hilary Rosen and
SKDK specialize in getting people to hear of you and increasing your
public and political influence.
I certainly agree with Credit Union expert Ondine Irving:
An article from the Financial Planning Association of Minnesota
explains why Suze Orman absolutely should not have been exempted
from the DOL ruling. It must be terribly upsetting to be teaching
financial professionals strict codes of ethics, such as integrity,
objectivity, competence, fairness, confidentiality, and professionalism,
and to have business from those trained, educated, and certified
professionals be diverted to an uneducated, unprofessional,
incompetent, unobjective, non-diligent, and unfair con artist like Suze
Orman. (Link 2-19b)
For years now, I – like many others - have listened to the likes of
Suze Orman, Dave Ramsey, Jim Cramer, etc. And like many of you I
suspect, I have gasped at some of the advice I’ve heard dispensed
thinking, “They can’t say that! They don’t know anything about the
client!”. So when the Fiduciary Rule was in its infancy and there was
discussion of restrictions on radio and TV personalities, I thought –
good, about time. Not so fast…
The DOL has concluded that Suze (Jim, Dave, etc.) is not a
fiduciary, hence not held to fiduciary standards. However, in closing my
thought is - If you don’t want to be a fiduciary and you don’t want to be
responsible for your investment advice, don’t give investment advice…
Under the Regulation, you are providing investment advice if you:
provide to an IRA owner a recommendation regarding: (among other
things) the management of securities or other investment property,
including: investment policies or strategies; portfolio composition…
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How many times have I heard (Orman) discuss portfolio strategy
and allocation…? "A communication that, based on its content,
context, and presentation would reasonably be viewed as a suggestion
that the advice recipient engage in or refrain from taking a particular
course of action." Or one that, “appears that a recommendation is one
that would reasonably be an encouragement to act.”
During the same time that the United States Department of Labor
specifically declared Suze Orman to be free from any regulations, since
she’s not really a financial advisor, Orman callously used the death of
musician Prince to drum up more business for her financial advice kits.
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Based on the low level grammar and punctuation in that tasteless
post, I would guess Orman wrote it herself. One financial journalist reposted Orman’s “Prince’s death” sales pitch and pointed out that Orman’s
will and trust kit goes even beyond violating protocol or financial ethics,
and is, in fact, an example of practicing law without a license.
Not only does Suze Orman not have a law license; she doesn’t even
have a single current accreditation as a financial advisor. But does most of
the public know that? Nope. They’ve been told again and again by
influential journalists that Suze Orman is a financial guru, expert, and
wizard, instead of the truth that she’s an expert wizard scammer, with a
few bits of often ghostwritten general finance information on top.
When Orman’s prepaid debit card finally showed her true colors to
finance journalists top to bottom, PR protector Hilary Rosen went into
high gear. Rosen is also a gay rights activist whose ex-partner was the
president of the Human Rights Campaign, an organization pushing for
LGBT rights. She has been known to threaten the careers of those who
don’t vote or act according to her wishes.
Rosen used that connection to create another publicity strategy that
would use the Supreme Court’s expected overturning of the Defense of
Marriage Act to deflect attention from Orman being caught trying to
defraud the public, and rebrand Suze as, not so much a financial advisor,
but a gay rights activist. I could see their set-ups enough to guess the
ending.
Here is Hilary Rosen's tweet, giving Orman credit immediately after
the Supreme Court overturned DOMA, just as I expected she would:
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Two days after the Supreme Court struck down DOMA, a preconducted “gay activist Suze Orman” interview appeared on Huffington
Post, titled, “Suze Orman Talks Gay Pride, Giving Advice to Gay Teens, and
Her Love for Ellen.”
Do you remember your first Pride event?
Obviously in San Francisco, back in the early ‘70s, the dykes on bikes and
thinking, Wow! This is the greatest thing I’ve ever been to, and looking
forward to that June 25th date or whatever it was every year and just
loving it.
Clearly the idea of Orman’s PR team was to connect Orman with a
beloved gay woman such as Ellen DeGeneres, although I've heard that
Ellen is not much of a Suze Orman fan, after having her on the Ellen Show
once when Orman was rude and condescending to DeGeneres’s audience.
After the first edition of my film, “How Suze Orman SCAMMED the
World” started raking up views and supportive articles in financial
journals, some of Orman’s previous enablers seemed to fall away: CNBC
removed Orman from their line-up, QVC sent her on her way, and her
column disappeared from O Magazine.
Nevertheless the Hilary Rosen campaign to push Orman into greater
public influence continued, including bringing her to big political events,
such as the 2016 White House Correspondent’s dinner, of course seated
at the CNN table.
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Unfortunately, many who know more about Orman’s scams and
shams signed her ironclad confidentiality agreements.
Perhaps one day a legal investigation of Orman’s scams will open the
door for many Orman associates to finally add their pieces of the puzzle
and help stop the damage. Maybe government agencies could start by
interviewing these two:
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Chapter Three
Trumping Up Her Bank Account with a
Gold “Pump and Dump” Scheme
In 2011 and 2012, Orman ran a strange “gold rush” scam that made
little sense, but was extremely passionate, as Orman’s scams tend to be.
Orman posted over and over on Twitter insinuating that she had
some kind of inside information that by November of 2012, gold was
going to shoot up to 2100. In television shows and other appearances,
Orman told everyone to put their retirement savings into gold.
Those who were paying attention would have seen Orman boast
about buying and selling her own gold stocks to ride the roller coaster her
extreme influence, and perhaps other unknown co-conspirator elements
helped to create. Knowing she was protected from scrutiny or
prosecution, Orman even bragged about how she sold her gold on the
very day gold hit its top, claiming to have made a fortune, which I’m sure
she did. Even after sold her gold, she kept telling everyone else to buy it,
making buying gold her #1 prediction on CNBC for 2012.
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Click here to watch the documentary video section about Orman's
personal gold rush: Link 3-1
In 2011 and 2012, middle class citizens who were financially
uneducated enough to follow Orman's big media wide push for people to
buy gold lost big, while Orman cleaned up to the tune of millions by
quickly buying and selling her own gold stocks, timed with the market ups
and down that her efforts played a role in creating.
Some may say, well how could Suze Orman be influential enough to
affect and time the ups and downs of the gold market? First, this pump
and dump would likely have been an “Orman cabal” special, with
additional factors from other cabal co-conspirators.
Also, remember that this was not long after Oprah’s protégé Suze
Orman had been named as one of the most influential people in the world
by Time magazine, and one year before Forbes declared Orman as the
ninth most influential celebrity.
By this time, Orman was also being pushed and protected by political
lobbyist and damage control firm SKDK, with extreme webs of corporate
and political influence.
Therefore, it is not surprising that a widely publicized media blitz of
emphatic promises of big returns on gold by a pumped up “personal
finance advisor” certainly could have had enough influence to convince a
whole lot of people, and their friends and family whom they shared
Orman’s hot tip with, to quickly move their savings into gold.
Here’s a wide view chart of Orman’s pump and dump, using the chart
tracking the price of gold:
Click here to view or download a large image of this chart: Link 3-2
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A closer view:
Those who saw Orman’s tweets and television appearances with her
confident predictions about gold going way up spread the bad advice to
their friends and family, telling them to quickly move 15-20 percent of
their retirement portfolio into gold.
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After Orman made her mega-millions jackpot by betting on gold while
pumping it, this happened to most people who followed her advice,
without a single message from Orman telling her “clients” to sell, or a
single question from any journalist about her disastrous advice:
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Here are a few tweets from Orman’s barrage:
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In the middle of Orman’s Twitter “Gold Rush” she posted one barely
noticed tweet saying, “I sold my GOLD today only because I had a
tremendous gain & had way too much money in GOLD. I do plan to buy some
back - I will wait and see...I made a lot of money on it - I am not greedy (HA! ed.) - hey if I am wrong I will buy back in - I do think it will get to $2100... I
am happy with how it turned out.”
In these tweets, Orman is rubbing her hands in glee while wiping out
the retirement accounts of millions of fellow human beings and
essentially moving their money into her own bank accounts, some of
which likely have other countries as their addresses, based on
circumstantial if not concrete evidence.
Note how Orman gloats twice with the hint about how she’ll be
buying back in (assumedly between her media “pumps”). It certainly
looks like she is telling on herself, bragging about how she’s planning to
buy and sell as she pumps and dumps the stock to coincide with her
publicity strategist fueled headline blasts to “Buy Gold!!!”
I’ve noticed that Orman has a certain need to let people know she was
smart enough to con them, as a final stab to finish the scams off. I wouldn’t
be surprised if she is narcissistically happy that someone has been obliged
to take time from other more positive projects to research and reveal at
least some of her elaborate shenanigans in a book and film.
Suze Orman may not be an educated financial advisor or even a
decent person, but she should go down in history next to Bernie Madoff as
a very successful con artist.
In this next clip, you can watch Orman blasting her gold pump and
dump to viewers of The View. She enthusiastically delivered this terrible
advice, months after bragging that she had sold her own gold stock after
making a massive profit: Link 3-3.
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From the gold chart, one can imagine that Orman sold, then bought
back in, then sold, then bought back in, all timed with her big roller
coaster media blasts (and who knows what other factors) that at least in
part used her public influence to convince many to move their money
from other investments into gold, artificially pumping the price just in
time for her to make a killing.
Is this the kind of advice a financial advisor should be telling people to
do with their retirement savings?
As is common with Orman’s decrees, those who heard her tout gold
certainly also told their friends and family about this great insider tip,
which actually was an insider tip that would plunder their savings and fill
up Orman’s already bloated accounts.
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A “Special Report” on CNBC's website in December 2011 (Link 3-4),
offered “important” economic predictions for 2012 from this person who
never took a single financial college course while taking many extra years
to get her bachelor's degree in social work. What Orman does have a lot of
are personal profit motivations behind her advice, in this case, her gold
“pump and dump.”
Yeah, not so much of a solid base, but don’t worry. Suze Orman, and
probably some of her cabal friends, made millions.
Some have suggested that Orman can’t necessarily be faulted for
people losing so much of their savings, because nobody can predict price
fluctuations of gold. To them, I say, watch the clips, look at the tweets,
and watch Orman give the impression with extreme passion and
conviction that a huge increase in their gold investments can be
absolutely expected within one year. Who wouldn’t want to move some
money into that scenario?
Even if Orman’s emphatic media wide pumping had no effect
whatsoever on the price of gold, Orman portrayed herself as having
special insider information that the price was going to go way up. What
Suze Orman did was even worse than insider trading; she was deceiving
and scamming the public.
Those who don’t have much knowledge about finances are exactly
Suze Orman’s prime con artist marks, the best victims for her scams. And
if they’ve listened to her advice not to have a personal advisor beyond
Orman’s products, so much the better for keeping them as easily,
repeatedly fleeced sheep.
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Once you see enough Suze Orman scams, it’s easier to notice her
affectations when lying, her poker game “tells,” from flipping her hair with
each lie to that kind of over the top
passion she showed with her gold
pump—behaviors
you’ll
see
abundantly in the documentary film,
especially during Orman’s media wide
prepaid debit card scam.
Here's a clue as to who may have
been paying Orman to pitch gold
with such a fever: (Hint, they spend a
lot of money advertising gold on FOX
and other venues for a reason.) Link
3-5
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Watch a video clip of Goldfellow CEO’s appearance on Orman’s
OWN show: Link 3-6
Yes, right in the middle of her gold rush, Orman hosted the CEO of
Goldfellow, who pays big bucks for commercial time on FOX and other
stations, to appear on her Oprah Winfrey Network show that was also
filled with many other scams and shenanigans.
We’ll take a few pages to look into Orman’s “Money Class”
shenanigans as an offshoot of the deceitful gold “pump and dump,”
newsletter and prepaid card scams she was running, all at the same time.
In fact, Orman did a big infomercial pitch for her “Approved” card on that
OWN Money Class show—it was tasteless and predatory, featuring an
obvious shill playing a role and nervously playing along with the scam.
(Link 3-6a)
Orman’s Money Class show also came with a very well publicized fifty
thousand dollar contest to bribe viewers to watch OWN. Orman pitched
the contest on many shows, including at the end of this interview with
George Stephanopoulos, after pitching her prepaid scam on Good
Morning America: Link 3-6b. Stephanopoulos’s response: “Boy, you’ve got a
lot going on.” No kidding, George.
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For this contest, Orman had corrupted Oprah Winfrey into
fooling her millions of Twitter followers by sending out a tweet
asking, “Anybody need more money?”
From the Hollywood Reporter article (Read the article: Link 3-7):
The billionaire OWN head raised a lot of eyebrows Monday morning
when she asked her followers if they needed any money.
Does Oprah Winfrey have enough money to share?
By most standards -- a $2.7 billion net worth according to Forbes -the answer to that question would be “yes.” And it probably gave the
media mogul's nearly 9 million Twitter followers reason to get excited
when she asked them the following question on Monday morning:
“Anybody need more money?”
The former talk show host kept the Internet waiting a breathless 8
minutes before following up with the anticlimactic details.
“Thought I'd get your attention with that last tweet,” she wrote. “I'm
not giving it away but @SuzeOrman is tonight 9/8 central on Money
Class on OWN.”
Responses ranged from the obligatory “LOL,” to a testy “That was
low, ladies.”
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Think about the thought process that would lead a multi-billionaire
to use a question like that as a ploy to advertise a stupid television show
that itself was little more than a series of infomercials in disguise. It was
cruel and disrespectful.
Imagine how Oprah’s loyal fans felt, many desperately needing more
money to pay for emergencies or basic necessities, as Oprah sat back for
eight minutes, watching the begging stream in, after asking, “Anybody
need more money?”
When Oprah finally added, “Thought I'd get your attention with that
last tweet. I'm not giving it away but @SuzeOrman is tonight 9/8 central on
Money Class on OWN,” that wasn’t true either. It was a long-term contest
with significant questions about whether the prizes were ever actually
given to real-life winners.
Orman would use a similar tactic in 2016 on the Home Shopping
Network to con people into buying her $54 will and trust kit for the
chance to be entered to win a $25,000 sweepstakes prize.
This “financial expert” touted buying her fifty-four dollar product to
enter a sweepstakes as good financial advice. The HSN sweepstakes
would also have loopholes in the terms that would allow Orman to easily
avoid ever paying the prize, and no winner was announced on the
promised announcement day, or ever (as of this book’s printing). You can
read more about Orman’s 2016 sweepstakes scam in chapter nine, but
here’s a quick preview:
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Oprah’s deceptive plug is one more example of how Suze Orman is
“bad company,” even for those with integrity and good character.
Throughout her media appearances, Orman pitched watching the OWN
show as a way viewers could win money by taking a quiz at the end. Part of
the contest was for viewers to submit an essay on what they like most
about Suze Orman, also giving Orman and Co. the right to do anything
she wants with their laudatory, deceptively gathered essays of praise.
Here are some of the legal terms for Orman’s OWN network contest.
Note that several words in the contest’s legal document were
misspelled—Orman couldn’t even bear to part with enough money to
pay someone to proofread her narcissistic contest terms.
“Entrants, upon submission of their Essay Submission to the Contest,
hereby irrevocably grant to Sponsor, and each of its licensees, successors
and assigns, the non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, no-cost license and
right to use and otherwise exploit the Essay Submission, and all images,
text and materials depicted therein, in whole or in part, in any manner or
medium now or hereafter known or devised (including, without limitation,
CDs, streaming media, film, television, videocassettes, print, interactive
devices, mobile media, Internet and on-line systems), throughout the
universe and in any and all languages, including, without limitation, the
right to display, reproduce, record, perform, exhibit, distribute, copy, edit,
change, modify, add to, subtract from, re-title and adapt the same, to
combine it with other material and oteherwise use and exploit it without
having to give any complensation or attribution to entrants…Each
entrant, by participating in the Contest, except where legally prohibited,
grants permission for Sponsor and its designees to use his/her name,
address (city and state or province), photograph, voice and/or other
likeness and prize information for advertising, trade and promotional
purposes without further compensation, in all media now known or
hereafter discovered, worldwide, in perpetuity, withoutn otice or review or
approval.”
But was this widely touted $50,000 prize or the five promised $5,000
prizes ever paid? And if so, were they paid to random viewers? This
contest certainly seemed to have a questionable outcome when Orman
rattled off a few first names who she said were the winners, with an
obviously deceptive Scammin’ Suze demeanor: Link 3-9.
With that in mind, let’s have another look at the long legal contest
rules, with a whole lot of loopholes for Orman to get out of ever paying
anything to anyone. Orman added some interesting additions to the
extensive legal contest rules, probably assuming that nobody would
actually read them all, certainly not whatever government agencies
should be looking into such scams.
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First, Orman and her cabal made sure nobody could sue her for not
actually giving any of the prizes, with this: (Link 3-8 )
“All disputes will be resolved solely by binding arbitration and
entrants are waiving the ability to bring claims in a class action format.”
Orman also put this gobbledygook into the legal contest agreement:
“Subject to applicable laws, each potential winner will be required to
submit to a background check before being deemed eligible to receive their
prize and Sponsor reserves the right to disqualify any individual whose
background check reveals information that is inconsistent with the positive
images and/or goodwill to which Sponsor wishes to associate with the
Contest (which may be determined by Sponsor, at its sole discretion.)”
Each potential winner for the Contest may (in Sponsor’s sole
discretion) be required to execute an affidavit of eligibility/release of
liability/prize acceptance agreement (the “Prize Acceptance Release”)
and return the Prize Acceptance Release before being eligible to receive his
or her prize. If any potential winner fails or refuses to sign and return such
Prize Acceptance Release within seven (7) days of the first (1st)
notification attempt or if the prize notification is returned as rejected,
faulty, unclaimed, or returned as undeliverable to such potential winner,
such potential winner (in Sponsor’s sole discretion) may be disqualified,
their potential prize forfeited, and an alternate may (in Sponsor’s sole
discretion) be selected (such alternate to be the individual with the next
highest score as determined in accordance with Section 7 above). If any
potential winner is found to be ineligible, or if he or she has not complied
with these Official Rules, he or she may be disqualified, in Sponsor’s sole
discretion, and an alternate potential prize winner may then, in Sponsor’s
sole discretion, be selected by the Judges. The Prize Acceptance Release is
subject to verification by Sponsor.
Sponsor is not responsible for and shall not be liable for late, lost,
damaged, intercepted misdirected, or unsuccessful efforts to notify the
potential winners. When a potential winner is contacted, he/she will have
a stated period of time within which to respond to the notification, or
he/she will be disqualified and his/her prize forfeited, and an alternate
potential winner may be selected. If a potential winner changes his/her email address or other contact information after he/she registers, it is
his/her sole responsibility to update his/her registration information
notifying the Sponsor. Failure to update such registration information
may affect a potential winner’s ability to receive a prize.
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That was just one section for Orman’s contest rules—repetitions,
typos, and all. What do you think the chances are this contest prize was
ever given?
In her “Goldfellow episode” on the OWN Money Class show, Orman
had audience members sell jewelry items to the CEO of Goldfellow, who
I’m sure made a bundle when Orman’s pumping resulted in a massive
bump in the price of gold.
At the same time that she was having people sell their gold on the
OWN show, Orman was running her gold rush “pump and dump,”
pushing people to buy gold. It's the Suze Orman specialty of getting paid
from all directions for the same scam.
Uh oh - Look what happened next! All those people who listened to
Orman practically begging them to buy gold, but who didn't happen to
notice the couple tiny tweets that quickly came and went where she said
she had sold hers and made huge profits, lost a whole lot of money, while
Suze Orman made off like the bandit she is.
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New York Times, April 2013: “Gold, Long a Secure Investment, Loses its
Luster”:
Gold, pride of Croesus and store of wealth since time immemorial, has
turned out to be a very bad investment of late. A mere two years after its price
raced to a nominal high, gold is sinking — fast. Its price has fallen 17 percent
since late 2011. Wednesday was another bad day for gold: the price of bullion
dropped $28 to $1,558 an ounce…
“Gold was destroyed as a safe haven, proved to be unsafe,” Mr. Soros said
in an interview last week with The South China Morning Post of Hong Kong.
“Because of the disappointment, most people are reducing their holdings of
gold.”
…Mr. Norstog, in Pocatello… put his money in a gold fund that was
focused on mining company stocks. “If I had to do it all over again, I
would have just bought the gold,” Mr. Norstog said. “At least that way I
could have run my fingers through the glittering coins.”
And what happened to all those who followed Orman's emphatic,
media-blasted advice to buy gold, which she all but guaranteed would go
up to $2100 by late 2012?
For Suze Orman, it’s all a con-artist game, but for her victims, it meant
losing their homes, their savings, their peace of mind, and more.
Orman and her partners don’t just run one scam at a time—they
paint webs of deceit that work together to move money from the poor
and middle class into her pockets and those of her corporate and bank
partners.
In her gold “pump and dump,” Orman didn’t just soak up millions
from timing the market with her media blasts. She also tied that scam into
another sham that became a scandal, “Suze Orman’s Money Navigator
Newsletter.”
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“The Money Navigator is determined (by “financial expert of the world”
Suze Orman herself, of course) to be the ONLY financial guide that you will
EVER need!” How good does that poppycock advertisement sound to
those who have no idea they’re pawns in the games of a scammer?
While pumping gold, Orman referred people to the newsletter to find
out where they could buy the gold ETFs Orman was recommending,
along with other dependable market advice. She gave the newsletter free
for a year before charging $63 in subsequent years, but the few journalists
who noticed said that even the free newsletter was too expensive.
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Note the mention of Orman’s newsletter in this ridiculously selflaudatory bio Orman posted at the end of the same CNBC article where
she was pushing gold as her number one recommendation for 2012:
Suze Orman is a two-time Emmy Award-winning television host,
New York Times mega bestselling author, magazine and online
columnist, writer/producer, and one of the top motivational speakers in
the world today. Orman is undeniably America’s most recognized expert
on personal finance. You can subscribe to her newsletter, The Money
Navigator, at http://www.suzeorman.com/moneynavigator/
Orman's Money Navigator Newsletter would eventually end with a
costly SEC settlement for Orman's partner, but not the slightest legal
ramifications for “Teflon” Orman.
In 2011, Orman was all over the media, as usual, now giving away free
subscriptions to her new Money Navigator Newsletter, which subsequently
cost subscribers $63 a year. Although Orman made some coin on her fifty
percent of the subscription fees, she was mainly using this sham to
increase her credibility as a brilliant financial wizard who never took a
single finance-related college course, yet was so magically smart and such
a genius that everyone should listen to her newsletter.
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Here you can see how Orman integrated her newsletter pitches with the
gold “pump and dump” scheme:
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Since Orman’s schemes have many prongs, thanks to her devious but
brilliant political lobbyists and media strategists, she was also using the
newsletter as a means to get people to buy her new book, which came
with a free subscription, and to watch her show on OWN that came with
free subscriptions.
In fact, Orman had partnered with an actual finance expert who was
already running very successful newsletters, and offered him big Suze
Orman style promises.
My understanding, based on conversations with Grimaldi, is that
Orman convinced him to put tens of thousands of dollars of his own
money into creating the Money Navigator newsletter and website.
Orman’s part would be to put her face on the newsletter, and to use her
clout to convince people to sign up for free one-year subscriptions, which
would then turn into paid subscriptions.
This next excerpt is from an article by Felix Salmon of Reuters. Once
he saw Orman’s prepaid card fraud and newsletter shenanigans, Salmon
became a recovered Suze Orman supporter, and interviewed her for an
article he ended up titling, “Suze Orman's conflicts.” The interview took
place in January 2012, in the middle of Orman's gold pump and dump,
newsletter push, and prepaid debit card scam.
In the Reuters interview, Orman bragged about the newsletter’s ETF
for gold going up 5% in a week and a half. Gee, I wonder how that
happened! This was when Orman was practically begging people on TV
shows and Twitter to put 15-20% of their savings into gold ETFs right
away, with her prediction of great wealth in their futures. In interview
responses, Orman practically admits she is running a scam. (Link 3-15)
Reuters journalist Felix Salmon explains:
Of course, I have my own opinions on financial matters as well. And
some things are just completely laughable. Like, for instance, the idea that
anybody, ever, should spend $63 per year for an investment newsletter
with buy and sell portfolio recommendations which are designed to beat
the market. But, that’s exactly what Orman is selling.
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And, she told me, “that newsletter is fabulous”, adding that it “has
been beating the market by a lot”, and that it was “rated number one” by
someone or other, and — I have to admit this is where she rendered me
utterly speechless — “we issued a buy for an ETF for gold, we are up 5%
in that ETF in a week and a half. So you have to look at the returns and
judge it on the returns.”
Remember, this is a newsletter giving investment advice for people’s
retirement accounts. And here’s Suze, bragging about the 10-day return
on a gold ETF? “If you want to dispense information that you just buy
and hold,” Orman told me, “I wouldn’t want to see your track record.”
Well, I’ll happily ignore Orman’s advice on this front, as well as the
advice in her Money Navigator newsletter, and I’m going to stick to my
buy-and-hold strategy instead, even though Orman’s telling me that
“index funds are no longer going to be the way to do things, you need to
buy ETFs with high dividend yields.”
Grimaldi told me during a conversation that Orman said that if he put
another $30,000 into the website, Oprah was planning to put the
newsletter on her coveted holiday show's list of “Favorite Things.”
For those who understand Orman’s use of false extravagant promises
to elicit greed and convince people to put their skills and resources into
the Orman cesspool, it is clear just from hearing this that this “Oprah’s
Favorite Things” outcome was never even a remote possibility. But
Grimaldi believed her, as I once also believed her extravagant promises
that were 100% lies.
Along with Orman using free gifts of the newsletter to sell her other
products and give her a sheen of expertise, she also made sure all the
money received from the newsletter first went directly to herself. Anyone
who re-subscribed after their one-year gift subscription ran out would pay
the money directly to Orman's company, which would then cut a check to
the actual expert doing all the work for 50%, minus “service fees.”
105
A year after pitching “her” newsletter, Orman herself would admit, while
trying to distance herself from the newsletter after milking it for all it was
worth, that she had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual content of
this newsletter. That is not surprising, given how much Orman brags that
she never got above a grade “C” and never took a single finance-related
college course while getting her B.A. in Social Work, a field in which she
never worked.
As with most Suze scam scenarios, her partner's good reputation
ended up being all but destroyed. Even while all the money being paid to
the newsletter was still going directly into her personal account, Orman
posted Twitter messages claiming that she had nothing whatsoever to do
with the newsletter and that Grimaldi was violating the law by using her
name without permission, which was an outright lie intended to harm his
reputation and livelihood—a Suze specialty.
106
Here are some articles about the Money Navigator newsletter, which
for nearly two years, Orman touted as “her” newsletter.
From US News: Why Suze Orman's Free Newsletter is Too Overpriced.”
(Link 3-10)
Grimaldi is the poster child for running a fund with high fees.
According to one report, he charges a management fee of 1.63 percent for
his Sector Rotation Fund, which invests in exchange-traded funds. In
stark contrast, the average expense ratios (which reflect management fees
charged by the fund) for exchange-traded funds managed by Vanguard
are only 0.17 percent.
It’s bad enough that Orman is endorsing a newsletter with
questionable data. It’s worse that her endorsement may encourage
investors to believe that newsletters have any predictive value.
Orman has given away more than 50,000 copies of Grimaldi’s
newsletter, which costs $63 a year. She is quoted as saying she is “proud to
be able to provide our newsletter to people who are looking for solid
financial advice.”
Giving away this newsletter is no defense for Orman. It’s still too
expensive.
“Suze Orman's Bad Investment Newsletter,” from Reuters: (Link 3-11)
Ms. Orman declined to address specific questions about the newsletter
or Mr. Grimaldi’s background. “Mark Grimaldi is my trusted partner in
The Money Navigator,” she said in an emailed statement. “He is ethical,
honest and achieves stellar results that consistently outperform the
market. I’m proud to be able to provide our newsletter to people who are
looking for solid financial advice.”
107
Lying about being ranked by Hulbert Financial Digest is, needless to
say, neither ethical nor honest. Which means, on an unsympathetic
reading of Suze Orman, that she’s lying too.
When I spoke to Orman last week, she made it very clear that her
relationship with Grimaldi’s newsletter was no different than her
relationship with the Approved Card — she’s an owner of both of them,
thinks that both of them are very good products, and is proud of them
both. (The same goes for her FICO package, too.)
Orman also told me twice that the newsletter was rated number one
— she was adamant about that. And now it turns out that it isn’t. I spoke
to Orman on Tuesday; maybe Zweig hadn’t contacted her with his
questions yet at that point. But at best Orman is extremely incurious
about the “fabulous” newsletter that she is so keen to hawk and defend.
And at worst she’s happy lying about it being ranked highly by Hulbert.
Orman made the same kinds of incorrect claims about the newsletter
that got Grimaldi in hot water, but without a single consequence.
After all, Suze Orman has no credentials and is listed by name as being
exempt from the Department of Labor’s rule that financial advisors must
act in the best interest of their clients. But Orman’s partner did have
credentials, and the same government agencies who have given Orman’s
scams a complete pass went after her credentialed newsletter partner
with a vengeance.
From the Wall Street Journal: Should Suze Orman’s Newsletter
Partner Be Pumping His Ratings? (Link 3-12)
This weekend’s Intelligent Investor column looked at The Money
Navigator, an investing newsletter jointly owned by personal-finance guru
Suze Orman and money manager Mark Grimaldi of Wappingers Falls,
N.Y. It raised questions about the accuracy of some of the information on
Grimaldi’s investment performance. In a statement to the Journal,
Orman called Grimaldi “my trusted partner in The Money Navigator”
and said he is “ethical, honest and achieves stellar results that consistently
outperform the market.”
108
This Covester article brings up other ways Orman and Grimaldi were
making money from questionable advice in the newsletter. “The Suze
Orman Retirement hedge fund”: (Link 3-13)
It seems that Orman partnered with an existing newsletter provider,
whose author/portfolio builder Mark Grimaldi also happens to be the
lead manager of the Sector Rotation mutual fund (NAVFX).
The monthly newsletter offers a number of model portfolios that
subscribers are encouraged to follow in their own brokerage
accounts...(an) investment newsletter that encourages her rank-and-file
American young woman to put 35% of her retirement savings into junk
bonds and a sector rotation fund - run by her newsletter partner—that's
heavily invested in leveraged ETFs?” Et tu, Suze?”
Along with the newsletter came Orman's pitches for everyone to buy
gold. She specifically recommended that people buy ETFs, and that they
use the information in “her” newsletter to guide their decisions.
109
Click here to watch video of Orman pitching gold with her confident
prediction that gold would hit $2100 by November 2012. (Link 3-14)
Orman’s overly enthusiastic affect in that video clip is a sure sign of her
deceptive manipulations in progress.
Then came more problems regarding the “Suze Orman Money
Navigator Newsletter,” from US News:
Perhaps most troubling is an article in The Wall Street Journal by
respected financial journalist Jason Zweig. Zweig discussed glaring
problems with a newsletter issued by Mark Grimaldi, an investment
manager. Orman is a 50 percent owner of the newsletter, which costs $63
a year. She has given away more than 50,000 trial subscriptions. Issues of
the newsletter contained a number of errors, which included providing
returns for a fund managed by Grimaldi prior to the time the fund was in
existence, and understating the performance of the S&P 500 in nine of the
10 years cited. The accurate returns of the S&P 500 meant that
Grimaldi’s portfolio trailed—rather than beat—he performance of the
index in 2009.
Here’s a Wall Street Journal video interview you can watch about some
of the newsletter issues, “Suze Orman's Newsletter Raises Eyebrows”:
(Link 3-16)
WSJ 'Intelligent Investor' Jason Zweig profiles personal finance expert
Suze Orman and her business partner in producing a lucrative monthly
newsletter.
I tend to give Grimaldi some benefit of the doubt, especially since he
had partnered with someone who easily convinces others to “fudge the
truth” to benefit her pocketbook.
At the time, Orman was committing blatant fraud all over the place,
while running her “Approved” card scam on shows from Good Morning
America to The View, to ABC News and local news stations across the
country, pitching her prepaid debit card as a reasonably priced vehicle
through which card users could expect to get a better FICO score. What
are a few minor bookkeeping errors in the face of that shameful level of
media wide fraud?
Orman’s newsletter drama took place right at the same time more
than one hundred financial journalists, top to bottom, were writing
articles to warn the public about Orman’s prepaid card. It was the first
time some of these journalists soberly realized that they had been
recommending a scammer for all those years.
110
All that negative media attention on Orman’s “Approved” card scam
also brought scrutiny upon the newsletter she was pitching at the same
time. For Grimaldi, it was a matter of bad timing on the Suze Orman scam
timeline.
With Orman’s prepaid card fraud taking place at the exact same time,
this would have been the ideal opportunity for government agencies to
finally stop her scams and bring justice to victims of her frauds. However,
because of what CNN’s Chris Cuomo rightfully labeled the “Orman
Cabal,” no government or other official agency would touch her.
But Orman’s newsletter partner was a different story. He had
credentials, and was expected to follow rules of ethics. Once Zweig and
other journalists noticed that some of his numbers were off, Grimaldi in a
sense became Orman’s scapegoat, taking the fall, while the real criminal
went off once again to the next set of scams.
And wait for it … one, two, three …
From “Suze Orman Parts Ways with Newsletter” in the Wall Street
Journal: (Link 3-17)
Today on Twitter, Orman distanced herself from the publication.
Grimaldi “should own it outright given that it was all him. Also I wanted
to give it all away for the first year for free to test it,” she tweeted in reply
to @mrrainey619.
111
“I stopped working with TMN because all the ideas concepts
recommendations were Marks so he should simply own it outright,” she
also tweeted. “Just that simple.”
Yet the ideas, concepts and recommendations in the newsletter were
always Grimaldi’s, before and after Orman invested in the publication,
according to interviews Grimaldi gave to the Journal in January. Orman
had given away more than 50,000 copies of the newsletter, according to
earlier interviews with Grimaldi and her spokeswoman.
Orman had formerly stood behind Grimaldi, even as he retracted
some of his claims after inquiries from the Journal…Orman referred to
the publication as “my Money Navigator newsletter” in an interview with
TV host Piers Morgan in February.
Grimaldi didn’t respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman
for Orman referred a request for comment to Kathy Travis, Orman’s
business partner, who didn’t respond.
Then came this:
Law360, New York (January 30, 2014) – A New York-based money
manager who co-founded an investing newsletter with CNBC personality
Suze Orman on Thursday settled a U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission action over the newsletter’s allegedly false claims.
Mark A. Grimaldi, who owns Navigator Money Management Inc.,
agreed to pay a $100,000 penalty to settle an SEC administrative case,
the commission said Thursday. The commission targeted Grimaldi for
allegedly distributing misleading statements through Twitter and his
newsletters, including one called “The Money Navigator,” which he cofounded with CNBC’s Orman.
112
Again, Grimaldi’s error was not even a grain of sand next to the
mountain of scams and shenanigans Orman has perpetrated throughout
her career, including the widespread financial fraud she was committing
at the very same time.
At this point, it became more beneficial for Scamming Suze to admit
that she had done nothing more than put her face and name on the work
done by Grimaldi and his team. Orman had little more use for the
newsletter now that she used those free subscriptions to bolster sales of
her Money Class book, which continued to offer the free subscription in a
new edition published after she claimed to have parted ways with the
newsletter.
Orman had also used giving away (Grimaldi’s work on) the newsletter
to claim altruism while fooling people into buying her “Approved”
prepaid card, as she did in this very telling, scamalicious interview on Piers
Morgan’s CNN show: Link 3-18.
Then came more lies on top from Orman:
113
Suze Orman can’t just let those she cons leave with serious damage—
she also has to cast false aspersions and ruin their reputations personally,
as she did by announcing the blatant lie that Grimaldi was using her name
on the newsletter without permission, even while their contract was still
intact and Orman was still receiving 100% of all money paid for the
newsletter, from which she sent Grimaldi 50%, minus “service fees.”
114
Orman’s newsletter partner was none too pleased:
Since Orman was claiming to have no part in the newsletter, Grimaldi
posted the check he had just received from Orman as proof that all the
money that came into the newsletter still went directly into Suze
Orman’s bank account, from which she would send him 50%, minus
whatever service fees she deemed reasonable, considering, as she admitted
when faced with legal questions, Grimaldi and his team did all the work:
115
116
It’s no fun to get scammed by Suze Orman.
Several months later, came a new newsletter message to Orman’s wellfleeced flock:
117
118
Chapter Four
Distortions of the “Queen Of Crisis”:
Damaging the Economy for Personal Gain
In the late 1990s, just as our culture was about to get swept into a
higher level of generous spiritual holistic mentality, Suze Orman—who
had only recently been $250,000 in debt, and spending tens of thousands
of dollars of that borrowed money on extreme extravagances—came
along wagging her finger and shouting that wealth is good, greed is good,
money is spirituality, and you must have the “Courage to be Rich!”
Aside from buying Orman's products, her advice said to, be afraid, be
ashamed, and hold off on enjoying life. Don't pursue your dreams. Don't
take that vacation, don’t get that cup of coffee, don't change your career to
something you would love to do if it might disrupt your finances, don't
marry anyone who doesn’t have a good FICO score, and don't help your
friends, family, or anyone else but yourself. As Orman would occasionally
explain, when she repeated her altruistic sounding statement, “People first,
then money, then things,” what she meant was to put yourself first, in terms
of always getting more money for yourself.
Orman's edicts, messages, actions, and behaviors have contributed to
removing heart from our world. She sometimes advised people to act in
dishonest and unscrupulous ways, such as telling a woman on her CNBC
show not to tell her husband that she wanted a divorce, because if she
stayed with him for one more year, She’d reach ten years of marriage and
possibly get an increased portion of his social security payments one day.
Orman also advised the woman to steal and hide away money from her
unaware, soon-to-be ex-husband, so when she’d leave a year later, she
would have some savings. Living a lie to make a few more bucks is nothing
for Suze Orman, so why not advise others to live in deception and steal
from loved ones as well.
Here is an article with links to other articles about certain specific
problems with Orman's financial advice that suggest her liaisons with
banks and creditors. It is from the Bankruptcy Law Network, so obviously
the criticisms come from that point of view, but clearly the elderly woman
in this example was given troubling and inconsistent advice by Orman,
instead of advice based on her circumstances as an 81 year-old woman
who lives on $600 of Social Security income a month:
From Bankruptcy Law Network: “Suze Orman Bankrupts a Reader
Without the Benefits.” (Link 4-2)
119
Bankruptcy is a last resort of course. But it is an option. Paying back
debt when you barely have enough money to survive is usually a horrible
alternative.
Unless you are Suze Orman. Ms. Orman styles herself as a financial
adviser to every day folks. And Oprah Winfrey has given her a column on
the O website. But Ms. Orman sounds more and more like she works for
the credit industry, not you.
In her March 2012 on-line column, she posted a Q&A response
which makes consumer advocates — and anyone who actually cares
about their elderly family — scream.
The question was asked how to help an 81-year old woman with
$8,000 of credit card debt and only $600/mo of Social Security income
get out of debt.
I can think of a few ways to deal with it. First, the lady could
probably file bankruptcy. If she has no non-exempt assets, that would be a
very simple case. But, second, she may not need to consider even that. If
she has no assets and no other income, she is judgment-proof and would
not need to file bankruptcy to avoid the debt. The creditors could not seize
her Social Security for payment, for example. And I suspect there are
other options available to her.
The one answer I would not suggest for someone with that much debt
compared to their income — $8,000 for a person earning only
$600/mon is like Orman facing an $8 million debt — would be to try to
pay it off. But that’s what Suze said.
As she pointed out, “It’s fruitless to try to talk your way out of this;
the card issuer has every right to expect repayment”…
For someone like Orman who ought to know that Social Security is
protected from creditor collection action — so the creditor may have a
“right to expect payment” but the consumer has the right to refuse to pay
from those funds too — it shows she’s not even trying to help. She just
doles out credit industry-approved guidance. Whether it would help, do
more harm than good or is even feasible in the real world doesn’t seem to
matter sometimes.
Indeed, Orman not only suggested that the elderly woman divert her
pittance to repaying debt, she suggested she use more debt to get out of
debt. She recommended they track down a low or no-interest card she
could open and transfer the balances to. Without saying it, the next step is
likely to need to open another account, rinse, and repeat. That’s a gamble
and it puts keeping a good credit score over paying for the basics of life.
But she never hints at any other option but repayment.
120
In fact, Orman simply used the elderly woman’s circumstance as a
way of pitching the concept of “card kiting” as viable repayment tool for
anyone in debt (and to lecture us — but not the industry — about the
evils of cash advance financing).
This is an easy scenario to address if you have the consumer’s interests
at heart — We already know the credit industry lost that money. It’s
gone. Sometimes the only way to make them admit it is to file bankruptcy.
But one way or the other, only the most ruthless creditor-oriented adviser
would tell an elderly woman in such straits to find a way to repay that
debt and never mention non-payment or, heaven forbid!, bankruptcy.
So what does that say about Suze Orman? Who does she really work
for? And what does it say about Oprah’s O Magazine, that it would
feature this advice as “Suze’s Best Advice on Getting Out of Debt.”
Orman not only reached millions of people on Oprah’s magazine and
show, but due to her Oprah connection, Orman was also invited to give
information that was often misinformation on many shows throughout
the media landscape, resulting in a public influence extreme enough for
con artist Suze Orman to be named one of Time magazine's 100 most
influential people in the world for two years in a row.
Once Orman hooked in with the political lobbyist media broker
damage control “cabal” some years later, she would move on to bigger and
better scams. Before that, she was still giving what ended up being
disastrous advice, over and again. Whether some or all of Orman’s bad
advice was intentional is, perhaps, up for debate.
Here is an example of Orman contributing to the housing crisis and
economic decline by encouraging people to quickly buy a home at the
very top of the bubble, telling them specifically not to worry about buying
into a bubble, and to buy a house right away to lock in a seven percent
rate, advising: “Try to apply for a mortgage sooner rather than later.”
As usual, those who followed Orman’s tainted advice lost a great deal
when interest rates soon after plummeted below four percent, leaving
those who locked in those seven percent rates unable to even refinance
their loans.
This is either an example of misinformation from an overly-confident,
uneducated, pseudo “financial expert,” or something more devious that
was intended to deplete the middle class, which would support Orman’s
frequent declarations that she repeated like mantras for years while
running her scams that, “The middle class is gone,” and, “The American
Dream is dead.”
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Here is Suze Orman giving her bad housing advice in O Magazine, in
2003 and again in 2007, to the same Oprah fans she has used and conned
for too many years:
Once rates fell below four percent, this “financial expert” with no
credentials or education announced with great fanfare and the usual
headline blast that she had changed her advice.
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While those who had followed Orman’s previous advice and rushed
to buy into a bubble were now finding themselves in underwater homes,
she then went on the talk show circuit with a new headline.
Orman was now telling people they should walk away from their
underwater mortgages, which meant losing all the money they’d already
paid to the banks, including their down payments. Now the banks had
their money and owned their homes.
From the Paying For Protection blog:
One vocal proponent of “walking away” is financial guru Suze
Orman who has been quoted in numerous articles stating that those who
are “underwater” in their mortgages should walk off and let the houses get
foreclosed on. This past Monday, Ms. Orman appeared on “The View”
with what has become her new rallying cry, “If you are upside down in
your mortgage and the bank will not work with you, walk away from the
house.”
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In Orman's book The Money Class, she advises borrowers, “Do the
calculations everybody. How much is it costing you to actually stay in that
house? How many years will it take for you to pay more for that house
than it is worth? If it's 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, are you kidding me?
That's a house you really need to say bye bye. It's not worth the money.”
Orman advises people who are upside down in their home mortgages to
try to get the bank to modify the loan. Failing that, she says that
homeowners should seek out a short sale or a deed in lieu of foreclosure.
“If they won't do that, then walk away. It's just how it is.”
The fact that a respected money expert is telling American borrowers
that they can and should default on their loan obligations when they have
the ability to repay is really a sign of just how far we have fallen as a
nation. It is deplorable to think that we have come to a place as a society
where defaulting on our obligations is considered some kind of a moral
high road.
Orman’s new advice was that her “clients” should walk away from
their mortgages and lose all their equity and their homes, because “It’s
okay to be a renter for the rest of your life.” You’ll see these clips in our
documentary film section on Suze Orman’s role in the housing crisis:
Link 4-1. In the film, you’ll also hear Orman bragging about owning five
homes that she bought with cash. This article comment shares one
example of many who lost a lot due to following Suze Orman's bad
advice:
Chitownmatt
I partially blame Suze Orman for the housing bubble.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but for years she was on Oprah and in her
books telling everyone, “buy a house, buy a house, buy a house, it’s the best
financial decision you can ever make. Buy a house…”
My old roommate bought a condo in 2007 after reading one of her books
and getting pressure from his mom and sister who had also read one of
her books…Needless to say, he paid 170k for a condo in a building that
now has 5 or 6 empty units out of about 40 by foreclosure. It’s impossible
to really tell what his one bedroom condo is worth today because no one in
their right mind would be willing to buy it, but I would guess maybe
around 70.
Did Suze ever apologize to my friend for such horrible advice? Did Suze
ever go on Oprah and admit that her, “buy a house, buy a house, buy a
house” advice turned out to be flawed. No!
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Who might have benefited from that housing collapse while millions
lost their homes? I’ll let Donald Trump give a hint about who benefited
from these abandoned and foreclosed homes, from an interview two years
before the housing collapse:
“I sort of hope that happens, because then people like me would go in
and buy. If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you can make a lot of
money.”
And, look who was speaking together at the same time the housing
market collapsed:
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This photo was taken just as the homes
of hundreds of thousands of Orman's
customers who had followed her advice to
quickly buy a house and lock in a 7%
mortgage rates before interest rates
plummeted below 4%, were going into
foreclosure and losing their homes.
Orman never leaves too much time to
pass between her bad advice and new
plundering schemes. While fans who
followed her advice were still reeling from
losing their equities and homes, Orman
was already on to more nefarious ways to
scare the public into funneling money from
the poor and middle class into her pockets.
Breaking News: Suze Orman proclaims
that the American Dream is Dead!
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127
Yes, that is over 50,000 results—a big PR blast of a negative mantra
that filled the public with fear and filled Orman’s pockets with more
corporate and bank money for her price-for-advice disguised infomercials
and other scams to come. Suze Orman benefited every time the United
States’ economy took another hit.
After the housing crisis came Orman’s Gold Rush of 2011, where
Orman practically begged people to invest in Gold ETFs. Those fooled by
Orman’s “Gold rush” blast lost a lot of money, as documented in Chapter
Three. Orman’s gold blast caused further destruction to the United
States’ economy, while shifting considerable money from mostly middle
class citizens up to Suze Orman and her one-percent supporters and
enablers.
Due to the Oprah-given platform that brought Time magazine to
name Suze Orman as one of the “100 most influential people in the
world,” Orman's whims have distorted national and international streams
of commerce in numerous ways, including Orman shouting out rigid rules
that were often based on her behind-the-scene deals.
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Orman took up most of the “financial expert” air in the public
financial advice marketplace, displacing actual educated experts who
could and would have given honest, helpful, balanced information and
respectfully empowered and guided individuals with the information
needed to follow their own intelligence, integrity, generosity, and destiny.
Orman has readily admitted that she benefits whenever the economy
gets worse, and based on the Suze Orman I knew all too well, she would
be more than happy to ruin lives and harm the economy, as long as it
increased her fortune and fame.
An article in Time magazine, titled, “Suze Orman: Queen of the
Crisis,” begins with: (Link 4-3)
“'I'm very, very sorry to say that my business is skyrocketing,' the
personal-finance guru Suze Orman said one late January afternoon. The
Dow was down almost 200 points, and Orman was lounging on the
terrace of her San Francisco town house, wearing a leopard-print tunic
and cowboy boots. She looked up and popped a grape into her mouth.”
Oh, she sounded sooo very, very sorry, like a cartoon villain, popping
another grape in her mouth while gloating over the suffering masses.
It is ultimately greed that is destroying our social fabric, economy,
environment, and much more. Although Orman has tossed in a few oftenplagiarized quotes about how we can be rich without money (you can
almost always find quotes where Orman says the exact opposite of things
she’s said in other quotes) her real message has always been that material
wealth is more important than anything else in life.
A large part of Orman’s CNBC show involved shouting at people that
they must deny themselves everything and anything in life unless it fits
into her little Suze Orman box of rules that she never followed in the
slightest while she was deeply in debt and finding her way to worldly
success.
I do have some other speculations about roles Orman is playing in
shifting the wealth in this country, including her corporate connections,
deals and partnerships with many large corporations and heads of large
corporations, billionaires, and who knows who else.
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Suze Orman has gained access to the most private personal and
financial data from millions of people who have signed up for her various
wares, including software programs and newsletters she has given away for
free, but not necessarily without motive.
As an example, Orman’s FICO kit was the subject of a successful
lawsuit that accused Orman and Fair Isaac Corporation of not only giving
bad information to their customers, but of using the personal information
people submitted when purchasing their scores for the purpose of helping
creditors get money from them. Quite a scam!
Baker (one of the litigants of the successful lawsuit) can’t
understand how multi-millionaire Suze Orman sleeps at night, her
advice appears to be out of a 20 year old credit repair manual and
she has certainly destroyed many consumers’ lives with her horrible
recommendations.
The CRAs and Fair Isaac are in business to assist creditors and
collectors with the collection of debts.
Is it legal to request that consumers submit personal
information so that current and future creditors can use it to aide
their debt collection efforts? Fair Isaac FAILS TO DISCLOSE that
the purpose of this “service” is debt collection.
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Collectors have to disclose to debtors that the information
provided will be used to collect debts, as per the Fair Debt Collection
Practices Act (FDCPA). Baker is not sure whether Fair Isaac would
be considered a debt collector subject to the FDCPA, but to disguise
these debt collection efforts by Suze Orman as advice is misleading,
deceptive and extremely damaging to consumers.
Orman’s rampant PR blitzes of big headlines, to sell products and
increase her influence, have led to huge numbers of people walking away
from their mortgages, not spending the stimulus checks that were meant
to jumpstart the economy in 2008, canceling their newspaper
subscriptions, taking vows not to eat in restaurants when the recession
left many businesses on the brink of closing, encouraging students to forgo
higher education (unless it’s the predatory Orman partner University of
Phoenix), with Orman telling people not to help friends or relatives, and
parents not to help their children with college or by giving allowances.
Orman considered those things as “wants.”
So what might she consider as a “need”?
As Orman says in this next QVC clip with slick oil salesman panache,
if she can make it to success, fame, and fortune while never getting a single
grade above a “C,” you can (…wait for it…) reach into your pocket and
buy her latest silver box kit, which is apparently better than the blue or
green boxes the QVC audience may have previously purchased.
(Watch the clip: Link 4-4)
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Here is one of many Twitter messages Orman posted while feverishly
pitching her prepaid debit card:
You can see how Orman’s biggest dream come true would have been
for the banking system to collapse enough to push millions of people’s life
savings onto her fee-laden, shoddily run, predatory prepaid debit card that
was deceptively poised to catch it. In our film, you’ll see Orman describing
her card to Time magazine, as being “like a little bank that you can keep in
your pocket.” Yet, nobody even mentioned that her card being like a little
bank that you can keep in your pocket is no different from any credit,
debit, or prepaid card in the world, except that hers lost accounts left and
right and charged loads of fees!
Orman’s restaurant and newspaper blowout
As the economy fell in late 2008 and early 2009, Orman's “rescue
remedy” was to ask society, through Oprah's massive stage and other
venues, to cut their spending in half, specifically telling them to cancel
their newspaper subscriptions.
From an article titled, “Dear Oprah, why do you want to kill
newspapers?” (Link 4-12)
You let financial guru Suze Orman come on your show and tell your
audience to cancel their newspaper subscriptions to save money.
Let me remind you of your audience: They do what you say.
I know. I have a wife, a mother and at least one sister-in-law who all
follow your every move. My mom has a bookshelf in her house that should
be labeled “Oprah’s Bookshelf.” You wave it; she reads it.
After the Dow and Wal-Mart, you are the No. 3 economic force in
America.
You so influence the lives of these women that I’ve been dying for an
episode entitled “Mrs. Franko, it’s time for you to go back into the
workforce” because my chats with my wife are certainly not working.
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What will you do if your fans go out today and cancel their
newspaper?
Here’s an irony: Had this show aired in October, and your audience
listened to you, you might not have had a Chicago Sun-Times in
November to wave on TV to proclaim “the best paper in the world.”
Around the same time, Orman asked Oprah viewers to take an official
pledge to stop eating in restaurants for one month.
In that time of economic downturn, restaurants and newspapers were
two areas of society that were barely hanging on, and Orman’s lopsided
commandments to withdraw large streams of income from those two
sectors all at once with a headline grabber she and her cabal came up with
to generate some headlines for her new book, were surely felt by people in
both industries, as explained by this restaurant chef in US News:
(Link 4-13)
At the core of (Orman’s) Action Plan is what she calls her Action
Pledge that she wants everyone to take within one month of reading her
book. Her pledge says: “Do not spend money for one day. Do not use your
credit card for one week. Do not eat out at a restaurant for one month.”
As a professional restaurant chef, I was floored when I heard that
quoted on the radio. The restaurant industry blogs and websites have
been in a panic. In the name of financial responsibility, Orman is singling
out one industry as her “fall guy.” Why restaurants? And why for an
entire month? Does she want our entire food system to collapse as the
shock waves of her very public proposals ripple through the economy?
Restaurants, and the many people and businesses that supply them
with their food, are already under tremendous pressure. Restaurants are
closing right and left, even without Orman's help. Suppliers are sending
out half-empty trucks as people order less food, and this is affecting the
farmers, ranchers, and producers farther down the chain. Hundreds of
thousands of people in the food industry are struggling already - and will
be even worse off if people listen to Orman and Oprah. This extreme
single-mindedness is not the way to financial freedom.
These are just two examples of how Orman’s distorted advice, pushed
by Oprah Winfrey’s extreme influence, caused troubling distortions in the
economy and in whatever specific businesses Orman chose to target.
You can be sure business who paid her price were spared from
Orman’s wrath.
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Note that “financial expert Suze Orman” didn’t advise Oprah’s
viewers to look at all their expenses and see what they could trim, “For
example, you might want to stop going to restaurants or to cancel your
newspapers.” She asked every one of Oprah’s millions of viewers to take a
pledge, all at the same time!
Of course it is general good advice to curtail extravagant spending
when funds are low, however, it is a problem to ask people to take a
pledge, not only through Oprah's platform, but Orman's other media
appearances, where she targeted specific business sectors that were
already on the brink of failing in a time of extreme economic instability.
Orman would often pass off her whims as trustworthy advice, asking
people to cut spending in sometimes absurd and petty ways, without
exception or individual discernment. The big exception to her stingy
advice was when it came to buying wares that would put more money
into Orman's bulging pockets. These included her own products that she
begged, cajoled and scared people into buying on QVC and other venues,
and whatever products she has been paid to promote. Those, she likes to
classify as a “need,” not a “want.” (Link 4-14)
This kind of reckless cookie-cutter advice had the potential to ruin
many businesses and ultimately caused harm to the U.S. economy. At the
same time Orman was making people pledge to cut their spending in
half—cutting even the most minor purchases from their lives—financial
experts were warning about the importance of consumer spending in
staving off a worse recession or depression for our country and the world.
How Suze Orman contributed to derailing the
2008 Economic Stimulus Act
Here is one example of Orman’s widely publicized, reckless advice
regarding the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 that may have significantly
contributed to the economic recession.
In February 2008, President Bush, with bipartisan support from
Congress, passed the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. Its goal was to boost
the economy and avoid the impending economic crash by sending a
stimulus check from $300 to $600 to every taxpayer. These checks were
sent to wealthy and poor taxpayers alike, with the request that people
from all these different walks of life spend those checks into the economy
from their different angles and levels of interest and need. This stimulus
plan was the opposite of Orman’s push for people to withhold spending
from specific Orman-chosen business sectors. Like bombarding all the
cells of a body with healthy nourishment to overcome disease, the
Stimulus Act was expected to nourish and heal the overall economy.
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The rationale of this plan as explained on Wikipedia:
As 2008 began, economic indicators suggested an increased risk of
recession. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before
Congress that quick action was needed to stimulate the economy through
targeted government spending and tax incentives. Congress moved rapidly
to pass such legislation. The legislation was designed to stimulate
spending by businesses and consumers during 2008. The hope was that
the targeted individual tax rebates would boost consumer spending and
that targeted tax incentives would boost business spending.
Along came “financial guru” Suze Orman on all the shows,
commanding that people not do what they’d been asked to do, which was
to spend those checks into the economy.
Below is a transcript of Orman literally begging people not to spend
their stimulus checks on Larry King Live on January 27, 2008, the same
week that congress was ratifying the Economic Stimulus Act.
Clearly, Orman’s appearance was specifically timed to make a big
headline grabbing announcement that nobody—wealthy or poor, with a
lot of savings or a pile of bills—nobody should spend any of those stimulus
checks that were specifically being sent for people to spend. (Link 4-5)
LARRY KING: All right, $300 going out, if they approve this, to
everybody. What do you make of that?
ORMAN: Well, here is what I really hope. Regardless of what they settle
on, I hope when all of you -- when all of you get that check, I hope that you
take that check and you save it. I hope you don't do what they're hoping
you're going to do, which is go out and spend money on things that you
don't even need. I hope that you really look at this as a gift they're giving
to you, but that you keep it in case something goes wrong -- in case you
can't make a car payment, in case you can't make a mortgage payment.
Can you just all hold onto this money or pay off debt with it?
But don't go out and spend it. That's what I hope they don't do. Of course,
everybody else is hoping they do.
KING: Why do they want you to spend it?
ORMAN: Because they are hoping that if they give you this money, you're
going to go out and spend it. If you go out and spend it, you will stimulate
the economy. If you stimulate the economy by giving all the retailers and
restaurants and all these people your money, that will help save the
economy. As I've always said on your show, Larry, I don't really care
about what's happening out there.
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Note that statement by Orman that she doesn’t really care about
what’s happening out there. Does she actually think that what’s
happening “out there” isn’t affecting each person’s life? Although for
Orman, the worse the economy got, the more money and power she got.
Orman continued:
I care about what's happening with your life. And the truth of the
matter is we don't need any more stuff. We don't need anymore junk.
What you do need is money in the bank account. You need to get out of
credit card debt.
So I am hoping and I'm wishing and praying that when you get these
rebate checks, EVERYBODY, that you really do what you should do with
it -- and that's save it or pay off your debt. Anything else you shouldn't be
doing.
After watching this interview and others with concern that Orman's
proclamations were going to derail the whole stimulus program, I waited
for intelligent journalists and politicians to respond and explain why it
was indeed good for people who have enough money to give themselves a
special treat and spend those stimulus funds in the marketplace to do so.
That was the purpose of those stimulus checks—they was not being sent
to millions of people to be stashed away in long term accounts.
Some would have done better personally by using their stimulus
checks to pay old debts or to stash away a bit of savings for upcoming
needs. But Orman wasn’t giving any clarifications or personalizations for
this instruction. Her decree was that nobody who heard the sound of her
voice should dare spend that check—viewers surely spread this
“important advice from Suze” to their friends and family as well.
Some might suggest that it was better for people to save the checks,
because the stimulus check plan might not have worked to help the
economy anyway. Obviously, the experts who advised congress to spend
billions of dollars on this stimulus check program thought it had at least a
reasonable shot of helping to stop, slow, or minimize the recession. And it
would be a chance for people in an economic recession to have a bit of
extra cash to enjoy and spend into the economy.
What Orman did was akin to telling townsfolk in a village that is being
threatened by a big flood, who have been given sandbags to place along
the coastline, “I don’t want you to place those bags at the coastline. I want
you, everyone, to use them around your own house, or to store them in the
garage in case you ever need a sandbag in the future, but do not go and place
the sandbag you were given by the coast, where it was meant to be placed. Even
if your garage is already full of sandbags, do not put your stimulus sandbag by
the shore.”
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Then came the big flood in the form of a serious economic downturn
that caused harm to many of those who had hoarded their checks, wiping
away their savings and homes. Would the economy have fared better if
more people had placed the sandbags they were given on the shoreline?
We’ll never know, because the stimulus check program failed after twothirds of the public failed to spend their checks.
ComScore said its research reveals that fully two thirds of consumers
said they had not planned to spend their stimulus checks and rather
intended to use the cash to pay off debt or put the money into savings.
A year after Orman’s Larry King Live appearance, the economy was in
much worse shape, and Orman was being touted as the “Queen of the
Crisis,” while shoveling more money into her bulging coffers.
On April 14, 2009, as the stimulus program failed, President Obama
explained why commanding everyone to cut back extremely on their
spending all at once had been harming the economic recovery: Link 4-10
“You see, when this recession began, many families sat around the
kitchen table and tried to figure out where they could cut back. So have
many businesses. And this is a completely reasonable and understandable
reaction. But if everybody - if everybody, if every family in America, if
every business in America cuts back all at once, then no one is spending
any money, which means there are no customers, which means there are
more layoffs, which means that the economy gets even worse.”
It is difficult to imagine that someone would intentionally contribute
to an economic collapse even if it would give themselves more money and
power, but having known Orman personally, I believe she has a
sociopathic and greedy makeup. Having witnessed her intentionally
causing harm to others almost a sport, I certainly would not put it past
the Suze Orman I knew to harm the economy just to enrich herself,
probably without even a moment’s hesitation. It is difficult for decent
people to understand the mechanics of sociopaths, but in some cases it is
greatly beneficial to know and stop the damage.
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From the U.S. News article, June 23, 2009:
Do you think you and other financial experts could have done a
better job of anticipating the crisis?
I'm a personal finance expert. My expertise is not as an economist, not
as a stock market guru, not as a precious metal predictor, or in interestrate foreshadowing. My job is to look at what happened in the economy
and what is going on in the world of finance and to tell people, based on
fact, this is what's happening now; this is what you need to do with your
personal money. To that end, I think I was really far and above anybody
else, and I got attacked for it.
In the same Larry King interview where she insisted that nobody
should spend their stimulus checks, Orman was given her usual CNN
infomercial space to pitch FICO scores, without disclosing that she was
making tens of millions of dollars from sales of the Suze Orman FICO kit.
Knowing Orman’s tactics, I would guess that “Stuart from Dana
Point's” real name just might be “Suze Orman from one of her five
homes,” or one of Orman’s publicists for this Larry King Live infomercial
moment that topped off Orman's irresponsible advice:
LARRY KING: An e-mail from Stuart, Dana Point California:
“What's the best, most trustworthy place online to get all my credit reports
and scores?”
ORMAN: Well, the only ones that really matter, if you ask me, is at
myFICO.com. There are credit scores and then there are FICO scores.
Approximately 80 percent of all the lenders out there only look at what's
called a FICO score. Fico stands for Fair Isaac Corporation, the company
that essentially created all this many, many years ago.
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So, look at your FICO score. And the way that you do it is you go to
myFICO.com. And with your fico score comes your credit report.
Guess whose face was waiting to greet “Stuart” and all of Larry King's
other viewers when they arrived at FICO.com?
Orman’s own portfolio
Everything Orman recommends that others should do is pretty much
the opposite of what she herself does, including investing. In the next
2007 New York Times article, Orman says a number of troubling things,
including responses regarding keeping her personal investments mostly
out of the stock market, at the same time she was advising her followers to
invest in stocks just before the stock market crashed.
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“She's So Money,” A New York Times interview by Deborah Soloman:
(Link 4-11)
How much are you worth these days? One journalist estimated my
liquid net worth at $25 million. That’s pretty close. (editor’s note: not
close at all) My houses are worth another $7 million.
What are your qualifications for giving financial advice, which you
do in your books, your column in Oprah’s magazine and your
CNBC television show? For seven years after college, I was a waitress at
the Buttercup Bakery in Berkeley, and from there I got a job at Merrill
Lynch as an account executive, from where I went to vice president of
investments for Prudential-Bache Securities. I started my own firm in
1987.
Do you enjoy spending money? Oh, yes. My greatest pleasure is still
flying private. I spend between $300,000 to $500,000, depending on my
year, on flying private.
What do you do with the rest of your money? Save it and build it in
municipal bonds. I buy zero-coupon municipal bonds, and all the bonds I
buy are triple-A-rated and insured so that even if the city goes under, I get
my money. I take a little lower interest rate to make sure my bonds are
100 percent safe and sound.
Do you play the stock market at all? I have a million dollars in the
stock market, because if I lose a million dollars, I don’t personally care.
Even though Orman claims to be all too happy to lose a million
dollars, those who followed her advice to put substantial amounts of their
money into stocks before the market crashed, houses before the housing
bubble burst, Orman’s gold “pump and dump” before gold plummeted,
and other Suze schemes probably did care about the money they lost
toward their retirements and other necessities of life.
Orman’s distorted personal advice
Many people may feel that Orman's financial information has been
useful in improving their spending habits and finances. The problem is
that this useful guidance is wrapped in all those scams and shams, as well
as Orman's problematic world views and ways of relating to people.
Of course, it is common sense and generally good advice to be frugal
and to only spend within your means. It is also true that helping people in
the wrong way, at the wrong time, or for the wrong person can increase
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their feelings of dependence and keep them from achieving the strength to
make it on their own, or leave your own accounts depleted.
However, Suze Orman turned not helping others into a virtual
commandment, directing parents to not help their children with college,
nor to help friends or family in need.
Here is one example of a self-proclaimed Suze Orman fan who regrets
having trusted Orman's advice without knowing more facts about her
personal life, from a comment on Tammy Bruce's blog after Orman
stopped hiding her sexual orientation in 2007:
I have been a fan of Suze Orman for many, many years. In fact, I
credit her with helping me achieve financial freedom. I never gave her
sexual preferences a second thought. She always flirted with the male
callers and created a sexual tension between she and her email co-host
Jeff, on her CNBC shows. I did however, used to find it odd that whenever
a woman called in to discuss her male partner's flagrant credit stories,
Suze ALWAYS recommended dumping the guy, divorcing the guy or just
plain getting rid of him. Suze never once suggested the two work it out and
solve the financial problem together. I also used to find it odd that she
would advice women to think of themselves first and forget their children.
For example: forget the college tuition and worry about socking
money away for your own retirement. Now, since Suze outed herself, it all
makes perfect sense. If I had known this information beforehand, I would
have handled her advice a bit differently. I had my own children endure
painful and costly student loans all in the sake of my own retirement. Suze
doesn't have children so how could she understand a mother's enduring
love? Suze has different problems in her partnership than a husband and
wife does.
I wish her much luck in the future. I just wish she could have been
more honest 10 years ago when I started following her advice. I may not
have cast off a relationship so easily.
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Chapter five
The “Approved” Card Scam and Media Wide Fraud
If anybody can't feel the negative energy coming from this photo,
it may be time for an intuition tune-up.
Previous to 2012, I had created an online blog to warn people about
Suze Orman’s scams, shams, and shenanigans, using whatever examples I’d
notice from Orman’s ubiquitous and unavoidable media presence, which
I would save into a computer folder named, “Lucy.”
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I already knew Orman was a crook and a sham, but proving that to
people who have been convinced to look up to her as an extremely
knowledgeable expert with integrity was a different matter altogether.
Then came Orman's “Approved” prepaid debit card scam fiasco, which
gave a clear and extensively well-documented view into Orman's
scamming ways.
Some shysters who successfully plunder the public time and time
again simply can’t stop and enjoy the tens of millions they’ve already got.
They feel the need to flaunt their liberties with more deceptions and keep
pushing the envelope and pushing their scams too far to be ignored, as it
seemed Orman did with her obviously fraudulent media appearances for
the “Approved” card, beginning in January 2012.
With her prepaid debit card scam, Orman took advantage of the very
same financially strapped people she was claiming to help. The card was
laden with fees at every turn—including two dollars for each call to
customer service, which card users had to do over and over when Orman’s
incompetent employees (intentionally) charged inappropriate fees,
locked people’s access to their own money, and completely lost many
users’ accounts.
When’s the last time you had to pay two dollars to call a bank when
they charged improper fees or lost your account? With Orman’s
“Approved” card, it happened all the time.
The card came with Orman’s most audaciously deceptive
misinformation campaign yet. The snake-oil pitches you will see her spew
throughout the media landscape in our film included several completely
false claims that she repeated endlessly, including the lie that using her
fee-infested “Approved” prepaid debit card was likely to improve card
users’ FICO scores, and her confident promise that the card would never
cost them more than three dollars a month, notwithstanding the card’s
twenty fees, from one dollar to thirty dollars a pop.
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Even with such an obvious ploy that anyone educated in finance
would know was illogical at best, Orman nearly shouted the same
deceptive and blatantly false phrases throughout the media and political
landscape. Her passionate, evangelical flavored lies were hosted by some
of the top journalists of our time.
“This card will never cost you more than three dollars a month, if you
use it like how I tell you to.” “This is the first prepaid card IN HISTORY
that will be sharing information with one of the three credit bureaus,
TransUnion.” “You can get a FICO score! You’ve got to join me on this
people!”
Orman called her scam a “Financial Revolution,” and introduced it at
the prestigious National Press Club, compliments of Hilary Rosen, the PR
tycoon, political lobbyist, publicity strategist, CNN commentator, media
broker, and corporate damage control expert who represented and used
her abundant contacts to push Orman and her prepaid card scam.
Orman’s repeated media-fueled emotings about the card were clearly
intended to fool and exploit especially middle class and low income
people who weren’t financially savvy. She used a truly absurd latticework
of obfuscations to fool her soon-to-be financial fraud victims into thinking
that moving their money onto her prepaid debit card was going to
improve their FICO scores.
Financially savvy folks would know that a debit card cannot and
indeed should not be used to determine credit trustworthiness, since
prepaid card use tells creditors nothing that would have any relevance for
calculating someone’s credit risk for a mortgage or loan.
Actual experts in the industry have been looking for alternative credit
risk data avenues for some time. What they’re leaning toward, and what
makes much more sense, is to take into account how a person pays their
utility, cable, phone, and other bills, which is closer to a credit lending
situation than being foolish enough to move your money onto Suze
Orman’s fee infested card.
In fact, using a prepaid card when there are so many far better, usually
free alternatives, would more appropriately be a strike against someone’s
credit score. It either shows how uneducated the person is about the
financial services world, or that they’ve destroyed their credit so much, or
have legal judgments against them that cause them to want to hide their
money on a fee-laden, bottom of the barrel predatory financial product
like Suze Orman’s prepaid card.
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Repeating her well-rehearsed repertoire, Orman incessantly rattled
off the list of things that having a bad FICO score would effect in one’s life,
with the promise that her card was the answer to those problems. With
her scare tactics drama turned all the way up, Orman rightly said that
FICO scores may affect whether a landlord will rent to someone, or could
determine car loan or mortgage rates. However, she often repeated that
employers were using FICO scores to decide who to hire, in spite of
journalists pointing out that her assertion was false.
From “Credit Scores and Employment Screening: Dispelling the
Credit Myth of the Decade” on the CreditSesame blog:
In January 2012 Suze Orman introduced her prepaid debit card,
The Approved Card, and went to the airways to sell the plastic.
Unfortunately included in the marketing pitch was a ubiquitous
suggestion that if you don’t have a FICO score it can cost you a job.
The three main credit bureaus gave their positions on Orman’s frequent
scare tactic:
— Equifax: “Credit scores are not sold for employment screening
purposes.”
— Experian: “Credit scores are never used for employment purposes.”
— TransUnion: “TransUnion does not provide credit scores for
employment purposes.”
With FICO selling the Suze Orman FICO kit, and her incessant
pitching of the importance of FICO scores, at times with false, Orman had
FICO by the same greed-based avocados that have kept many others,
including the United States’ government, from protecting the public from
her deceptive schemes.
Remember how in Chapter Two we saw that Orman actually helped
to put Fair Isaac’s “experiment” of the FICO score on the map, which
garnered her serious corporate sponsored cred?
Orman really put the FICO folks in a bind with this prepaid card
scam. She had already pushed the limit several years earlier, by offering a
“FICO 4 You” kit on QVC that she touted as offering the full FICO scores
one would get in her kit with Fair Isaac, but which only gave TransUnion’s
scores (yes, TransUnion helped her with another scam!) Orman’s “FICO
4 You” kit garnered many complaints and one–star reviews on QVC, until
the product was eventually pulled.
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Here’s one of many QVC customers who were fooled by Orman and
TransUnion into putting more money into their accounts.
With that and many more shams behind her, con artist Suze Orman
was back to milk her partnerships with TransUnion and FICO for a much
bigger, bolder, and more devious deception, her “Approved” card scam
that, if successful, would result in millions of Americans moving their
money from banks into her pockets and the coffers of Orman’s partners,
Bancorp and MasterCard.
Here’s how finance journalist Tim Chen described prepaid cards in
his Forbes article, “Suze Orman And Lil' Wayne: A Match Made In
Heaven” (Link 5-1)
With the Kim Kardashian debit card long dead, we can all have a
good laugh at the memory of that prepaid monstrosity. But don’t think
the terror is at an end. Rising from the smoldering crater of the Kim card
are two new celebrity abominations: the Approved Card by Suze Orman
and the Young Money Card by Lil' Wayne.
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Celebrity prepaid debit cards are both hilarious and horrifying.
Hilarious because they are an excruciatingly obvious ploy to feed the
greed of money-bloated fame-mongers. Horrifying because they prey on
the poor and financially illiterate…
In reality, prepaid debit is nothing short of extortionate chicanery.
You might as well send your life savings to a stranded Nigerian prince
who chanced upon your e-mail address and relayed a desperate plea for
financial support. Prepaid debit will eat your money, lick its lips and ask
for more.
These were the official fees for Orman’s “Approved” card:
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That list does not include the fees people had to pay to load money
onto the card, which cost from $3.95 to $4.95 for each deposit, or all the
lost accounts and improper charges from Orman’s super-shoddy
“Approved” card customer service center in the Philippines.
In gangster brilliance, the card was set up so that every little technical
glitch in the card brought another windfall of fees into Orman's pockets.
Even journalists who had stayed silent when they should have
exposed Orman's previous shenanigans finally spoke up, en masse. Well
over one hundred articles by financial journalists top to bottom, warned
consumers about this card, with flavors that ranged from gentle political
correctness to blunt criticisms calling out Suze Orman's “Approved card
scam.”
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In spite of all the bad press for Orman’s most deceptive and predatory
scheme to date, nearly the entire mainstream media hosted her fraud,
acting as though they believed it was a valid movement to help the middle
class and poor.
The “Approved” card scam was pushed by many television shows,
print and online articles, radio interviews, and in a poverty conference,
where Michael Moore praised Orman’s prepaid card as “revolutionary,”
and said she was putting her life at risk to undertake this great effort.
Orman was given full reign to con attendees at the NCLR Latino
Conference, on many CNN news shows, and at the National Press Club,
where Tavis Smiley read Orman’s script and pledged his undying support
to any and all of Orman’s “endeavors,” past, present, and future.
Watching all this, I could only wonder if these journalists, celebrities,
and activists were really too foolish and lazy to even look at the card’s
website or notice the over one hundred articles published just in the first
few months of 2012, warning people about Orman’s prepaid card scam.
Were these hosts ignorant, lazy, foolish, or complicit? What other option
could there be? Perhaps some were bribed or blackmailed into giving up
their integrity?
Interviews with Orman about her prepaid card were featured on
National Public Radio and by satellite linkup by local news stations across
the country. The card was enthusiastically recommended by Wendy
Williams, advertised by Anderson Cooper with incorrect information on
his show and website, and endured by Barbara Walters, who was
obviously uncomfortable while allowing Orman to fool the audience of
The View.
Orman ran her obvious scam in an awkward but revealing Huffington
Post interview about the card with Arianna Huffington, who just nodded
through the con as though in a trance, and with George Stephanopoulos
as he tried to make sense of her snake oil tomfoolery on Good Morning
America. Orman somehow managed to get Juju Chang to laugh at her
flagrant con game and blatantly lie to viewers of ABC News on Orman’s
behalf. You’ll see clips of all these examples in our documentary film,
“How Suze Orman SCAMMED the World.”
Orman was on a cocaine-style overdrive frenzy, emphatically speaking
with wild gestures and over the top inflections and slogans to give the
impression that this low-end, predatory financial product that should be
someone’s last recourse was the financial messiah itself. “We can change
America, everybody, you’ve got to join me in this!” “This card will NEVER cost
you more than three dollars a month.” “You can get a FICO score!” “I want to
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change your life!” And compliments of the Jerry Macguire’s screenwriter,
“Can you just help me help you?”
It was during this part of my research into Orman’s shenanigans that I
saw a much more troubling view of the behind-the-scenes media and
political corruption and complicity that has supported and protected the
likes of con artist Suze Orman and others who look to make a profit from
plundering the well being of the public, the economy, and our world.
Watching political lobbyist Hilary Rosen push the “Approved” card
scam as Orman’s publicity strategist, political lobbyist, and damage
control expert was all I needed to know about any of Rosen’s other
associations.
Maybe those beholden to Rosen and the Orman cabal know that she’s
dirty, but would rather have her on their side. As the Eagles band members
once said about their ruthless manager, “He’s Satan, but he’s our Satan.”
The cabal webs go on and on, but let’s get back to looking at Orman’s
“Approved” card scam. In our film, you’ll see Suze Orman committing
blatant fraud throughout the media landscape as she emphatically
spewed completely false claims that her prepaid card would raise poor
and middle class users' FICO scores and would only cost $3 per month.
Orman repeated these same false talking points in appearance after
appearance and interview after interview, along with the same confusing
distraction of bragging about the incredibly brilliant design of her card,
which was just a basic purple card.
Orman tossed out the same mumbo jumbo to Barbara Walters and
Nate Berkus, explaining that this purple color represented a merging of
democrats and republicans, red and blue, because “money should be there
for everybody to enjoy and better their lives.”
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— Watch Orman pull her ridiculous purple card shenanigans with
legendary journalist Barbara Walters on The View: Link 5-2b
— Watch Orman’s purple card snake oil silliness on the Nate Berkus
Show: Link 5-2a
Berkus: So Suze, you just launched a new prepaid card, this is
a debit card. I’ve seen you do some interviews where you were a
little bit defensive about people saying, “Oh, why is Suze
Orman launching a credit card? Does she need more money?
What’s this all about? What’s the real story with this?
Orman: Well, before I tell you the real story with it, I have to
ask you what you think of the design of it?
Burkus: I think it’s great.
Orman: ‘Cause KT designed it. (Orman’s partner and wife)
Burkus: KT? I love this!...So I love the design, I think it’s
great, I love that it has your name on it, it’s the Approved card.
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Orman: Do you know why it’s purple?
Burkus: No, why is it purple?
Orman: Ready for this, everybody? When you mix red with
blue, you get purple! So, do you get it, politically? The red
party, the blue party.
Burkus: Oh! It’s like we’ve just gone on a tangent that I’m not
following, and it’s my show.
Orman: If the world simply didn’t care about politics, they
cared about merging politics so that all of us could be taken care
of, and that our needs were put in front of their re-election
needs, we would all be purple!!!
Orman also gave this telling vision of the poor and middle
class having nothing to do with material possessions, while
she’d obviously keep filling her life with more luxuries:
Orman: I want the new American dream to have absolutely
nothing to do with material possessions. I want it to be that you
have self worth, and because you have self worth, you have net
worth. (cue the applause sign)
Burkus: Good advice, that’s good advice.
Too egotistical to hide the spoils of her scams, Orman bragged on
Good Morning America, ABC News, and other outlets that, because she
wasn't just endorsing but had personally created and invested her own
money in the card, she expected to “make a fortune” off of it. In our film,
you’ll hear her say to George Stepanopoulos, “Do I hope to make money off
this? You betcha I do!”
Here is Orman’s deceptive Press Release, calling her fee-laden prepaid
debit card—the kind of product any good financial advisor would advise
staying far away from—a “Financial Revolution.” Orman would also call
her card a “grass roots project,” with those old Ma and Pa corner store
companies Orman partnered with, Bancorp and MasterCard.
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From Orman’s “Approved” card press release:
NEW YORK, Jan. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Suze
Orman, American personal finance icon, best-selling author and Emmyaward-winning television host, today launched The Approved Prepaid
MasterCard®. The Approved Card™ isn't just another financial product
or a normal prepaid card. It's the start of a financial revolution to enable
Americans to empower themselves. Orman, the longtime financial
crusader, is inviting consumers to join her “PEOPLE FIRST” movement
with her Approved Card. Suze didn't just endorse this card – SHE
CREATED IT from the ground up to change the way people think about
and use their cash.
Suze Orman said: “For me, The Approved Card is a mission. It's the
single most important thing I've done in my whole career. This is my
answer for all those who are looking for a better way to bank, use plastic
and feel secure knowing that their interests are being put before fees and
profit motives. People are tired of not getting fair financial deals.”
Regarding Orman’s claims across the media landscape that using her
card was going save America and give card users improved FICO scores,
the otherwise silent Fair Isaac Corporation gave only one response to one
of the journalists who were asking for clarification, Eileen Ambrose for the
Baltimore Sun.
Ambrose first said that “TransUnion did not return phone calls seeking
information about the pilot program,” then went on to quote FICO
spokesman Anthony A. Sprauve in the only quote anyone from Fair Isaac
gave to any journalist about the card: “In our experience, spending is not
actually a great indicator of the thing that the FICO score tries to measure,
which is the likelihood you're going to default on a credit bill,” or, in other
words, Orman’s big “Financial revolution” to get her card to create and
improve users’ FICO scores was complete nonsense, dead in the water,
put forth only to improve her bank accounts.
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While Orman was spewing all kinds of deceptions about
TransUnion’s involvement and excitement about using the “Approved”
card to get users improved FICO scores, TransUnion issued only a single
short and vague response to many questions by many finance journalists
who were writing articles to warn their readers about the card and
wanted to know where TransUnion stood in the matter.
TransUnion’s one official response, given to a journalist who was less
critical about Orman's card than others, was emailed to her with these
carefully crafted words:
“TransUnion is committed to supporting Suze's efforts to understand the
impact of pre-paid card use on an individual's credit health. Our goal is to help
Suze understand whether including this data in a consumer's credit report
would impact access to credit products.”
It doesn't say a word about being interested in the research
themselves or about any interest in this information from
FICO. Rather, TransUnion is “supporting Suze's efforts,” and
“helping Suze understand.” See the scam?
Anderson Cooper jumped aboard the “Suze Orman infomercial train”
by hosting her scam on his show and putting this misleading information
on his website:
“With this new debit card, Suze wants to help build FICO scores for those
making the responsible choice to use cash instead of going into debt with credit
cards.”
Perhaps one could posit that saying, “Suze wants to help build FICO
scores,” is accurate, since it didn’t indicate that there’s a chance it might
happen, which there wasn’t.
Maybe it was like saying someone wants world peace. In this case,
there was no indication that Orman even thought there was a remote
chance that her proclaimed mission might ever happen, or that she really
cared about the welfare of the poor and middle class card users she was
pretending to support.
Anderson included Orman’s quote, “For me, The Approved Card is a
mission. It’s the single most important thing I’ve done in my whole career. This
is my answer for all those who are looking for a better way to bank, use plastic,
and feel secure knowing that their interests are being put before fees and profit
motives.” This hogwash was hosted on supposedly trustworthy and
intelligent journalist Anderson Cooper’s show and posted on his blog.
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Here is a sampling of how widely Orman’s prepaid card
misinformation fraud spread through social media by many who were not
only fooled by Orman’s fraudulent FICO claims, but deviously conned
into spreading the predatory deception to their family and friends:
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Like lambs to the slaughter…
This is simply a PR media-fueled fraud. Orman saying over and over
that her “Approved” card will send your personal buying information to
TransUnion, a “major credit bureau,” would be like telling someone, “If
you pay me a long list of fees to help your writing career, I'll send your
writings to top publishers,” and just putting the pages into an envelope
and sending them off to be tossed on the slush piles with all the other
unsolicited documents.
At least in the manuscript analogy, there is a small percentage of
chance that one of the slush pile interns might notice their writings in the
recycle bin and find them worthy of showing someone at the company,
whereas Orman’s “Approved” card sending anonymous information
about whether you used your card to buy coffee or dog food was never
going to do a thing to help any one’s FICO score.
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If Orman were really offering this debit card as a genuine movement
to help consumers and change the credit score system as she proclaimed,
she wouldn't have been asking some of the poorest people to pay big fees
to give their personal information for her so-called “experiment” that
considered only information from her flash in the pan card, when there
are already many established prepaid cards in use that could have been
studied, if Orman’s “People First movement” was anything more than a
fraudulent mirage.
Someone who really wanted to change the FICO scoring system
might lobby for reporting companies to look at a person’s history of
paying for rent, utilities, and other bills on time—payments that might
show the person's trustworthiness more accurately than having
TransUnion look only at where defrauded victims spent their money with
their Suze Orman “Approved” prepaid card.
Along with FICO and TransUnion, Orman’s spokesperson also gave
only one shady response to questions about the card, also only to one
finance journalist.
With not a shred of accurate information to refute criticisms about
Orman’s prepaid card scam, because the whole “Approved” card was
nothing more than a case of greed-fueled snake oil smoke-and-mirrors, this
is what Orman’s spokesperson, Jill Zuckman, managing director
specializing in strategic communications for Hilary Rosen's
SKDKnickerbocker, said to Bloomberg: (Link 5-3)
Through her spokeswoman, Jill Zuckman, Orman declined to
respond to a list of questions. “Suze is very proud of her work to create the
Approved Card and she is gratified by the overwhelming response to the
card and her effort to overhaul the way credit is scored in this country,”
Zuckman wrote in an e-mail statement. “We’re going to let others debate
the questions that you raise.”
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As for what TransUnion might have gotten from this deal, aside from
access to a whole lot of free personal spending data, “Mr. Consumer,” Ed
Dworsky points out, “If you only read the headlines about the free
TransUnion credit score, report and credit monitoring benefit, you may miss
the fact that the service is only free for the first year. After that, if you want to
keep it, it is $143.40 a year.”
Again, this $143.40 per year charge is for credit score information that
can easily be accessed for free on sites such as Credit Karma, which also
gives access to the other two main bureau scores, along with
TransUnion—all 100% free. It didn’t take too many uneducated users of
Orman's card trusting her enough to pay this ridiculous, completely
unnecessary annual fee of $143.40 for Orman to plunder more big profits
from the poor and uneducated for herself and TransUnion.
“Mr. Consumer” also noted:
Conspicuously missing from their fee list is the cost to deposit money
onto your card at an ATM or in person at a store.
Apparently you can only add money at locations that support either
Moneygram or Western Union payments. The cost, they say, is typically
$3.00 – $4.95. Whatta deal.
No government agencies to date have taken proper steps to refund
victims’ money from Orman’s blatant fraud, or to question TransUnion or
FICO about their role in the scam.
Financial Journalists Finally Speak Up
If well over one hundred journalists had not spoken up to warn the
public about Orman’s prepaid card scam, millions more who have been
incorrectly convinced by Oprah Winfrey, Larry King, John King, Barbara
Walters, Anderson Cooper, and other major media figures into believing
that this woman who has almost zero credentials or education in the field
of finance is to be trusted as some kind of financial “genius” “wizard” and
“guru,” may have fallen for Orman's misleading, fevered pitches.
If Orman had been totally successful with her “People First Financial
Revolution Movement,” which was more of a “rip-off poor people and the
middle class” fraud campaign, she might have moved perhaps hundreds of
millions or billions of dollars from their bank accounts onto that stupid
prepaid card.
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This next video link shows an overview presentation of some of the
problems with Orman’s card by finance experts John Ulzheimer and Ryan
Mack. Mack used to be an Orman fan until he saw her making this move to
swindle the poor and middle class with a fraudulent misinformation
campaign. The clip includes a telling Freudian slip by Orman as she
pitches her card at the National Press Club, and in a rare slip of honesty
says, “The intention behind this card is to give people the least cost-effective
way for them to be able to pay online, to be able to have a card to access things,
because it's very dangerous today sometimes to carry cash around.” It really
would be hard to find a less cost-effective way for people to access their
own money than Orman’s card. Link 5-4
In an article on African American Money, Mack gave several reasons
why Orman’s illogical claim that her card was going to improve users’
FICO scores was a bunch of baloney:
1.
If organizations thought it would be useful to gather data of the use of
those who use prepaid debit cards as a referendum of responsibility
they could have done so already with information that is currently
available from other prepaid debit cards on the market.
2.
The data is only being shared with TransUnion which has agreed to
collect specific data to determine if it can relate to the Vantage Score.
FICO is not involved at all in this research and the primary tool to
rate credit by use of lenders is FICO. Therefore, Vantage scoring is
essentially useless and does little or no good to the consumer.
3.
Prepaid debit cards are the same as cash and therefore will never have
any bearing on credit. When you attempt to purchase a home, a
lender’s primary question is “how responsible were you in paying back
your debt?”
The data gathered from a prepaid debit card that shows a consumer has
an ability to spend money is pointless; everyone has the ability to spend
money but not everybody is responsible in how they repay money.
For many financial journalists who had either trusted Orman or gone
along with her previous shams for various possible reasons, this obvious
scam was a real challenge.
Here was this supposedly trustworthy financial advisor that many of
them had recommended to their readers without properly investigating
her behavior, advice, and almost complete lack of finance credentials. And
now, after all these years of earning tens of millions of dollars, this
supposedly trustworthy “finance expert” Suze Orman was doing
something that any honest finance expert would know is a complete
sham.
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Fortunately for individuals and the United States economy, financial
journalists finally spoke up en masse, with various levels of bluntness,
gentleness, and trepidation. Here are just a few of those articles:
“Suze Orman and Lil' Wayne: A Match Made in Heaven,” Forbes
“In their eagerness to capitalize on a trendy and morally dubious
market, Suze Orman and Lil' Wayne will only deepen the financial woes
of the unbanked. Spread the word. If enough truth proliferates, these
prepaid atrocities will succumb to the same embarrassing fate as the
Kardashian catastrophe.”
“Beware of Suze Orman Card!” Fox Business
“Look, by Suze’s own standards, pre-paid debit cards are a waste of
money because of the fees they charge. But, to me, the problems are even
bigger than that. I've been highly critical of the nation’s largest banks. But
that doesn't mean I want consumers to leave the banking system.
“Suze Orman Debit Card Raises Many Doubts, MarketWatch
“So when the biggest name in personal finance announced “The
Approved Card from Suze Orman,” you can bet that her legion of
adoring fans, primed by her massive media reach, were thinking “If Suze
approved it, that’s good enough for me.” It isn't
“Pre-paid Debit Card: Is Orman's Evil?” CreditSense
“The bottom-line to all this noise is Suze Orman sold out what she
has preached for years, for the almighty dollar. She sold out to line her
pockets.
“Suze Orman's Cream of the Crap,” SheBloggs
“Suze states that her card will help your credit score because she’s
collaborated with one of the credit bureaus and your transactions will be
reported to that credit bureau in order to build your credit. I can’t think of
anything else more misleading than this.... They benefit from the use of
this data not you.”
“The Troubling Fine Print of Suze Orman's Prepaid Card,” Reuters
“If Orman “hates extra fees,” as she says in the advertising, then why
promote a card that's loaded with them?”
“Suze's Prepaid Card: Can You Afford It?” AP distributed to
USA Today, Seattle Times, CBS, and other newspapers
“Don't choose a prepaid card just because it's from Suze Orman.”
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“Young, Gullible, and Broke: Suze Orman's Debit Card FAIL,”
So Over Debt
“My thoughts on Suze's fee-riddled card and crappy attitude? DENIED!”
“Suze Orman Card: Rip-off or Righteous?” CBS MoneyWatch
“Most people could do better - much better - elsewhere... At the same
time, she has a loyal following of people who appear willing to take her
advice, no matter where it leads. In this case, her advice would lead you to
buy a piece of purple plastic that comes with a load of little “gotcha” fees
and few unique benefits.”
“Suze Orman, Debit Card Dealer,” Bloomberg Businessweek
“Orman dismisses the criticisms, saying the card reflects her
understanding of people’s financial habits and needs. “I am the personal
financial expert of the world,” she says. “I know what I am talking about.”
Publicly, Orman lashed out on Twitter against the naysayers, calling
them “small thinkers,” “idiots,” and “Suze haters.”
“You Don't Need Suze Orman's Prepaid Card,” Personal Dividends
“In the middle of the furor surrounding Occupy Wall Support, Suze
Orman has been using code like “99%” as part of her marketing blitz to
drum up support. The problem that many personal finance blogger types
have with the card is that Suze is marketing it as a viable alternative to
banking — even for those who are able to get a checking account.”
“The Approved Prepaid Debit Card: Suze Orman Falls Short”
Nerdwallet
"It’s puzzling (and disturbing) that a supposed finance guru would advise
her followers to embark on such a foolhardy journey. Orman knows
cardholders can easily accumulate over $100 in fees every year. She knows
her card won’t help improve anyone’s FICO score. She knows the
backlash and criticism incurred by similar celebrity money pits. And yet,
she’s pushing through proudly. “I didn't just approve this card. I created
it,” she boasts. How long before the condemnations of the financial experts
shame the Approved Card into submission? We’re expecting devastating
critical repercussions, and if Orman wants to maintain her status as a
financial authority, you can bet she'll rethink her profit strategies."
“Suze Orman: Advisor or Pitchman?” Consumer World
"As she admits in smaller print, debit card purchase information is not
part of anyone’s credit report and does not affect your credit score. She
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merely has a desire to see whether providing card use and purchase
behavior to Trans Union will be considered in the future as a predictor of
creditworthiness. Put another way, Suze has put a clever spin on the fact
that she is sharing your purchase history with an outside company."
“Suze Orman’s Prepaid Card Will Not Affect Your Credit Score,”
Credit Services Blog
"The biggest misunderstanding to which many of our Twitter friends seem
to have fallen prey, unfortunately stoked up by Orman herself, seems to be
the notion that the Approved Card, as it is called, can help users improve
their credit scores. So let’s set the record straight: the Approved Card does
not affect your credit score in any way."
Orman’s response?
If not for the media backlash against her card, this fraudulent scheme
may have been successful, with tens of millions of people who blindly
trusted and followed Orman’s advice moving their money out of the
banking system and onto her shoddy prepaid card.
That could have potentially caused even more collapse to the
economy and subsequent damage to individuals than Suze Orman had
already caused with her reckless and tainted advice.
All these articles criticizing Orman’s card were still detailing much
less than the bigger problem. Some even suggested that her three dollar
per month charge was better than some other prepaid cards.
Yet, not a single journalist properly reported on the fact that Orman’s
“Approved” card was sopping up improper funds left and right from
clients who had been convinced to put their money on the card and pay
all the usual fees in hopes of improving their FICO scores. Not one
journalist that I know of reported on how the card was locking out access,
losing accounts and charging inappropriate fees, while making a mint by
charging two dollars for every call to the card’s completely incompetent
customer service center, leaving many card users without any money to
pay their rent or feed their children.
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Amy’s plight points out another part of Orman’s predatory scheme
that took place after the articles had their run on Orman’s card. In 2013,
bank transfers stopped working with the “Approved” card, with no notice
to card users. Bank-to-card transfer and direct deposit were the only two
ways card users could avoid several of Orman's twenty fees.
Remember that all this thievery came after Orman lied across the
media landscape, promising her card would only cost three dollars a
month, “if you use it how I tell you to.” Unfortunately, Orman never told
anyone how to use it without pouring their hard-earned money into her
offshore bank accounts.
With this unannounced change by Orman’s card, any customers who
did not have direct deposit set up with their jobs had to start paying $2 to
withdraw money even from the designated ATMs, $1 for a balance
inquiry, and other fees that were supposed to be waived for card users
who deposited money directly from their bank accounts.
Of course, using bank-to-card transfers to move money to a prepaid
card makes no sense for anyone who already has a bank account to
transfer funds from, since they would be able to get a free debit card with
their account. Now, Orman’s fraud victims who had previously been using
bank transfers had to start paying $3.95 to $4.95 to use a service like
Western Union for the privilege of moving their money onto the fee-laden
card, and into Suze Orman’s pockets.
After the hundred-plus articles by financial bloggers and top
journalists criticizing the “Approved” card were published in blogs and
major media venues, Orman's PR machine (Hilary Rosen and SKDK, of
BP oil spill fame) went into overdrive to find supposedly trustworthy
shows and news outlets that would still give Orman almost
unquestioning infomercial-style media space to pitch the con.
I'd imagine there's quite a behind-the-scenes story to this excessive
loyalty shown by some in the media. Hopefully others can uncover more
of the mechanics that allowed Orman to be placed in a position of
extreme trust despite her extreme untrustworthiness.
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This one fraud would have landed anyone else in prison:
Orman says if she finds people are incurring fees to put cash on the
card, only to spend another $2 to get cash at an ATM, she will ask them
to turn in their plastic. If you’re going to squander money that way, “just
keep it in cash! You don’t need the damn card,” she tells the audience at
the book signing.
Michael Collins, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin
who studies the financial decision-making of low-income families, says
people will eventually figure out the costs of any product. “The question is
how long will it take” and how much in fees they will have racked up by
then, he says.
In contrast with their obvious “hands off” policy toward Orman, the
Federal Trade Commission went after author and weight loss huckster
Kevin Trudeau, who was sentenced to ten years in prison and required to
pay millions of dollars in restitution, for “misleading ads about his book.”
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Trudeau was jailed for using misleading ads to sell his bestselling book
that, like Orman's products, some people found useful. He was accused of
“hosting a series of deceptive infomercials designed to look like radio and
TV news interviews.”
Meanwhile, Suze Orman was committing fraud across the media
landscape, on real TV news shows, for her prepaid card and other scams.
Yet, there was never a peep by any government agencies, except to lavishly
praise that con artist.
Many financially savvy folks could see that Suze Orman’s “Approved”
card was a scam. Here’s one of the hundreds of critical comments from
finance professionals on the articles about Orman's card:
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The charge to pay to talk to a customer service rep is one of the oldest
scams in the credit card industry. This allows the credit card company to
screw up your account and then charge you to straighten out their
screwup. The other charges are similar. A free paper statement is required
by the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). Orman is a scammer who
talked her way through missing every prediction about the housing
market. NBC will can her when her contract expires (as they should.)
Aside from the fact that CNBC did renew Orman’s contract in spite
of all the complaints about her troubling shenanigans (although they
finally canned her in 2015), Chris is exactly right about what happened to
unsuspecting prey who purchased the card.
One blogger tried out the Suze Orman prepaid card herself, since she
was writing a free e-book to help homeless people with their finances and
thought it might be a good option for them. Even with her own financial
savvy, Becky was immediately hit with unexpected fees that give a glimpse
into how the card scammed people who had been hooked by Orman’s
fraudulent claims:
Because the ApprovedCard.com web site is so buggy, I had to request
my password and user name several times. Each time I tried to use the
names, they were rejected. Finally the site locked my attempts to protect
my account security. Fine. Then I called the toll free number to get help
with that, and was told that it would cost me $2 to speak with a live
person. $2??!! Really? It costs me $2 to talk to someone in customer
service about YOUR product, a product that DOESN’T WORK?
The main people who might need to have a prepaid debit card would
be those who have made so many egregious financial mistakes that not
even a Credit Union will give them a bank account.
Of course, these are also the most likely to NOT use this fee-laden
card as Suze told them to use it, (if she had in fact told them how to use it
to avoid the inevitable fees). These lowest income, uneducated folks lost a
significant chunk of their few dollars, right into Orman’s pockets.
Nerdwallet offered a comparison of different prepaid cards, and
identified seven other cards that would be less expensive with general use
than Orman's card. Without even taking into account all the shoddy
plundering and incompetent extra fees and $2 customer service calls that
plagued “Approved” card users, Nerdwallet estimated the card would cost
most users $192/year just for the privilege of using their own money, and
that's if they didn’t require any extra documentation or other requests
that carried fees up to $30 each.
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Here are some examples of additional fees “Approved” card users
encountered:
— If a company you paid didn't cash your check properly or said they
didn't receive the check, that would be $30.00 out of your account
into Bancorp's and Orman's pockets for you to do a payment inquiry,
along with paying $2 for each phone call to the “Approved” card's
problematic customer service to straighten the problem out.
— If the place you paid by check for a $1 fee changed their address, or if
you mistakenly had the check sent to the wrong address, that would
be a “postal reject” charge of $25.00 for you.
— If you were in a store and wanted to get some cash back instead of
driving or walking to get to a 7-11 (where you could use the ATM for
free only if you had direct-deposited cash onto the card within the
previous 30 days), then that would be $2 in fees just for getting some
of your own cash back along with your purchase.
— If you didn’t have direct deposit and simply wanted to find out how
much of your own money you had left on the “Approved” card, that
inquiry cost you a $1 “balance inquiry fee” at the ATM, or $2 to check
your balance by calling customer service.
The Approved Card fee page didn’t even explain what any of these
twenty fee charges meant—something you might expect to find from a
supposedly trustworthy financial educator.
Along with all these fees, every purchase made with Orman’s
“Approved” card put interchange fees—which for prepaid debit cards can
be much higher than with regulated credit card—into Orman's pockets.
Quite a racket, Scamming Suze!
When some bloggers and journalists respectfully questioned Orman
about her questionable new card, she called them “losers and idiots,” and
the shell finally broke enough to allow some light to shine on Orman's
façade. These bloggers and journalists stood up and spoke up to protect
consumers, in spite of all the possible repercussions that could have come
from invoking the wrath of Orman and her supporters.
“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people
who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
—Albert Einstein
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Credit Sesame shared their warning about Orman's prepaid debit card
in a creative way, by offering a minesweeper game called “The Prepaid
Card Mine Field” that compared Orman's “Approved” card to those
offered by Lil’ Wayne and Russell Simmons.
Here is the game's end screen that represents a cardholder being
charged each fee once. With this calculation, Orman's card would cost
$145.95, far above Lil' Wayne's card at $29.30, and the Russell Simmon's
card at $63.89.
CreditSesame added: (Link 5-5)
Suze Orman is a modern-day Horatio Alger story. Once a waitress in
the San Francisco bay, she is now one of the most trusted experts in
personal finance. Ms. Orman created controversy last week, however,
when she debuted her prepaid debit card.
Prepaid debit cards are a controversial subject anyway. Loaded with
hidden fees, prepaid cards are often mistakenly marketed as a way to
build credit. Typically targeted to the unbanked population, prepaid
cards allow people who can’t otherwise access credit cards or checking
accounts the convenience of paying bills online and making purchases by
credit or debit like everyone else.
That’s the good side. The bad side is that prepaid cards often come
with a bevvy of fees, hidden and not so hidden. The fees are most troubling
when it comes to Orman’s product. She often touts herself as a champion
of consumers and a proponent of financial responsibility. The card itself is
advertised as a way to teach young adults financial responsibility and
inadvertently implies that the card will help build credit by being reported
to TransUnion, one of the three major credit reporting agencies.
169
Without joining in the pig pile on Ms. Orman, it’s important to
understand that prepaid cards won’t help establish or build credit. In this
case, it feels as though the marketing folks behind Ms. Orman’s prepaid
card pushed their creative marketing skills to their proverbial limit. While
the card will report spending habits to TransUnion as a sort of pilot
testing program, it will not help establish or build credit.
None of the journalists really got into the bigger problem with
Orman’s card than its many fees and her deceptive pitches, which is that
the card stole from users left and right. This fellow got stung trying to help
support Orman’s “People First” movement:
This woman had to pay for several two-dollar calls to customer
service just to activate her card, and then was charged $150 in late fees
and had her credit harmed, due to the “Approved” card’s incompetent bill
pay system, which required more two-dollar calls to Orman’s customer
service center in the Philippines. Melissa even tried to alert Oprah
Winfrey, but as you can see in our film, Oprah doesn’t care.
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Orman never mentioned that “Approved” card users would not be
able to use her card to “pay at the pump” when they’d buy gas, or to book a
hotel or rent a car. The maximum someone could load onto the card was
$9000 per month, the maximum they could spend of their own money in
any day was $2000, and the maximum bill payment for any month was
$5000.
“The Approved Card” was a deceptive name really, since it would be
like saying you are approved to purchase a store’s gift card with your own
money and pay a bunch of fees to do it. Are you approved, or is the card
approved, and by whom? It was more Suze Orman make-believe
nonsense.
Orman’s scams are like the movie “Groundhog Day,” when Bill
Murray’s character knew he couldn’t die, and tried all kind of lifethreatening acts, only to wake up the next morning without a bruise.
Suze Orman knows she is so well protected by “the cabal” that she can
run even the most outlandish, blatantly predatory and thieving schemes,
only to wake up the next day with no repercussions, ready to scam again.
Another small but intriguing point about Orman’s Approved card
that most journalists missed was uncovered on Gerri Willis’s FOX
Business news show, in a segment titled, “Suze Orman’s Prepaid Debit
Card Full of Flaws?” Gerri explained: (Link 5-6)
“You know, we looked at getting a card, testing it out and seeing what
it was like. We noticed that when you go through that process, what you
find out is that you’ve got to have a credit card to get a card. Now, this
just confounds me. If I had a credit card, I wouldn’t need a prepaid debit
card!”
Gerri Willis was quite a hero in speaking up and exposing this and
other flaws with Orman’s card, while news anchors at CNN and other
channels were unfortunately helping Orman run her scam.
On another Willis show, Smart Credit’s John Ulzheimer explained
why prepaid cards are some of the worst financial products around.
(Link 5-7)
“When we’re talking about financial services products, if I asked you
to rank them all from the best to the worst, the prepaid debit card has to
be right down there with pawn shops and title loans and payday lending.
It is not a good product; it has a horrible reputation, primarily because of
the fees that you’re going to pay—by hook or by crook, you’re going to
pay these fees, one way or the other—to get access to your own money.
That is a huge problem with these products.”
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Here’s the screen where card applicants had to give their credit card
number to sign up for Orman’s prepaid card.
Television Clips of Orman's Prepaid Card Fraud
Here are just a few video clips from Orman's extensive, widespread,
media misinformation campaign that fooled people into thinking her card
would improve their FICO scores. Remember that nearly the entire
financial journalist community stepped up to warn people about Orman's
fee-laden card, which will absolutely not improve a user's FICO scores
one iota now, or almost certainly ever. Yet show after show allowed
Orman to tell blatant lies on their shows, including her frequent
proclamation that, “This card will never cost you more than three dollars a
month!”
172
In this first clip from the Wendy Williams Show, exuberant Suze
Orman uses her memorized latticeworks of twisted words to fool viewers
into thinking that buying her “Approved” prepaid debit card would
improve their FICO scores and improve the whole world. Orman falsely
insinuated that FICO was on board, which was not the case, and also tried
to scare the audience by suggesting, as she often does, that employers
won't hire you based on your FICO score, which is also not true. Watch
the amazing deception in action: Link 5-8.
More of the same on Good Morning America: Link 5-9
And on The View: Link 5-10
Here Orman gives one of many deceptive spiels to local news shows
via a satellite link to stations across the country: (Link 5-11)
Here’s an excerpt from a financial blog article titled, “Suze Orman's
Pre-Paid Debit Card Scam,” that details the fraudulent pitch Orman used
on The View and in close to one hundred appearances: (Link 5-12):
During The View, Suze Orman heavily implied that it would help
with credit scores, but didn't actually say it. She had a two minute rant
about how important FICO scores are in this economy and then
introduced her card…This is the kind of marketing that is misleading to
consumers. To talk about improving credit for 5-10 minutes and then
present a card and talk about the issue as if the card is the solution to
building credit.
Savvy readers gave further insights in their comments on that article:
Steve said:
If credit scores change to incorporate this data I will eat my hat. There are
just not going to be enough users of this one card to make it worth FICO’s
time to even try to figure out how to incorporate it into the score. It’s
hypothetically possible that this will be the first of many debit cards to
report usage data to credit bureaus, but I’m not holding my breath.
Furthermore, it will always be opt-in only (assuming privacy laws prevent
reporting of individual transactions to credit bureaus), giving the data a
self-selection bias, meaning FICO is unlikely to rely on said data (out of
responsibility to their true customers, creditors).
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The Soap Boxers said:
I can’t even begin to fathom how the purchase data could be used in a
credit score. Would you be rewarded for spending more money? Less
money? Rewarded for “good” purchases (carrots) and penalized for
“bad” purchases (donuts), even though that has nothing to do with
credit?
As you allude to, all this really does is give purchase data to TransUnion,
which they can then sell to companies. Suddenly, the whole world will
know that I’m a big purchaser of Pepsi and Pringles, and that I wipe my
(rear) with Charmin. How does this help me? This smacks of George
Costanza’s Human Fund. Money for People. Money for Suze, in this case.
Orman appeared on many of CNN's supposedly reputable shows,
including a pseudo-news infomercial segment on the John King Show,
deceptively titled, “Prepaid debit card to help credit score: Finance expert
Suze Orman introduces a new prepaid card that’s designed to help raise your
credit score.”
(Link 5-13)
In her emphatic appearance on the John King Show, Orman
suggested that her choice to invest a million dollars of her own money
into this card was not for greedy purposes of getting more money for
herself in return, but for some vague altruistic reasons, as King coined the
obviously scripted though sarcastic term, “Saint Suze.”
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Here are some complaints from Orman’s Facebook page:
175
176
Soon after those and many other complaints, Orman posted this:
Click here to see Orman running her scam using what appears to be
an obviously planted questioner on Oprah's OWN network, with more
fraudulent claims from Orman: Link 5-14
Why have no government agencies done anything to help Orman’s
financial fraud victims, or to punish Orman for her crimes? The CFPB
went in hard in 2015, when Russell Simmons’ Rush prepaid debit card
unintentionally froze many users’ accounts for a week or so as a result of a
glitch in their new computer system.
Simmons paid nineteen million dollars to compensate those card
users, and offered endless apologies to his card users, amidst threats and
requests for card users to send their complaints to the CFPB.
Meanwhile, Suze Orman’s intentionally incompetent “mistakes” that
lost many accounts, charged inappropriate fees, and locked “Approved”
card users from accessing their money, apparently done as a predatory
business practice, were completely ignored by the CFPB, and you can bet
I sent them this documentation.
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In the next link, you can watch the section of our documentary where
Orman is targeting her “Approved” card scheme to poverty panels and the
NCLR national conference, as well as announcing her card at the
prestigious National Press Club, where this predatory card was eagerly
shilled by “poverty activist” Tavis Smiley, who you'll see gush about how
he would do anything for Suze Orman: Link 5-15
Suze Orman’s deceptions in GOOD magazine included an outright lie
that she had met with FICO and that they were interested in her prepaid
card plan, a falsehood that FICO themselves dispelled. From GOOD
magazine, “Wealth Club: Suze Orman Talks Credit Scores, Occupy Wall
Street, and the American Dream”: (Link 5-16)
GOOD: Was it hard to get TransUnion on board with developing a
system where these cash transactions would positively affect people’s credit
scores?
ORMAN: I would say, ‘Yes, it was hard.’ But, no it was not hard
because it was Suze Orman.
I’m sure people had gone to them before and have asked ‘will you do
this?’ and I’m sure they said no because I’m sure the people that probably
asked prior to me would use this as a marketing gimmick.
When TransUnion heard the idea that what I wanted to experiment
with, and I also met with FICO on it, they knew that I would tell the
people exactly how it was…the first prepaid debit card in history that
would share information with a major credit bureau in the hopes that two
years from now, we could evaluate the data and determine if it does in fact
predict future behavior.
I want everyone to simply get this card and pay their bills on this
card. Just do that. Then we will aggregate the information, and possibly
we could be part of changing the scoring system to be relevant, rather than
irrelevant, which is what I believe it is today. … Remember, none of this
will actually be reported on your actual credit report. We’re just sharing
the aggregate data with TransUnion, we’re going to evaluate the
aggregate data over two years, and if, God-willing, and I hope Experian
and Equifax joins us with this, I have a feeling what you’re going to see is
that we will have started to … to create a new score that takes into
consideration people who don’t want to have a credit card, people who
want to pay for things with cash, people who just want to use debit cards.
So now we’re reevaluating and recreating the new American Dream all
over again.
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Orman also promised all over the place that at some nebulous time in
the future, when the card had earned back her investment, she planed to
eliminate at least one of the fees on this card, the monthly fee. Of course,
that never happened, even though Orman bragged to the Daily Beast in
2013 that she had already made back all the millions of dollars she
personally invested the card. As someone who received a lot of worthless
promises of future payments and benefits from Orman, I easily recognized
the same tone of voice in her promises of future benefits for “Approved”
card victims.
“Mr. Consumer” also noted:
Conspicuously missing from their fee list is the cost to deposit money
onto your card at an ATM or in person at a store.
Apparently you can only add money at locations that support either
Moneygram or Western Union payments. The cost, they say, is typically
$3.00 – $4.95. Whatta deal.
Even after all those articles, the spin machine continued. Oprah’s
magazine, which was still pushing Orman on her trusting flock, posted
this twitter message January 18th, after most of the above articles
exposing and slamming the card had already been published:
The O Magazine article was not presented as an advertisement, but
proper advice. Yet Orman responded to a completely unrelated question
with one more infomercial for her card. As of the publication date of this
book, that article’s page on Oprah’s website is still pitching Orman’s long
defunct, predatory card. The O Magazine article titled, “Should You
Cosign a Car Loan for Your Children?” begins with what is likely a shill
question, and shows Orman’s dangerous mix of scams mixed with useful
information, like poison mixed with wine: (Link 5-17)
Q: My 30-year-old son just finished graduate school with no loans.
He has a new job that pays $60,000 a year. The problem: Because he
hasn't established credit, he can't get a credit card or a car loan, even
though he has $10,000 in savings and more than enough income to cover
his bills each month. If I cosign a car loan, will that help him? I'm at a loss
as to how he can start building his credit.
179
A: Mom, I can hear your frustration. It is stupefying that someone
with a great income and no debt can't obtain a credit card or a loan. I bet
that one factor weighing against his loan application is that he has yet to
establish a FICO credit score, so while his income is enough to qualify,
lenders won't make a deal. I am never a big fan of cosigning a loan,
because it means you are 100 percent liable for making good on the
amount borrowed. And even though your son sounds like a very stable
guy, I stick by my advice: Do not cosign a loan for him. This is not about
your son being a flake or freeloader. What if he is laid off? Or is injured in
an accident?
But you can still help. If your FICO credit score is at least 740, I
would consider adding your son to your credit card as an authorized user.
This allows him to piggyback on your score, and it will help him build a
solid credit report that will eventually make it possible for him to qualify
for a car loan on his own.
(Here it is!) I have to tell you, your son's situation is one of the big
reasons I've worked hard to bring out my new Approved Prepaid
MasterCard debit card. I have become so frustrated hearing from people
who can't get credit cards or who are struggling to navigate high fees.
Debit cards are a great alternative to credit cards—and a great way to
avoid the temptation to run up a high balance.
Prepaid debit cards get around the problem of maintaining a hefty
checking account balance, but some charge fees that can add up to $15 or
more a month, and currently no prepaid debit cards report to one of the
three main credit bureaus that lenders rely on for FICO credit scores.
That's not much of a solution.
This is why I am so proud of the new Approved card, and I honestly
think it will be a game changer. For the first time in history, transactions
made through a prepaid debit card will be shared with TransUnion, a
major credit bureau. That information won't yet affect FICO scores, but
the hope is that collecting data and insight on how people use debit cards
could eventually impact credit reports.
Orman herself had described prepaid cards as a bad deal in the past,
but in the month before her card debuted, she changed her tune, and
recommended that a woman should get a prepaid card for her husband on
the very first episode of her new OWN show. (watch the clip: Link 5-18)
180
Next is a clip from a student-based show that broadcast on February
17th 2012, more than one month after warnings about Orman’s prepaid
card had started filling the financial media landscape.
Note the subtle and also outright deception in what Orman says and
the deceptive copy she and her girlfriend/brand manager gave to the
young anchor about her card. This is a case of Suze Orman fooling and
stealing from young students by conning them into buying her fee-laden
card. You’ll hear Orman’s usual claims that “if you use it how I tell you to,”
the fees for this card would only be three dollars a month, and emoting
her FICO fables to make all but the most savvy listeners think that her
prepaid card would improve their credit scores.
In this “scamming the students” clip, Orman also claimed FICO was
part of her little experiment, which it was not: Link 5-21
Regarding Orman's unending suggestions and claims that her card
was going to improve users’ FICO scores, a look deep into the “Approved”
card’s legal disclaimers, reveals this:
“The Approved Card is not designed to improve your credit record,
history, or rating. Use of The Approved Card will not and cannot
improve or fix your credit score or rating.”
That is a far cry from what Suze Orman insinuated in around one
hundred media appearances and interviews that were specifically geared
to sell her card. Apparently Suze and company think putting a disclaimer
on a difficult to find page of the “Approved” card website should prevent
them from being prosecuted for her blatant fraud or repaying customers
who were fooled by her deceptive pitches.
More bad terms from the “Approved” card agreement page:
181
Translation: “So just keep putting your good money on the card for no
reason and then shut up when you realize you’ve been scammed.”
This next video clip shows Orman’s blatantly deceptive response,
spoken like a lying child who just got caught with her hand in the cookie
jar, as she answers Piers Morgan's softball questions about her prepaid
debit card that had already been panned by respected finance journalists
from top to bottom.
Several journalists had alerted Morgan and his staff to the problems
with Orman's card before this interview. Piers asks what sound like tough
questions, but then lets Orman slide with little more than pretending to
be altruistic and saying, “Trust me.” (click here to play the video: Link 524)
182
It appears Morgan was well rewarded for allowing Orman to run her
scam on his show:
Orman’s enthusiastic summation of the fiasco:
183
184
Chapter Six
Capitalizing On The Financial Illiteracy of the
Poor, Minorities, and the “Occupy” Movement
Although Suze Orman and her crooked cabal have run many strings of
scams, shams, and shenanigans for the past fifteen years, I have given her
“Approved” prepaid debit card a special importance in this book and the
documentary film for several reasons. First, it is so extremely corrupt that
even journalists who had previously believed in the Suze Orman façade
realized they were either dealing with someone who had either been
corrupt from the beginning, or as some articles bemoaned, who must have
recently gone bad. Their articles help paint the picture of what was taking
place, with some welcome expert confirmation since I, like Suze Orman,
have never taken a finance-related college course.
The “Approved” card was the most well publicized, and therefore
well-documented Suze Orman scam, her boldest attempt to defraud
millions of poor and uneducated United States citizens. Orman’s massive
media blitz created a vast amount of evidence throughout the media and
social media, including Orman telling people to leave their banks and “go
off the grid,” by putting their hard-earned money right into her pockets
through this shoddy, fee infested card.
Orman’s prepaid debit card scam also entangled a long list of very
famous celebrities and journalists who should have known better or done
the slightest bit of research before knowingly or unknowingly repeating
and hosting Orman’s lies about her card.
All the documentation of Orman’s appearances on television and
radio shows pitching the card depict what any thinking person should be
able to see as blatant fraud. I consider this book and film as an archival
presentation of evidence to encourage—finally—some action by
government agencies and others to stop the scams and bring justice and
restitution to “Approved” card victims.
185
Along with securing restitution for Orman’s victims, I also hope to
help educate society so we are not scammed again and again, by Suze
Orman and many others who are happy to damage lives to fill their own
pockets.
First Orman went for middle class people who might have been smart
enough to accumulate a lot of money and education, but who had not put
much energy into learning how the financial system works.
That included Orman’s big announcement at the prestigious
National Press Club, with enough press coverage to make those who
don’t know much about finances think that this card must be really
special and important to be announced a such a historic place.
186
Most people would have no idea that Orman’s main protector and
publicity strategist for the card was the famous, perhaps infamous, and
not nearly noticed enough political lobbyist, Hilary Rosen, who with a
point of her finger could easily arrange for the mirage of making Orman’s
card look like a real historical event, by creating this a big announcement,
bizarrely hosted by Tavis Smiley.
Middle class Americans were Orman’s prime con victims, because
they had more money to pilfer than the poor. Orman went on television
shows, including ABC News, as you’ll see in the film, and literally told
people to leave their banks and “go off the grid,” by moving their money
from proper, often free banks and Credit Unions onto her incompetently
run, fee-ridden prepaid card.
The fact that Orman got away with this begs many questions about
the integrity and intelligence of today’s news media, especially for the
National Press Club, whose credo is, “to foster the ethical standards of the
profession.”
CNN fed Orman’s scam to their viewers on many news shows, while
not so subtly playing Orman’s SelectQuote commercials practically every
hour during the same months they let Orman turn many of their news
shows into shady infomercials. Watch one of Orman’s SelectQuote
commercials, which are troubling in their own right: Link 6-1
Al Veshi, Piers Morgan, John King, and other CNN journalists
shamelessly acted as infomercial hosts for Orman’s scam, in the guise of a
news story about her card raising FICO scores. Did none of them do even
one iota of research?
Orman gave super sloppy answers to George Stepanopoulos on Good
Morning America, and lied through her teeth in a one-on-one infomercial
disguised as news on Huffington Post, with none other than ardent Orman
supporter Arianna Huffington.
Those venues were mostly focused on middle class American citizens,
many of whom were fooled into moving their hard-earned money from
proper bank accounts onto a prepaid card, believing that the expensive
move was going to improve their FICO scores so they could buy that car,
rent that apartment, or get that mortgage.
Many middle class victims of Orman’s Approved card posted
complaints on social media when the card lost or locked them out of their
accounts. Obviously, these public complaints only represented a small
percentage of those who either thought they had done something wrong,
or who realized that they had been scammed by this “trusted financial
expert,” and didn’t know what to do.
187
Unhappy customers had to spend big bucks just to speak with
Orman’s incompetent customer service representatives at $2 per call.
When’s the last time you heard of a bank or other financial institution
charging two dollars to call them when they lose your account?
Orman’s call center scammers didn’t even bother refunding those fees
once they found out it was due to their incompetence—I would dare say
due to their intentional, instructed, planned obsolescence.
Again, Orman’s “opposite-land” name for her effort to scam the
middle class and poor was the “People First Movement.”
Another prong of Orman’s “Approved” card scam was to go after the
poor, minorities, and those activists who’d had it with Wall Street and big
banks and had organized to improve their world with what was called the
“Occupy movement.” If only Orman could get all of them to move even
their small amounts of money onto her card, she could add mountains of
money to her mountains of money.
188
Shawn is one of many “Approved” card users whose entire account
was locked and lost by Orman’s incompetent employees. Shawn called
and called at two dollars a call, and took to Twitter to beg and cajole
Orman into finally responding with a most meaningless and telling tweet:
“They are going to call you. It usually is a different reason than you thought.”
189
Orman’s use of the word, “usually,” shows more evidence that this
rape of card users’ accounts was commonplace. The “different reason”
than she thought was that Suze Orman was running a prepaid debit card
theft ring.
Orman's misinformation campaign for the “Approved” card fooled a
whole lot of poor folks into buying her card and recommending this
mediocre, exploitive product to their friends, like spreading a virus of false
assertions that using Orman’s prepaid card would “up their FICO scores,”
which it absolutely, positively, would not do, could not do, and did not
do.
Orman made an extensive ploy to fool poor and uneducated people
into paying those twenty fees to her card, featuring $2 for each call to
Orman’s customer service when the card didn't function correctly,
something that happened all the time, based on online complaints. Then
there was $20 for a check copy, $25 for a postal reject, $30.00 for a
payment inquiry, and all kinds of inappropriate fees charged “by mistake.”
To pitch this predatory card to the poor, the “Approved” card
publicity strategists decided on enthusiastic Orman supporter Tavis
Smiley, who gave an overly laudatory introduction to Orman and her card
At the National Press Club. Smiley said, “I would do anything that Suze
Orman asked me to do, and that's why I'm here (at the National Press Club)
for the first time in my career to stand behind somebody who's put out a
product that will help poor people in their effort to get out of the hole that this
country in so many ways has helped dig for them.”
190
Smiley added that he will always support Orman in all her endeavors
as he has always done—something that should draw some concern from
Smiley’s customers, fans, and supporters.
Watch video of Tavis “selling his soul to the devil” at this link: Link 6-2
The big announcement took place just before Orman returned the
favor by appearing on Tavis's poverty panel, where Tavis gave yet another
shameless infomercial for the fee-laden “Approved” prepaid debit card—
making the poor think that Orman's ridiculous prepaid card would be a
good choice for their banking needs. Smiley’s introduction to Orman’s
prepaid debit card at the poverty conference was followed by Orman
shouting that people shouldn’t listen to all the bad press that had started
coming forth from financial journalists. “Don’t you listen to what they say
I’m doing, ‘cause that ‘s not what I’m doing!”
Next you can watch a video clip of Tavis Smiley's shocking
infomercial for Orman's prepaid debit card scam right in the middle of
that poverty panel, titled, “Poverty to Prosperity.” With Smiley pitching
Orman’s predatory card, maybe it should have been called, “Poverty to
Destitution.”
In the clip you can see how uncomfortable Tavis is having to
compromise his integrity to pitch this crummy prepaid card that had
already been denounced by many financial experts since he announced it
to great fanfare that morning at the National Press Club.
Through the discomfort, Tavis spoke about the card as if it were
actually a tool to help alleviate poverty rather than a tool to plunder the
poor and put more of their money into Orman's pockets. Watch the
poverty panel clip: Link 6-3
191
Click the next link to watch another surprising video clip from Tavis
Smiley's “Poverty to Prosperity” panel. It is none other than activist
Michael Moore enthusiastically endorsing Orman's prepaid debit card
mission right in the middle of Smiley’s panel: Link 6-4
Moore said, “It still says on that piece of paper, ‘One person, one vote.’
They can buy the politicians, they can run all the ads, they can try to stop Suze
from trying to help people get a good credit score—and she’s not understating
that. She’s talking something so revolutionary on that level that she has put her
life at risk.”
What? Here is Michael's response when I asked why he would endorse
Orman's ridiculous prepaid card:
Yes, Moore was “just seated next to her,” saying absurd things like,
“She’s not understating that; Suze's talking something so revolutionary on that
level that she has put her life at risk.” Yet, Moore claimed to have done
nothing more than be seated next to her.
After this bit of Twitter conversation, I sent Moore a short video clip
of his praise of Orman and her card, about which he responded: “I'm
generally nice to people, but that doesn't me (sic) I endorse their ideas.”
To which I responded, “I'm sure it sounded like an endorsement to poor
folks attending who tweeted that the card improved credit scores...this is my
'Roger and Me' - I watched yours, pls read my article.”
No further response ever came from Moore, who you would think
would at least take a few minutes to look into a possibility that he was
unknowingly endorsing something deceptive and harmful to the poor.
Speaking of the “Orman cabal,” Moore also seems to be friends with
Orman’s main protector, political strategist media broker damage control
expert, Hilary Rosen, based on his passion in protecting her from criticism
by democrats for her insults toward Mitt Romney’s wife, Ann, with Moore
even saying that liberals “have no spine” if they dare to criticize Rosen for
her poor choice of words.
192
Perhaps because Orman's appearance at the “poverty panel” was
arranged by Rosen, Moore felt obliged to support her scheme. This is one
more example of how one person with a lack of integrity can get others
covered with the same tar. Orman has covered a whole lot of media
personalities with her scam-ridden tar, just as she did to Moore in this
example.
In my opinion and experience, Orman is an example of the kind of bad
company who influences people to sell out and compromise their
integrity. You can see many examples of her doing just this in the
documentary film, and I personally experienced her damaging effects
when she convinced me to produce the deceptive video that got Orman
her first book deal.
More than a year later, Orman
repaid Smiley’s loyalty by being one
of the first guests to appear on his
new online radio blog show.
Of course, Smiley had to pay
the piper again by pushing Orman’s
crummy prepaid debit card to his
listeners, in spite of the huge wave
of articles by finance journalists,
top to bottom, who had warned
their readers about the card.
Smiley even allowed Orman to say that using her card prepaid could
“literally change your life.” Play the audio here: Link 6-5
Check out the section shortly after three minutes into the audio
excerpt, when Smiley’s assistant plays the role of a satisfied “Approved”
card customer, who Smiley describes as “giddy” about how great the card
has worked for him.
193
Note in the audio clip how Orman remembered this assistant’s name
all too well in their scripted scenario. Though I didn’t personally see how
this exuberant testimonial was arranged, it seemed quite obvious that it
was planned in advance, with Smiley’s assistant as a shill.
The assistant actually claimed that his FICO score shot way up after
he started using Orman's card, allowing him to even buy a house. Of
course, if you are reading this book, you know that Orman’s card didn’t do
a thing to improve anyone’s credit, which Tavis must have also known,
even though he supported the claim and even pushed his assistant to tell
about how he was able to get that house mortgage due to his use of
Orman’s prepaid debit card.
At first, Orman didn’t correct the fellow’s claim that her card made his
FICO score shoot up, but then the second time he made the same claim
even more exuberantly, she must have gotten nervous about the blatant
fraud.
Orman finally spoke up and gave a new spin she and her prepaid card
team must have come up with, saying that using her “Approved” card had
helped improve the assistant's FICO score enough to get him a house
mortgage, because he hadn’t been carrying balances on credit cards for the
previous year, while putting his money on Orman’s fee-laden card.
Unless Smiley’s listeners were super savvy regarding finances and
unraveling twisted words, they were once again fooled into thinking that
Orman’s card would improve their FICO scores, and help them get
mortgages, as the card had supposedly done for “poverty activist” Tavis
Smiley’s assistant.
Tavis Smiley’s audience had already been fooled by Orman’s
shenanigans a year earlier in his 2012 poverty conference, which resulted
in people posting incorrect information to all their friends via social
media and in person, telling those they cared about that Orman’s card
would increase their FICO scores. Why would she lie about that, after all?
How could anyone legally get away with making such a false claim? Now,
Orman was back to gobble up more of Tavis Smiley’s flock.
Another poverty activist to address Orman’s prepaid card was Ryan
Mack, a contributor to CNN and other news shows, and advocate for the
poor.
Mack is one of the finance experts and journalists who had previously
trusted and recommended Orman’s works, before being confronted with
a big “uh oh, something is very wrong here” feeling when they saw her come
out with this predatory prepaid debit card that she fooled people into
thinking was a great tool for their finances.
194
I think a lot of media professionals and finance experts have and will
be giving a big, collective, “Oops!” as these shams and shenanigans come to
light regarding a person they may have previously put forth as a nearly
divinely anointed, trustworthy finance expert and advisor for all aspects of
politics and family life.
Still, it is better to say “Oops” than to continue to propagate the sham
just to save themselves from admitting they had been fooled or had been
knowingly or unknowingly complicit. I’m talking to you, Oprah Winfrey!
And far too many others.
Mack was deeply disappointed by Orman’s prepaid debit card scam,
since he'd really believed she was someone whom people could trust,
specifically the poor people he served. Mack tried to ask Orman about the
card and even had an interview scheduled, but then Orman cancelled in
the midst of all the bad press that was swirling around her and the card.
Ryan wrote about how Orman’s previous advice had been that
prepaid cards were not a viable option, quoting her words on page 96 of
the original edition of The Money Class book, where she had specifically
stated, “I don't think prepaid cards are a viable option.”
Mack then showed how the newly revised Money Class book removed
that sentence and contained an ad for the Suze Orman “Approved”
prepaid debit card, along with Orman’s new quote: “There are two types of
debit cards: There is the debit card that is tied to your bank or credit union
checking account, or there is the increasingly popular option of a prepaid debit
card that you can load money onto and then pay bills or make purchases up to
that amount.”
Mack explained:
In the new revised and updated version appears the mention of the
“increasingly popular” prepaid debit card. In this revised book we see
why—on pages 24 and 25 of her revised and updated book there was an
advertisement for her brand new Approved Card. I have known her to
justify this shift in principle by saying that “millions” of people are using
these cards. Yes….and millions of people are using Rent-A-Centers, cash
advance “stores” and the services of other financial predators. Most
importantly those who fall prey to these predators are those who cannot
afford to pay the high fees for their services.
When Mack tried to inform a woman via Twitter that there was an
easy way for her to find a free secured card that would actually help her
credit score, lyin’ Orman actually threatened legal action:
195
Mack also joked on FOX Business about his new “Awesome Air” cup
that would cost users the same $3 per month, as a way of making fun of
the uselessness of Orman’s card. (Link 6-6)
196
Even months after all this prepaid debit card backlash, Orman
continued to give corrupted advice, including to this woman who had just
moved to the U.S. and was simply asking this supposed financial advisor
how to get a bank account and establish credit.
197
Scamming the Hispanic Community
Orman continued her prepaid card scam at the January 2012 NCLR
annual conference. The National Council of La Raza is the largest national
Hispanic civic rights and advocacy organization in the United States.
The previous year, President Obama was the main speaker, where he
described the importance of the NCLR: “For more than four decades,
NCLR has fought for opportunities for Latinos from city centers to farm fields.
And that fight for opportunity—the opportunity to get a decent education, the
opportunity to find a good job, the opportunity to make of our lives what we
will—has never been more important than it is today.”
That’s where Orman showed up with her prepaid debit card scam,
months after it had already been ripped to shreds by financial journalists.
NCLR president Janet Murguia welcomed Orman with extravagant
praise, positioning her into a perceived position of trust by saying, “NCLR
and Suze Orman are working on similar goals. We want the people we work
with to be smart, educated consumers.”
It boggled the mind to see Murguia stand by while Orman conned her
community with a long, obviously deceptive infomercial that included
scare tactics and false promises:
“Now listen to me closely. Because you may not have a FICO score or
a credit score, either one, you may not be able to rent an apartment; good
luck getting a loan from a bank or a credit union to buy a car or a home,
and if you do get a loan, you are going to pay incredibly high interest
rates. If you have a low FICO score or none at all, do you know that you
pay more in car insurance premiums and your insurance premiums across
the board are higher?
This is the same scam set up Orman used throughout the media
landscape to preface her fraudulent claims that using her “Approved” card
was going to solve all these scary problems by giving card users a good
FICO score. Orman’s NCLR con continued:
“I want to change the credit scoring system in the United States of
America, and I need your help to do so. I want it to be inclusive of you, not
exclusive. I want you to be rewarded for paying for things on a debit card,
not penalized for doing it…To that end, I created something, and I am
asking you to help me with this…
Orman then claimed her one million dollar investment in the card
had grown to nearly two million, an indication of why she needed to
exploit every opportunity for the card to generate income from all those
official and unofficial fees.
198
Don’t worry about Suze Orman’s massive stash of cash; a year later
she would claim to the Daily Beast that she had made all her money back,
but at the NCLR, she was actually trying to get middle class and low
income Hispanics to feel sorry for her:
“I’ve already put in almost two million dollars of my own money. It is
costing me tens of thousands of dollars a month to keep it going, but I am
going to keep it going until it works, cause you deserve to have a vehicle
like my Approved card. If I could be doing that for you, can you just help
me help you.”
Yes, Orman ended her sales pitch with, “If I could be doing that for you,
can you just help me help you?” Orman sighed this out with just as much
over-the-top passion as when Tom Cruise’s character said the same line in
Jerry Maguire.
Watch the video of Orman blatantly scamming the Hispanic
community with her prepaid card at the NCLR: (Link 6-7)
Note that in the NCLR clip, Orman said the decision of whether her
card will produce a FICO score would be made in six months to a year,
instead of the eighteen months to two years she was declaring a few
months earlier. What matter numbers when the whole thing is a sham? Of
course, it was all fudged. Even FICO had already said they were not
interested, remember? (Why FICO is not interested, excerpt from the
Baltimore Sun: Link 6-8)
Nevertheless, the NCLR’s National Latino Family Expo welcomed
Orman to turn their stage into a prepaid debit card scamathon as one of
their main speakers.
Interestingly, another main speaker at the same event was Consumer
Financial Protection Bureau head Richard Cordray, who should have been
investigating and probably arresting Orman for what she was doing in the
next room.
Orman must feel awfully protected by her protectors to run such a
shameless scam right at the same conference where Cordray was also
speaking. Apparently, Cordray and the CFPB never even questioned
Orman about her prepaid card scam, and you can bet I and others sent
them the information needed to begin an investigation.
The CFPB did soon after began an investigation into troubling
aspects of prepaid debit cards in general that included fee disclosure
issues and misleading marketing that suggests users will get an improved
credit scores by using a prepaid card (guess who had been doing that?)
199
The “cabal’s” hold on the Obama administration was also evident,
including President Obama’s communications director Anita Dunn, who
subsequently became a senior partner of Hilary Rosen’s SKDK. Records
show that Rosen and her clients got into President Obama’s White House
at least thirty-five times, so with Hillary Clinton in their claws, we may be
in for four more years of Suze Orman’s scams being completely ignored by
government agencies.
After their NCLR appearances, CFPB head Richard Cordray and
Suze Orman also appeared on the same day’s broadcast of Marketplace
from American Public Media, the premier business news show on National
Public Radio. Again, Cordray should have been paying attention as
Orman read out her well-rehearsed latticework of convoluted words in
response to Tess Vigeland's questions.
You can hear Orman reading the obviously pre-composed responses in
this audio of their radio interview: Link 5-22
Vigeland: I wanna talk about your new pre-paid debit card that was
announced this week. Why did you decide you wanted to get into this
business?
Orman: As you know, there's an entire group of people -- the
unbanked and the underbanked -- that are growing, there are 70 million
of them right now, that are literally using these prepaid debit cards. The
fact of the matter is, if you look at the majority of the prepaid cards that
are out there, they absolutely charge exorbitant fees. So I decided number
one, that was absolutely ludicrous. That people should not have to pay
large sums of money just to be able to have the privilege of using a card.
Next, I wanted to change the scoring mechanism system. I wanted to
make it so people who use debit cards eventually got credit toward their
credit scores. And that's what we're doing . This is the first prepaid card in
history that is sharing information with TransUnion, a major credit
bureau. It'll be 18 to 24 months before TransUnion -- and hopefully other
credit bureaus will join us on this -- that they will be able to determine if
debit card behavior can predict future credit card use.
Vigeland: CardHub.com did an analysis of your card versus the
Green Dot card as well as the Amex card. And the one knock it did have is
that there are so many different fees on your card—twenty versus eight for
the Green Dot and only one fee for the Amex card.
Orman: Oh please, girl friend. Don't tell me that you are that naive.
There is no way Amex has just one fee. There is no way Green Dot has
just four or five fees.
200
The person that did that article doesn't even know how to evaluate
cards, let alone be good enough to give a determination on it. The reason
that they were able to see all the fees that we could potentially charge, if
you don't use the card the way that we tell you, is because by law, you
have to have them. And the only difference is we're showing everybody the
fees, we're being transparent! All those other cards, you do your
homework. You try to find their fees, you try to find out how much it's
really gonna cost you, you're not gonna be able to, because they are hidden
deep deep into the site. Are you kidding me? He was an idiot!
Vigeland: Are you concerned at all that your audience might question
you having a card like this, perhaps making money off of them -- however
little -- while at the same time counseling them on their money
management?
Orman: I don't think so. Because the people who have been listening
now for almost 30 years they know that I have earned their trust.
(Editor’s note—30 years before this interview, Orman was staying with a
mutual acquaintance, while selling multi-level marketing water filters)
They know that I have never put my needs in front of theirs. So I don't
personally care what other people say, because I know what I'm doing
and the people who follow me know what I'm doing as well. And we will
just see who has the last laugh when it comes to the Approved card.
You see, it’s all a game for Orman, who always has gotten the last
laugh, because every disaster she causes just shovels more money into her
accounts, while her PR wizards cover up bad press and get all kinds of
glowing political and government accolades to prop up Orman’s public
influence and keep her from facing justice for her blatant frauds that
would have landed anyone else in prison.
Orman's deceptive behavior during the Marketplace Money interview
even drew criticism from one of her previous supporters, Felix Salmon of
Reuters, who had been known to valiantly defend Orman from criticism by
other finance journalists over the years.
Finally, even Felix saw the light enough to write an article titled, “Suze
Orman's Conflicts”: (Link 5-23)
I had a memorable conversation on Monday with Suze Orman and
Kim Bishop, the face and president respectively of the new Approved Card
prepaid debit card. I had quite a few questions for them, and they did
answer them, even if at times I did feel as though we were speaking at
cross-purposes.
201
I started off by asking Orman about an exchange she had last week
with Marketplace Money’s Tess Vigeland.
Vigeland: CardHub.com did an analysis of your card versus
the Green Dot card as well as the Amex card. And the one knock it
did have is that there are so many different fees on your card — 20
versus eight for the Green Dot and only one fee for the Amex card.
Orman: Oh please, girl friend. Don’t tell me that you are that
naive. There is no way Amex has just one fee. There is no way Green
Dot has just four or five fees. The person that did that article doesn’t
even know how to evaluate cards, let alone be good enough to give a
determination on it. The reason that they were able to see all the fees
that we could potentially charge, if you don’t use the card the way
that we tell you, is because by law, you have to have them. And the
only difference is we’re showing everybody the fees, we’re being
transparent! All those other cards, you do your homework. You try
to find their fees, you try to find out how much it’s really gonna cost
you, you’re not gonna be able to, because they are hidden deep deep
into the site. Are you kidding me? He was an idiot!
It’s worth listening to that answer, rather than just reading it: she
spits it out. There is. No. Way. Amex. Has. Just. One. Fee.
Except, there is a way that Amex has just one fee. See for yourself. It’s
a reasonably big fee: $2 per ATM withdrawal, with no free ATMs. But it
really is the only fee that Amex has — you can delve as deep into the
terms and conditions as you like, and you’re not going to find another one.
Taking advantage of the “Occupy” Movement:
Orman also tried to take advantage of the “Occupy” movement,
painting her mediocre, fee-laden prepaid debit card as a great altruistic
movement, even going so far as to call it her “People First Movement” to
make it sound like the Occupy movement.
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Next is an example of Orman praising the Occupy movement while
deceptively pitching her card to them, from a January 2012 interview
with Good Business:
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Wow, Orman’s card would be just like having a little bank in your
pocket with you—like every other debit and credit card out there, except
this one was going to take a big slice off the top of your hard-earned
money.
All of Orman’s altruistic baloney about joining her in this “People
First Movement” was about a crummy, fee-laden prepaid debit card for
which Orman had partnered with those “non-corporate businesses,”
Mastercard and Bancorp.
Now we get to Orman’s Occupy movement scam set-up, as one of
many examples of how anything Suze Orman praises can nearly always be
traced to some benefit to her pocketbook, as part of one scam or another.
Once you see how she does it, you can have your own Suze Orman
“SCAMvenger hunt,” whenever you see her doing anything, because
Scamming Suze is always scamming.
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Just a few months before announcing and releasing her “Approved”
prepaid debit card, Orman “coincidently” wrote a big article for her friend
Arianna's Huffington Post, praising the Occupy movement with a title that
said, “Occupy Wall Street: Approved!”
Those who were concerned about the growing chasm between the
rich and the poor were so happy to see Suze Orman supporting their
efforts, fueled by Hilary Rosen and SKDK’s vast network of media and
social media reposters, that Orman’s article was forwarded tens of
thousands of times, like a free pre-ad for her upcoming “Approved” card.
Readers of Huffington Post would soon be receiving further infomercials
about Orman’s card, hosted by Arianna Huffington herself.
The set-up of Orman “approving” the Occupy movement in order to
scam them a few month's later with her “Approved” card is quite clear in
Orman’s quote from the Good Business interview quoted above, stating
that she created the “Approved” card specifically for the 99% Occupy
movement, adding:
If you want to keep your money in big banks, if you want to continue
to get fees, if you want to continue to get all those things, you leave it right
where it is. If you want to make a difference in your own life, how you use
money, the accounting of money, everything about it, I am telling you, put
your money on me.
Of course, Orman created the card for the Occupy movement and
anyone else she could trick into moving their money out of the banking
system and onto her fee-laden card, which is run by…a big bank! Sounds
like, at minimum, false advertising.
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As an aside, the Credit Union industry was quite miffed to see Orman
pushing people toward such a crummy financial product when most US
citizens would be able to get a free account and debit card at their local
Credit Union.
Just two years before Orman’s prepaid debit card blitz, the National
Association of Federal Credit Unions had paid $1.6 million dollars to put
Orman as the face of Credit Unions, many of which plastered her face in
their literature and physical banks.
With that extensively publicized campaign, Credit Unions across
America were putting Suze Orman forth as a paragon and face of
trustworthiness and protection for consumers, just as the FDIC had done
previously. Both campaigns probably did more to benefit Orman’s image
than the NCUA, and certainly did more for her pocketbook.
From the Credit Union Times:
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When one “price for advice” contract is over for Suze Orman, her
advice is once again up for grabs by whomever and whatever will pay.
Just months after telling people to leave their banks for credit unions,
Orman was now using her undeserved clout to tell people to leave their
banks and credit unions and to put their money onto a card that she
pretended wasn't owned by a big bank, a card that would pour untold
amounts of wealth from monthly fees, merchant interchange fees for every
transaction, and a minefield of other improperly charged fees, directly
into Orman’s greedy hands.
Here’s the heading of Orman’s setup on the Huffington Post for her
upcoming “plunder the occupy movement” “Approved” card scam.
Notice anything interesting about the headline?
207
As a side note, the information in the Huffington Post article, as with
many of Orman’s books and articles, sounds nothing like Orman’s
speaking style or her nearly illiterate Twitter postings or personal email
messages. It reads like one more ghostwritten piece with Suze Orman’s
name on it—this time with the predatory foreshadowing of an
“Approved!” headline. (Link 6-9)
In the space of less than a month, the Occupy Wall Street movement
has gained national notoriety. A new poll out Monday shows that more
than half of Americans are aware of the grass-roots campaign pushing
back at the outsize profits, bailouts, and influence of the financial sector.
That quick rise has plenty of special interests so worried they have
resorted to a pathetic yet popular tact: When you feel threatened, work
overtime to marginalize the threat before it establishes traction.
Me? I want to publicly say thank you to the Occupy Wall Street
movement. Thank you for not accepting the status quo. Thank you for not
assuming there is nothing to be done. Thank you for rattling the cages.
Much coverage of Occupy Wall Street has cast this as the beginning of
something new. That’s only partly true. What I find so encouraging is that
Occupy Wall Street’s more important message is that this marks an end
point. An end to just shrugging and putting up with the inequity. An end
to patiently waiting for government to get its act together and take steps to
reduce the pain felt by millions of Americans who are unemployed, the
millions more who are underemployed, and the millions more again who
worry that if we indeed slip into a double dip recession they will soon
become unemployed. An end to letting Washington just continue further
down its dysfunctional dark hole without being called out.
This Huffington Post article was not an article written by someone
who brags that she never received better than a “C” in a single college
course, whose own bio says, “In grammar school on the South Side of
Chicago, I had to take reading exams, and would always score among the
lowest in the class,” and who admitted to her first agent that she didn't
know how to write, to which Binky Urban said, “Great. Finally an author
who knows she can't write.” (Link 6-10) What do you think Urban meant?
People involved with the Occupy movement were so happy to see
someone with Orman’s influence supporting their efforts that they
posted, tweeted, and forwarded the article with a positive implicit
endorsement of Suze Orman herself.
That was the plan, after all. The PR publicist for this card was none
other than famed political lobbyist, BP Oil spill protector, media broker
Hilary Rosen, who from what I’ve seen, is quite proficient with planting
stories and spreading them through the media and social media.
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Yes, that’s forty-four thousand results.
209
With a knack for seeing Orman’s scammy scenarios, having
experienced them up close and personal, when I saw the Huffington Post
article, I could tell that Orman’s “Occupy movement” article in October
2011 was certainly one more setup for something that would benefit
Orman’s pocketbook, likely to the detriment of others. When Orman
admitted, “Everything I do is a source of income to me,” she meant everything.
Just because you’re not a sociopath who would ever do such things
doesn’t mean good people should remain ignorant and complacent about
those who would and do cause harm to benefit themselves.
The Huffington Post piece came out just three months before Orman
was going to announce her “Approved” prepaid debit card, so I wasn't sure
exactly how Orman’s headline saying that she “Approved!” the Occupy
movement was going to fit into her next price-for-advice scheme or
product offering, but I knew it would.
It would be educational for journalists and researchers to go through
the archives of these news flurry headlines by and about Suze Orman over
the past fifteen years, and look into the correlations of those headlines
with her webs of deceptions.
Supporters of the Occupy movement were flooding the news media
with tens of thousands of positively framed reposts of Orman’s “Approved”
headline, unaware that their good intentions were being used for
nefarious reasons, making them unwitting co-conspirators and subliminal
social meme implanters, as they promoted the false impression that Suze
Orman supported the poor and middle class.
All of Orman's big “People First” revolution was just an advertisement
for another usual, crummy, fee-laden prepaid debit card, the kind of
product most experts agree would be admissible to only a very few whose
credit is so terrible they are unable to get even a secured credit card or a
free checking account with a credit union, or for monitoring uses such as a
parent giving their child a prepaid debit card to keep track of where the
money is being spent.
It was an interesting dynamic to see that while one limb of CNN
News was hosting Orman’s prepaid card scam, another was trying to stop
the damage. CNN Money ran an article in May 2012 titled, “Prepaid cards:
Don't be misled,” with the byline, “watch out for cards that are loaded with
fees or that claim to help you improve your credit score.”
The CNN Money article even mentioned Orman’s card by name:
(Link 6-10a)
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Suze Orman's Approved Card, issued by Bancorp Bank (TBBK),
says prominently on its website that it is “the first prepaid card in history
to share information with TransUnion, a major credit bureau.”
It also discloses that the information is anonymous and won't show
up on a customer's credit report, meaning it won't be considered in a
FICO score.
But some consumers still think the prepaid card will help their
credit—something that is evident from numerous messages posted on
online forums and credit card comparison websites.
“FICO will do an evaluation to determine if they can give you a score
... throughout the time you have the card your information is shared with
the 3 credit score companies. Cheers!” wrote one consumer on
CardHub.com.
Because of comments like these, CardHub responded:
“Unfortunately, the marketing promotion around the Approved Card has
all of us confused ... the truth is that this prepaid card will do nothing for
your FICO score.”
…TransUnion said “it is too soon to offer up any insights” about its
review of the Approved Card's anonymous data…
The Approved Card didn't respond to requests for comment.
What this and most other
articles didn’t expose is how
Orman’s card held poor
people’s checks hostage while
parasitic fees eroded their
accounts, how card holders
who paid two dollars for each
call to Orman’s customer
service in the Philippines found incompetent representatives who offered
little assistance and set up hoops that required them to make more of
those two dollar calls while customers languished, unable to access their
own money. These articles also didn’t mention how, even after canceling
the card, users’ accounts would continue to be charged fees that would
diminish their remaining balance as they waited to have access to
whatever amount of their own money was left after being scammed by
Suze Orman.
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Orman's Failed Attempt to Plunder the Philippines
Now I’ll share some indications of Suze Orman’s plans to use the
banking and journalist systems of the Philippines to fool and plunder
Filipinos. Orman’s tainted advice was, as usual, mixed with common sense
advice, headline slogans, and questionable advice to muddy the view.
In 2012, with Orman’s card being criticized throughout the United
States, Orman set the stage for her big con in the Philippines.
At the time, I could see that Orman’s media blitz in the Philippines
was a ploy in preparation for bringing her fee-laden prepaid debit card and
other exploitative schemes to the Philippines, disguised as “altruistic”
visits to help the country, using the same kind of manipulative techniques
she’d used stateside.
Suze Orman wanted to be the prepaid card Queen of the world, and
even though the media outcry about her “Approved” card in the United
States was bigger than she’d expected, Orman was going to go through
with her previously planned plot to move money from the Philippines
into her accounts.
Orman's troubling visit began with spreading her money obsession
and heartless doctrine of not helping even family members, with the main
article's troubling headline: “Suze Orman to Filipinos: Money means
almost everything.” (Link 6-11)
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MANILA, Philippines - Suze Orman was hard to miss. The frosted
blonde in a zebra-print frock and nearly peso-sized earrings easily caught
the attention of the over 1,000 Filipinos who flocked to Taguig's NBC
Tent on Saturday, February 25.
Her magnetic personality pulled their focus and held it on the
sometimes bland topic of personal finance.
This personal finance guru is Oprah Winfrey's go-to gal for money, a
New York Times best-selling author 9 times over, and one of Forbes 100
most powerful women in the world in 2010.
“Money means almost everything,” she said, not mincing words.
I assumed she was setting the stage to bring her predatory, “Bank of
Suze Orman” card to the Philippines. This headline gave some
confirmation of my theory:
“American personal finance guru Suze Orman says Filipinos can learn
from the mistakes of Americans and remain financially successful. All they need
to avoid is falling into the trap of credit card debt” How simple is that? Just
avoid credit card debt and everything will be great. That’s “all” the
country of the Philippines needs to do. If only there was a fee-laden
prepaid debit card available to help Filipinos avoid that credit card
“trap”!
Watch the news video: “Suze Orman advises Filipinos on avoiding
Americans' mistakes”: Link 6-12
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Four months later, my “Suze Scamdar” was proven correct:
It looks as though Orman got so emboldened by the U.S. government
letting all of her plundering shenanigans go on for years with nary a peep
that she wanted to move her scam to other countries.
Orman’s trips to the Philippines were hosted by the Bank of the
Philippine Islands. She painted herself as practically a saint for coming to
help these poor Filipinos get their money together by offering free
programs and gave the same basic talk she has given nearly every time she
speaks for the past 15 years, with additional “brilliant” advice that
Filipinos should stop buying lattes, stop buying cosmetics and toys, stop
helping family, and - what's that?
During her visit in May, Orman brought a new focus to the
Philippines, that Filipinos should invest their money in stocks, especially
via ETFs. ETFs didn’t even exist in the Philippines at the time, although
she was at the same time pushing gold ETFs through “her” Money
Navigator Newsletter. See how the webs of Suze Scams get intertwined?
One reporter, who Orman has primed with flattery and many public
compliments to keep him loyal, said in his interview that Orman, “urged
Filipinos to invest in exchange-traded funds once they are available
locally.” (Link 6-13)
Who might have paid for Orman to give this advice to avoid investing
in the United States in an article titled, “Drowning in credit card debt?
Here's Suze Orman's advice”: (Link 6-14)
“At this point, I would be saving in pesos. If they save in dollars, and
the peso continues to go up, they will lose money in the long run. You have
to believe in your country. You have to invest in yourself. If you don't
believe in PH, in your own peso here, what does that say? I would be
investing right here in this country. Forget the US,” she said.
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With Orman’s splurges into the Philippines hosted by the Bank of the
Philippine Islands, one must wonder if and how they also paid Orman to
bring more dollars to their coffers with her schemes?
Another May 2013 article, titled, “Invest in Stocks - Suze Orman,” says:
(Link 6-15)
MANILA, Philippines - Amid low interest rates regime, investing in
stocks and so-called exchange trade funds (ETFs) would be a wise choice,
according to financial guru Suze Orman. “I still believe that the place to
be is in stocks, or exchange trade funds which you don’t have yet here that
pay high dividends because interest rates are so low,” Orman said, in a
press briefing.
We've seen ETFs elsewhere in this book, when Orman was pitching
gold ETFs in the Suze Orman Gold Rush of 2011 and 2012. That’s when
she advised people throughout the media landscape to buy gold ETFs
through her Money Navigator Newsletter that she later claimed to have
nothing at all to do with, after making a bundle on her gold rush and the
newsletter.
Once you understand that Orman is a deceiving gangster, it becomes
easier to see the scams as she set up her marks—which in this case were all
Filipinos—and prepared to con them and make a whole lot of money in
the process, while her enablers continued to laud her as a great financial
savior. It's worked so well for her in the United States; why not plunder
the Philippines and other countries as well?
In 2013, I spoke with a financial investment expert whom Orman
partnered with and accessed for financial information to make it appear
that she knew what she is talking about financially. This expert, one of few
Orman associates who did not sign one of her confidentiality agreements,
told me that in 2011, Orman was seeking to start a mutual fund with him.
Orman does not have the credentials to even give investment advice,
much less start a fund, but she knows how to get around the rules, and
knew that government agencies and the United States media had given
her a total pass on all of her prior schemes. Therefore, Orman was
planning to start a mutual fund using this expert’s credentials.
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission at least
noticed this one Suze scam and apparently shut it down, so she wasn't
able to create the mutual fund in the US. Not being a financial stock
market expert, I hope those who are experts can further research and
explore this part of Orman’s deceitful webs to help stop the continuing
damage.
215
It is possible that Orman’s prepaid card and other scams got shut
down in the Philippines, in part, by the many Filipinos who came to my
website and read information about her scams, along with the warning:
“Dear Philippines, please don't be fooled by Orman buttering you and your
country up with flattery and shaming you with chastisements. Don't be fooled
like the United States has been fooled. Beware of Suze Orman!”
A year later, Orman actually claimed that she deserved to receive a
Nobel Prize for her “pro bono” work in the Philippines, telling a reporter
from the Daily Beast:
“I’ve garnered every award that somebody like me would garner.
Obviously I’ve never won an Academy Award or a Grammy but, then, I
wouldn’t. But I’ve garnered every award, every acknowledgment, whether
it’s Time magazine, Forbes—all of it. More New York Times bestsellers?
I’ve done it all. The only thing I haven’t done yet is a Nobel Prize. But I
wouldn’t be surprised if that comes my way one day, because I am
working pro bono with the Philippines, all right?”
(Orman and Travis are working with the Philippines government
and BPI, its third-largest bank, to produce public-service
announcements—”little TV shows,” she calls them—encouraging the
nation’s working class to save more money.)
TransUnion scam phase two kicks in
Another predatory phase of Orman’s prepaid debit card rip-off
scheme came in early 2013, when everyone who’d had the card for a year
found that the free access to their TransUnion reports that Orman had
touted as a benefit of her card were no longer available to them for free.
In truth, that benefit was all but worthless, because TransUnion
scores plus Experian and Equifax scores are easily available at Credit
Karma and other places for free.
But many of those who were financially uneducated enough to
believe that Orman’s card was going to improve their FICO scores also
didn’t know that this TransUnion benefit was basically worthless. For
them, Orman and TransUnion had set a special trap.
After the first year, Orman’s “Approved” card customers were charged
$143/year for this unnecessary “benefit,” money that Orman and
TransUnion happily slopped up from the pockets of mostly poor and
financially uneducated people who were fooled into trusting “financial
advisor” Suze Orman.
216
A Suze Sham for Mothers Day
In early 2013, Orman’s “Approved” card scam continued full steam
ahead, as Orman tried to milk every penny she could from anyone she
could still fool into putting their money on her thieving card, in spite of
the huge wave of articles that had warned consumers about the card
throughout the previous year.
Orman’s publicity strategist democratic lobbyist team likes to claim
they’re protecting women—after all, they represent Planned Parenthood
and other women’s organizations—but it seems their quest to soak
money from anyone and everyone through Orman’s predatory card scam
necessarily included women, and with Mothers Day 2013 approaching,
that meant getting mothers to like and trust Orman enough to blindly
follow her advice to buy her card.
Here I will point out one small but significant example of Orman’s
publicity set-ups that make up her webs of media-fueled schemes. Just a
few weeks before Mother's Day in 2013, Orman made a surprising
announcement on her CNBC show, stating that hiring a doula for
childbirth is a need, not a want.
Usually the main things Orman had previously said were “needs”
rather than “wants” were telling people to buy her own products. Here’s a
tip for your own Suze Scam Scavenger Hunts: Whenever you hear Orman
give props to something she knows little about personally and has never
supported previously, you can assume there must be a scam in the air and
payment of some form taking place.
CNBC featured the doula recommendation on their site, certainly by
request of Orman's PR planners. Thus far, the video is still available to
watch here: Link 6-16 It’s almost certain the caller in that clip was a
planted shill of the kind Orman has used in other disguised infomercials,
such as this shill on Oprah Winfrey’s network asking a planted question
that opened the door to Orman’s fraudulent prepaid card pitch to scam
Oprah fans: Link 6-17
Mothers were so happy to see Orman's endorsement of doulas just as
their big day of honor was coming up. Some mixture of real and fake
Twitter users blasted social media with positive posts and links to
celebrate the fact that Suze Orman said doulas are a NEED not a want.
Of course, this set off my “Suze Scamdar” alarm, as it was clearly a set-up
in progress for Orman to plunder mothers as a special Mothers Day “gift.”
217
218
Not even one week later, the pay-off showed up in the form of
Orman's Mothers Day articles pitching her “Approved” card, including
one on Elizabeth Street, titled, “Suze Orman's Money Tips for Mothers.”
219
Even though her Approved card had been torn to shreds by financial
journalists for nearly a year and a half by then, Orman had to make her
investment money back, plus a profit. Not because she couldn’t afford to
lose a couple million dollars, but because to Suze Orman, it is all a game
to see how far she can go and come out ahead, regardless of how many
people are damaged along the way.
Orman wasn’t recommending doulas as a need because she has any
interest in childbearing, but to hook mothers into doing her publicity
work for her as she prepared to con them into putting their money onto a
proven scam. In Orman’s warped mind, and unfortunately in the eyes of
many who worship fortune and fame, she came out “winning,” because she
made a profit.
The Elizabeth Street article featured Orman's widely debunked
“Approved” prepaid debit card as being a good deal for mothers. The
interviewer asked Orman’s shill question, “What is the Approved Card and
how can it benefit mothers?” Orman’s response was that the Approved Card
doesn’t require any credit checks and can be used by those who have
bounced a few checks and are unable to open a bank account. It was
another convoluted Suze Orman pitch with technical terms that
probably left some mothers thinking, “Well, if Suze likes doulas and
recommends this card, it must be good.”
220
Note that by this time, Orman had stopped pretending her card was
going to do anything to help anyone’s FICO score. She didn’t in any way
let card users know that no FICO score benefit was coming, but moved on
to the next set of pseudo facts in Orman’s usual tactic of subtly changing
the text of her scripts and pretending that nothing she’d previously said
had ever been said. I found all the scam indicators in this book and film
with just some searches in media and social media. There are many
remaining Suze Scams to be unmasked.
By May 2013, Orman had heard whispers from the CFPB about
looking into prepaid card problems and creating new laws that seemed to
be in response to Orman’s “Approved” card shenanigans. Maybe this was
the CFPB’s way of letting Suze Orman get away with committing various
kinds of fraud with impunity, while making sure others didn’t follow her
example.
The snake oil salesman knew it was soon going to be time to get out of
Dodge, so she did this Mothers Day pitch to milk whatever more she
could from the disappointing prepaid debit card scheme (disappointing
in terms of not bringing in the hundreds of millions she’d expected).
Here is part of the CFPB’s legal filing about prepaid cards, which
reiterates the fact that even if Orman’s card ever did affect credit scores,
that scoring would likely result in negative effects on most low income
card users’ scores:
8. The Bureau Should Be Vigilant Against Deceptive Claims About
Building Credit
We support the Bureau’s inquiry into the efficacy of credit building
features on prepaid cards and urge the Bureau to consider rules to prevent
deceptive credit building claims. Credit building features often do not
deliver in the manner that the consumer expects, whether because the
data is reported to a little-used agency, the data does not impact credit
scores, or the data has a negative rather than a positive impact…we fear
that, in the current environment, credit building claims are more often
deceptive than accurate.
The last line again from the CFPB, who is supposed to apply justice to
scammers and get restitution to their victims: “We fear that, in the current
environment, credit building claims are more often deceptive than accurate.”
Ya think?
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Chapter Seven
The Scam-Ridden Card’s Demise and Cover-up
With the CFPB’s new ruling and other factors, Orman surely knew
the card was going to go under by mid-2013, and should have been
begging forgiveness and promising to stop the scams in the face of possible
justice.
But Orman knew that her behind-the-scenes protectors would make
sure she would never face justice for any scams, ever, no matter how much
damage they caused or how much money she stole from poor and middle
class United States citizens.
There is evidence suggesting that Orman may have actually planned
this “Approved” card as one last big con to fill her offshore bank accounts
before laughing her way into a very luxurious retirement. It could very
well be that Orman intended all along for this prepaid card to be a short
term, but very lucrative scam.
First, Orman had announced in November 2011, just two months
before releasing the prepaid card as her “People First Movement,” that she
was going to retire from the financial advisor business in three years to
travel on her yacht and enjoy the grand fortune she had acquired. That
would be around November 2014, just months before the card would
close.
Orman told several media outlets,
including the Daily News, that come 2015,
she was going to retire and close up shop,
and that the only thing you would see on
her web page would be a sign that said,
“Gone fishing.” (Link 7-1)
“Financial wizard Suze Orman
already has her retirement plans laid out.
She told us at the recent Friars Club
testimonial dinner for Larry King that she
plans to end “The Suze Orman Show” in
three years and sail around the world:
‘Unless something wacky happens, I’m 60
now, and I always had a date of 63 that
that would be that.’
223
Orman said that on her last day of work, her Web site’s home page
will simply say, “Gone Fishing.”
Just before retiring would be a strange time to start a huge new
venture such as the “Approved” card, a business that would require
resources and commitments of all kinds for years to come. But nothing
ever has to make any sense whatsoever in Scamming Suze’s topsy-turvy
land of deceptive webs, where journalists have been too fearful, ignorant,
or corrupt to ask the needed questions.
Another indication of when Orman thought the card scam might end
is how, throughout 2012, Orman promised in show after show that the
results of her little fake experiment with TransUnion would be made
public in eighteen to twenty-four months. “In eighteen to twenty-four
months, we’ll know if a debit card can create a FICO score!!!”
Orman also mentioned several times that if the card didn’t make
money, she would close it. At the time, my Suze Scamdar said that she
was probably doing that with the expectation of closing the card after the
experiment deadline was up.
Here’s another tip for Suze SCAMvengers: Orman often gives clues of
what she is doing, such as when she bragged about making massive
amounts of money from her gold pump and dump and suggested that she
was planning to buy and sell her way up and down the roller coaster being
created, in part, by all her media blasts to BUY GOLD!!!
On the same day Orman’s Mothers Day, “buy my prepaid debit card”
article was published in Elizabeth Street, came other articles by Orman
with pitches for mothers to use her crummy “Approved” card.
This Hay House article from the same time includes Orman's
assurance that: “You know I will do everything in my power to tell you
everything you need to know. You can always bank on me because I have your
best interest at heart. Learn more about The Approved Card here.”
224
Don't bank on Suze! She does not have your best interest at heart!
This Hay House article appeared to be pieced together from bits and
pieces of PR materials Orman had previously used to pitch the card. As of
June 2016, it is still online: (Link 7-2)
Now many parents have come to me and said, “Why are my kids in
debt? Why aren’t they living the way I want them to live?” “How can I
teach them to handle their money without making the mistakes that I
made?”
Well, you spoke. I heard. And what you said mattered to me. So I
decided to do something about it. I want to help you teach your teens
about money. I want to help you feel good about your finances. I want to
give you a place to bring your money home to—a place that really values
you and puts people first. So I decided to create my own prepaid card. It’s
The Approved Prepaid MasterCard®.
The Approved Card is simply a prepaid card that you load money
onto — you prepay the amount of money that you use. It’s that easy. It’s
not a debit card that’s attached to a checking or credit union account.
It stands all on its own. No credit check. No background check. No
checking account.
For the first year-plus, Orman was pushing the completely fraudulent
idea that using her fee-laden prepaid card would improve users’ FICO
scores, which was clearly shown to be false lies by the documentation
earlier in this book.
225
During her snake oil pitches, Orman continually claimed that within
18—24 months, TransUnion would have their answer on whether her
card could create a FICO score. But what was Orman going to do when
the jig was up and this obviously deceptive ploy ran out the clock?
The 24-month deadline was up in January 2014, so in November
2013, the jig was almost up. That is when the only journalist to ask
Orman about the outcome of her big media blasted experiment with
TransUnion asked the big question, timed so she could give a scammy
answer before the card actually closed.
From The Daily Beast, November 2013: (Link 7-3)
…She can’t help but claim victory already. The card, she says, is
“thriving,” and broke even for the first time this summer. “TransUnion
made a deal with me,” Orman says, “so that for two years they would look
at behavior on this card—in an aggregate, anonymous way—and see if it
determines future behavior.”
I point out that it’s been just about two years. Any word?
“They are finding out that it does,” she says, with a smile.
A representative from TransUnion confirmed the broad outlines of its
partnership with Orman, but wouldn’t corroborate her statement about
the two-year timeline. Nor would the representative make any statements
about what kind of conclusions, if any, TransUnion has drawn from its
analysis, stating only that the process is “ongoing.” Orman declined to give
any further details, as well.
Maybe she’s wrong, letting her passion get in the way of the facts. Or
maybe she’s right, and a groundbreaking TransUnion deal will soon
materialize. Maybe I’ve witnessed a Suze witching moment.
Note that when Orman said she broke even in mid-2013, that means
she personally received a return of at least the two million dollars she
claimed at the NCLR to have invested in the card from her own bulging
coffers. She also assumedly had to get at least the financial investments
back to the other partners whom she surely must have promised big
returns for their complicity in her scheme that plundered their
reimbursed money off the backs of the middle class and poor.
It was time to set up a distracting silver object to cover up the card’s
demise and cover her tracks.
226
Orman’s Fake Petition Cover-Up Campaign
In January 2014, the 24-month experiment deadline for Orman’s
“Approved” card’s “experiment” with TransUnion was up.
Orman had finally stopped pushing to sell her card, but she added
another web to distract and cover up her scam, as she prepared to close
down the card.
Orman and her political lobbyist publicity strategist damage control
experts created a ridiculous, poorly executed Change.org petition, and
addressed it to three senators.
Here is the text of Orman’s petition:
227
In this prepaid card petition sham, Orman was feigning to ask these
politicians to mandate that the credit bureaus include debit card holder's
information on credit reports, something that is not in the hands of
legislatures, nor anything that would make sense to do, as explained in the
Approved card scam chapter.
There are many ways the credit scoring system of FICO could be
improved, however most finance experts agree that using a prepaid card
to determine credit worthiness is not and should not be one of them. But
helping poor people get a better FICO score had nothing to do with what
Orman’s Change.org petition was really about.
For Suze Orman, all of her fans, followers, and friends are nothing
more than pawns for her to use in her con games. When she knows the jig
is about to be up for one of her scams, she creates a diversionary headline
to distract people, usually one that makes her look altruistic in some way.
In this case, Orman needed a cover-up to make her look like a great
credit score debit card activist, in hopes of covering up and making
everyone forget about the prepaid debit card scam she had just run on the
American public.
This ruse didn’t require much work. All Orman had to do for this fake
cover-up of her fraudulent “Approved” card scheme was to put up a
petition with the lowest resolution video clip I’ve seen in decades, and
send out a bunch of tweets to get others to do the publicity work for her.
This petition was intended to give Orman ammunition to defend
criticism of her nearly defunct Approved card scam and the millions she
made from it. She could use this petition to suggest that she was
vigorously lobbying senators to change the score all along but, oh well, it
just didn't happen.
228
Orman pushed her Change.org cover-up ploy to many celebrities,
including Justin Bieber, Cory Booker, Lady Gaga, Kathy Griffin, and
Perrez Hilton, asking them to re-tweet the link to their millions of
followers, many of whom would sign the petition without even knowing
or understanding what they were signing.
Read more of Orman’s petition pushing tweets here: (Link 7-4)
Particularly intriguing was Scammin’ Suze asking Senator Cory
Booker to “Show people you really care and help me circulate my help
(sic.)” Booker shows how much he cares in his service-based approach
every day, but he’s almost fallen for Orman’s schemes before, so she hoped
he would re-tweet her petition and give it a sheen of merit.
Also note Orman’s typo in her tweet to Booker that showed how
lazily she was frantically rushing to tweet famous celebrities she hoped
might make the mistake of re-tweeting her link to their millions of
followers.
229
Clearly, Orman’s goal was to drive up the numbers on that petition so
it might look valid in the eyes of government agencies and others who
might question her card but weren’t really paying attention. She pursued
the tactic with full enthusiasm.
Orman even added a threat to make sure it looked like she was really
passionate about this cause. I can assure you she was laughing her head off
with her partner in crime about how easily they could con the world,
again and again.
With all the millions Orman has
bilked from the public and received
from
banks,
billionaires,
and
corporation, she didn't even have the
interest to use even an iPhone quality
camera to film her “important” plea—
this video had the lowest quality
resolution I’ve seen in a very long time:
(play the clip here: Link 7-5)
Orman knows that even with minimal effort on her part, her
protectors will keep her from scrutiny or justice, and that makes her laugh
her evil laugh all the more.
Yahoo Finance tried to warn their readers that the petition was
ridiculous in an article titled, “Why credit bureaus will never care about
your debit card history”: (Link 7-6)
Even if lawmakers back a plan to include debit transactions in credit
reporting, credit reporting agencies aren’t going to simply roll over and
play ball until debit history can be proven to indicate credit worthiness.
That, after all, is what a credit score is supposed to indicate in the first
place.
In the meantime, there are many proven ways you can improve your
score without having to picket on Capitol Hill. Start by making on-time
payments, tackling high-interest credit card debt above all others, and
keeping your card balances under 10%.
230
At the same time Orman was running this petition sham, the
“Approved” prepaid card scam was still bleeding the poor and middle
class dry through exorbitant fees and the completely incompetent card
management that lost many card users' accounts and money and charged
inappropriate fees, requiring a whole lot of those $2 phone calls to the
“Approved” card's customer service in the Philippines (click here to read
complaints of the card stealing from customers: Link 7-7).
Note that during the previous two years, while Orman was soaking up
millions of dollars in fees from all the poor and uneducated who had
believed her latticeworks of lies, she didn’t do anything beyond pitching
her predatory card to advance the “cause.”
Now that the jig was about to be up, Orman needed a good alibi for
all the questions that should have already descended about the upcoming
demise of her “Approved” card, but never did.
Up until the publishing date of this book, no journalists have ever
pushed Orman for any information about her card closing or her big
experiment with TransUnion, aside from that one question by the Daily
Beast six months before the card abruptly closed, when Orman extolled
how great the card was doing and bragged that she and her investors had
won the game and made back all the money they’d invested in her prepaid
card scheme. Because nothing would be worse for a con artist than to
publicly lose money from a con.
Orman’s petition scam also helped to cover up the January 2014
announcement that her newsletter partner had been fined by the SEC
right around the same time: (Link 7-8)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission levied a $100,000
fine against adviser Mark Grimaldi and his firm last week for misleading
investors in two tweets about his investing strategy's performance. The
tweets claiming he “DOUBLED the S&P 500 the last 10 years” took
liberties with the performance claims to boost his portfolio's allure, the
SEC said.
Orman knows you've got to cover up any bad press with confusing
press! And where would Orman's scams be without Piers Morgan and his
producer looking to raise their viewer numbers (while his show was still
on the air)? Orman bragged to Morgan’s producer about how she had
generated 100,000 signatures for her petition just by scamming others
into publicizing this sham to cover her prepaid debit card scam.
231
Of course, Orman's publicist and co-conspirator Hilary Rosen also
tweeted the petition ploy out to her fifty thousand mostly democratic
followers that included many of the most powerful people in politics and
the media.
232
Change.org re-tweeted the link many times, while obviously enjoying
the publicity Orman likes to promise when she involves people and
corporations in her scams.
Most people who saw Orman’s petition crusade hadn’t read the
documentation in this book or film, and still thought of Suze Orman is
someone they could trust, someone who was acting on behalf of the poor,
who she had just plundered for millions of dollars in her prepaid debit
card scam.
233
See more Change.org tweets about Orman’s petition sham here: Link 7-9
Next is the email Change.org sent out to their huge mailing list on
behalf of Orman's petition scam.
Note that anyone unfamiliar with the facts wouldn’t know that
congress can’t tell credit scoring companies what to count toward their
scores, or that prepaid card use gives absolutely no information relevant
to credit worthiness, or that many in the financial services industry were
already looking at non-traditional credit line ways to determine credit
worthiness, such as how consumers pay their utility and other bills, or
that if by chance debit card use ever were to be counted toward users’
FICO scores, they would be more likely to lower a person’s score than to
improve it.
Nevertheless, Orman’s publicist used many buzzwords to convince
people that this highly recommended “financial expert” must be pitching
something that will help the poor and middle class, whom she had just
ripped off for two years with her scammy “Approved” prepaid debit card.
Here is the unsolicited letter that was sent to Change.org’s entire email list
and other mailing lists:
As a world-renowned financial advisor, I know that building good
credit is one of the most important things you can do to secure your
financial future. But did you know that none of the purchases you make
with your debit card count toward building your credit?
This puts debit card users at a serious disadvantage when it comes to
making big purchases like a car or a home, or even applying for jobs and
rental agreements. No credit = bad credit, and because the credit bureaus
don’t track debit card transctions (sp.), debit card users get no reward for
being financially responsible. This is a deeply unfair system, especially for
lower income people, and I am determined to see it change.
That’s why I started a petition on Change.org calling on the Senate
Banking Committee to mandate that the major credit bureaus track debit
card transactions as well as credit cards. Please click here to sign.
This change could make a big difference for a lot of people, from
young people applying for student loans, to new families who want to own
their own homes, to people who’ve fallen on hard times and need to
refinance their mortgages.
234
Some of the people who received this unsolicited email were
confused and bemused, including one fellow who tweeted, “Dear Suze
Orman: Please do not start your unsolicited emails with the words 'As a worldrenowned...' It sounds assholish.”
After all the other blatant scams she's gotten away with, Orman knew
that most of the people she fools don't read Yahoo! Finance, so even with
comments from bemused finance experts piling up on the Yahoo article
and others, Orman posted a photo of herself and her partner in crime,
giddy with con artist glee.
235
I don’t think the storm Orman was laughing about had anything to do
with the weather. Then came more of this:
It’s all a joke, all a game, and the losers are the American public and
the world.
With her Petition blitz, Orman once again showed is how dangerous
it is for a corrupt person to have way too much public influence, including
the ability to get hundreds of thousands of people (assuming many or any
of them were real) to vote for something that would be harmful to almost
everyone. The only person intended to benefit from that petition was
Suze Orman, who used it to distract public attention from the
TransUnion “experiment” deadline of her prepaid debit card scam, which
neither Orman nor TransUnion ever mentioned again. Poof!
236
During the twenty-four months that her card was raking in fees from
the poor, Orman didn't do a thing to address this “cause” of getting debit
cards to count toward FICO scores aside from pitching her card.
Suddenly, she was pushing this grand goal fervently, which for Suze
Orman involved doing nothing more than having her publicists create a
ridiculous petition and sending out a few tweets.
Orman knew she could easily play the public for a fool again and
create this diversionary tactic that would entice the same people who
were fooled by her fraudulent claims into pouring money into her
accounts through her “Approved” card scam to think, oh well, Suze is
working so hard to make this change, and she’s connected with important
people. I shouldn’t say anything about the fact that her card took so much
of my money. Those complaints should have resulted in a big class action
lawsuit against Orman and her “Approved” card, since government
agencies were obviously not interested in protecting the public from Suze
Orman’s scams.
Orman also intended the petition to protect her from scrutiny over
the card’s upcoming dirty demise that, in many cases, would lock people
out of their accounts while still charging fees, with of course, many more
of those never-ending two dollar phone calls to customer service.
The only “change” Orman was interested in was moving bucket loads
of “change” from the pockets of the middle class and poor into her own. As
an seasoned scammer, Orman also knew she had to also distract enough
to run out the statute of limitation time for any of her prepaid card
victims to file class action or personal lawsuits regarding her consumer
financial fraud.
Remember that long before this petition cover-up, FICO had already
said they were not interested in what Orman’s petition was claiming to
want. And you can’t have congress telling a corporation like Fair Isaac that
they have to include completely irrelevant data in their calculations, just
because Suze Orman says she wants them to do it while running these
scams.
In fact, giving corporations more access to debit card use, what
Orman was asking everyone to sign her petition to do, would probably be
harmful to most debit card users. The only possibly relevant information
would be if they messed up and somehow overdrew their cards, which
would ding their scores.
Using Orman’s prepaid card would also show that they either have
such bad financial histories that they couldn't get a free debit card from
even a credit union, or that they’re so financially uneducated that Suze
Orman talked them into moving money from a bank to her fee-laden card.
237
Some people use debit cards specifically to hide their financial
transactions, and even they would lose if this petition were successful,
which it never would or could be. Giving corporations access to
someone’s prepaid card use might be good for ex-wives looking for some
child support, but it would likely harm those debit card users as well.
Also, if you gave credit scoring points for using a debit card, then you'd
have to also give points for using cash or checks, and then the whole credit
scoring system becomes moot. As you’ll see at the end of our film, Orman
proclaimed that she wanted the credit scoring industry to change to an
entirely new scoring system, “And I hope they call it the ‘S.O.’ score!”
While some changes might be needed in this and other areas of the
economy, Orman’s petition was nothing more than one more scam. There
are plenty of ways she could have spoken up through her years of public
influence to really help people, but that's not what motivates con artists
like Suze Orman. Once you see that everything Orman says and does is
either to put more money into her pockets or to cover her previous
shenanigans, the patterns start to unmask, and her actions start to make
more sense.
Of course, Suze Orman idolizer Kathy Griffin re-tweeted the petition
request to her nearly 2 million followers, asking them to sign Orman's
petition without even knowing what it was about, just to generate more
numbers that didn’t represent support for the convoluted idea of the
petition, but actually represented the ignorance of people blindly
following and trusting someone who should not be trusted.
238
At the same time Orman was using this petition sham to cover up her
fraudulent FICO score claims in preparation for the card’s demise, she
appeared in an article for E! Online about how to budget and save in 2014.
What was “financial expert” Suze Orman’s number one tip just a few
months before her card would close, stealing more money from users on
the way out? To buy her fee-laden “Approved” debit card, of course. From
the E! Online article in January 2014, “How to Budget and Save in 2014,
Plus Tips and Tricks from Financial Guru Suze Orman”: (Link 7-9a)
Famed financial guru Suze Orman, who is a New York Times
bestselling author, a two-time Emmy Award-winning television host, and
a renowned motivational speaker, is known for her ‘keep it real' approach
to finances, particularly when it comes to budgeting and saving.
The Suze Orman Show host gave us her five tips and tricks for a
“Money Perfect NEW Year,” which Orman promises will increase your
financial security in 2014:
1. Pay as you go. “Using cash or a debit card (without overdraft
protection) means you will limit yourself to spending money you actually
have,” Orman said. “That's smarter than using a credit card and
charging more than you can afford to pay off in full at the end of the
month.” Using a pre-paid debit card is also a great way to limit your
spending and debt. Check out Suze Orman's new prepaid debit card—
the “Approved Card” here!
As a reminder, here is Orman’s January 2012 snake oil pitch on Good
Morning America about her card and the 24 month debit card
“experiment” that ended in January 2014, which was the same time she
launched her B.S. cover up petition: Link 7-10
Click here to view more video Clips of Orman’s Prepaid Debit Card
Fraud in Action throughout the mainstream media, with her frequent
repetitions of the two year “experiment” deadline: Link 7-11
The silent, destructive death of Orman’s Approved card
The Suze Orman “Approved” card closed all accounts as of July 1,
2014, with the only notice being one convoluted letter from Bancorp,
leaving many who fell for Orman’s debit card fraud unable to access their
own money.
239
Rev. Pagan never received any response from Orman, and sent me the
only communication he’d received, a confusing mess of a letter from
Bancorp that was the only notification Approved card users ever received
that the card holding their hard-earned money was closing: Link 7-12
The US Bancorp letter, dated May 1st, began:
“Our records indicate that you hold The Approved Prepaid
MasterCard issued by The Bancorp Bank. This is a prepaid card and
thereby not reported to any credit reporting agency (this is Bancorp
finally correcting the misinformation that was the main reason most
card members got the card after being fooled by Orman's fraudulent
media-wide scam)
This letter is to notify you that The Bancorp Bank will discontinue all
services in connection with these Cards, effective July 1, 2014...Use
remaining balances before July 1, 2014...we encourage you to bring your
available balance to $0.00 prior to your expiration date. If you have any
balances in your Goal Funds you will need to transfer the balances to your
primary account...”
240
How many people didn’t understand or even open that one letter
from Bancorp—the only notification they ever received about the card
closing? It probably looked like junk mail to most “Approved” card users
who had no idea that Orman’s card had partnered with Bancorp. How
many “Approved” card victims found themselves suddenly unable to
access any of their money, including whatever they had moved into the
card's sections for long-term savings as had been recommended by Orman
herself? From Orman’s “Approved” card web page:
Those who were already victimized by Orman's high fee card got
fleeced even more on the way out, with a lot more of those two dollar
customer service call fees on top.
Note from those terms that the only way card users could get access
to their “Goal Funds” would have been to go through a poorly
administered request section on the Approved Card website. Since the
website was not functioning properly, users had to jump through hoops
and make more calls to get their long-term savings back. How scary it
must have been for these poor and middle class workers to lose access to
their own money, unable to pay rent or buy food, medicine, gas, and other
necessities.
Meanwhile, Bancorp refused to give journalists any information
about why the card was closing, just as TransUnion had refused to give
any details about their little pseudo “experiment,” and FICO had only
given one line addressing Orman’s fraudulent claims.
From Consumer Reports: (Link 7-13)
241
Have a Suze Orman 'Approved Card'? What to do now.
The prepaid card is being discontinued, potentially leaving some
holders in the lurch
Published: June 18, 2014 04:15 PM (Just eleven days before card
users would be locked out of their accounts!)
Launched to great fanfare not too long ago, Suze Orman's prepaid
Approved Card is closing up shop, according to a report in The New York
Times. While the personal finance guru has been silent about this
development, cardholders report receiving letters that say that the
Approved Card will no longer work after July 1, 2014.
You may be wondering, “Can a prepaid card just stop like that?” The
answer in this case—and in many others—is yes. That’s because most
financial services contracts, usually called the terms and conditions,
include a clause that says something like this from the Approved Card
website: “We may amend or change the terms and conditions of this
Agreement at any time. We may cancel or suspend your Card or this
Agreement at any time.”
So what is an Approved cardholder to do?
Stop loading, start spending
If you have an Approved Card, it’s a good idea to stop loading funds
onto the card (more on that below for those who have direct deposit) and
to spend it down to zero as soon as you can.
These already defrauded consumers also had to go through the stress
of wondering if they would ever see the money they saved on the card
again. From Go Banking Rates: “Why Suze Orman’s Approved Card Will
Soon Be Denied”: (Link 7-14)
Suze Orman announced her prepaid debit card, the Approved card,
in early 2012 to much fanfare and criticism. Now Orman is quietly
canceling the Approved card, which was marketed to consumers who were
trying to build credit or rein in spending habits, according to The New
York Times.
Approved cardholders started receiving letters this month from
Bancorp Bank, Orman’s partner in offering the product, stating that their
cards would be deactivated and wouldn’t work as of July 1. In the letters,
cardholders were encouraged to spend or transfer the remaining balances
on the prepaid cards, and informed that any remaining balances would be
returned to them via a check from Bancorp, per the New York Times.
242
Despite this news, the website for Orman’s Approved card is still up,
with no updates or changes that would indicate that the product has been
discontinued.
Card users who had set up direct deposit from their employers, as
Orman had encouraged users to do so they could avoid a few of the card’s
many fees, also found that the “Approved” card was keeping additional
paychecks sent to them after they abruptly closed users' accounts too
quickly for people to change their deposit choices at work. This fiasco put
even more money into Orman’s pockets, and more of those two dollar
phone calls to the “Approved” card’s customer service center.
This next woman's plight is just one example of the damage Orman’s
messy and heartless card closing caused to many lives of those who had
already been victimized by the overall high fees and shoddy management
of Orman's “Approved” card that they thought was going to improve their
FICO scores:
In stark contrast to Orman's wild headline blast while pitching her
card throughout the mainstream media, this card closure was done so
quietly that there was not even a peep in any press about the closure, until
I forwarded a Twitter message to New York Times finance journalist Ron
Lieber, who wrote the first article about it. (Link 7-15)
243
This disabled vet couldn’t access his money after being conned by
Orman’s “Approved” card scam, and asked for help:
244
Around the same time, the Senate’s Consumer Protection panel was
busy questioning another Oprah protégé, Dr. Oz, about his overly
enthusiastic recommendations for some questionable weight loss
products. Focused on whether green coffee extract can help with weight
loss, the Senate’s Consumer Protection panel had no interest whatsoever
in that other Oprah protégé who was causing much more serious damage
while running actual cons on the public.
Watch Scammin’ Suze in action while pitching the card, promising to
always keep card users informed about everything they need to know:
(Link 7-20)
“You know I will do everything in my power to tell you everything you
need to know. You can always bank on me because I have your best
interest at heart.
That’s Orman’s sociopathic sense of humor. It’s likely she knew that
her strategy would be to let the card fizzle out after taking a ton of money
from card users, after which she was going to go completely silent about
closing the card, certainly not doing “everything (or anything) in her
power” to tell her fraud victims what they needed to know. In fact, Orman
never said a single word about the card closing at the time or since. As the
New York Times put it: “Suze Orman’s Approved Prepaid Debit Cards Are
Quietly Discontinued.”
245
As Approved card victims were frantically trying to get their stolen
money back from the closed accounts, Orman posted gleeful, taunting
photos of herself and her partner in crime enjoying those fees and
improper charges they took from the poor and middle class, on a luxury
yacht vacation that intriguingly took place in the Cayman Islands, where
Orman’s protector Rosen has helped Corporations such as Herbalife
move their accounts, to avoid paying taxes in the United States.
At the same time “Approved” card victims were unable to access their
own money for basic necessities, Orman also shared this video of herself
and her partner in crime laughing all the way to the bank: Link 7-21
Orman posted these photos of herself at the same time card users
were unable to access their money after the card closed.
“Ha ha, fooled ya again!”
Huffington Post ran an article about the card’s demise, with the same
kind of deference Arianna had previously shown in the video interview
that allowed Orman to fool and scam Huffington Post readers with her
“Approved” card fraud. (You'll see clips of Arianna’s interview with
Orman in the documentary, or you can view longer clips here: Link 7-22)
246
The title of the new Huffington Post article was: “Suze Orman Nixes
Her Prepaid Debit Card; It Appears Her Dream of Helping Millions to
Establish and Build Credit Is Dead.” Seriously, here it is: (Link 7-23)
A more accurate subtitle would have been, “Although Orman earned
back all of her investment and more from the fees plundered and outright
stolen from 'Approved' card users, it appears her dream of breaking the
banking system and fooling millions more into moving their money to her feeladen card is dead.”
That Huffington Post article is an example of how PR spin can cover
up a fraudulent money grab that stole from the poor and middle class and
should have landed the perpetrator in prison—painting Orman’s scam as
an altruistic quest for the betterment of humanity.
Orman-friendly Upstart Business Journal joined the obfuscation spin
with an article titled, “Suze Orman prepaid debit card too good a deal?”
beginning with, “You can’t fault Suze Orman for trying to help people…”
That shill article title was republished and re-tweeted by many real
and fake social media accounts and news outlets.
And the “Orman cabal” juggernaut continued on.
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Chapter Eight
Sociopathology and a Twitter Meltdown
As a disclaimer for this chapter, I don’t have the credentials to make
an official diagnosis of Suze Orman as a narcissistic sociopath, although I
was brought up by two psychology teachers, and started reading Freud
and other psychology books at age seven, before studying neuroscience at
the University of Michigan. Therefore, I have more higher education in
the psychology field than Suze Orman has in finance, since she’s never
taken a single finance-related college course.
With that disclaimer in place, there are few if any other people I've
met or known personally who I would describe as true sociopaths. That
includes working with hundreds of directors, producers, studio
executives, actors, crew and journalists during my years in Hollywood,
and many idiosyncratic spiritual folks who I worked, worshipped, and
roomed with while living and serving for many years in an international
yoga and meditation ashram that attracted just about every kind of
person you could imagine. Those guests included occasional predators
like Suze Orman, who quickly realized the ashram devotees were
innocent, trusting, and easy to con, use, and abuse.
Of course, we all have flaws, but Suze Orman is by far the most
problematic person I've personally known, for many reasons. From what
I’ve experienced, observed, and heard from others, Orman has always gone
through life trying to charm people into doing what would take her to the
next level, while leaving significant damage in her wake.
Orman would find accomplished people who could either be fooled
by her altruistic charades or bribed with frequent promises of lavish
repayments—in my case, both. She would con good people into violating
their integrity to support her schemes before leaving them compromised
and damaged, usually giving a few more kicks after the con.
Hopefully this book and film will open a gate for others to contribute
their knowledge and experiences, so we can all learn lessons for better
discernment in life, and for the protection, education, and intelligence of
our society. That’s one reason I say this book and film are about much
more than just Suze Orman.
The entire list of “qualities of sociopath” on Wikihow could have a
photo of Suze Orman as a prime example. Here are the more relevant
descriptions: (Link 8-1):
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— Sociopaths are usually extremely charming and charismatic. Their
personalities are described as magnetic, and as such, they generate a
lot of attention and praise from others.
— Sociopaths oftentimes feel overly entitled to certain positions, people,
and things. They believe that their own beliefs and opinions are the
absolute authority, and disregard the opinions of others.
— Sociopaths are rarely shy, insecure, or at a loss for words. They have
trouble suppressing emotional responses like anger, impatience, or
annoyance, and constantly lash out at others and respond hastily to
these emotions.
— Sociopaths can be criminals. Because of their tendency to disregard
the law and social norms, sociopaths may have a criminal record.
They may be con artists, kleptomaniacs, or even murderers.
— Sociopaths are professional liars. They fabricate stories and make
outlandish, untruthful statements, but are able to make these lies
sound convincing with their confidence and assertiveness.
— Sociopaths have a low tolerance for boredom. They get bored easily
and require constant stimulation.
— Sociopaths are incapable of experiencing guilt or shame for their
actions. It is common for sociopaths to lack remorse when they have
done something that hurts others. They may appear indifferent or
rationalize their actions.
— Sociopaths are manipulative. They may try to influence and
dominate the people around them and tend to seek positions of
leadership.
— Sociopaths lack empathy and may be incapable of love. While some
sociopaths will have an individual or a small group of people that
they seem to care about, they have a hard time feeling emotions and
it is likely that they have not had healthy romantic relationships in
the past.
— Sociopaths have a hard time dealing with criticism. They often
desire approval from others and may even feel like they are entitled
to it.
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Throughout this book, multimedia links, and our documentary film,
you’ll find clear examples of Suze Orman behaving in ways that fit
strongly into each of those descriptions. You will also find examples that
illustrate the official DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders) description of a narcissistic sociopath. (Link 8-2)
People suffering from Sociopathic disorders tend to be superficially
charming. They also tend to display behavior which include manipulation
of people around them, desire to be in control of everything and everyone
around them that usually leads to grave consequences and shallow
emotions…Displays heightened levels of deceitfulness in dealings with
others, which involves lying, conning others without remorse, or even using
aliases.
Research has revealed that since a sociopath never conforms to the
rules of the society, he or she is not bothered about the consequences of his
or her actions. Such people at times are also able to inspire like-minded
people.
Some of the other traits that are common in antisocial people are that
they are usually intelligent and have a superficial charm and they are able
to attain success using unscrupulous methods. Thus they can also never
learn from their own mistakes and they do not hesitate to indulge in
certain activities that are considered immoral and taboo by the society.
It’s unfortunate that Orman’s sociopathic confidence and charm
paved the way for her to assume an almost completely uncredentialed
position as a financial, family, career, and lifestyle advisor to millions.
Some who might have otherwise spoken up to stop the damage after
her prepaid card scam likely fell for Orman’s frequent suggestions that she
was going to retire soon, which I assumed she planted in the press
specifically for the purpose of making people think it would not be worth
their trouble to expose her when her damaging shenanigans were
supposedly coming to an end. Why speak up and draw the ire of Orman’s
powerful supporters if she’s no longer going to be causing harm?
But they, and I, were wrong. The damaging and deceptive actions of
Orman and her massively powerful political lobbyist and strategist
publicists have continued on, and as of the writing of this book, continue
to cause damage to the world, with troubling tendrils into the United
States military, New Age publishers, presidential politics, and more.
In this next clip, you can watch Orman’s personality aberrations in
action on the show Talk Stoop.
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Orman is explaining that she and her brand manager wife approached
General Mills and asked them to put her face on their Total cereal box.
She appears to be a little inebriated in the clip, so the video of that
conversation is as good a clip as any to inaugurate this exploration into
Orman’s behavioral problems.
Watch Orman parade her neuroses on Talk Stoop: Link 8-3
Here’s a documented example of Orman's dishonest nature that also
illumines some of her troubling relationship with her father and traces
some origins of her view that money is “the most important thing in life.”
Note Orman's unapologetic ease with dishonesty as she tosses off the
fact that she had just been caught blatantly lying in a book about her
father committing suicide on Fathers Day.
From the New York Times article, “Suze Orman is Having a Moment,”
in May 2009: (Link 8-4)
Anyone looking for insight into the genesis of Orman’s obsession with
money, her deeply personal, all-consuming preoccupation with it, need
look no farther than the first chapter of “The Nine Steps to Financial
Freedom.” Just a few pages in, she tells the story of a fire that destroyed
her father’s chicken shack when she was about 13. Her father, who was
there when the fire started, escaped without harm — only to rush back in,
his daughter watching in disbelief, after he realized that every cent the
family had was in the cash register. Unable to open the register, he
“literally picked back up the scalding metal box and carried it outside,”
Orman writes. “When he threw the register on the ground, the skin on his
arms and chest came with it. He had escaped the fire safely once,
untouched. Then he voluntarily risked his life and was severely injured.
The money was that important. That was when I learned that money is
obviously more important than life itself.”
Orman goes on to talk about her quest to gain some perspective on
that life lesson, and toward the end of the book, in a chapter called
“Understanding the Ebb and Flow of the Money Cycle,” she returns to her
father’s story. Her father experienced a series of business reversals, she
writes, but eventually he had two delis up and running successfully, and he
stopped worrying: “For the first time ever, there was enough money —
more than enough. My dad knew, too, that my mom would be taken care
of after he was gone, and he was happy her brother would take over the
family business.”
Not long after that, she wrote, “My father died — in his eyes a lucky
man.” The point of the story: Sometimes the worst misfortune paves the
way for a better opportunity.
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Back in March, a few minutes before Orman was about to go live on
“Morning Joe,” I mentioned to her that I had been struck by the story of
her father’s perseverance. Did his entrepreneurialism, I asked, inspire her?
“My father killed himself,” she said by way of an answer. “On
Father’s Day.”
I was startled by the apparent discrepancy with her more sanguine
account of her father’s death in “The Nine Steps to Financial Freedom”
but let her continue.
That day, she went on, when she was 30, her father insisted on getting
out of his wheelchair and walking and walking even though he had a
serious heart condition and the doctors had warned him against it. “He
wouldn’t open the presents. He knew what he was doing,” she said. “He
died a defeated man. He didn’t know who would take care of me and my
mom.”
A few weeks later, I asked Orman about the seeming contradiction in
facts, and she passed it off blithely, even likeably. “Oh, who knows what I
said in the book,” she replied. She added that she probably gave the story
a happier ending in print to please her mother.
On the morning she first told me that she believed her father killed
himself, I thought I might somehow have been misremembering the story
in the book — and wasn’t sure what to say. I remarked awkwardly that
she had had an unusually intense life. Her response suggested that she
managed to find an equally compelling, inspirational narrative from the
sadder, presumably true, version of her father’s history: “Thank God,” she
said. “It’s made me the person I am.”
Knowing about some personal issues regarding Orman and her father,
including accusations she made toward him that she later recanted after a
psychic told her they didn’t happen, I wondered if he chose Fathers Day
to make a statement. If so, Mr. Orman was not the only person to be
driven to despair by his daughter’s sociopathic shenanigans.
Since we’re in somewhat of a “dishy” chapter, next is an article
comment written by someone who had once been hired as one of
Orman’s behind-the-scenes experts. The article uses a fake headline to
demonstrate the power of dramatic headlines, so I’m not claiming Suze
Orman actually eats puppies, although pre-famous Orman did once
confide in me about doing something nasty to her friend’s dog that was so
gross, I still remember exactly where I was standing during that
conversation.
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Here’s the fake headline, used as an example for an article about headlines:
I had to include that fake headline to give a context for this very real
comment by an insider who may have been anonymously violating her
confidentiality agreement with Orman:
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Even though Orman didn’t really eat a puppy on live TV, this
anonymous insider comment (that probably violates the person’s
confidentiality agreement with Orman) gives a glimpse of the real experts
behind Suze Orman’s “financial expert” façade, and also highlights
Orman’s behavioral problems and sexual predator nature.
A University psychology professor who also knows Orman described
to me what he saw as Orman finding ways to dig her psychic hooks into
people, such as she did with Oprah and many others. One of the stranger
examples of this dynamic is comedian Kathy Griffin, who usually calls
other shysters out on their B.S., but practically worships Suze Orman.
Some years ago, Kathy Griffin's assistant, Jessica, contacted me to say
thanks after reading and enjoying one of my spiritual happiness books. In
our subsequent communications, Jessica shared her concerns about how
Orman's effect on Kathy was like a cult. In the clip below you’ll see Orman
on Griffin’s “D-List” show, emasculating one of Griffin’s assistants and
trying to humiliate Jessica on national television by calling her “stupid,
just stupid” because she was leasing a reasonable car. (Link 8-5)
Note that even though Orman tells Jessica in this clip that leasing a
car is the stupidest thing she'll ever do in her life, when I knew Orman in
the early 1990s, she was leasing a top of the line BMW, along with loads of
other extravagant indulgences, and that was at a time when Orman was,
according to her own biography, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
in debt, not including all her promised repayments to me and others that
she had apparently had always intended to blow off.
At the time of this episode, Jessica had a great job as a celebrity
assistant on the cast of a reality show, so she—unlike Orman when she
leased that BMW in the 1990s—could actually afford the price, and had
reasons for preferring to go that route. Soon after the Orman episode
aired, after many years working as Griffin’s assistant, Griffin fired Jessica,
perhaps on Orman's advice, since heartless Suze Orman loves to tell
people to fire their employees and managers, and not to help friends or
family in need.
In an email conversation, Jessica expressed her concerns to me about
Orman's condescending and brusque behavior and Kathy's cult like
obsession with her. “Kathy even got a little ruffled with me when I said I
probably would continue to lease cars. As if it offended her and Suze...such
bizarre cultlike behavior.”
In the years since that episode aired in 2008, up to and including in
2016, Griffin has barely seemed able to get through a comedy set or
interview appearance without referencing Orman in positive terms.
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Kathy Griffin’s Orman accolades have included repeating an absurd
number of times on many interview shows and comedy performances that
Suze Orman should be the president of the United States, sometimes
explaining that the White House “needs a dirty lesbian.” (Article and
video of that at this link: Link 8-6)
Griffin even named a CD track after this oft-repeated pitch—play the
CD track here: Link 8-8:
Griffin’s repetition of the same “joke” continued year after year,
increasingly sounding more serious than joking, such as in this Huffington
Post article that was published in both 2013 and 2016: “Kathy Griffin
Wants a Lesbian President, Nominates Suze Orman.” (Link 8-7)
“You know I’ve been saying President Orman for quite awhile. I love
my Barack Obama, but I’m saying President Suze Orman would be a
very good move,” said Griffin, who added that a lesbian in the White
House would “be a dream.”
Griffin’s enthusiastic pitching of Suze
Orman was so obviously deliberate and
ongoing that I wondered if Kathy might
have an arrangement where Orman pays
for each mention, although that's just a
guess. Maybe Griffin really does have a
crush on this scammer.
Griffin has actually said she would like
to be “Mrs. Orman,” and in this clip,
explains how Suze Orman is like Jesus:
Link 8-9
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Orman has also insinuated that she would make a good president of
the United States. Perhaps she figures that if she could con her way into
her current unqualified position, why not play the same game to the top.
After all, Orman’s main protector, Hilary Rosen, is considered a king
maker for democratic politicians, often using seriously concerning tactics,
such as those she seems to have used while strategizing for Hillary
Clinton’s primary campaign against Bernie Sanders.
As a note, I’m as democratic as they come, but have no interest in
standing by silently while watching the democratic party be hijacked and
corrupted by a “Koch sister” who wants to use those politicians to give
scammers like Suze Orman immunity from their crimes.
Orman probably figures that if she could get behind the scenes
experts to help her fake being a “financial wizard,” why not do the same for
a presidency, like Kevin Kline’s fake president in the movie “Dave,” who
reminded me of Orman’s façade as a “financial expert.” Both did pick up
some information along the way, but were nevertheless living a lie.
Orman's 2012 Twitter Meltdown
The Suze Orman problem reached a new crescendo of public
visibility in January 2012, when Orman’s “Approved” card scam went too
far and finally caught the attention of financial journalists across the land.
Any expert worth his or her salt could see that she was lying to the public
and pushing a misinformation campaign to fool and rip off the poorest,
most financially uneducated people in our country.
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Smart Credit blog ran the article, “Reaction to Suze Orman’s Prepaid
Debit Card Overwhelmingly Negative” (Link 8-10)
In what might win the award for most boneheaded public relations
move of 2012, on Monday January 9th the world woke up to the
announcement that Suze Orman, host of the popular Suze Orman Show
on CNBC, had partnered with The Bancorp Bank to introduce and
endorse The Approved Card, a pre-paid debit MasterCard. Pre-paid
debit cards have very poor reputations and are generally believed to be
among the worst financial services products.
Several other personal finance bloggers asked Orman a few relatively
gentle questions about her card, barely even mentioning her widely
repeated false insinuations that it would improve users’ FICO scores.
Their relatively gentle questions brought forth noticeably immature
and deceptive responses from Orman, who proceeded to show just a tiny
glimpse of her actual personality, at which point the handful of personal
finance bloggers became more honest and blunt with their assessments.
Here’s a sampling from Orman’s Twitter meltdown:
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This was one of the first times any journalists had questioned Suze
Orman with anything less than deference. I was heartened to see that
someone was finally paying proper attention to at least one of Orman’s
scams. I shared with some of the bloggers the online article that was a
precursor of this book and film, so they would understand that this
“Approved” card scam was not just one speck in an otherwise pristine
career, but that all the times they had recommended or quoted Suze
Orman in their blogs, they were mistakenly recommending a fraud.
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I thank and congratulate the personal finance bloggers who stepped
in and did what was right, in spite of Orman’s protectors and revengeful
nature. They protected many poor and middle class people who would
otherwise have been fooled into pouring their hard-earned money into
Suze Orman’s “Approved” card scheme.
These bloggers may have even helped save our economy from the
scourge Orman and her cabal had planned with their “Approved” card
scam.
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Soon, Audrey stepped in—Audrey is a retired nurse in Canada who
seems to be a nice lady. She became a Suze Orman super fan who, with
Orman’s encouragement, posted over fourteen thousand tweets
publicizing Orman’s various activities.
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Orman’s Twitter responses became a news story in themselves,
because they gave a glimpse into Orman behind the ghostwriters and
behind-the-scenes experts. This was the Suze Orman that I and many
others who helped her along the way came to know—a petty,
disappointing, mean, heartless, greedy, lying con artist.
When Orman is called out for her shenanigans, as in the Twitter
meltdown above, she often calls her critics “Suze haters” to fool the public
into ignoring valid concerns brought forth by competent journalists.
Those bloggers made enough of a noise to finally get the attention of
other financial journalists, who took a look at Orman’s card and snake oil
pitches and saw something that could never qualify as good financial
advice or behavior.
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That’s when over one hundred articles were published across the
media landscape from journalists top to bottom who had remained silent
during so many previous Suze Orman shams. Now, finally, they published
articles to warn the public about Orman’s card, many of which you can
find in Chapter Five of this book.
Some of the blogger responses were especially clever, and true. Here,
Drake is quoting Orman’s retort to another blogger:
Thanks again to these bloggers, who helped open the door for
journalists up the ladder to notice that a supposedly trusted financial
advisor was running an obviously dirty scam.
Some bloggers speculated that this “Approved” card scam and
Twitter meltdown would likely be the end of Suze Orman’s career.
Reporters at Reuters even held a vote on who could be Orman’s
replacement as universally trusted financial expert. What they didn’t
realize was the extreme power of Orman’s protectors and publicity
strategists, who at the time were also helping BP Oil make the public
forget that a gulf oil spill ever happened.
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Here’s a description with commentary on Orman’s Twitter drama from
the DollarVersity article:
The name calling
The first sign that things were going to get a little hairy was when she
started referring to those who were questioning her new product as being
idiots, ignorant, haters, saying they think they know everything yet know
nothing, and telling a Twitter follower that they should be pitied.
Rather than stooping to such juvenile, name-calling tactics, Ms.
Orman would have been better suited responding with facts and realworld data supporting her claims while disputing the claims of others.
It seemed like this wasn’t even happening, and some even questioned
whether or not this was actually Ms. Orman doing the tweeting or
someone else doing so on her behalf.
Ignoring the “little people”
At every turn, the bloggers were being shot down and belittled.
Ms. Orman at one point made a reference to “legit reporters” who are
most likely her buddies writing glowing reviews as opposed to the bloggers
who are the “haters.”
At one point they were even reporting that they were being blocked by
her Twitter account operator.
It may seem like the easy way to handle the criticism, since many of
the people doing the bashing weren’t nationally (and internationally)
known personalities.
Unfortunately, when that happens, people tend to find other ways to
get their thoughts out to the world, and when it comes to personal
financial bloggers, they are able to reach a surprisingly large number of
people.
That is when all of the blog posts repeating the Twitter comments,
and really dissecting the Approved Card popped up.
Just because individually the bloggers didn’t measure up
(statistically) to Ms. Orman as far as Twitter followers or Facebook fans
go, they shouldn’t be dismissed, since when taken as a collective, their
reach extends much farther.
Plus, all it takes is one person to catch wind of a small movement on
the internet and it can blow up to a phenomenon.
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The backtracking
At one point, famed New York Times author Ron Lieber confronted
her on the issue of the insults, to both the bloggers and himself.
To that, Ms. Orman claimed to never insult him.
Of course, he called her bluff, and was able to provide a direct insult
coming from her Twitter account. (Note: Orman’s insult toward
Lieber was actually from an interview with Arianna Huffington)
Then came Phil Villarreal to challenge her apology to Mr. Lieber
(twice in fact) while ignoring all the others she insulted.
From there it was a bunch of blanket apologies to “anyone I called an
idiot” and so on until she was called out on not apologizing to Mr. Phil
Taylor (to whom her “idiot” remark was directed) because he wasn’t a
writer for the Times (like Mr. Lieber).
Finally, she made a directed apology to Mr. Taylor…
Qualifying every comment
Unfortunately the most important of the apologies, directed at Mr.
Taylor, was a bit half-hearted and prefaced by her saying “Even you
PT…”.
She also stated among her apologies that she has a hard time
“defending my self against things that are not true”.
This is where so many apologies go wrong.
You cannot be taken as being genuine if you slip in snide remarks that
detract from an otherwise stand-up gesture.
Telling someone that even they are deserving of an apology after
kissing the ass of a big shot is not cool.
Taking shots at the people you are supposed to be apologizing to by
continuing to inject your “but they are still wrong” defense isn’t cool either.
She did earn some credit by admitting to not taking the high-road,
and taking responsibility for her comments, but it still didn’t make up for
the slights she tried to inject into the apologies.
Along with Orman's tirade above, where she called respected financial
bloggers “idiots” who know nothing, came her tangled web of praise and
insults with New York Times Finance Journalist Ron Lieber.
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Orman’s publicists had selected Lieber to write the first article about
Orman’s card, apparently trusting that his portrayal would be favorable.
Lieber’s fairly gentle article about Orman’s prepaid card did
nevertheless point out the card’s flawed logic, including calling her B.S.
deal with TransUnion, “vaporware.” He also offered some knowledgeable
guesses at what may have been taking place behind the scenes in Orman’s
deal that had convinced TransUnion to compromise their integrity and
partner on such a fraudulent scheme.
From Lieber’s New York Times article, “TV Advisor on Money Offers
Card,” (Link 8-13)
The real question is whether any debit card can help a cardholder
become more creditworthy. The three major credit bureaus —
TransUnion, Equifax and Experian — generally do not use debit card
spending data to determine whether someone is qualified for loans.
“There is something radically wrong here,” Ms. Orman said. “We are
rewarding people for having credit and punishing people who pay in cash.
I want to change that paradigm.”
So she has persuaded TransUnion to collect spending data from
Approved card customers. Perhaps it will look at other companies’ data
too. And in a few years, it will see whether there is any proof that prepaid
debit users deserve recognition for good behavior.
Until then, this is mere vaporware. The data may prove meaningless,
and even if there are patterns, TransUnion probably would not give
people more than a handful of points’ worth of credit on their scores.
As for the free credit reports and such, TransUnion could raise the
price Ms. Orman pays in 2013. TransUnion may simply be in this
temporarily for the gold star it gets from siding with Ms. Orman and her
people-first philosophy.
I wish I knew for sure. Nobody from TransUnion would talk about
any of this, though Ms. Orman laid down the law, just in case. “If they set
me up,” she asked, “do you think I wouldn’t do everything in my power to
obliterate them? I absolutely would, and they know that. That’s not their
intention here.”
That was as mild as an honest article about Orman’s predatory card
could be, and it was the first article announcing the card, so I assumed
SKDK had contacted the most sympathetic ear they could find in a
respected outlet such as the New York Times.
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With a quick search, I did notice some interesting connections
between Lieber’s wife, Jodi Kantor, and SKDK, including a mention of
Kantor’s new book on the SKDK website. So perhaps there are some
friendships that Orman’s publicists assumed would lead Lieber to write
something more lenient than what he wrote.
On Tuesday January 10th, SKDKnickerbocker Managing Director Anita
Dunn appeared on MSNBC’s Jansing and Co. where she discussed the
state of the Obama Presidency, including: the stepping-down of White
House Chief of Staff Bill Daley, Jodi Kantor’s new book, “The Obamas,”
and the accomplishments of Obama’s presidency over the past three years.
Anita Dunn was a White House communications director and senior
advisor to President Obama’s presidential campaigns. She is now the
managing director of Hilary Rosen’s SKDK. Maybe this connection
explains, in part, why even President Obama stood back silently while
Suze Orman scammed our country and the world.
This was the stage for Orman’s subsequent “battle” with Lieber. She
had expected him to write a friendlier first article about the card, and then
was so angry that she forgot he was her publicist’s “friend.” Or, who knows
who she was getting back at with what. Suze Orman runs a lot of
concurrent strings of manipulations and “mean girls” games.
Ron Lieber’s integrity required that he give some honest criticisms of
Orman’s crummy prepaid card in the article.
In the Twitter exchange between Lieber and Orman, you get to see
one more example of Orman's ease with lying, as she says she would never
insult Ron—even though she had publicly done so the previous day,
which led to her turn-around lie.
The full interview with Arianna Huffington brought a textbook’s
worth of troublesome behaviors by Orman. Her comment about Lieber
got it’s own article, titled: “Suze Orman Hits Out At New York Times’ Ron
Lieber For Debit Card Column” (Link 8-11)
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Suze Orman offered a fiery response to New York Times columnist
Ron Lieber for his piece on her new debit card on Tuesday.
The finance guru introduced a prepaid debit card on Monday. Lieber
suggested that it could pose a conflict of interest for CNBC, where Orman
is a host. He wrote, “It is worth noting that if I tried to introduce my own
card, the ethics editor would laugh me out of the New York Times
building.”
Orman smacked that suggestion down in an interview with Arianna
Huffington at the Huffington Post Media Group offices on Tuesday.
Orman reiterated her pledge not to discuss any cards on television, and
also distinguished between her role and Lieber’s. “Ron can say what he
wants. It would be ridiculous to go in and try to create a debit card on his
own when that is his job, to evaluate other things,” she said.
She alleged that the real conflict of interest belonged to a website that
ran a negative piece about the card, while featuring ads for other cards.
She did not name the New York Times, though the page for Lieber’s
column does carry ads for financial products.
After staunchly defending her card, she also dismissed the criticism of
reporters who she said have been wrong over the years.
“You can’t see that in others which isn’t true for yourself. If you’re
thinking that I’m profit-motivating and I’m this and I’m that, Ron
Lieber, I would take a good look in the mirror because something isn’t
quite right with you, sir,” she said.
Note Orman’s penchant for using ancient wisdom and new age
mumbo jumbo to shame anyone who dares question her scams. As the
author of Spirituality For Dummies (yes, really), I could write a lovely essay
about the higher-level philosophical understanding of how the world is
like a mirror, reflecting patterns of the soul in and as Supreme
Consciousness manifesting the world. Orman and I both studied these
ancient teachings in a spiritual community, where she learned much of
the jargon she has distorted and misused to cover her scams and give a
false impression of wisdom and integrity.
In her interview with Huffington, Orman used this quote about the
world as a reflection of our soul to suggest that anyone who sees anyone
commit any crime must be committing that crime themselves. Therefore,
any journalist who criticized Orman’s prepaid card scam must be
crooked, or, “You can’t see that in others which isn’t true for yourself. If you’re
thinking that I’m profit-motivating and I’m this and I’m that, Ron Lieber, I
would take a good look in the mirror because something isn’t quite right with
you, sir.”
269
Such manipulations had kept other critics silent, but not Mr. Lieber.
270
Less than one day after telling Ron Lieber to take a good look in the
mirror because something wasn’t quite right with him, Orman denied
ever insulting Ron Lieber when he called her out about it. And Lieber
continued to prod.
In that Twitter conversation, you could see Orman using her usual
tactic of sprinkling some Orman praise on top to cover her insult and
make the Lieber problem go away. When that failed, Orman admitted
that she was lying, because a news headline inescapably announced the
truth.
At the end of the conversation, Orman used one of her catchphrases,
“I admit that I was wrong.” That brought up the memory of pre-famous
Orman in the early 1990s, telling me she had learned this phrase along
with others as some kind of psychological occult technique to manipulate
people and get yourself out of any predicament. I don’t remember all of he
phrases because manipulation tactics were not of interest to me, but “I
admit that I was wrong,” was one of them.
So it was no surprise to see Orman use her magical phrase of, “I admit
that I was wrong” to deflect the truth coming at her from New York Times
journalist Ron Lieber and others, some of whom also wanted apologies.
Here are a couple more “I admit that I was wrong's” to the bloggers:
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In spite of her catch phrase apologies, Orman's insults kept coming to
attack anyone who questioned her prepaid card scam, including Fox
Business Network's Gerri Willis, who interviewed experts on her show and
wrote articles to warn people about Orman’s obvious scam, including:
“Beware of the Suze Orman Card!” Willis was one of the only journalists
to really be honest about the problems with Orman’s card. Soon after,
Willis’ show was canceled by FOX Business, but I thank her for speaking up
and having the integrity to do what others should have done.
In the next link, you can watch a video clip from Willis’ show:
“Growing Criticism of Suze Orman’s Prepaid Debit Card”: Link 8-14
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This is how Orman responded to the criticism, insulting Willis’ looks
in response to a Twitter fan’s compliment about Orman’s looks:
One thing “financial expert” Suze Orman teaches very well is that
money doesn't buy class. Speaking of money, the July 2016 leaked DNC
emails from Wikileaks showed Orman and her partner-in-crime being too
miserly to even give a donation to help support the same politicians who
have saved her from at least a few well-justified prison terms.This is an
excerpt from one of the wikileaked DNC emails about donors who had
been expected to "pay the piper."
I've watched and personally experienced some of Orman's methods of
using extreme flattery or conversely using insults to make her “marks” feel
low self-esteem to be more vulnerable to her manipulations.
One of Orman’s tactics to ensure loyalty from those she wants to use
is to get people to confide personal information that she will have
available to use against them. Some speculate that is what may have
happened to engender such fierce loyalty from Oprah, even in the face of
opposition from her entire producer team.
I've seen Orman offering to be a financial advisor to various
celebrities, and have wanted to warn them not to give her any potentially
embarrassing information. Orman is the kind of person who will gather
any dirt she can on you and then, after using you to benefit herself, use
whatever real or fabricated ammunition she has to attack.
273
Using disasters for personal profit
I more or less stopped intentionally watching Orman on TV years
ago, but she would ubiquitously appear on many shows I’d record or
watch, with barely a time that I haven't heard her say something
problematic along with perhaps some useful information.
Every now and then, I would tune in with a thin strand of hope that
the leopard might change her spots and behave in a positive way that
would ease my burden of personal responsibility for having helped her
into the public eye, but it never happened.
Orman does adjust her behavior based on the media outlet she’s on, so
that many of the people who watched her yelling at people not to buy a
bowl of soup on Oprah's show or acting like a politician while espousing
advice from her behind-the-scenes experts or sponsored “price for advice”
from corporations on CNN didn’t also get to see her pure salesman snake
oil side on QVC, although her “Approved” card sales pitches pretty much
got everyone paying attention caught up on the darker side of Suze Orman.
(Link 8-15)
Several times over the years, I've happened upon Orman pitching her
wares on QVC, where she liked to use hypothetical and actual disasters of
the day to scare people into buying her products.
In the next clip from January 2011, Ms. Suze “don't spend money
unless it goes to me” Orman uses her mother’s hypothetical death (her
mother was still alive at the time), and the host and his wife’s hypothetical
deaths to scare QVC viewers into buying her product.
That was creepy enough, but then around two-thirds of the way
through the clip, you’ll hear Orman actually use the previous week’s reallife national tragedy in which Representative Giffords and others were
shot, with six people killed, including a nine-year-old child, as a way to
spook QVC viewers into buying her silver box, which is apparently better
than the blue box or the green box. Watch the clip: Link 8-16
274
This viewer couldn’t believe Orman was using the recent shooting to
sell her silver box kit:
Someone who doesn't have usual human feelings of compassion also
doesn't know where to draw the line naturally, such as this example of
capitalizing on imagined and actual disasters by using her mother's
hypothetical death, her co-host and his wife's hypothetical deaths, and the
actual shooting and deaths in Tucson just one week earlier to sell her
silver box, all within about fifteen minutes of QVC selling time.
Remember that even though she berates people for spending a small
amount of money on something they may really want, Orman considers
any products that put money into her own pockets to be needs, not
wants:
Watch another QVC clip worth seeing: “I'm from the hood and never
got above a 'C' in any class, so you should buy my box”: Link 8-17
It would be one thing if Orman was just hawking her wares on QVC
and an occasional other show. The problem is that, thanks to her 1%
supporters like Jack and Suzy Welch, this huckster has been named as one
of the 100 most influential people in the world. (Link 8-18)
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Victim Blaming from a Victimizer
In 2009, as the world was reeling with news of Orman’s fellow
fraudster Bernie Madoff being caught and receiving justice for his
financial crimes, Orman must have been seriously gloating at her
destroyed competition for gangster of the century.
For Suze Orman, it’s all a game, and the complete lack of justice or
scrutiny for her scams meant, in “Suze Orman land,” that she won the
game. In fact, Orman’s ending quote in this 2009 article, “Suze Orman:
The Money Lady,” from Women’s Wear Daily was: (Link 8-18a)
276
She pauses, takes a sip of water, and then delivers the parting shot at
her critics: “Well, guess who won?” she says. “Guess. Who. Won.”
Most of Madoff's victims were charitable organizations, elderly
people, and Jews, many of whom lost all their savings while Madoff lived it
up on their billions of dollars. The most famous and tragic Madoff victim
was Elie Wiesel, whom the Nobel committee had called a “Messenger to
mankind,” with just one of his long list of humanitarian awards for his
work helping to raise awareness of the horrors of the Holocaust that he
had survived, that they would never happen again.
This is what Suze Orman said about Bernie Madoff’s victims in the
same Women’s Wear Daily article, which gives a clue of what Orman
might say to her victims if she were ever brought to justice for her crimes:
Even the victims of Bernie Madoff don’t get off scot-free when Orman gets
going. “You walked right into that financial concentration camp, my
loves,” she says later in a regrettable metaphor, given that the world’s
most famous concentration camp survivor, Elie Wiesel, was among
Madoff’s bilked investors. “I mean, you didn’t have to give 100 percent of
everything to him.”
That’s Suze Orman’s response to scam victims, including many
charitable organizations that lost their entire savings to a fellow
scammer? “You walked right into that financial concentration camp, my
loves?”
Unlike Orman, Wiesel himself responded to the news that they’d lost
all their savings and the savings of his charitable foundation with class,
dignity, and heart in Time magazine’s “How Elie Wiesel Responded to
Losing His Life Savings to Bernie Madoff”: (Link 8-18b)
“We looked at each other, and our reaction was, ‘We have seen worse,'”
said Wiesel, who survived Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was
sent when he was 15. “Both she and I have seen worse.”
Word soon spread that the foundation had been hit by Madoff’s scheme,
and Wiesel described what happened next as “something very beautiful.”
“All of a sudden, we began receiving hundreds and hundreds and
hundreds of letters and donations, small donations, from all over
America, Jews and non-Jews,” Wiesel recalled to Oprah. “The American
people are so generous…. We received hundreds of them, and that helped
us.”
277
Teaching Hate
The next video clip generated thousands of complaints to The Oprah
Show. In it, Orman teaches people that they should treat vulnerable
people by being a ruthless, mean, and hateful bully and, in this case, she
got Oprah to join in the slaughter.
Orman and Oprah ganged up on an emotionally unstable woman
who nevertheless had the unfathomable responsibility of trying to
financially support and personally care for FOURTEEN young children,
including one autistic boy, on her own.
Orman beat down Nadya's emotional state by shouting “Everyone
hates you!” She made Nadya say louder and louder that she wouldn't have
had her children if she had it to do over again. Then Orman gave Nadya
the irresponsible and potentially disastrous command to get rid of any
and all nannies and assistance, and to take care of all fourteen children by
herself, while also trying to raise money for rent and other needs. Neither
Orman nor Oprah offered Nadya a drop of help after their sadistic
exploitation for ratings that Oprah’s own producers decried as brutal and
“bloody.”
From this clip, Oprah's viewers and their children around the world
learned that people who have emotional and other troubles should be
torn down until they say, as Nadya finally did, that she hates herself, while
Oprah, smitten by Orman's bad company, applauds Nadya’s expression of
self hate. (Watch the cruelty of Oprah and Suze Orman: Link 8-19)
278
Orman shouted at Nadya that “Everyone hates you!!!” and
demanded that Nadya again and again, louder and louder, declare that she
would have chosen to have never had her children, which may be the case,
but it’s not a nice thing to make a mother say, especially with two of
Nadya’s children right there in the studio.
While slicing and dicing Nadya to shreds, Orman tossed in an almost
direct quote from our mutual spiritual teacher about how we shouldn't
judge others, which was quite a bizarre thing to say in the middle of
Orman’s word slaughter.
It’s the kind of muddled mess of mismatched words and actions
Orman has thrown at the American public for years. Imagine the
chutzpah of telling people we shouldn’t judge each other while she is
tearing this unstable woman to shreds!
Orman’s cruelty clearly didn't end up helping Nadya, based on her
continued and increased struggles after the show.
Since Orman insisted that Nadya sell her children’s’ toys for pennies
on the dollar to make a few bucks, the lives of her fourteen children went
from bad to worse.
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Oprah received thousands of complaints from viewers, but she
ignored those complaints and replayed that nasty show many more times
on her syndicated broadcast and then on her OWN network, where she
continued to push Orman into the public consciousness and give her
forums for pitching her products and running her scams.
Oprah also swept aside the concerns of her entire producer staff
about Orman's troubling behavior being too “bloody” and “brutal” to
broadcast. Watch this very telling “Behind the Scenes” clip, where
Oprah's producers try to tell her that Orman's behavior was too
unacceptable to even broadcast, with some seriously troubling responses
from Oprah. Watch this amazing clip: Link 8-20.
Along with this display of cruelty came a misleading cover-up article
that was obviously submitted through Orman's usual publicity blast
channels and distributed to tens of thousands of media outlets through
the Associated Press and other avenues. This article gave a skewed
impression that the show had been fairly tame and helpful to Nadya,
without even mentioning the bloodbath that had brought thousands of
complaints. A few examples from a Google search:
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Here’s an excerpt from the article, “Octomom concedes she was baby
addict on ‘Oprah,” at the Washington Times that explains how Orman’s
only solution for Nadya was for her to do a reality show that exploited her
children or pornography, which she did end up doing. (Link 8-22)
Orman urged Suleman to get an agent and look into doing more
television and other media with her children as she did in the months after
they were born, something Suleman said she would no longer do for fears
that she would be perceived as crazy or was exploiting her children.
“They already think you’re crazy,” Orman said.
Steven Hirsch, co-founder of adult film company Vivid
Entertainment, has offered to pay her February mortgage while he
considers buying the La Habra home. Suleman has not commented on the
offer.
The only part of the article that almost barely touched the real story,
was a very tame sounding mention that Orman had, “heatedly urged
Suleman to give up private school and excessive gifts for her children, and
a personal trainer and manicures for herself.” If you watch the clip, you’ll
see that things went way beyond, “heated.”
281
Oprah and others have given Suze Orman a platform through which
her warped and deceptive ideas and behaviors mixed with useful and bad
financial advice have become “Suze says we should…” memes that have
impacted our society and economy negatively and removed individuality
and heart from the world, even if some individuals have found her general
financial advice and products helpful in their personal finances.
Obviously Orman is not responsible for all the ponzi schemes,
mortgage misdeeds, mismanaged funds, and corrupt CEO bonuses that
have practically destroyed the U.S. economy, but she certainly set the
stage for what has taken place, touting the all-important “courage to be
rich,” while teaching fear, shame, miserliness, and a focus on money as
being the most important thing in life in America, and around the world.
It’s difficult for nonsociopathic people to understand how sociopaths
think—we tend to give the benefit of the doubt when possible. It took me
far too long to see the extent of Orman’s problem, considering all the signs
of her seriously troubling behavior from the day we met.
I saw in the early 1990s that Orman looked at people in her social
circles as little more than pawns in her games. Now, she plays the same
games with the masses, looking at each downturn, disaster, and other
social issue solely in terms of how she can milk it to benefit her bottom
line and snare more people with scare tactics, shaming, and other
unscrupulous methods.
Below is a clip from January 2014 on The View, where the hosts are
discussing the greatness of having forgiven their exes. Orman jumps in to
publicly spew her wrath and vindictiveness toward the very people who
helped to begin her career and achieve her dreams. (Link 8-21)
I know some of the women Orman is referring to in her rage, all
decent people who were conned by Orman into helping to further her
career. Even though my relationship with Orman wasn’t romantic, I
suspect she lumped me in with the rest, because she did con and steal
from me in the guise of friendship.
282
Note that when Orman claims that these previous girlfriends who did
nothing but help her did horrible and unforgivable things to her, it is one
more example of sociopathic projection.
From “Beware the techniques of the Sociopath”:
“Projection and gaslighting are also on the list of common sociopathic
techniques. Sociopaths refuse to be held accountable for their behavior
and often assign their own behavior to their victims. For example, a
sociopath could accuse a victim of stealing when it is the sociopath himself
that steals.”
Orman showed another sociopathic trait of assuming jealousy and
playing victim in the face of valid criticism in her 2005 response to
criticism by the advertising critic for trade magazine Adweek, along with
Orman’s usual sense of self-grandiosity: (Link 8-23)
\
Barbara Lippert, the advertising critic for Adweek, said Orman is a
“hypocrite.”
“Suze Orman claims to give uncorrupted advice, yet she's being paid
by one of America's largest corporations to flog its brands,” she said. “It's a
complete conflict of interest.”
Orman dismisses such criticism as sour grapes.
“They hate Suze Orman and love to bash me because they're so
jealous of my success,” she said. “They just cannot understand how it is
that I've sold millions of copies of books, I won an Emmy Award this year,
my show on CNBC is the highest-rated show on weekends. How is any of
that possible? They hate me because I tell people the truth.”
Orman’s prepaid card fiasco and the rise of social media finally gave a
better view into her strings of shams and scams, due to the extensive
documentation, with journalists and bloggers finally catching on to at
least one of her ploys.
I've not known anyone with such a deep hole of desires as Suze
Orman—not only material desires with her yacht and five houses, but
desires to boss people around and be the assumed authority of all things.
Orman’s dream come true is to be able to yell at people, “You are
approved!” “You are denied!” and expect them to follow her instructions
in making some of the most important decisions of their lives.
283
Lies from a habitual liar
Orman’s lies are plenty and frequent, as you can see throughout this
book and film. Here are a couple more examples:
Orman posted this example of deceit right in the middle of the huge
wave of negative articles, with financial journalists warning people to stay
away from her “Approved” prepaid debit card scam:
Aside from the fact that this was far from the last post Orman made
about her card as she claimed it would be, the complimentary article
Orman was linking to and asking people to read in this Facebook posting
and others on Twitter was not a legitimate article at all.
284
It was nothing but a carefully crafted press release from Orman’s own
publicist, disguised as “news” on the Sacramento Bee webpage.
The press release took short snippets from a few Orman shills and
carefully edited pseudo-endorsements from a few generally critical
articles about the card, including three pseudo-endorsement quotes from
the article by New York Times journalist Ron Lieber. Orman’s fake article
press release then presented those critical quotes out of context to make
it sound like the same journalists who warned people about her card were
touting it.
One of the complimentary snippets in support of Orman's card said:
“And when you compare its fees and terms to controversial cards like
the Kardashian Kard… it does look pretty good.” [CNN Money, “Suze
Orman launches new prepaid card,” January 9, 2012]
It sounds complimentary until you look up the quote in the actual
article to find out what was removed from the quote during the “...” you
find this:
It's a big difference when you remove, “which was taken off the market
in late 2010 after allegations that its sky-high fees were illegal,” right?
This is the same Kardashian Kard that Orman blasted in 2010, less
than fourteen months before Orman released her own fee-laden prepaid
debit card, which she claimed to have been working on for years.
Less than fourteen months before Orman came out with her own feeladen, mediocre prepaid debit card, she posted this about the
Kardashians’ also predatory card:
(The poor grammar is how you know Orman wrote a message herself.)
285
Once again, we see Suze Orman warning the public as though she
were protecting them from exactly what she was about to do—it’s part of
her scamming tactic that paints Orman as altruistic and also gets rid of
the competition.
286
In this audio interview with Tess Vigeland for NPR’s Marketplace
Money in January 2012, Orman made the same dubious claims about her
new “Approved” card and supposed “People First Movement,” that she
was making on all the other shows. (Link 8-24)
In the same interview, Orman called the CardHub blogger who wrote
an article that asked some mild questions about her card an “idiot,” called
the interviewer “naive,” and told this blatant lie:
Vigeland: Are you concerned at all that your audience might question you
having a card like this, perhaps making money off of them -- however little
-- while at the same time counseling them on their money management?
Orman: I don't think so. Because the people who have been listening to
me now for almost 30 years, they know that I have earned their trust.
They know that I have never put my needs in front of theirs.
So I don't personally care what other people say, because I know what I'm
doing and the people who follow me know what I'm doing as well. And we
will just see who has the last laugh when it comes to the Approved card.
No matter how many times I've heard Orman lie over the years, she
always finds ways to outdo herself. Thirty years previous to the date of this
2012 interview was 1982, around the time Orman was staying with a
friend of mine, who told me that at the time, Orman was penniless and
selling multi-level marketing water filters.
Orman was also behaving improperly toward one woman of the
couple she was staying with, who told me, “Suze would hardly take no for
an answer regardless of how many times I told her I was in relationship and
not at all interested in one with her. There was also no way that her interest
could be taken personally or as a compliment, since it was widely known even
way back then that she was a serial flirt.”
Twenty years before the NPR interview was 1992, right after I had the
misfortune of meeting Orman when we were asked to work together on a
project for our mutual spiritual community.
At the time, Orman was completely unknown to the public and
$250,000 in debt to a number of people, including at least $50,000 in
debt to one of her friends, with whom I heard Orman arguing about not
being able to repay her debt according to their agreed-upon schedule,
even though at the same time, Orman was spending loads of that
borrowed money on a wide array of lavish luxuries that she would later
yell “Denied!” about to most of her callers who were not in debt at all.
287
Narcissistic Suze
In October 2013, the United States was going through serious
economic challenges, some of which Orman had contributed to creating.
But in Suze Land, more important than all that boring economic concern
taking place as the economy took another hit was Orman's big new
contest to dress up as her for Halloween.
Orman’s Halloween contest pitches took up a whole lot more space
on her social media space than anything that may have been potentially
useful to those living in a country on the brink. Here are just a few from a
very long string of posts:
288
Go to this link to read many more similar pleas that Orman posted
asking people to dress up like her in the midst of a major financial crisis,
with the grand prize of winning one of Orman’s old jackets: Link 8-25
Soon, on her CNBC “financial advice” show, Orman's narcissistic
Halloween dream come true.
289
One might think, yes, it does seem narcissistic and out of touch in a
time of financial crisis to ask people to dress like you, bribing them with a
piece of used clothing as a grand prize, but how can it be a Suze scam?
I'll tell you how. Once you understand that everything Orman does is
geared to increase her public influence and “price for advice” cost, you can
see how Orman is using people as pawns in her shenanigans, getting them
to manufacture a public image that might look as though all these people
were dressing up like Suze Orman because she is so famous and influential
that they thought of dressing up like her from their own inspiration and
admiration.
Orman and her PR team were probably hoping to create a trend that
others would copy, to feed Orman’s narcissistic ego and boost the public
impression of her popularity, especially since during the previous year,
Suze Orman Inc. had lost considerable credibility, due to her prepaid card
and other schemes. Orman would lose nothing but an old jacket.
Without knowing there was a request and a contest involved, people
who saw these costumes in the media, social media, or in person might
think they were an indication of Orman’s extreme high public esteem,
including potential Orman scam victims in other countries to whom she
pitched herself as being the financial advice darling of the United States.
With Suze Orman and her crooked cabal, everything is about getting
money and pumping up the façade.
This reminds me of what I saw happen soon after Orman joined
Twitter. Orman's wife-brand-manager-partner-in-crime Kathy Travis
went on Twitter for weeks, literally begging people to get more followers
for Orman as a “birthday present,” and to cheer her up.
Offers were even made that those who got more people to sign up to
Orman’s Twitter feed would receive special gifts, although I'm not sure if
those gifts were ever given to the small but enthusiastic group who took
this project on as a personal mandate, and sent messages begging
hundreds of celebrities and others to re-tweet and ask their followers to
also follow Suze Orman on Twitter as a gift for her upcoming birthday.
This ploy allowed Orman to brag about her large numbers of Twitter
followers, which then generated more followers and gave Orman more
clout. That clout allowed Suze Orman, Inc. to portray herself as being
more influential and popular than she actually was, thereby raising her
price for spouting whatever pitches her sponsoring banks and
corporations wanted her to promote in the guise of trustworthy advice.
290
Orman's Occult nature
Back in the early 1990s, Orman was much more into using occultism
and manipulative techniques than other people I've known. She was
always hopping from one astrologer and psychic to another, and her
approach to spirituality seemed to be almost exclusively focused on using
spiritual and occult methods to get what she wanted on material levels.
I used to claim, maybe a bit smugly, that I didn't believe in “evil,” with
some philosophical explanations to back that decision up. However,
knowing Suze Orman up close made me sober up and also caused me to
lose a certain faith in humanity, to some degree.
Obviously, I knew there were problematic people in the world, but I'd
never personally met, and have not since met, anyone else who has as
devious and unethical a personal nature as Suze Orman.
All that's missing are the horns.
Even a psychic could see Orman’s evil nature, long before her first
book was published. In 1993, Orman’s dark occult nature alarmed a wellknown Los Angeles psychic.
Orman was always going to many psychics and astrologers; in fact, she
had enthusiastically pushed me to go to this Los Angeles psychic she’d
heard about, who was known for working with the Los Angeles Police
Department. It was my first experience of going to a psychic.
291
Orman was hoping for a reading by proxy on my dime, since
everything always tended to be about her. She had asked me to show the
psychic her photo during my reading, and that photo elicited the psychic's
alarmingly accurate warning about pre-famous Suze Orman.
For those who are interested in such things, here is a link where you
can listen to the psychic's prescient warning about Suze Orman: Link 826 (If it’s not your cup of tea, you can just turn to the next page for plenty
more non-psychic related problematic behaviors from Orman.)
Here are a few excerpts from the psychic’s impression just from seeing
one photo of pre-famous Suze Orman, whom Cheri had never heard of
previously:
“The first thing that I saw with Suze is I saw three women walking
behind each other, and everything was black. I saw Suze leading the way.
She’s a leader; she likes people to follow her. I saw her with a shawl over
her head and coming down on the shoulders. And each of the women had
one as well.”
“Everything was black if you can picture a black and white negative
of a photograph. And what it told me right away was the way she was
walking it was like she was trying to cover up something. She was trying to
hide from what she was doing and what she was trying to be.”
“I felt some darkness around her. I didn’t necessarily feel a lot of white
light. What it was telling me is that sometimes she has a tendency to delve
into thoughts or things that she might not know how to deal with. It’s like
she might have a tendency to go back and forth — she wants to deal with
the dark and deal with the light, and deal with the dark and deal with the
light. It intrigues her. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, or have been
aware, or have suspected it, but she kind of floats back and forth. In other
words, I don’t feel she’s as dedicated to the white as you are, do you know
what I’m saying? I feel that Suze is into the occult or mystical more than
she is on achieving perfection. There’s a difference there.”
“When a person goes back and forth and they’re not sure, and they’re
delving, their interests are more into the occult — and I’m using the word
occult — then they flip, they go from the one side to the other.”
“Her karma is on the darker side; she’s got a lot of learning left to do.
And she’s got a lot to do and learn with people and relationships. So I feel
that there’s a very strong self-centered part of her, still. She hasn’t released
that; she puts herself first. Suze’s number one. And you don’t need that in
your life.”
292
This psychic was more right-on than I understood. Maybe if I had
heeded her warning, I would have stopped helping Orman onto the
public stage before the deed was done.
Orman thought she was like a witch who had magical powers, and
often touts herself as being “perfect.” You can see that attitude in her
quote to the Daily Beast in November 2013: “I don’t question myself
anymore. If I think it, I know it is true, and I don’t care what you say to me. I
know my thoughts are true.”
I remember pre-famous Orman often bragging that she could talk
anyone into anything, which apparently was also truer than I imagined,
based on all the trusted media and political figures she has conned since.
How Orman corrupts good people into going along with her schemes
I first realized Suze Orman was a scammer long before anyone in the
wider public knew her name. She conned me into spending two years
helping to get her first book published with lavish promises of extravagant
repayment that were nothing but the same kind of completely empty
mirages that Orman would soon use to scam the world.
Pre-famous Suze Orman had some good qualities, including an
eagerness to learn, along with an ability to charm and entice others.
Orman used to often brag that she could talk anyone into anything,
and she demonstrated that on many occasions, including getting a
helicopter and yacht at extreme discounts for the video we co-produced
for our mutual spiritual community.
I was working for Disney at the time, and was also able to work a bit of
magic to get us a front row press pass to film the Disneyland parade and
have a private meeting with Mickey and Minnie.
During that meeting, we came up with the idea of having Mickey and
Minnie bow to the camera with palms together in a prayer or namaste
pose, which back in pre-yoga-boom 1992 was not nearly as common as it
is today.
In the ashram, it was a common way we would greet our teachers and
each other. Namaste is often translated as, “The God in me salutes and
honors the God in you,” and folded palms are a spiritual gesture on many
devotional paths.
293
Seeing Mickey and Minnie do namaste bows brought the idea of
having characters in Disney’s parade also give a namaste pose so we could
edit a whole montage of these fun, happy, colorful characters bowing to
our worldwide community through this video that was going to be played
at the international New Years satellite retreat.
With signs around Disneyland announcing the upcoming opening of
Euro Disney, the idea came up to deceptively connect the folded hand
bow into Japan’s bowing pose.
Orman said, “We should have had a sign saying, “Bow for Japan,”
however, the parade had already begun by then, and were standing in the
special press area Disney had kindly given to me after the newsroom
called them on my behalf to request the dispensation. Orman then
proceeded to shout “Bow for Japan!” to the entire line of parade
characters as they walked, danced, and rode by. At first, I thought it was a
funny and audacious thing to do. I even participated here and there by
telling the characters to bow toward the camera, but as it went on, I felt
uncomfortable being part of such a charade, especially while working for
Disney, who had been kind enough to give us a special place to film the
parade.
At this link, you can hear a very enthusiastic pre-famous Suze Orman
convincing the Disney parade characters to, “Bow for Japan!”: Link 8-27
294
Although the scheme was humorous, and even though we were
indeed getting great visuals for our “Blessings to the world from
California” video, I look back at this moment as one where I compromised
my integrity and commitment to honesty. Lying just wasn’t the kind of
thing I would usually do, even to get good video footage. Nevertheless, I
became complicit in Orman’s ease with dishonesty.
I came to understand this as a tactic Orman would use with otherwise
decent people—getting them to compromise their integrity in a small
“fun” way before moving up into convincing them to make more and
bigger compromises to support her shams.
This minor ruse of pretending we were filming video for the new Euro
Disney in Japan wasn’t too big of a deal. It wouldn’t have any major
negative impact on the world, though Orman’s shouting was probably
disturbing for fellow parade goers in our vicinity who were trying to enjoy
the music and parade, as well as tourists who were filming those beloved
characters to remember their precious trip.
If you’re one of those tourists whose video memory of your trip to
Disneyland is filled with some kooky lady shouting, “Bow for Japan,” now
you know.
The song lyrics in our video were based on good advice for the world
from First Corinthians:
“Love is patient, love is kind, slow to anger, knows not mine. Love
defends all, love believes all, love hopes all, for all time. Delights in justice,
soothes all pain, knows no mischief, loves all the same. Love defends all,
love believes all, love hopes all, for all time. Now there’s just one thing to
do, always be about the truth. We love you.”
This was also good wisdom for me to keep in mind as the “Suze
Orman hurricane” hit the coast of my peaceful life, followed by many
years of deep regret while watching this scammer con some of my favorite
celebrities and cause damage to many lives.
For a long time, my spiritual mindset held me back from blasting out a
huge, public warning once Orman started seriously scamming the world
After all, one quality spiritual people generally aspire to is to not judge
others. Obviously I’ve had to grow into understanding that protecting
people from harm justifies and sometimes requires pointing out
someone’s bad actions. Life tends to give whatever lessons we need to
learn on our journeys, and this one was a doozy for me.
295
Orman specifically selects people to scam who wouldn’t want to tell
on her, either because they’re too “spiritual” to be publicly critical, or too
fearful of repercussions from revengeful Suze Orman and her powerful
protectors.
Here’s one article that mentioned Orman’s revengeful nature:
The article continued:
Here’s another reason (to go easy on Suze Orman): because Orman
evidently has a little KGB in her and she’s not afraid to go after you.
In a profile in the new issue of Time, Sheelah Kolhatkar asks Orman
how she responds to critics like Scurlock.
The answer:
“Obviously, when I want to, I do investigations into the people to find
out, what does their economic situation look like? One person who did
this in the past—he has such severe debt, owns a home that was, like,
$100,000, fights with his wife all the time, drives a junker of a car, doesn’t
have a pot to pee in.
296
It just validated the fact that when people are so vindictive and
they’re really trying to slam you, it’s because they’re so desperate—they’re
trying to do anything to get noticed.”
Man, don’t you just hate those vindictive people?
After years of inner consideration and debate about whether and how
to warn the public that they were being scammed, and after waiting for
journalists and government agencies entrusted with protecting the public
to clean this pretty obvious problem up, I felt obliged to do what I could,
beginning with a public blog that turned into a webpage, and sharing
relevant information with people like Oprah Winfrey and government
agencies like the CFPB.
While usually striving to remain free from criticizing others, I also
remembered that the greater good “delights in justice,” that the way to
overcome falsehood is with truth, and that stopping someone from
scamming and stealing is not only kind to the person’s potential victims,
but ultimately beneficial to the person themselves. Even if a criminal has
to pay a price for their crimes, stopping them from causing more damage
to others would perhaps help save the person from creating more “bad
karmas” bringing more pain in return, whether in this world or the next.
I am sharing this relatively minor event about our little “Bow for
Japan” deception at Disney, because it helps to give a glimpse of one
element of Suze Orman’s con artist technique.
During many years of deep regret for having used my skills and
resources to help bring forth a juggernaut of deception and greed that has
caused significant damage to individuals and the economy, I’ve had to
look back and contemplate how I allowed myself to be coerced into
violating my commitment to honesty enough to produce a video that
fooled a publisher into having an incorrect view of a potential author.
What weaknesses in my integrity allowed Orman to get her claws in to use
my good intentions and honed skills for a dishonest scheme?
Orman often uses the same techniques on different people—she has
honed the skill of manipulating people, something pre-fame Suze often
bragged about when she’d frequently claim to be able to talk anyone into
anything. What a thing to say. But Orman was filled with bizarre things to
say, and once she got her claws in, even Oprah Winfrey wouldn’t, couldn’t,
and hasn’t yet been able to escape Orman’s clutches.
Oprah did finally remove Orman from O Magazine in 2016, after
hosting far too many Orman scams that even brought forth critiques in
the New York Times, like this one:
297
298
I have seen a pattern where Orman initiates small compromises of
integrity for people who usually wouldn’t do such things, just some little
mischief under the guise of having fun or achieving some benefit. Those
initial small compromises of integrity end up being an opening for her to
sink her claws in and con good people into violating their integrity again
to suit her whims. How else to explain the long list of mostly intelligent
and trustworthy people Orman has been able to corrupt?
Not only was Orman a thief and liar in my personal experience, she
was also a rapist who assaulted me sexually under the covers and under
my nightgown while I was sleeping. She did it as an act of aggression after
we'd had an argument while she was visiting me for the weekend.
Some might ask how a woman can rape another woman—in fact,
Rosie O’Donnell asked just that after I tried to warn her about Orman
running her “Approved” card on Rosie’s show. I had sent Rosie a link to my
longer webpage that focused on Orman’s debit card scam, which also
included a short mention of this personal violation that apparently
piqued Rosie’s curiosity.
I think Rosie probably didn’t think it through when she quickly asked
this question, because having someone go under the covers when you are
asleep, and go under your nightgown to do unwanted oral sex is rape in
my book.
It was an especially awful thing to do because I had recently moved to
Hollywood after spending my twenties living a completely celibate
monastic life in an ashram community, where my focus was on prayer,
meditation, and devotional singing and chanting, along with scriptural
study and long hours of offering service while editing, scripting, and
producing hundreds of videos for the spiritual community that were sent
to meditation ashrams and centers around the world.
I was a celibate virgin, and hadn’t even thought of having any kind of
romantic or sexual relationship while building my new life and an awardwinning career in Hollywood.
299
Unfortunately, I was too late to stop Orman from scamming Rosie’s
viewers, although I did save Rosie from making the mistake of giving
Orman the personal information ammunition Orman was seeking in
order to get her claws into Rosie.
Watch how the sociopathic manipulator uses Rosie’s deep trauma
over her mother’s death to put one of her Orman hooks in with a
meaningless correlation that her partner in crime’s mother died on the
same date as Rosie’s mother.
With that assumed hook into Rosie’s emotions in place, Orman
followed up by requesting something that would do nothing good for
Rosie, that’s for sure.
Having been in contact with Rosie previously about more pleasant
matters, I sent her this warning:
Hello Dear Rosie,
I really recommend that you don’t put your personal information into
the hands of Suze—I say this as a friend to you more than a detractor of
Suze. I’m sure it is difficult for someone like you who can recognize your
own flaws and is not a narcissistic sociopath to understand how someone
can be 100% self motivated and ready to throw anyone under the bus and
use their private information to threaten and embarrass them publicly.”
300
Fortunately, Rosie got the message:
Even though Orman’s sexual violation was not the worst of what she
did to me or has done to others and the world, it is something I feel
obliged to share, both in terms of revealing Orman’s depravity, and to
explain some of my feeling of personal responsibility for stopping such a
damaging person from continuing to harm individuals and the public.
This effort has not been with malice or revenge, but with service and love
for the good of humanity. If anyone else had taken care of this matter, I
would have been exceedingly happy to have forgotten this awful person
even existed.
Orman is not ony a rapist herself, but she apparently gets off on using
the term for others, often talking about “financial rape,” which she is also
guilty of doing.
When we met, I was nearly a decade younger than Orman, and as
naive as a nun who had just left the convent. Orman knew that her sexual
violation under the covers would be a nasty first sexual experience for me,
which must have made her drool with sociopathic delight. As I've seen in
other situations, Orman loves to leave her victims and those whom she’s
conned into helping her with maximum psychological, lifestyle, and
career damage. The ability to con and seriously harm others makes Suze
Orman feel especially smart and powerful.
301
In Orman’s autobiographical narrative, we see some of the people
Orman feels a need to prove herself to from her Southside Chicago
hometown. The hole in Orman’s soul from being considered the dumb
kid in class motivates her to get back at those teachers and fellow students
by conning and outsmarting some of the most intelligent people in
today’s media and political landscapes, and using them to steal from the
world, including the same people who thought little Susie Orman was
dumb:
When I was a little girl, I had a speech impediment. I couldn’t
pronounce my R’s, S’s, or T’s properly, so words such as “beautiful,” for
example, came out as “boobital.”
To this day, if you listen closely when I speak, you can still hear it.
Words like “fear” and “fair” and “bear” and “beer” sound the same, and a
word like “shouldn’t” comes out sounding like “shunt.” Back then, because
I couldn’t speak well, I also couldn’t read very well.
In grammar school on the South Side of Chicago, I had to take
reading exams, and would always score among the lowest in the class.
One year a teacher decided that he would seat us according to our reading
scores.
There were my three best friends in the first three seats of the first row,
while I was banished to the last seat in the sixth row. If I always secretly
felt dumb, it was now officially confirmed for everyone to see.
Talk about feeling ashamed. This feeling that I couldn’t make it
scholastically continued to haunt me throughout high school and on into
college. I knew I would never amount to anything, so why even bother to
try?
Nevertheless, in my family and in the families of my friends, it was a
given that we’d all go to college. In my case, I knew that I would have to
pay for college myself, because my parents were having a hard time with
money.
The only options for me were community college or a state school. I
applied to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and to my
amazement, even though I did not score well on my SATs, I was accepted.
When I arrived, I met with a guidance counselor who asked me what I
wanted to study.
I told him that I wanted to become a brain surgeon. He looked at my
grades and said, “I don’t think so. You don’t have what it takes. Why not
try something easier?”
302
I did a little investigation and found out that the easiest major was
social work, so I signed up for that. Why not take the easy way out? Why
try harder?
Look what a lot of scamming and a team of ghostwriters, behind-thescenes experts, and publicity strategists can do!
Years after Orman’s violation, it was another slap to read in a 2007
New York Times article that Orman was claiming to be a fifty-five year old
virgin, since she had never “been” with a man. It was especially bizarre to
read such a claim from a predator who had sexually violated me when I
actually was a virgin. (Link 8-27a)
Orman caused serious damage to the lives of many others in those
early years, including at least three of the relatively few people mentioned
on the acknowledgments page of Orman's first book, and many more
whose names were not included, but probably should have been.
(Link 8-28)
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Even with all these violations, I would long ago have all but forgotten
that Suze Orman existed or that these events even happened, if not for
having to watch my rapist be practically worshipped by Oprah Winfrey
and others who usually speak out against such violations—and yes, I did
write to let Winfrey and others know. I also had to watch as Suze Orman
and her corrupt enablers have raped the pockets of the poor and middle
class and the fabric of society, year after year, to this day.
I don’t always share this more personal part of my story, because some
people like to attack the victims of sexual assault crimes, while others
might assume that this film and book are some kind of personal vendetta,
which is not the case beyond feeling a personal responsibility to do
something to stop the damage.
Orman not only stiffed me on every penny of the promised pay for my
two years of assistance in helping to start her writing and public speaking
career, but as she tends to do to those whom she’s conned, used, and
abused, she took terrible steps to ruin my well being and harm my life
much further.
Orman used her “best friend” bully lawyer, who had a position of trust
as a legal representative for our mutual spiritual community, to spread
false rumors about me throughout the community. Orman also used her
lawyer friend’s position in the spiritual organization to instruct my friends
on the path not to speak to me or have anything to do with me. This is the
same lawyer Orman touts while pitching her will and trust kits as being
the best trust lawyer in the country.
Orman claims this lawyer, who continues to bully people on her
behalf to this day, will also be the trust lawyer for anyone who buys her kit,
saying with her usual third person self-praise, “Don’t you think Suze Orman
would have the best trust lawyer in the country? Now MY trust lawyer can be
YOUR trust lawyer!”
The false rumors went on for years and eventually led to my ceasing to
participate outwardly in the spiritual community I had served and loved
for two decades. It was sobering, to say the least.
I assume some of her motivation for pushing me out of our spiritual
community had to do with Orman not wanting me to be in a position to
tell fellow friends and community members about how she had ripped me
off and sexually assaulted me while I was asleep.
Along with wanting to be honest, I include these personal experiences
as one more piece of the puzzle about a horrible person many have
trusted to guide their most personal family and financial life decisions.
304
Credit Unions, Personal Attacks and Quid Pro Quo's
In February 2012, The National Association of Federal Credit Unions
asked the government-based National Credit Union Administration to stop
using publicity materials featuring Suze Orman, because of her feeinfested prepaid card that represented the opposite of what high integrity
credit unions wanted to project and implement, along with Orman’s
recent advice that people should walk away from their underwater
mortgages, even if they could afford to pay for their agreed obligations.
The association’s request explained: (Link 8-29)
Ms. Orman recently launched a prepaid debit card product. Orman
has also encouraged consumers who are underwater in their homes to
walk-away from their mortgage commitments. Given the foregoing,
NAFCU believes it is necessary for the agency to carefully re-examine its
use of promotional material featuring Ms. Orman.
The letter is only the most visible indication of the stress some credit
unions have felt with Orman in the last few months, despite the personal
finance celebrity's public stance in favor of credit unions.
The agency has said that it paid Orman $1.4 million for her part in a
campaign designed to help remind uncertain consumers that federally
insured credit unions have deposits as safe as deposits in banks…
The campaign has always been controversial with credit unions as
some executives questioned whether it represented a good use of agency
funds, but Orman's stock with some credit unions took a hit after she
announced the launch of her Approved decoupled debit card…
The card costs cardholders $3 per month and will charge cardholders
$2 per ATM transaction if they use an ATM not affiliated with the
AllPoint network or if they do not load at least $20 on the card each
month. Additionally, if a cardholder gets cash back when making a
purchase at a retail store, it will cost $2 and while the first call each
month to a customer service representative will be free, any subsequent
call that month will cost $2.
In addition, Orman has charged these fees even though the cards will
generate interchange income every time a consumer uses them at a point
of sale.
The NCUA, via chairman Debbie Matz, had paid, based on various
reports, $1.4 or $1.75 million dollars to use Suze Orman’s face and false
trustworthiness to promote their trustworthiness, and in turn, give their
implicit endorsement to her.
305
After the Credit Unions’ outcry, Matz wrote a letter defending
keeping Orman on the campaign that was published in the Credit Union
Times, which prompted Orman to repay her:
306
Orman loves Credit Unions when they are paying her over a million
dollars to say so, or when the NCUA head is insisting that credit unions
continue giving Orman credibility, even while she was pushing a
fraudulently pitched prepaid card that was linked to notorious nonCredit Union Bancorp, and which went against the Credit Union mission.
From one of the Credit Union presidents pointed out the money credit
unions were going to lose with Orman’s advice to walk away from
mortgages:
If Orman recommends someone or something to her trusting viewers
or readers, it is highly likely that she is getting something in return.
Orman's advice is primarily geared to enrich herself, and don't say she
hasn't told you:
“I'm not in this for charity. This is a business, and anybody who thinks
that it’s not a business is an idiot... I'll tell you the sources of my income—
everything I do is a source of income to me.”
—Suze Orman, from the Chicago Tribune
(From 2004, when Orman was still a baby scammer)
This next comment from a Credit Union vice president also brought
up the fact that The NCUA had overstepped its authority by using Credit
Union members’ money on this advertising campaign in the first place. It
is one more example of Suze Orman somehow convincing people to go
against their own rules and integrity to put more money in her pockets.
(Link 8-30)
307
One of the comments below Chairman Matz's letter in the Credit
Union Times reveals some of the usual Suze shenanigans of “you scratch
my back and I'll recommend yours.” This president of the InvesTex Credit
Union in Texas wrote the only comment in support of keeping Orman's
NCUA campaign:
It is extremely important to build awareness in the eyes of the
“consumer” on a regional, state, and national level, and not just with our
legislators regarding the value of credit unions.
Ms. Orman is the ONLY national level sustained marketing message
the industry has and it must be continued and preferably expanded!
Credit Unions do reasonably well with their own local marketing, but we
have NO coordinated effort to market to consumers at a sustained and
larger level... just Ms. Orman.
308
We do not need to fear the few comments that might not run parallel
to our message or be insecure about the additional product in the market
that Ms. Orman supports as we can and will compete and continue to
benefit from the overriding message that Ms. Orman supports on our
behalf. I find it interesting that it was the NCUA who put that in place
and not our trade organizations (where so much of our resources are
donated). Thank you NCUA for this strong level of foresight and I hope
Ms. Orman's contract is renewed in August 2012!!
Keith L. Kearney
President / CEO
InvesTex Credit Union
Oh, and look at the fake sounding endorsement Orman posted about
Mr. Kearney's InvestTex Credit Union just two weeks earlier—an example
of Orman's “advice” being bought by support for her scams:
309
Soon after the release of her prepaid debit card, I watched Orman
launch an attack via Twitter and Facebook, trying to ruin the livelihood of
the woman who helped get Orman her million dollar endorsement deal
with the National Credit Union Administration, and who also worked as
one of Orman’s behind-the-scenes experts.
But when Ondine refused to go along with the fraud and endorse
Orman's new prepaid debit card with its irresponsible misrepresentation
campaign that made some of the poorest people in this country think that
using Orman's card would help them to gain a better FICO credit score,
Orman went on the attack. Even though Orman had previously
recommended Irving’s website, she was now threatening to get her in
trouble for using a dot-org ending on her web page, because her Credit
Union information page is not officially a not-for-profit organization.
310
Orman’s claim about Irving’s website was ridiculous. First, Orman
had been recommending Irving’s website since the started working
together—in books, and on her website. In fact, at the same time Orman
was blasting Irving for using a .org domain, Irving’s website was still listed
on Orman’s page. It must be a full-time job to keep up with erasing and
creating all the Suze Orman scam materials. While putting together the
web pages that preceded this book and film, I found that many articles
were pointedly deleted from history. Some were edited to remove
anything negative, years after they were published. It’s called, “creating a
false legacy.”
Although the .org suffix is often used for philanthropic organizations,
there are no legal rules about using .org. Even if there were, Irving’s
website was service oriented and free for visitors to use.
But Orman had to come up with some weapon to attack with, so she
went for this empty threat to call the CFPB as a way to cast aspersions on
Irving’s integrity, which was especially bizarre since it took place right at
the height of Orman’s prepaid card fraud that really should have landed
her in prison.
Orman then called Irving “crazy,” something she likes to call people
who criticize her scams, and tossed in a personal hygiene secret Irving had
made the mistake of sharing with Orman in a candid moment, not
realizing that Orman saves up anything she can on people to use in her
arsenal when she attacks or needs to bribe or threaten them.
“When I fight there is no doubt about it.” With this threatening
statement, Orman once again showed what a mafiaesque gangster she is.
311
Orman also sent her lawyer to harass Ondine. This was the same
lawyer who, fifteen years earlier, had orchestrated Orman's false rumor
campaign against me in our mutual spiritual community.
Irving’s message, “Suze knows I know too much,” seemed to work
fairly well in stemming Orman’s attack. How great it would be if a
government agency might find a way to do research behind the veil of
Orman’s confidentiality agreements.
Considering how many people in the financial services industry still
thought Orman was a legitimate financial advisor, it was brave of Irving to
share some personal experiences outside what would be covered in the
confidentiality agreement, also alerting credit unions to what was going
on with Orman's Prepaid Debit Card Scam.
Of course, Irving also had a right to defend herself after Orman’s
slanderous aspersions about her website. Here is Irving’s article about the
matter : “A Note to the Credit Union Industry: Re Credit Card
Connection.ORG”: Link 8-30a
312
Irving’s article has some interesting tidbits, including many examples
of Orman kissing up to Irving by pitching the same .org website she was
now threatening to report to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau!
313
Plagiarizing and distorting spiritual teachings:
Using other people's words as her own is nothing new to Suze Orman,
whose agent was thrilled to find an “author” who knew she couldn’t write
and was willing to play along with a big sham that, as Binky Urban
predicted, made them millions, with many behind-the-scenes experts and
ghostwriters supporting the sham, and a lot of confidentiality agreements.
Suze Orman has been perfectly happy to pretend that she wrote all
those books and somehow magically gained this high level knowledge and
understanding of the intricacies of financial markets and all other financerelated issues, even though she never took a single finance-related college
course, and barely passed the courses she took for a bachelor’s degree in
social work.
One of Orman's recent experts told me how Orman would call him to
ask what she should say in response to current financial market
developments in her social media and television interviews, after which he
would watch somewhat shocked as “financial expert Suze Orman” would
present his words as though they were coming from her own knowledge.
In the same way, many of the spiritual flavored quotes attributed to
Suze Orman are in fact unattributed quotes that Orman has shared as
though they were her own original thoughts and wisdom as a means to
support her façade.
Over the years, Orman has often tossed out quotes from our mutual
guru and spiritual community as if they were her own. One of our
teacher’s secretaries told me years ago that Orman had been asked to stop
quoting our teacher’s quotes in that way, yet she continued and continues
to repeat the wisdom of our teacher, ancient sages and great thinkers, as if
their wisdom were her own, to give herself a false sheen of spirituality and
wisdom.
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On one hand, it is good that Orman learned some bona fide spiritual
teachings from the path; on the other hand, the spiritual teachings she
quotes are usually the opposite of what she is doing, and are often
distorted to appear to support Orman's problematic actions, rude
behaviors, and personally motivated advice.
Years ago, our mutual spiritual teacher's secretary told me that
Orman had been asked to stop quoting our teacher’s quotes as if they
were her own, but she continued to do so, nonetheless.
Since Orman doesn't have enough of her own wisdom, she likes to
take credit for quotes composed by others and pretend they are hers, as a
cover for her scams.
Here’s an example of Orman plagiarizing our mutual guru's teaching
on a Facebook post in March 2016, pretending the words are her own:
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The guru-sourced original quote Orman plagiarized was almost the
same, word for word:
“The sunrise of supreme bliss shimmers in every particle of the
universe...Remember, love and respect must be renewed with each dawn.”
It’s great to share the wisdom we've learned—I do it in my books and
other works, and try to give a proper attribution when quoting someone
else directly. However, Orman is specifically using these teachings
without attribution to give a false sheen of wisdom and altruism that will
enable more of her scams, with wisdom she has contradicted and
distorted to the extreme.
For an example of Orman’s real philosophy, this clip from The View
shows the co-hosts talking about the greatness of forgiveness, while
Orman continues to spew her usual vindictiveness and hate, in this case
declaring she will forever hate the very people who helped her to achieve
her greatest dreams, before she gleefully caused serious damage to their
lives. (Link 8-31)
Again, it is wonderful to share positive teachings that we've learned
for the benefit of others. It is also common for devotees and disciples of
gurus to incorporate their teachings in our own offerings.
However, Orman has plagiarized and appropriated spiritual wisdom
as her own direct quotes to give a false impression of her wisdom and
trustworthiness, and she has distorted them in ways that ruin or even turn
the meaning of those wisdom quotes upside-down.
Elephants and barking dogs
One of Orman’s favorite quotes that she has used frequently when
faced with proper criticism for her scams is a line we heard when we were
both studying Indian philosophy in the 1990s: “The elephant keeps
walking, while the dogs are barking.”
This quote about the elephant walking while dogs are barking is a
common idiom from India that was originally composed by the highly
revered 15th century poet sage Kabir. The quote refers to someone who
takes refuge in God above worldly matters, without being distracted by
the noise of the marketplace, which includes exactly the kind of greedy
scams Orman has run for the past fifteen years.
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Note the resemblance of Orman’s speaking style to a barking dog.
Here, she uses Kabir’s quote to deflect criticism during her “Approved”
card scam:
Ooooh, now Orman knows who not to trust to lie to the public to
perpetrate and support her fraudulent schemes.
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Know that being blocked by Suze Orman is a sign of integrity!
Here was Orman’s telling the same barking dog elephant story in
2015 that she’s told over and over as her number one response to welldeserved criticism.
In May, 2012, Orman went beyond just repeating Kabir’s quote out of
context. Jon Friedman interviewed Orman for a Wall Street Journal
MarketWatch article he titled, “Suze Orman doesn’t care if you hate her.”
As one commenter on the article said, “Maybe more than a touch of
sociopathy there.”
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This time, in response to criticisms about her prepaid debit card
scam, Orman actually took credit for composing the elephant quote
herself, as a result of an epiphany she “had” in India, while watching an
elephant walk by a group of barking dogs.
Yes, really. (Link 8-32)
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In the same article, Orman shared her oft-repeated suggestion that
anyone who criticizes anything about her is looking for “their 15 minutes of
fame.” As one of those critics, I can assure you that this topic is the last one
I would want to become known for out of my many positive works, and
I'm sure most others who have spoken up feel the same way.
As has been the case in many other articles about Orman, the critical
comments by readers of the MarketWatch article were all deleted. Here’s a
saved web image of the article, with at least page one of the now-deleted
comments: Link 8-33. Here is one of those quickly deleted comments:
Back to Orman’s plagiarizing. Here’s another spiritual sounding
message Orman has posted and included in her books:
Orman and I both heard the quote during one of the spiritual courses
we attended. “The gatekeepers of speech” has been attributed to Socrates,
who probably never guessed it was going to be used for holiday spending.
Again, it is wonderful to share and apply the wisdom we’ve learned, but in
this next Twitter posting, right in the midst of the big outcry of critical
media reports about her prepaid debit card scam, Orman used this
ancient wisdom as an attempt to shame and silence her critics:
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Being kind is certainly not a teaching Orman has practiced herself,
while insulting and blasting critics of her card and people in general.
The next video clip was recorded two weeks before Orman posted
that wise-sounding quote about being kind in February 2012. Orman was
speaking with the staff and some television journalists at Oprah's still-new
OWN channel. Tony Robbins was scheduled to be Oprah's guest on her
“Life Class” show in two weeks, and one of the participants in Orman’s
event asked about some of Robbins’ financial advice.
Orman got riled up and called motivational speaker Tony Robbins a
“stupid asshole,” because his financial advice differed from hers. As one
more proof of the power of Orman’s bad company, the OWN staff all
laughed at her slur against their upcoming guest. Was it kind? Was it true?
Was it necessary? Link 8-34
Years ago, I attended a New Years retreat where our spiritual teacher
offered her annual message of guidance for the year. “A Golden Mind, A
Golden Life,” was given with an extensive exploration of the Bhagavad Gita
verse on which the message was based.
“A Golden Mind, a Golden Life,” referred to the noble traits of mind
that create a positive life. From Bhagavad Gita verse 17:16: “Peace of mind,
gentleness, silence, self-restraint, purity of being; these are called austerity of the
mind.” That is what our guru was teaching with her message, “A Golden
Mind, A Golden Life.”
Although Orman is not known for qualities such as gentleness, silence,
self-restraint, peacefulness, or purity of being, she apparently thought it
would be a good marketing slogan for selling her wares on QVC.
Several hours after hearing this message, I was flipping through
television stations to check on some breaking news. As I flipped by QVC,
there was Orman selling her products.
I watched for a few minutes, and was shocked to hear Orman pitching
her product by saying, mere hours after our guru had unveiled her
precious spiritual teaching for the year: “As I always like to say, 'A Golden
Mind, A Golden Life!'“
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Orman spoke as though the quote were her own, and suggested that it
was specifically referring to money and her QVC products. This is just one
more example of how Orman will bastardize anything to give a false
façade and put a few more dollars into her pocket.
Then we have, “Suze Orman’s Five Laws of Life.” Orman presents
these poetic words as “her” five laws of life in the book Courage to Be Rich,
and many other places.
I was actually in association with Orman when we took a meditation
course that included this quote, which in the course was given word for
word as Orman has published it in her book and in articles, pretending it
is a quote by herself.
Here’s the quote directly from Orman’s book:
Because Orman has given the impression that it is her own personal
wisdom that she herself wrote, these words of wisdom have been requoted as “Suze Orman's Five Laws of Life” in various blogs and other
writings over the years, and may go down in history as coming from the
wisdom of Suze Orman.
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“Orman's Five Laws” were actually composed by Lebanese author
and poet Mikha'il Na'ima's, who wrote in his “Book of Mirdad”:
This is the way to freedom from care and pain:
So think as if your every thought were to be etched in fire upon the sky for
all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is. So speak as if the world
entire were but a single ear intent on hearing what you say. And so, in
truth, it is.
So do as if your every deed were to recoil upon your heads. And so, in
truth, it is.
So wish as if you were the wish. And so, in truth, you are.
So live as if your God Himself had need of you His life to live. And so, in
truth, He does.”
I'd imagine that with her entire financial career being built on one
sham after another, Orman figured nobody would notice if she plagiarized
a few wise beings she heard about while causing trouble to quite a few
people at the ashram.
At the time, Orman and I discussed the meaning of this quote during
some of our hundreds of hours of conversation. Who would have guessed
that one day Suze Orman would take credit for this bit of wisdom as if it
were her own, and use it to fool people into thinking she is wise, or that
she has followed the teaching herself. Because if Orman's deeds were to
recoil upon her head as the quote states, I would feel very sorry for her
indeed.
Next is an example of what Orman's actual wisdom sounds like.
Orman quoteth herself:
“The only action you will regret is the one you did not take,” a
gangster's ode. I have to say that the one action I most regret in life was
using my skills, resources and contacts in the early 1990s to help Suze
Orman onto the public stage when she was unpublished, unknown, and
deeply in debt. That is an action I regret having taken.
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Of course, narcissistic sociopaths don’t have the burden of feeling
regret over all the harmful actions they take, such as the damage Orman
has caused to many lives for her own enrichment and glorification. I'd
expect that most people do have at least some regrets in life for something
they said or did, which is the basis for decent human discourse.
In this article in the Daily Beast (Link 8-35), Orman gives another
“gem,” explaining, “I don’t question myself anymore. If I think it, I know it is
true, and I don’t care what you say to me. I know my thoughts are true.”
Here’s one more example of Orman's spiritual potions in action
(faces blurred to protect the innocent).
During May of 2013, I watched some of the “Jodi Arias Trial” being
covered by my old Disney co-worker, Jane Velez Mitchell on CNN's HLN.
Quickly, I saw how Arias and Orman shared quite a few traits, such as
being able to lie with absolute ease and creating webs of fabrication, as
Orman did with her prepaid debit card and other scams and shenanigans.
Both also used spiritual teachings to cover up their misdeeds and paint a
picture of being more altruistic than they are.
It is difficult for people who are not sociopaths to understand their
mentality, which is why so many of us get fooled and harmed by
unfortunate associations with narcissistic sociopaths.
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Hay House takes on Suze Orman’s scams
This brings us to Orman’s disappointing association with spiritual
publisher Hay House. At some point around 2015, “new age” publisher
Hay House assumed bigger responsibility for “Suze Orman Media.” The
address and phone number to “contact Suze” was now Hay House’s main
mailing address and phone number. Louise Hay and other Hay House
authors started posting endorsements for Orman, including Louise
promising, “You will never find a person who cares more about you and your
success around money than Suze Orman.”
Hay House became the new official publisher for many of Orman’s
previously released products.
I don’t know what the specifics of their deal is, but Hay House must
be making a lot of money to justify the terrible disservice this corrupt
liaison has done to their wide roster of authors, many of whom are
spiritual and self-help teachers who have integrity, practice dharma
(righteous living), and were honored to publish their books with a
publisher that previously had a clean reputation.
In my view, Hay House sold all those authors out by turning Hay
House into Suze Orman Scams central. As a spiritual author, I am relieved
that I never published any of my books with them.
Around the same time that Hay House shifted leadership, other
complaints started coming forth claiming unscrupulous “Ormanesque”
practices in Hay House’s self-publishing wing, so it looks like an example
of a company with new leadership who is taking the ship down, at least in
terms of integrity, if not dollars in their bank accounts.
The first thing Hay House did was to raise the price on Orman’s main
product, which literally went from $69.75 to $144.00, overnight. One
day, this was the price for Orman’s kit, around the same price it had been
for years—$69.75—with further discounts when she pitched it on QVC :
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While doing research for this presentation, I happened to see that
from one day to the next, Hay House’s price for the exact same kit had
more than doubled to $144, with an added template for giving percentage
savings. That would allow Hay House to offer fake discounts that would
still be double the price for the same product that had been sold for years
on QVC and the Hay House website. It is one more example of “bad
company” Suze Orman corrupting even spiritual publishers:
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Orman often pitches this kit as being usable on all computers, being a
complete replacement for lawyers, and coming with access to be able to
personally contact Orman or her trust lawyer or one of their assistants
with any questions.
With delightful con artistry, Orman would punctuate the idea that
for $69, you just might be able to have a personal conversation about your
finances with none other than Suze Orman herself.
Below are some costly complaints about those issues from people
who purchased the kit. The QVC website received many one-star reviews,
including that Orman’s kit didn’t work on all computer systems as she’d
claimed, requiring MAC and other customers to pay more money for a
“Protection Port,” with no help or response from Orman or her assistants
as she had vehemently promised.
This woman claims to have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to
using Orman’s kit:
That’s what happens when someone is allowed to basically practice
law without a license or any ethical rules or responsibilities that would be
incumbent on any other financial advisors.
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That’s also what happens when government agencies such as the
Department of Labor specifically exclude Suze Orman, by name, from
their 2016 ruling that financial advisors must act in the best interest of
their clients.
The DOL ruling claimed that Suze Orman was not a financial advisor
at all, but an entertainer. I’m sure Marilynn and others who lost a little or
a lot of money would’ve liked to have known that before trusting Orman’s
Will and Trust Kit for her family’s inheritance.
Even though Orman frequently demonstrated how waterproof her kit
was on QVC with a video clip of her throwing the case into the ocean in
front of her Pompano Beach condo, thousands received boxes with
broken latches, with no interest or care from Orman about their defective
products.
Here are several more complaints about Orman’s kit that also give
insight into the kind of shenanigans that were going on after Hay House
Media became the main representative for Suze Orman and her products,
more than doubling the price of her kit overnight.
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Two years earlier, Hay House had also sold Orman’s Money Navigator
Newsletter, whose disastrous saga that generated terrible press and ended
with a Securities Exchange Commission fine is documented in Chapter
Three.
Hay House sold a one-year subscription to the newsletter—
something Orman had been giving away for free all year—for $63.
Way to not take care of your customers, Hay House!
Surely many Hay House customers who hadn’t been keeping track of
Orman’s latest shenanigans assumed a publisher like Hay House with so
many integrity-based authors wouldn’t be selling them a worthless scam.
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In 2015, Hay House started creating and posting hundreds of
spiritual-sounding “Ormanisms” on Orman's Twitter account and
Facebook page, using Hay House style graphics and phrases that were
apparently extracted from Orman's
mostly ghostwritten books.
Overnight, Orman’s Facebook
page became a graveyard for
rehashed (sometimes outdated)
advice from her old books, and
often ghostwritten quotes, some
with dubious meaning or value in
the face of her greedy, predatory
actions, such as: “When you are
able to give purely and from the
heart, then you are free.”
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More Hay House “Ormanisms”:
Orman has shown no qualms about claiming false credentials or
attributions from the beginning of her deception-ridden career, so why
not let Hay House pretend-post rehashes from ghostwritten books on her
behalf? It’s like a “Weekend at Bernie’s” story, or perhaps in this case, more
of a “Weekend at Bernie Madoff’s.”
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Some of the quotes Hay House posted might have value if they had
been created and delivered by someone who has shown even a modicum
of integrity, or who was posting the messages with consideration of
current trends or circumstances, but as pseudo posts out of context from
representatives of a con artist, they are potentially harmful.
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People who followed Orman on Twitter and Facebook were
suddenly flooded several times a day with these rehashed, fluffy posts,
along with ads for Orman’s next appearances to sell her wares, and
occasional posts between Orman and her famous enablers.
Followers assumed Suze Orman was writing all these posts, and
would comment on them, thinking she was paying attention to all or any
of their questions and comments.
Now those who have already been fooled by Suze Orman time and
time again, plus new Hay House customers, are being fooled into thinking
that it is Orman who wrote and is posting these financial edicts, as they
post their responses and questions on the Facebook page of what is now a
facade of a facade.
Hay House also started posting links to just about every video and
article and quote they could find, without even paying attention to
whether it was actual advice or a useless promo for Orman's old defunct
CNBC show.
That started to make her Facebook con victims suspicious, although
many others reposted the nothing link for their friends as if it had actual
content.
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Hay House also posted this quote from one of Orman’s books
without even bothering to remove the phrase, “one of the goals of this
book.”
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How did Suze Orman con or bribe spiritual New Age publisher Hay
House into continuing her shams, even after Orman's well-documented
record of committing fraudulent scams throughout the media landscape?
I am confident Hay House saw my film and other documentation, based
on conversations with one of Louise Hay’s friends. That means they just
didn’t care. Seeing Louise Hay’s complicity in Orman’s deceptions was
especially disappointing.
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How much money did it take to convince Hay House to jeopardize
the integrity of their brand and possibly smear the books by hundreds of
spiritual and personal growth authors who expect their publisher, Hay
House, to act with intelligence and integrity?
“People first”?
One might say that Orman's main message is very altruistic sounding:
“People first, then money, then things.” It certainly isn't how Orman's lived
her life based on my experience and observation, but it does sound good.
Yes, put the needs of people first; it almost sounds like a Christian-based
teaching.
However, several times, Orman has clarified that when she says,
“people first,” what she means is to put yourself first, which does sound
much more in line with how Orman lives her own life.
Here we have an altruistic sounding disguised slogan for those who
don't research further, and who assume Orman's message is humanitarian
in nature, reminding us to take care of loved ones and others in this world,
first. Most people have assumed that Orman’s message, “people first,” is
kindhearted at the core, when the real core of Suze Orman's messages and
examples is actually selfish, disrespectful, shaming, fear-based, and a
greedy intention to put yourself first, without regard for the well being of
others.
Even beyond guiding her followers to put themselves first, for Suze
Orman, “people first, then money, then things,” means to put herself first,
and to use people to get their money to buy more things for her luxurious
lifestyle.
It’s like the man in a famous 1962 Twilight Zone episode, who was
happily boarding an alien vessel after learning that the title of the book
the aliens carried was the altruistic sounding, To Serve Man. As he stepped
up to the spaceship, his staffer ran up, shouting, “IT’S A COOKBOOK!”
In the same way as To Serve Man, one might ask upon seeing Orman’s
book titles, such as, The Courage to be Rich, who is it who has the courage
to be rich, and at whose expense?
Also, when Orman says put yourself first, she clearly means to put
your money first, based on her frequent practice of denying people their
life dreams and insisting that her followers let go of personal preferences,
even telling people to get rid of a beloved pet that would possibly end up
euthanized, perhaps killing their "best friend," unless they have enough
financial savings to get Orman's approval. Suze Orman is not only a
scammer, but a heartless one.
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At this link (Link 8-36), you can read some heartfelt feedback from
one person whose book launch plans got “Denied!” by the same shyster
who has always spared no expense for her every whim and desire, even
when she was poor and borrowing large sums of money from friends,
before upping the luxury big-time when she became wealthy, with yachts,
planes, and luxury homes.
“It’s a cookbook for how to make herself rich from your money!
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Chapter Nine
And The Scams Go On…
In 2015, Orman was released from her contract with CNBC. Maybe it
had to do with around two hundred articles by financial journalists
during the previous few years, criticizing her prepaid card and other
scams.
Maybe CNBC found some integrity after way too many years,
including when they jumped on Orman’s deception wagon in a 2004
Chicago Tribune article when asked why it was fine for Suze Orman to
violate all kinds of ethics rules that none of their other hosts, journalists,
or advisors could.
CNBC’s answer, which you can read in Chapter Two of this book, was
that Suze Orman is not a journalist nor a financial expert. She is nothing
more than a celebrity entertainer.
Their assertion was confirmed by the Department of Labor’s 2016
ruling that specifically excluded Suze Orman, by name, from having to
follow their new guidelines requiring financial advisors to give advice that
is in the best interest of their clients.
Surprise to all you millions of people who took Suze Orman’s
financial advice regarding some of the most important personal, business,
and family decisions of your lives, thinking she was an actual financial
advisor with trustworthy advice.
You must have missed seeing the “for entertainment only” disclaimers
next to all those publicist-crafted headlines calling Suze Orman, “The
World’s Leading Personal Finance Expert”!
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Maybe Orman’s quick departure from CNBC had something to do
with an early edit of my documentary film that was published to
YouTube just a few months before Orman announced that she was going
to be leaving CNBC.
Several financial journalists had written articles supporting my efforts
and agreeing with the conclusions in that initial documentary. These
included a review published in an offshoot of the Financial Times, called
Financial Advisor IQ, that offered an excellent summary of the important
points in our film. The article was recommended with a link from the Wall
Street Journal. (Link 9-1)
Here are some excerpts from Joan Warner’s article, “Suze Orman
Won’t Stop Bashing Advisors,” that offered a review of some of the
information in our film:
Personal-finance celebrity Suze Orman concluded the final
installment of her long-running TV show on Saturday night by telling her
audience, “If you want to find the best financial advisor of all, just look in
the mirror.”
Orman has been blasting traditional financial services since the
1990s, when she began publishing self-help books. (One oft-repeated joke
is that “a broker makes you broker.”) Don’t expect her to stop — another
television program is in the works. And despite practices that many have
found questionable, Orman enjoys the support of what CNN reporter
Chris Cuomo last year called “the Orman cabal.”
She worked for Merrill Lynch and Prudential Bache, selling mostly
insurance, before starting her own firm in 1987; at some point she got her
CFP designation. But her real calling is entertainment of the Jerry
Springer variety. The Suze Orman Show, which ran for 13 years, was
noisy, self-congratulatory and heavily reliant on public shaming of call-in
viewers who, say, coveted a $130,000 car even though they’d saved only
$65,000 toward retirement.
You can’t fault Orman’s central message — that people should live
within their means. And you can’t really fault her in-your-face style. After
all, some clients respond well to tough love. But you can fault the many
apparent conflicts of interest that have cropped up over the years. While
excoriating advisors who accept commissions and even suggesting that
only by-the-hour planners can be trusted, Orman has not only worked as
a paid spokesman for assorted financial products but created and sold
products of her own.
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Most disastrous was a prepaid debit card on the market from 2012 to
2014. Like most such cards, it was positively infested with fees. Worse,
Orman promised fans that using it would improve their credit scores —
or even generate a FICO score for those who lacked one — as a result of a
data-sharing agreement with credit-reporting agency TransUnion. As
NerdWallet explained when the card was introduced, there’s just no way
consumers’ behavior with a prepaid debit card can predict or affect their
creditworthiness. Orman pulled the plug on her card last July.
A documentary called The Suze Orman Problem: Scams, Shams and
Shenanigans (that was an early title of our film, “How Suze Orman
SCAMMED the World”), by a filmmaker who says she helped launch
Orman’s career, raises questions about other commercial ventures. For
example, although she has spoken before Congress about the student-debt
crisis in the U.S., Orman taught a class at the University of Phoenix, the
country’s largest for-profit college. According to The Huffington Post,
“for-profit colleges have 13% of U.S. college students, but an astonishing
47% of student-loan defaults.”
On her website, Orman sells a “FICO kit” debt-management tool
($50 to $60 a year), an “insurance evaluator” ($30), “must-have
documents” ($90 for generic will, trust and power-of-attorney forms) and
— my favorite — a water-resistant blue plastic suitcase, with some
folders inside, called a “protection portfolio” ($144). In television ads, she
has sold General Motors’ car-financing programs and term life insurance.
CNBC gets around the ethics problems because her program is licensed,
not owned.
For a time, Orman also sold an investment newsletter, The Money
Navigator ($63 a year), which was eviscerated by Reuters in 2012 and
which she got rid of shortly afterward. Consumers who followed her
bullish calls on housing in 2007 and on gold in 2012 lost their shirts. And
according to the Shenanigans film, Orman has successfully been sued for
fraud and for sharing her customers’ information with creditors.
Why should practicing, professional financial advisors care about all
this? Two reasons. One, in our celebrity-besotted culture, even well-heeled
clients may be susceptible to the recommendations of a big TV
personality. If a client resists your advice because Suze Orman says
nobody should ever, under any circumstances, buy whole life insurance,
you can gently remind the client Suze Orman makes money by advertising
SelectQuote term life policies.
Second, Orman has enlisted some powerful people to her cause. I
don’t just mean Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Oz, both of whom promote her
products and programs…Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head
Richard Cordray and former FDIC chair Sheila Bair. (The latter group
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might be what Cuomo was referring to with his “cabal” remark.) Former
General Electric CEO Jack Welch — hardly a mouthpiece for the 99%
— likes Orman, too.
That’s why advisors should keep an eye on her agenda. It’s one thing
to warn consumers against hiring an FA who makes house calls. It’s quite
another to have Washington’s ear on the future of the industry.
With this kind of press alerting other journalists, Orman and her cabal
knew that announcing Orman’s departure from CNBC would be sure to
draw more scrutiny. The extra scrutiny would enable more people to find
the mountain of critical articles about Orman’s prepaid debit card scam,
my film about her scams, and other evidence of Orman’s scams that could
lead to persecution and possible prosecution. Orman and her protectors
and enablers could surely imagine the possible headlines: “Suze Orman
Fired from CNBC Due to Prepaid Debit Card Fraud,” or “CNBC Cans
Orman after Whistleblower Film.”
They had to find a way to block those headlines with one more makebelieve Suze Orman shiny fake headline distraction.
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Note that Orman’s publicists, who likely either wrote or requested
this article, changed Orman’s usual designation from their usual,
“financial guru,” or “financial expert of the world,” to “personal finance TV
personality.” Perhaps the change was made in preparation for convincing
the Department of Labor to designate Suze Orman, by name, as nothing
more than an entertainer, thereby leaving her out of their subsequent
ruling requiring financial advisors to be ethical.
Just for fun, check out the same Orman shill publication’s overly
laudatory article about the demise of her prepaid card scam a few months
earlier. They couldn’t even bother to change the photo. Maybe they have
a “Suze Shill Template.”
Orman’s previous retirement claims
I would add here that it is possible Orman’s departure from CNBC
was her idea rather than a cancellation by the studio. For several years,
Orman had been telling journalists about her plan to retire in 2015, either
because that was her plan, or to make whistleblowers assume her reign of
damage would soon end on its own, without them having to speak up.
343
Here are some examples of Orman pushing her upcoming retirement:
In this 2012 video clip, you’ll hear Orman telling Moira Forbes that
the “Approved” card would be her “last stand” because she was going to
retire from the financial business in 2015. (Link 9-2)
As we saw in an earlier chapter, Orman also told the Daily News she
was going to retire in 2015, close her website down, buy a big boat, and
“go fishing.” From the Daily News, November 2011: (Link 9-3)
Financial wizard Suze Orman already has her retirement plans laid
out. She told us at the recent Friars Club testimonial dinner for Larry
King that she plans to end “The Suze Orman Show” in three years and
sail around the world: “Unless something wacky happens, I’m 60 now,
and I always had a date of 63 that that would be that.” Orman said that
on her last day of work, her Web site’s home page will simply say, “Gone
Fishing.”
Orman gave more details about her upcoming retirement to Tess
Vigeland on NPR’s Marketplace in 2012, while pitching her “Approved”
prepaid debit card scam to NPR listeners. This excerpts also includes
Orman’s lie about not taking on speaking engagements, and more:
(Link 9-3a):
Vigeland: Well, here's another question from Facebook: You know, lots of
folks set financial goals at the start of this new year. They might assume
that your finances are in pretty tip-top shape, but did you set any goals for
yourself for the year?
Orman: You know, I didn't set any goals for myself. I set this year as the
year that I launched the Approve card. And that I didn't take any
speaking engagements; I have this whole year clear.
Because the one thing that I want to see happen before I retire -- and I do
plan on retiring in about three years from now -- and when that happens I
wanna know that I have left my mark on this world in a way that no
other personal finance person ever would have done. And that is I want
debit card usage to be able to create a credit score so that when children go
to college, they don't have to get a credit card just so they can have a credit
score, so that maybe one day credit cards become obsolete and we can
return to a cash society, albeit on plastic. But that debit plastic gives
people credit for the future.
And if I can do that, then that will be a great goal for Ms. Orman to
finally say, “Bye bye, I'm goin' fishin'.”
344
Vigeland: Well I've gotta pick up on that. Boy, three years. Tell us what a
Suze Orman retirement looks like.
Orman: Yeah, I have a goal there in three years, I'll be 63, almost 64. And
so at that point in time, I want to go around the world on a boat. I wanna
go around the world on a boat that I help captain. So, I don't want to go
on a cruise ship. I want to feel what it feels like to live on a boat, go around
the world with K.T., who's my life partner. And girl friend, don't bet
against me of that goal not coming true.
A QVC host who worked with Orman in 2014 gave another clue
about some of her big plans after retiring:
Maybe Orman bought an island, or a new home on the islands, to be
closer to the millions she probably has stashed away in the Cayman
Islands. Because, even though Orman likes to tell the press she is worth
around thirty-five million dollars, she couldn’t help but brag to a
classroom of low-income at-risk youth who had dropped out of school
that even estimates of her fortune at fifty million are “way short.”
I’m sure all the estimates of Orman’s wealth, including that fifty
million dollars, are way, way short.
One year before announcing her exit from CNBC, Orman told the
Daily Beast that she had almost retired in the summer of 2013, after being
eviscerated for her prepaid debit card scam. There was talk at the time
that CNBC might not renew her contract due to all the documented
fraud, but then they did!
Adam Auriamma at the Daily Beast was the only journalist to ever ask
or get any response from Orman or TransUnion about the results of their
supposed prepaid debit card “experiment” that cost a whole lot of poor
and middle class people a lot of their hard-earned dollars to fund.
Auriamma’s interview took place just months before the card would close
without a peep about it ever again from TransUnion or Suze Orman.
345
From The Daily Beast, November 2013: (Link 9-4)
A messy brand extension nearly derailed her empire. Now, the loud
and proud money guru is hitting back at her critics—and touting her
victory over the ‘financial rape’ of the poor.
When it comes to people and their money, Suze Orman is never
wrong. That’s according to Suze Orman. In fact, around the set of The
Suze Orman Show, her long-running CNBC series, Orman and her
producers like to joke about what they call “Suze witching moments”—
instances in which the host’s psychic intuition turns out to be eerily
accurate…
After the blast of bad press, Orman went uncharacteristically silent
on the matter. She hasn’t talked about the card since. She stopped
defending herself. She doesn’t advertise it anywhere, certainly not on her
show. “I’m sure most people think that the card is gone,” she says with a
mischievous smile.
The Suze Orman Show airs new material every week, but the taping
schedule isn’t too demanding, so Orman and Travis, who goes by KT,
spend much of their time relaxing in Florida or sailing their boat
(christened the “Approved,” natch) around the Bahamas. They nearly
retired this summer. “It was over,” Orman says. “We were gonna come
back and weren’t gonna work anymore. And we were gonna announce,
this is it, we’re gonna live the rest of our lives in the Bahamas.”
…The card, she says, is “thriving,” and broke even for the first time
this summer. “TransUnion made a deal with me,” Orman says, “so that
for two years they would look at behavior on this card—in an aggregate,
anonymous way—and see if it determines future behavior.”
I point out that it’s been just about two years. Any word?
“They are finding out that it does,” she says, with a smile.
A representative from TransUnion confirmed the broad outlines of its
partnership with Orman, but wouldn’t corroborate her statement about
the two-year timeline. Nor would the representative make any statements
about what kind of conclusions, if any, TransUnion has drawn from its
analysis, stating only that the process is “ongoing.” Orman declined to give
any further details, as well.
The Daily Beast article is also worth reading for examples of Orman's
narcissistic sociopathy, including this tidbit: “I don’t question myself
anymore. If I think it, I know it is true, and I don’t care what you say to me. I
know my thoughts are true,” and, “The only thing I haven’t done yet is a Nobel
Prize. But I wouldn’t be surprised if that comes my way one day.”
346
Therefore, it is possible that CNBC did not fire Orman, and that she
retired on her own—if so, it would be a rare time Suze Orman actually
did something she said she was going to do.
Whether fired or retired, there was one problem with Orman’s plans.
After her prepaid debit card scam was eviscerated by the entire financial
press, and with the cat out of the bag that Suze Orman was unequivocally
a fraud, an announcement that she was leaving CNBC would be sure to
generate questions such as, “Whatever happened to that prepaid card you
said was going to raise everyone’s FICO scores?” and assumptions like, “Did
CNBC fire you for getting caught running all those scams?”
Remember, from the Wikihow’s description of sociopaths:
Sociopaths are professional liars. They fabricate stories and make
outlandish, untruthful statements, but are able to make these lies sound
convincing with their confidence and assertiveness.
Once you see past the Suze Orman façade even a bit, her abundant
lies are much easier to see in nearly every appearance and headline.
Enter Orman’s “Money Wars” sham
What could Orman and her political lobbyist media broker damage
control expert strategists do but to pour more lies on top of all the other
lies, and trust that whatever fake stories they put out would pass through
without notice, and be quickly forgotten as the team replaced the old
scams and shams with new ones.
Orman and her co-conspirators must have laughed themselves silly
about what they came up with to fool the American public once again:
she was leaving CNBC to start a new show called “Money Wars.”
“Money Wars” was described a daily Judge Judy style show where
Suze Orman would mediate between people having arguments about
money. And the press picked up and printed this new batch of hogwash as
fact, without a single intelligent question, just as Orman and her cabal
knew they would.
Another article at TV First Look gave more details in an article titled,
“Suze Orman Is Going From Saturday’s CNBC Finale To Daytime TV’s
Money Wars.” The false information began with a whole lot of praise that
certainly sounded like it was written by Orman and her cabal.
347
If you think Saturday’s The Suze Orman Show series finale on
CNBC will be the financial guru’s first step toward retirement, you
probably haven’t been paying attention to Suze the past couple of
decades.
She’s a smart, straight shooting, perpetually optimistic financial
expert who has been writing books, giving financial advice on radio and
TV, hitting the motivational speaker circuit and selling Suze-branded
financial products since before people knew what the word “entrepreneur”
meant.
Next up for Suze is Suze Orman’s Money Wars, a half-hour daytime
show from Warner Bros. that’s not dissimilar to Judge Judy. Starting in
fall 2016, if all goes to plan, Suze will dish out advice to the show’s guests
twice a day, five days a week.
Regarding this pseudo “Money Wars” show that was obviously made
up solely for the purpose of making her departure from CNBC look like it
had nothing to do with all the Suze scandals that had already come to
light, with many more to come, Orman explained:
This will be different for me. It will tape in front of a live studio
audience. It will be a half-hour, Monday-to-Friday daytime show. It will
probably air back to back like Judge Judy.
It’s called Money Wars. We’re calling it a high-conflict-resolution
show. It’s not like Jerry Springer. Within a short period of time, we solve a
problem right then and there between mothers fighting with daughters
over money, husbands arguing with wives, bosses fighting with employees
and what have you.
They each tell their side of the story. We come up with a solution.
Then, there are teaching moments and there is interaction with the studio
audience.
Lying through her inhumanly white teeth, as usual.
For someone who has said so many times that she was planning to
retire to an easier life in 2015, it would be an unlikely step to instead start
creating, producing, pitching, selling, and filming a daily show called
“Money Wars,” that she claimed would be focused on the unsavory and
boring topic of people fighting about money for five days a week. Even
Judge Judy would quickly get boring if all her cases revolved around money
disputes.
348
Here is Orman’s BS announcement that was picked up by many
media outlets:
Anyone with their “thinking cap” on (as Judge Judy might say) could
tell that Suze Orman was “peeing on their leg and telling them it was
raining,” with her fake new “Money Wars” show headline.
Variety noted the vague quality of this announcement about Orman's
elusive “Money Wars” show that had no producer or syndication deals; a
fake headline show that was already destined to fade into nothing and be
forgotten by the same media venues who spread this fraudulent headline,
just as they did for all the other Suze Orman schemes and headlines you
can find throughout this book and film.
349
From Variety: “Suze Orman to Exit CNBC for ‘Money Wars’ Series
with Telepictures”: (Link 9-5)
It’s not clear yet if the project will be distribbed via first-run
syndication or shopped to cable outlets. The series is in the very early
stages of development, meaning that it’s too soon to target a fall 2015
debut in syndication should Telepictures go that route.
The “Money Wars” concept has Orman helping families, friends and
couples tackle the financial and personal issues that are wrapped up in
disputes over money.
There’s no word yet on a producer, but Orman’s longtime partner
Kathy Travis will undoubtedly be involved.
You betcha she will!
A modern-day “Bonnie and Clyde”
The con was that Suze Orman was leaving CNBC to begin a new
show called “Money Wars,” a show that at the time had no producer, no
expected production date, and nothing more than Orman’s word, which
is worth less than nothing.
A daily show like “Money Wars” would require a lot more time and
work than continuing Orman’s weekly CNBC show would have taken,
with a fairly low chance of success for all those efforts. The required
schedule for a daily show would also give Orman less time to spend and
enjoy her luxurious life, paid for by all the tens of millions of dollars (or
more) that she’s pilfered from the public.
350
As for whether Telepictures was complicit in the lie or actually
thought they were ever going to produce or distribute a show called
“Money Wars,” I would venture to guess that in the unlikely possibility
that Telepictures had any agreement with Orman in writing, her shyster
cabal made sure it was written to give her an easy path to simply stepping
away as soon as the big fake press headline had run its course and kept her
free from proper scrutiny.
As a reluctant but generally accurate Suze scam expert, I immediately,
confidently predicted that Orman’s elusive “Money Wars” show was
nothing more than a fake “show” ruse to keep the financial press who had
already eviscerated Orman for plundering the public with her predatory
“Approved” card scam from writing another slew of articles suggesting she
was exiting CNBC in disgrace after stealing millions from the poor
through scams, including her “Approved” card that had closed down a few
months earlier, stealing more money from card users on the way out.
Orman didn’t want to open that hornet’s nest, but she either wanted to or
had to leave CNBC. If people were paying attention, the fake “Money
Wars” headline would never have passed muster, but it slid right through.
If she really was going to do a new television program, a more apt
show title for con artist Suze Orman would be “Orange is the New
Jacket.”
Another proof of why Orman was never planning to do a syndicated
show is that she had previously tried to launch a syndicated show in 2005,
before the Approved card and other scandals. That 2005 syndicated show
attempt failed before it even started, after it wasn’t picked up by any
stations.
351
That real or fake 2005 syndicated show attempt took place long
before all the terrible press about her prepaid card made Orman an
unwelcome guest in at least a few of her old media venues by the time of
her “Money Wars” announcement in 2014. Nevertheless, that failed idea
for a syndicated show now provided Orman and her damage control
experts with the idea of a fake excuse for her departure from CNBC.
TransUnion's involvement in Orman's fake “Approved” prepaid debit
card experiment gives a glimpse of what her fake deal with Telepictures
for the make believe show, “Money Wars,” may have looked like:
352
As you saw in Chapter Five of this book, TransUnion played along
with Orman's “Approved” card scam, giving only the flimsiest of responses
to one Orman friendly reporter of the many journalists who were
clamoring for information.
Orman's other debit card partner, Bancorp, never said a word about
Orman's prepaid card, until they sent a single woefully incomplete and
convoluted letter to card users, letting them know the card was about to
close and asking them to quickly spend all the money they'd stored on the
card before it closed in one month.
What did TransUnion get in exchange for their support of Orman's
profiteering hoax? They received a lot of press as Orman spun her webs of
false FICO and TransUnion snake oil throughout the media landscape to
fool people into moving money from their banks onto her fee-laden card.
TransUnion also got free access to a whole lot of people's personal
spending data through the “experiment” part of Orman's “Approved” card
scheme, that gave TransUnion access to the spending habits of Orman's
financial fraud victims who opted in to the experiment, believing that
doing so would improve their FICO scores.
353
For those fooled into trusting Suze Orman enough to do any
ridiculous thing she suggested, TransUnion and the “Approved” card also
charged and received annual fees of $143.40 from card customers to
continue having access to their TransUnion report scores after the first
year. The same reports, plus reports from Experian and Equifax were
easily available for free from Credit Karma and other services, something a
decent financial advisor would have told people to do instead of paying
nearly one hundred and fifty dollars a year for one-third of what they
could get for free. All that bilked money went to TransUnion and Orman
directly from the pockets of financially uneducated, mostly lower income
victims, in the midst of an economic recession.
Therefore, the fact that Telepictures may have said they were
planning to produce or distribute Orman's latest sham, doesn't mean
their “Money Wars” connection was anything more than a verbal
discussion or non-committal agreement to perhaps do a show that would
soon evaporate into that land where all Suze Orman scams, shams, and
shenanigans go after she gets paid.
Here Orman gives a clue of what’s coming:
Yes, time will tell, and we already knew what it was going to end up
telling, although Orman would use her usual tactics of following big
fraudulent headline blasts with silence, once the sham had run its course.
Journalists played along and stayed silent about the show’s disappearance.
Now, Orman had to find a way to officially exit from the “Money
Wars” sham, in case anyone did ever ask about the supposed new show.
The first published clue that there would never be a “Money Wars” came
in an October 2015 interview with the Hartford Courant: (Link 9-6)
354
Orman started with this new reason for leaving CNBC, trying to find
something besides “Money Wars” to replace one sham with another:
Recently, I closed down "The Suze Orman Show," and the reason I did
that I was wanted to know if I am still be happy without recognition and
standing ovations.
Then she moved on to this fake project as another replacement sham:
I am starting a new version of an online course, a detailed course, and
when that goes on sale there will be a study book that goes along with it.
The working title is “Personal Finance 101." I want people to start
learning about being smart about finances, no matter how old they are.
And finally, the real reason for this interview:
Q: You mentioned you pulled the plug on your CNBC show. Does that
mean you've given up television for good?
A: It depends. Right now we have a show to sell to Warner Brothers called
"Money Wars." If it sells, then we will be back on the air in 2016. If not,
that will be it for me on television and that's fine with me. I will continue
to give talks; speaking can be as lucrative as TV.
One more detail on Orman’s real plans that have nothing to do with a
show called “Money Wars”:
KT and I are building a home in the Bahamas and going to be living
there full time, almost. We are known as the "fisher girls" and go fishing
every day for five or six hours. We have become very self-sufficient and
love it.
355
Even though I had immediately added an online article predicting
that Orman’s big “Money Wars” headline was a sham, it didn’t give any
pleasure to say, “I told you so,” when I knew that more people had been
fooled, distracted, and plundered by her schemes in the meantime.
But that one little mention about the ill-fated “Money Wars” show
wasn’t going to be enough. People were asking when the show was going
to air—I know by the search terms people used to get to my web pages
that many were looking for information about Orman’s upcoming
“Money Wars” show. Orman and her political lobbyist damage control
PR shysters had to come up with a better way to slowly let the public
know that there would be no “Money Wars” show after all.
Orman and her political lobbyist cabal came up with a seriously
concerning plan. They would get the United States armed forces to do
Orman’s dirty work for her. She would pretend to be devoting all her time
to educating members of the military, so who has time for a Money Wars
show.
The good news for Orman is that her political lobbyist publicist
protector had donated thousands of dollars to the campaigns of a
congressman who had been appointed as Secretary of the Army, where he
served from January 2016 until May 2016. Just before he was to leave his
post, Patrick J. Murphy knowingly or unknowingly approved Suze
Orman’s next predatory scheme—to use the United States military to
cover up her previous cover up sham of this “Money Wars” show that was
used to cover up the prepaid debit card and other scams.
Orman made a deal to sign a pro bono contract that would last three
and a half months, by which time she would have covered up everything
with the silliest Suze Orman mirage. It did not give me great faith in the
intelligence of our military that they fell for this scam.
During those months, members of the military would have access to
some of Orman’s already produced products, such as watching the videos
Orman gave away for free on a whole other scam that involved the Today
Show that was intercut with the Pope’s visit in a Macavelian play of good
and evil, darkness and light. Orman’s Today Show giveaway scam was also
filled with lies all the way around, but it will have to stay for now on the
“cutting room floor of Suze Orman’s scams,” because this book is getting
to be long.
Orman needed an excuse to get out of that whole “Money Wars”
sham. Why not fool and plunder the armed forces to do Orman’s dirty
work for her? I’m sure this concoction brought more big laughs for Orman
and her con artist publicity strategist friends.
356
357
Yes, Suze Orman was able to use the United States Armed Forces to
paint a pseudo altruistic picture of why she was going to change from
debuting the fake “Money Wars” television show that was never going to
happen, to talking to a few army generals, taking some photos, having her
ghostwriters put something together, doing a few meet-and-greets, giving
access to some videos she had already created, and that would allow
Orman to claim that she is busy serving the United States armed forces
PRO-BONO to cover up the growing public awareness that she is a
SCAMMER. How impressive! Not.
Maybe the army played along because she is famous and surely made
the usual kind of Suze Orman false promises that they believed, which
they will eventually realize were shams, without admitting they were
fooled. That’s the positive choice of interpretation on the military’s
behalf.
Note that as with most Orman scams, there is zero specific
information about this “great work” she's supposedly going to do to “turn
all of her knowledge and efforts toward the United States Armed Forces.”
358
Even though Orman’s deal was only regarding the reservists, she
posted a big press release that supposedly was coming from “THE
PENTAGON.”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THE PENTAGON – Lt. Gen. Jeffrey W. Talley, chief of Army
Reserve and commanding general, U.S. Army Reserve Command, and
Ms. Suze Orman, award-winning personal finance expert, signed a fouryear gratuitous services agreement Monday that will strengthen soldiers’
financial readiness through an informational video series, town hall
discussions, base visits, and written material. They will address savings
goals, investments, creditworthiness, debt elimination, the Dept. of
Defense’s newly-developed retirement system, and other questions and
concerns facing soldiers and their families throughout different stages of
their personal and professional lives.
When I saw that Orman had been brought on to introduce reservists
to “the Dept. of Defense’s newly-developed retirement system,” it brought
me back to soon after Orman and I met in the 1990s, when PG&E paid
her $250,000 to convince their employees to take their new early
retirement program that, from what I’ve heard, was in many cases more
beneficial to the company than to the employees.
It would have been easy for PG&E to find more qualified financial
experts to do the job, but Suze Orman would say whatever they wanted
her to say, for a price—the modus operandi that would become an
earmark of her career. As Orman’s manager Binky Urban said all those
years ago, “Great. Finally an author who knows she can’t write.”
Seeing Orman being brought on for similar purposes made me
concerned about what scams she was going to be running on those
reservists, along with giving them access to online videos and whatever
bits and pieces of useful information she could throw together without
too much effort in-between her continuing money grabs.
I also had concerns that the Armed forces apparently didn’t even
bother to do a simple search on this person’s name, where they would
have easily found many troubling articles and our documentary film,
which was the #1 search result for “Suze Orman” on YouTube at the time.
Actually, it would be more concerning if the Secretary of the Army and all
the lieutenants and other military personnel involved did know about
these damning materials, but didn’t care.
359
Then the Secretary of the United States Army sent a Twitter post
calling Suze Orman “a Great American!” Check out this public Twitter
message to con artist Suze Orman by Patrick J. Murphy:
360
Based on Orman’s tweet, it appears that this big “armed forces” deal
was only for three and a half months, just enough time to cover up the
whole “Money Wars” and some other recent and earlier scams and shams.
This cover wouldn’t inconvenience or
require any kind of dedicated effort
from Orman, beyond a few celebrity
meet-and-greets where she got to
enjoy the “celebrity worship,” and
giving access to her videos and other
information. After those few months,
she could walk away, leaving the
United States Army with less integrity
and worse for the wear—as she’s done
to people and companies along her
scamming way.
Murphy was only an interim
Secretary of the Army for a fourmonth stint that ended just two weeks
after he knowingly or unknowingly
gave credence to a con artist’s latest
sham and helped her cover up her
previous scam attacks on our
homeland.
361
Yes, that’s the same Patrick J. Murphy, who at the time was the acting
Secretary of the U.S. Army. A Google search took two seconds to find that
in 2014, Hilary Rosen’s SKDK gave a donation of $3,500 to none other
than Patrick J. Murphy: (Link 9-7)
I don’t personally know if any kind of political lobbying was at work in
Murphy’s extreme praise for Orman and this whole cover up Army sham
deal, but Rosen is protective of Suze Orman to a troubling degree, and she
is a powerful political lobbyist, whose handiwork you can see in the same
kind of fake headlines and dirty manipulations in her association with
Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, which I think would be
much more appealing to voters if it were covered with that stench.
And, wait for it... 3, 2, 1...
Yes, of course…
If Suze Orman had her way, that one unseen Twitter message would
have been the only mention by her to end the Money Wars sham that was
made up to keep journalists from reporting the real reason she left CNBC,
and soon after, QVC and O Magazine.
The same journalists who never bothered to ask what happened with
Orman’s bit Approved card “experiment,” were also silent when it came to
the disappearance of the fake “Money Wars” show, whose headlines they
had knowingly or unknowingly published as real news the previous year.
362
In the Facebook post where Orman confirmed the ending of her
“Money Wars” sham with her new “Armed Forces” sham, she had said:
I have decided to turn all of my knowledge and efforts toward the
United States Armed Forces. To the men and women who have given of
themselves so we can remain free.
So what was Orman really doing during the next three and a half
months, while she was supposedly dedicating her time to educating our
Armed Forces, pro bono, of course?
A whole lot more scams, shams, and shenanigans! Now brought to
you by Hay House Publishers, and featured on the Home Shopping Network.
More of Orman’s opportunities were drying up as people started
hearing about Suze Orman being a scammer, and finally taking time to
look it up and see the evidence for themselves.
But there’s always money to be found, so Orman did an appearance at
a Real Estate Expo and took on other money making endorsements while
supposedly turning “all her efforts” toward the United States Armed
Forces, because tens of millions of dollars (or more) just isn’t enough.
Here is one example of Suze Orman turning “all her efforts” toward
supporting our armed forces:
363
Here Orman is doing her “pro bono military work” in the sun:
Some more selfless work for THE PENTAGON:
364
And a hint of more army work to come:
Orman also obviously signed a deal for some kind of dental plan
infomercial disguised as trustworthy advice in May 2016:
365
Bringing the Suze Scams to Home Shopping Network
Around the same time CNBC let Orman go, QVC finally got rid of
their financial scammer too, after getting a whole lot of one star reviews
for her flawed products, and coming to our online presentation numerous
times.
At that point, Home Shopping Network's president Bill Brand (who I
knew as a more intelligent guy than to do something like this when we
worked together at KCAL-TV) made the unfortunate decision to bring
the Suze Scams to HSN, including her usual sweepstakes/contest
shenanigans that have brought questions in the past of whether the
promised winnings were ever actually given, and to whom.
Orman’s previous questionable giveaways included her probably fake
$50,000 Money Class contest on OWN that came with a video where
Orman read off a few first names with an overly effusive demeanor that
certainly smelled like lying Suze Orman running another deception.
Watch the OWN contest announcement and see Orman’s deceptive
demeanor for yourself: Link 9-8
Oprah had gotten slammed for using a tricky tweet to fool her
followers into thinking she was going to give them more money, before
revealing that her cryptic question, “Who wants some money” was just a
commercial for Orman’s Money Class show. It is one more example of
Orman corrupting people to be dishonest like her.
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In 2016, Orman brought back the same fake contest scheme as she
and HSN bribed viewers to buy her crummy product with widely
advertised promises of a $25,000 sweepstakes.
Orman used her “financial expert” clout to tell viewers that they
“couldn’t afford to miss this.”
Like other Suze Orman schemes, the sweepstakes was sent through
her publicist’s media blast machine, with this description: (Link 9-9)
Would being financially free be easier if you had an extra pile of cash?
Enter HSN's Suze Orman's First Step to Financial Freedom Sweepstakes
and you could win a $25,000 cash prize that you could use to put toward
your mortgage, pay off some credit cards, or whatever else you choose.
This sweepstakes has expired.
What insightful advice from this self-proclaimed, “financial expert of
the world,” to suggest that people should look for financial freedom by
spending fifty-four bucks to enter a sweepstakes contest, even if it wasn’t
likely to be one more Suze Orman pseudo sweepstakes scam.
Before Orman's HSN product even went on sale, her Home Shopping
Network product page was filled with five star reviews, each with the
revealing disclaimer that, “Person received free product as part of an internal
program,” which indicates that they were written by Home Shopping
Network employees as part of their job—more Suze Orman deceptions!
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Note that those and many other similar reviews were posted before
Orman even sold her kit at HSN, so they were clearly posted by Home
Shopping Network employees or friends, with the same 2 out of 2 helpful
votes on each one. Looks like a Suze sham!
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At this link, you can read a whole lot of one-star reviews from
disappointed customers who had actually bought the same basic kit on
QVC: Link 9-10
Watch Orman's Home Shopping Network promo, beginning with
these narcissistic BS words from the lying SCAMMER herself: “What sets
me apart is that I speak in truths, not just words.” (Link 9-11)
Beyond concerns about a financial advisor suggesting that buying a
$54 product to enter even a legitimate sweepstakes, a quick look at the
legal terms of the contest reveals, as did her previous contest at OWN,
easy strategies for Orman and HSN to avoid giving anyone a cent of that
sweepstakes money. Here is the full document, a big file that you may have
to zoom into: Link 9-11a
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An excerpt from the HSN sweepstakes agreement:
On or about April 22, 2016, a random drawing from all eligible
entries will be conducted to determine the winner. The winner will be
required to execute and return an Affidavit of Eligibility and Release and
a W-9 Form (Request for Taxpayer Identification Number) within seven
(7) days of first attempted notification. Should the winner fail to submit
the required documents within the time allotted, an alternate winner may
or may not be selected.
Note that if a winner ever was selected, if that winner didn’t jump
through those very specific time deadline hoop fast enough, or if Orman
and HSN didn’t get the information to the right address in time (oops!)
HSN and Orman got to keep the money. “An alternate winner may OR
MAY NOT be selected.”
All sweepstakes determinations will be made by HSN and will be
final. HSN reserves the right to terminate the promotion and award the
prize in a random drawing from all eligible entries received prior to
termination in the event that the promotion is compromised in any way.
HSN reserves the right to disqualify any individual determined by HSN,
in its sole discretion, of tampering with, compromising, manipulating
and/or otherwise inappropriately misusing the sweepstakes or
sweepstakes entry process, thereby forfeiting any prize, if applicable.
The sweepstakes was set to begin on March 18 and end on April 15th,
giving nearly a month for Orman and HSN to blast out their sweepstakes
headlines so people would buy more of Orman’s “financial freedom kits”
and be entered to win that wonderful $25,000. Spending $54 to enter
Orman’s sweepstakes is your, “first step to financial freedom!”
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Apparently, there was a way for people to sign up for the sweepstakes
without spending the $54, which is a legal requirement for these
sweepstakes, but Home Shopping Network made it very difficult to find,
hiding an improperly labeled button so far into the system that even
people looking for the non-purchase entry couldn’t find it.
Even those who paid fifty-four dollars to buy Orman’s kit, expecting
the purchase to automatically come with chance to win the big
“sweepstakes” had trouble getting in.
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The HSN hosts said the big announcement of who won the
sweepstakes would come on May 20th, during Orman’s next batch of
Home Shopping Network appearances. May 20th came and went, but on
May 21st, Orman made a big announcement that the big sweepstakes
announcement was going to happen at 2 pm.
Yes! Exciting! I recorded the show to see if Orman’s demeanor while
naming the winner would look as deceptive as when she tossed out those
first names with her lyin’ face on for her equally questionable $50,000
dollar Money Class contest on Oprah Winfrey’s Network.
I’ll save you the suspense. No prize was ever announced in any of
Orman’s appearances on Home Shopping Network, or ever. Just like all of
Orman’s other scams, she tossed this sweepstakes sham in the air, milked
it for all it was worth, and then let it dissolve and disappear from the
public consciousness, knowing journalists and government agencies
would be too afraid of her protectors or unaware of what she was doing to
even ask or check to see if those sweepstakes and contest prizes were ever
given. No mention was made about the sweepstakes again, up to the
publication date of this book.
But what about the customers who spent $54 to enter the big
sweepstakes? Some of them might want to know who won. Thus came the
question of how Orman and HSN could cover up the sweepstakes scam
so nobody would even dare to ask whether and who had won. Time for a
shiny new Suze distraction scam!
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All the better if she could make the distraction sham look altruistic, as
Orman had done with that Change.org petition sham that helped cover
up the ending of her prepaid debit card scam.
Orman had a great new scamming tool in her pocket—the United
States Military. Orman’s political lobbyist protectors had convinced the
Army reserves to sign that agreement for Orman to take selfies with Army
brass, do some meet-and-greets, and offer some of her financial advice
videos and other information to reserve members.
Orman bragged on about how she was doing this pro bono, without
making a penny, but you know everything Suze Orman does is meant to
cover up her scams or put more money into her pockets. This deal with
the Army allowed her to do both at once.
What better way for Orman to place herself in a false positive light
and make sure nobody would question her sweepstakes prize
disappearance than to give a dollar to the military from her $54 will and
trust kit, a kit that Orman has also given out for free in the past, with
questions about the safety of asking users to upload their most private
financial information onto Orman’s servers, especially given that lawsuit
about her FICO kit making more money by selling users’ private
information to creditors.
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But of course, making money by telling Home Shopping Network
viewers that they NEED to buy her now “charitable” kit is not just about
somber giving to our armed services—it’s also lots of ear-pulling fun!
Plundering the public is so much fun! In her HSN appearance at the
appointed time for announcing the sweepstakes winner, Orman not only
deceptively avoided giving the sweepstakes prize, and not only
exaggerated her role with the reservists, but she also put a final nail in the
coffin of her Money Wars scam. This is the baloney Orman spewed
instead of the promised sweepstakes announcement. (Link 9-12)
So, here’s a new part of my life, everybody, that you probably are not
aware of, that I’m going to make you aware of now. As you know, a year
ago, I shut down my Suze Orman Show, I shut down a whole lot of
things, and why did I do that?
Because I decided it was time that Suze Orman serves her country,
and that I give back to the men and women of the armed forces, who’ve
literally given their lives for my freedom, for your freedom. So last week I
signed a gratuitous—which means I don’t get paid for it—service
contract with the Pentagon, with the national, you know, the army
national reserve, to be the official financial educator of the armed forces.
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Once again, Orman inflated and lied about her credentials, just as she
has fudged her credentials from the beginning of her career. An armed
forces officer saw the HSN clip of Orman claiming to be, “the official
financial educator of the armed forces,” and explained that such a position
would require approval from Congress.
Even according to the fine print in her own press release, that is not
even close to the designation Orman received, but who’s going to notice
or say a thing about Orman’s lies now, after all the other lies she’s gotten
away with telling?
Seriously! Playing our armed forces like fools.
Orman’s giddy, excited, and joyful wish that everyone have a “Happy
Memorial Day!” in this video that was posted by Suze Orman and some of
the military Facebook pages brought some corrections from fans.
Apparently the military folks on hand didn’t want to upset Orman by
telling her that Memorial Day was different from the Fourth of July.
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Orman also started using the Army in interviews to protect her from
scrutiny by critics of her scams.
In May, Australia’s Women’s Agenda published an interview that
Orman actually told the journalist was worth $200,000, since she charges
$100,000 for a thirty minute talk—clearly it was Orman who wanted to
use the publication to counteract the growing awareness of her scams.
(Link 9-13)
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Such is the appeal of Suze Orman that she’s usually paid
$US100,000 for a 30 minute talk, but it wasn’t always that way. So
when I got to spend a whole hour with this personal finance guru, I felt
instantly richer.
Orman herself brought up her critics in this article, as she often does,
saying, “I don’t say much to my critics anymore, because my critics I can all
buy with my little finger.” (Does that sound like a normal thing for a
trustworthy financial advisor to say, especially knowing how she
accumulated all that money?)
Orman then launched into the same frequently recited distortion of
the Indian wisdom quote mentioned earlier, which is intended to refer to
keeping one’s focus on higher spiritual purposes while walking through
the yapping of the marketplace. To such a being, Orman is one of the
loudest yapping dogs.
In the May 2016 article, Orman explained:
“I have always imagined myself as the elephant and I will keep
walking and it does not matter who is yapping at my heels and I will, and
I have, got to exactly where I wanted to go.”
Orman is priding herself in being like an elephant that keeps walking
(or in Orman’s analogy, who keeps scamming) while the dogs (those
trying to protect the public from those scams) are barking below, trying
to warn people and alert journalists and the authorities. (“woof, woof.”)
The article also claims that Oprah Winfrey “regards Suze as her
personal finance guru,” which I’d guess is at minimum a serious stretch of
the truth. Yes, I’m sure Oprah is trusting her billions of dollars to a
financial actress who never took a single finance-related college course in
her life? Wouldn’t recommend that, dear Oprah!
In the article, Orman brought up and practically admitted her ploy to
use the armed services to keep her free from repercussions for her thieving
financial frauds or any future regulations of her scams:
She recalls a Boston radio show called the “I hate Suze Orman
Show” which had ratings through the roof as those for and against
debated the worth of Suze.
But her advice has never been a problem for regulators. In fact the US
Army Reserve has just signed a gratuitous agreement with her to advise its
soldiers on money and retirement – a deal that only went ahead on her
terms to work for free.
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In June 2016, another article appeared in various Australian media
outlets, with a stupid headline backed up with what is now described as
Orman’s credentials as a US government advisor to the military. That’s a
lot of mileage for taking a few selfies with Army brass and letting some
reservists watch your videos for a few months!
From the Herald Sun: (Link 9-13a)
When the economy slows down women do better than men, according to
Suze Orman
Orman has advised millions of people, including American talk show
queen Oprah, pre and post the global financial crisis.
Ms Orman, who is currently working with the US government to advise
military personnel on their finances after service, said the slow pace of global
growth was likely to strengthen a woman’s genetic tendency to nurture and
therefore her work ethic outside of the family home.
Around the same time, Orman’s publicity strategist political lobbyist
media broker Approved card co-conspirator Hilary Rosen got con artist
Suze Orman and her partner in crime, Kathy Travis tickets to the 2016
White House Correspondent’s Dinner.
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Orman should be doing this pose on her way to court to face charges
for her prepaid debit card and other frauds, instead of being checked on
the way in to such a prestigious gathering!
The “Cabal” in action
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You can be sure the Orman cabal made sure many news outlets
mentioned Orman’s presence at this prestigious event in glowing terms,
with a special touch of Orman’s sociopathic projection.
NPR put it this way: (Link 9-14)
For personal finance guru Suze Orman, who held court at multiple
parties through the night, the entire scene is good — a chance for
Washington to be something approaching its truest, kindest self.
“I think people play their roles very well on television,” she said, in
between snapping selfies with fans. “I think when the TV comes off,
everybody likes everybody,” commenting on the fact that at events like
these you often see Republicans glad-handing with Democrats. “And I
think they're all good people... When it comes down to it, they're nothing
but people trying to make a buck.”
Did you catch that? Orman said that when it comes down to it, all of
the respected politicians and journalists attending the White House
Correspondent’s Dinner are nothing but people trying to make a buck.
Talk about sociopathic projection.
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Dear reader, don’t you think it’s time to clean all this Orman/Rosen
cabal corruption up? It doesn’t require millions of dollars of investment
and detailed documentation and plans or dismantling of huge
corporations. Just stop letting Suze Orman and her cabal influence
politics and the media. Bring the hand of justice to these unsavory
hooligans who have been all too happy to steal from the poor, decimate
the middle class, and plunder our country.
Even if they bring money, stop taking that money if it means you have
to protect wrongdoing such as Suze Orman’s scams. Don’t succumb to
playing high school games like sending Rosenesque mean tweets back and
forth while shill reporters and planted commenters rejoice in watching
politicians like Warren get into the gutter to have a mud fight.
Dear Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, even if their dirty tricks
got you what you want, it is a failure to hitch your wagon to these
scammers. Take the this great nation’s discourse to a higher level than
bully punches and false headlines. Show integrity. And the same goes for
everyone else who has supported, enabled, and profited from the scams of
Suze Orman and her cabal.
I invite journalists and government agencies to use any and all of the
research I’ve offered to inform and protect the public and to bring justice.
I also welcome the influential celebrities, politicians, and others who have
made the mistake of supporting Suze Orman’s scams and shams to help
undo the damage that has been done.
Best wishes and blessings to our world. S.K. Janis out.
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