Grubstakers - Episode 36. David A. Siegel

Episode Date: October 9, 2018

This week we cover the many business pursuits of David Siegel. The subject of the documentary the Queen of Versaille David built his fortune from the reputable career path of selling time share properties. We discuss this and his family’s dirty laundry. Enjoy!

Hey everyone, thanks for checking out Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. This week we're covering billionaire David Siegel, the timeshare king of Florida, the star of the documentary Queen of Versailles about the largest house being built in the United States, and the many shady practices he uses to make his billions. All that and more this week on Grubstakers. I think we disproportionately stop whites too much. I taught those kids lessons on product development and marketing, and they taught me what it was like growing up feeling targeted for your race. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican.

You know, I went to a tough school in Queens and they used to beat up the little Jewish boys. You know, I love having the support of real billionaires. All right, are you ready? In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Hello and welcome to Grubstakers, the podcast about billionaires. Sean P. McCarthy here, joined by... Steve Jeffries. Yogi Poliwal. Andy Palmer is out this week, but don't worry, he has assured us that had we been able to get James Adomian as a guest, he would have done his own podcast.

That's a shame. But Andy Palmer will be back next week. He's celebrating Columbus Day. But on this podcast, we're not politically correct. So we don't say Columbus Day. We say Merry Christmas. Thank you. Yes.

I'm tired of people getting away with saying Columbus Day. Those Indians aren't my Indians. Christopher Columbus discovered this podcast in 1492 and then he listened for five minutes and said I mean I don't really get it it's not information but it's not humor I'm not really sure what they're trying to do over there it's not as funny as the funny podcast

and it's not as informational as the informational podcast it's just kind of like a slushy directly into my ears. You know, like how sometimes Mexican places will be like, we got a bowl or like a plate where we just put various ingredients. And you're like, yeah, sure. Why not? That's what we do.

We're not a burrito. We're not a soup. We're kind of in between way too many things. The burrito bowl of podcasts. Thank you. Yes, precisely. But so this week, we're talking about David Siegel of the documentary The Queen of Versailles about himself and his wife, Jackie Siegel. And because we're talking about David Siegel, we are essentially talking about the timeshare business, which you might be familiar with.

But because this is a podcast about timeshares, we are happy to tell you that if you listen to the full one hour podcast presentation there will be a free gift at the end. So we're teasing that now. Oh, and we can also tell you that this podcast is free but only if you listen today. It's going behind a paywall tomorrow.

If you want to lock in this price I can't guarantee that this price will be here. If you pause at any moment, we will be notifying you that every minute afterwards, it will be an additional $14.99. Now, before you turn off the podcast, wouldn't you like to have a conversation with our manager, Andy Palmer? Because he can make you a deal that we can't make you. He's off location right now doing some scouting work for other time sensitive podcasts but trust us you're gonna

really want to listen to it how would you like to have access to an all-inclusive resort podcast whenever you want we're like uh if you subscribe to our patreon you can listen to up to one week of chapo patreon every year uh it's on a usb drive that we put in concrete in the hudson river you have to scuba dive in and then plug in a waterproof device but it's there trust us um but so timeshares are uh i mean they're almost a joke at this point. Yeah, they're a scam. Right.

I mean, it's like, it's one of those things where it's almost like you kind of wonder in your head, why do people still smoke crack or do heroin? Yeah, why do they? Yeah. I mean, like, you know these people are like used car salesmen and they're fucking lying to you and it's a ripoff. It's more expensive than a hotel. But David Siegel has managed to become a billionaire through timeshares. So we'll kind of discuss his life and what led him down this path. But it is just worth mentioning for those not familiar with the concept of timeshares.

Essentially, you buy a time ownership in a property such as a condominium. You buy the right to use it, say, one week out of the year. And this can either be a fixed week every year or a so-called flexible week where you have to pick one week out of all the other supposed owners of the timeshare. And part of why it's such a fucking ripoff is essentially if you quote-unquote own a timeshare, you're paying maintenance fees every year, which of course the salespeople generally will not tell you about. You're paying maintenance fees, and it's almost impossible to unload them. There's really a very weak and almost no secondary market for timeshare to the point where like a lot of timeshares just sell for $1 because somebody's just trying to get rid of the maintenance fees, you know? Yeah.

And it's like, and the one other thing is essentially like there's no reason to buy a timeshare new because there are countless timeshare owners trying to unload their timeshares. Right, right. because there are countless timeshare owners trying to unload their timeshares. So if you are supposedly interested in getting into a timeshare, what happens is I heard one estimate is about 50% of the cost of buying a timeshare new is the salesperson's commission and the marketing, where they're giving you all these free chips in Vegas or whatever. So it's so much cheaper to just buy it from an existing times your owner who's trying to get out. But all that said, it's it's it's made Dave Siegel a billionaire and it's still a very profitable way of doing business in this country, especially now that his friend Donald Trump is president. It's like it's sad how much disruption Donald Trump is doing, that the things that we're not talking about are going unnoticed by everyone.

Right. And we'll get to this later, but essentially... No one talks about how the timeshare market has been utterly decimated. That's right. That's right. By the Trump administration. Everyone's focusing...

Just blew it up. Yeah, everyone's focusing on Kavanaugh. We're not talking about the timeshare industry that's being decimated by these non-regulations done by Trump. Yeah, I guess people stopped taking vacations when they realized the world was going to blow up. They stopped planning one or two years in advance. I love how you've advocated used timeshares instead of new because it's technically a better offer. But at the end of the day, it's like,

I don't get a timeshare, period. Yeah. No, I would not recommend getting a timeshare. I'm just saying if you're going to buy one for some reason, there's thousands of owners across the country trying to unload their timeshare desperately. And timeshares are technically a regulated security. Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the FTC. Oh, really? I didn't know that. But all the marketing material, just to drive the point home that they're a bad investment, basically. All the marketing material is that you're getting a hard asset, basically. And you have all this control over when you use it and the maintenance fee is manageable because look at all the benefits you're getting from just being able to show up at a week's notice. And also someone giving you a gift to buy something is often a scam. Nobody's ever just like, hey, you want to buy this from me? Well, hold up now.

Let's see if I can tempt you. Let me give you a TV just listening to my pitch. I was reading a lot of charities will actually charge you money if you give them a timeshare as a gift. Oh, really? Which is kind of funny because... You're right. Because it's going to cost them in the long run. The maintenance fees and these kinds of stuff.

And they have to unload it so they can actually get money. I didn't realize you could donate a timeshare. Yeah. Yeah. What a... Like, that's worse than the, like, you know, a stereotypical chia pet. Like, the pharmacy gift you get to someone on the way to their birthday party. Like, I got you a timeshare.

I'd rather get a star named after me than a timeshare. Yeah, the really nebulous tax deductibility. Right, right, right. And then the charity is like, wait, I have all these fees now. Sorry, guys, the charity went out. I don't even want it for free. What happened with the charity? Well, we were raising money to end AIDS, but it turns out we got 70 timeshares donated.

The charity's like, we can't end AIDS, but we can relieve your symptoms two weeks a year. Depending on other people's schedules who are also suffering from this ailment. You don't get to choose the two weeks, and most of the two weeks are blacked out, but there will be two weeks at one point in the future. The Make-A-Wish Foundation is like, oh, I can't even begin to understand the suffering you're under. But what if I told you that there's actually a timeshare waiting for you? That'd be so funny.

For just a few dollars. If Make-A-Wish is like, well, you can either meet Michael Jordan, or you could throw a pitch out at a baseball game, or two weeks in Boca Raton. But so David Siegel has become kind of the timeshare king, and we should just mention his company, Westgate Resorts, is the largest privately held timeshare company in the world. And, of course, you know, it's privately held, not publicly traded. So there's much less financial disclosure requirements.

So it's difficult to get a handle on his exact net worth. But Forbes magazine, for their part, put him at $940 million net worth January 2016. His part, he says he's a billionaire, but you can just kind of assume that $940 million in January 2016 has since grown to about a billion dollars net worth. And it's interesting where the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was looking into Westgate Resorts for a variety of reasons, including possibly illegal, aggressive sales tactics.

They sent a request for documents in 2016. And then, of course, David Siegel's friend, Donald Trump, got elected president, and then the investigation suddenly disappeared. Huh. I wonder why that happened. But yes, you can also look at a couple different Trump rallies. You can see David Siegel standing right behind him clapping, which is a very profitable thing to do.

Yeah, right, right, right. Each clap was worth a hundred grand. But the other thing is he's most famous for this documentary, The Queen of Versaillesilles which if you watch it it really kind of documents um the 2008 financial crisis where essentially in the lead up to 07 uh 08 they were you know riding high on the bubble and they were building what is the biggest home in america i believe it still is but it might have been surpassed it's this 90 000 square foot uh palace based on the Versailles Palace in France from back when they knew how to deal with rich people.

Where are they building it? I think Orlando. It's like right near Disney World. Yeah, it's in Florida. But so this 90,000 square foot mansion was the subject of the documentary. And then as the bubble exploded in 2008, they struggled to keep it. They put it on the market.

They weren't able to sell it. And then eventually to today, his finances have recovered. And they did like another tour of it in 2017. His wife, Jackie, did a video tour on Facebook you can watch. And they're still building it. So they still own it, this possibly biggest house in the world. But it is interesting. Their fortunes have recovered since the recession.

And we'll kind of go through that story. Yeah, there's a lot of media with Jackie Siegel, from the documentary to her attempt at starting a Kardashian-style reality show. And, boy, she's a real piece of work. It's like, it's hard to watch the amount of footage I've watched featuring Jackie Siegel. But it's just, it's like, you know,

there's an air of like, well, rich people spend their money on things, but most of it's not frivolous. Most of the money these people spend is frivolous. It's insane. It's very terrible. Apparently his wife jackie siegel also stars in the movie that they made in their um uh mystery fun house it's a horror movie called night terror which has a 3.5 out of 10 on imdb but if you listen to the end of the episode uh just send us your address and you will get a DVD copy of night.

Yes. Yes. Also, Jackie Siegel was featured on the show. Celebrity wife swap. Also, we'll have more drops involving those at the end, but you must listen to the entire episode.

Well, let's just kind of start chronologically with David Siegel. Now, an interesting thing about David david siegel is that uh he's a fucking liar like uh and his own son uh has called him a deadbeat dad even when he was a millionaire and uh his ex-employees sued him in a class action lawsuit again we'll get into this but he's a fucking deadbeat who like is a billionaire who's constantly like pretending to be broke and and you

know like you see this in the documentary like he's constantly telling his kids to turn off the fucking lights and stuff like that you know because it's like again this guy who's still like a multi-millionaire even during the collapse is like oh we got to save the the money on electricity and when we say multi-millionaire it's not eight or nine million it's it's hundreds of millions of dollars. Several hundred millions. But so essentially what I'm saying is that Sources of His Early Life, it's based on two interviews that he gave to two different publications.

So I don't know how reliable some of this stuff is as to where his money came from, but we'll just kind of go through the story, and this is mostly in his own words. So he's born, David Siegelgel was born 1935 in chicago um his mother uh was born in indianapolis she met his dad uh sydney siegel on a blind date in 1928 um in 1945 his parents moved to miami where they owned a small grocery store on South Beach. And then they went into business exporting furniture and appliances to the Bahamas. That's from the Orlando Sentinel. That was the exporting furniture to Bahamas.

Think of the clientele on that right there. Oh, you need a fucking Ottoman in the Bahamas? We're your people. That's insane. Well, at least you get to sell them new furniture every five years when a hurricane hits. Yeah. Hotels, you know.

Underwater. No, you're right, though. I mean, like, that's probably a big chunk of their business was hotels and, like, corporate. But so, yeah, essentially Dave Siegel grows up in Miami. He graduates Miami Senior High School in 1953. He studies marketing at University Miami, but School in 1953. He studies marketing

at University of Miami, but he drops out. College dropout, like Kanye. The MAGA clan strikes again. Two famous Trump supporters. Most Trump supporters are dropouts.

Kanye got a CFPB investigation into his twitter account shut down they they tried to make kanye turn over his twitter drafts and then the investigation was shut down when trump was elected um but so uh cfb i'm gonna let you finish but so basically uh the way dave siegel tells the story is that one of his professors at University of Miami tells him that he could make money homesteading in Alaska to pay his way through school. Homesteading? What's that? Well, essentially, homesteading in Alaska is based on an Alaska law that will give you like a plot of land to homestead out there. Oh, really? And I don't know how profitable that actually is,

but his professor at University of Miami was pitching him on this. Gotcha. And so, but he, I guess this idea was he wanted to learn how to be a pilot initially. Yeah, because he thought he could be like a pilot in Alaska, in addition to like homesteading out there to make some money and pay his way through school. But then he also, this is where he went to radio and TV repair school as a backup. But this is according to Hotel Online. Once people in his family and stuff found out that he'd learned how to like repair TVs and radio, family members started bringing him customers, you know, to like fix their, you know, TV

repair and this kind of stuff. And so then he's able to drop out. And I'll just quote from David Siegel here. In 1954, I opened my first TV store in Coconut Grove. It was called Grove TV. And basically, he charged his friends a small fee to have their TVs fixed by university professors and other people he met.

And that's the first business he does is just fixing people's TVs? Essentially, yeah. That sounds so shady. Yeah. How often is a TV getting repaired in that day and age? I don't know. It seems very suspect.

Yeah, I uh when it's the 1950s and one of the three channels goes off and a third of your entertainment options are now gone right uh but so basically he says a short time after that this is from okay magazine a short time later he progressed to owning a store of his own in liberty city and hiring a fleet of salesmen who sold refurbished televisions to the local African American residents for a $10 down payment and a weekly payment of $5. Oh, so he's time sharing TVs. Yeah, basically. Yeah. And also he like admits that his cost for these TVs were about like 10 bucks. So I mean, he already makes his money back on the down payment and then every weekly payment is just pure profit

So he's just buying shitty or broken TVs And then renting them out Right or so yeah Wow what a fucking chooch Yeah but so that's how he like makes his First little chunk of change And then he goes to the Air Force in 1961 Where his business kind of falters

But he returns In 1963 And again This is just from Hotel Online where his business kind of falters, but he returns in 1963. And again, this is just from Hotel Online. It's interesting where it's like, I'm always trying to find out where they got the startup capital. And his parents owned this grocery store and they were exporting furniture to the Bahamas.

So I think you can at least say they were middle class, if not upper middle class. Certainly. But there's really very little information. But it should be noted, the 50s and 60s are the greatest economy in the history of the class. Certainly. But there's really very little information. But it should be noted, the 50s and 60s are the greatest economy in the history of the world. Right.

So another thing is, you know, these people who are, say, billionaires now are always like, just get out there and start your own business. Drop out. Yeah, exactly. It's like it's the same fucking thing as it was in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s

before the bottom fell out of the American dream. To tack on to Sean's point about how there's not a lot of information about David online, if you Google David Siegel, the first result is some guy on LinkedIn. So the photo result for David Siegel isn't even him. It's just some other random dude, which is like, I don't know. It's just stupid is what it is. If you pay Google a million dollars, they'll send all your search results to a flock of seagulls.

But so according to David Seagull himself, he comes back from the Air Force in 63, and then he takes a loan of $600 from a finance company at 40% interest, and with this $600, he rented a storefront and hires a sales staff to get back into the tv game and so in 63 he's doing this he's making a ton of money he says uh but then one of his uh sales managers gets murdered by a customer and this like you know fucks him up mentally he like goes into a slump He says their house gets foreclosed on at this point. Sure, sure, yeah. But, and then they don't really explain this,

but essentially a friend kind of helps him out of his funk. He gets back in the game. And by 66, he's able to buy his parents' store, like their grocery store. And he says he turns it into, quote, like a mini Kmart. It's from OK Magazine. And then in 66, his father sells their furniture store.

Because, yeah, they had the grocery store and then the furniture exporting store. His father sells it in 66. Siegel went to work for the person who purchased it for a bit. But then he ends up buying it. David Siegel does. he buys a grocery store and then the other business and the furniture store and siegel says he also added a pawn shop a record store and a toys store to it really yeah as well as like tvs and stuff um and so basically from like 66 to 68 his business is doing pretty well you know with all this stuff but he says in august 68 rioters burned the store

down and uh it was not and uh according to him it was not insured which would um uh portend a life of uh incredible foresight for mr siegel where he would uh leverage 90 to 1, giving people fucking 10% down loans, which of course all blew up in 2008 for his timeshares. But he says his store wasn't insured, riders burned it down, and he says wiped out again. But essentially, at this point in David Siegel's life, he runs into an incredible streak of luck, which is what makes him a millionaire. Like, luck makes him a millionaire, and then, like, fraud and deceit makes him a billionaire. But essentially, the way he tells the story is that in 1968, after rioters burned his shop down. After rioters upset with the usury he was charging them for their televisions expressed their

dissatisfaction with his product. Those rioters were so close to sparing us the misery of a huge timeshare market for decades. They didn't quite get there. What are you going to do? I do like it. There's really a consistent pattern of a

customer service experience can be identified uh from the moment rioters burned down his storefront in 1968 um hey what year did he get that loan uh he says 63 after he came back from the Air Force. What's $600 and 63? Like what? Making Steve work. No, it's fine. Don't worry about it. I'll do it. It'll be one of the gifts. But so in 1968, he says he has a friend.

So he's in Miami and he says he has a friend selling real estate for a company in Orlando who's making good money. So in 1968, he moves out to Orlando and then he starts selling real estate for a company in Orlando who's making good money. So in 1968, he moves out to Orlando, and then he starts selling real estate there. And then it's a huge stroke of luck that in 1971, Disney World opens right next to Orlando, Florida. So of course, property values explode. If you're in the sales business, you're in a great spot. And not long after he starts selling real estate for this company,

he goes into business himself and starts buying real estate. So Walt Disney, a closeted anti-Semite, is the reason this Jewish guy got rich. Very interesting. And Donald Trump, similarly closeted anti-Semite, is the reason he stayed rich.

It's about $5,000, by the way. Oh, really? Something seems wrong about that. More than enough to open a business. Right, right. But, I mean, like, yeah, that's the only information I've been able to find about his finances. I think you can be fairly certain. Well, it's to rent a storefront.

Right, right. And also hire sales staff, but I assume they were mostly getting paid on commission. But, I mean, it is just something where he doesn't go into detail. I'm sure he got some money from his parents, but there's really no way of knowing. His parents own two businesses. Yeah.

Grocery store and the furniture thing. Yep. But even consider opening a business, even renting a storefront. You couldn't do that with $5,000 today. It wouldn't be possible. I did learn you could have somebody killed in Belize if you're John McAfee.

You can do a lot of things with $5,000. You can't rent a storefront in 2018. But so, basically, the way he tells this to a couple different publications is that he buys uh within a couple years in 68 he buys 1200 acres for himself um uh near uh devonwood near orlando and then he subdivides the land into one,000 one and a quarter acre lots and he says he sold most of the lots reportedly for 10 times as much as what he paid oh wow so essentially and then by 1970 he sets up

what becomes the holding company for Westgate Resorts which is called Florida Central or Central Florida Investments in 1970 and that's a private company that I believe he owns all of or the vast majority. And that's the holding company for Westgate Resorts. So when he's doing the real estate stuff, is he selling property or is this also timeshare stuff? No, at this point he's selling property. Gotcha. And so he buys like the Terrace Hotel in 1973. He buys an orange grove.

He says, uh, in the seventies, he's making a hundred thousand dollars a year growing oranges. Um, and then he also buys in 76, the, the Mystery Funhouse was like a, uh, essentially a resort, you know, in 76, it's like a funhouse resort that's right near Disneyland. So of course, it's extremely possible. He says he put $500,000 into it. It returned $500,000 every year.

So by 76, he's a millionaire, which is interesting because we kind of alluded to this, but he divorced his first wife in 1968 with whom he had three children. And according to his own son in the documentary the queen of versailles he was a deadbeat dad and they were eating swamp cabbage which is the exact quote well he was a multi-millionaire in florida in uh orlando yeah and like the clibby talks about that he would give them money for clothes, but nothing else. They were the best dressed kids in school, but they were broke.

They were eating swamp cabbage. Imagine like being like dressed to the nines, like wearing like, you know, Hugo Boss suits and then being like, what are you eating tonight? Just some swamp cabbage. What are you eating tonight? My Hugo Boss belt. Boiled. Yeah. Leather. What are you eating tonight? My Hugo Boss belt? Boiled leather.

The best dressed children with anemia in all the neighborhood. That's right. Best dressed kids at school have terrible breath and jaundice. He's like, yeah, I keep having to buy them new clothing because they keep going down sizes. You want to stay hungry? He was the original stay hungry daily grind guy.

But so yeah, he's a millionaire by the 70s and he's a deadbeat dad and uh it's interesting like also by the 70s a deadbeat yes a deadbeat dad and um it will play this clip from queen of versailles but basically his son who actually does work at richard siegel who works as a vice president uh says and i'm paraphrasing but essentially my father and i only have a business relationship we don't really have a business relationship. We don't really have a personal relationship. And it's like there's another clip from like the Queen of Versailles where one of his younger

children, he has like nine biological children, two adopted, I believe. But one of his younger children in like 2009 or 8 or something comes up to him and says, I love you, daddy. And he says, if you love me you'll turn off the lights it's just the most like it's awesome yeah i mean he's just kind of crazy and he doesn't seem to like have real capabilities of bonding with his children let's say that yeah that seems about right he seems to Only care about making Money and Fraud and anything

That isn't money related He seems to ignore you know like human Beings But you know if you follow the right Motivational Instagram accounts you'll Learn this is what you have to do And this is a good way to live your life if you want To have a wife who spends a million

Dollars a year shopping. I mean, like, we'll talk about it a bit more. But, like, when it comes to this house that's supposedly the biggest house, they, like, in various interviews, she's rattling off every room that they have in this supposed future mansion. And it seems like a person that's making a list of rooms that could exist in a house. They're like, I mean, there's a catering kitchen and then a regular kitchen. then we thought about an ice skating rink but then we thought you know how long can i go ice skating and you know an indoor pool and it's like lady you're not you're building a house you're not fucking designing a house that is every room that's physically possible to put in a house it's fucking stupid i like how the house they were building in versailles was really a test of

whether or not it would be possible to have another French Revolution. I'm just like, where are those rioters who are older and wiser now? They could really put something together. What if those people are still alive? Those rioters from way back when?

We knew back then that this motherfucker could ruin everything and nobody stopped him. They later lost their money in his timeshares. But, so, the Mystery Funhouse was 1976. It actually ends up closing in 2001 because of Hurricane Irma. But he said he was making at least half a million a year on it back in 76.

So if not before he's a millionaire by the time he founds this fun house. But it's really the way he tells it. A guy visits his orange grove in 1980 and wants to buy 10 acres of his orange grove to build timeshares. And so the guy explains it to him, and then he's like, no, I won't sell this to you. But he starts building timeshares on his orange grove. Here's what I will do for you.

It's funny. Take your idea. Yeah, right. They asked him about it in an interview, like what happened to that guy, and he said something like, well, I don't really remember his name. I'm pretty sure he's dead now. That's clear I murdered that guy the moment he told me that idea.

Okay, I'll just leave your orange grove then. You will not leave the grove. You will become the grove. On your grave, timeshares will be built. I am Antonio Montoya. Yeah.one yeah but you know if you want to be a billionaire just uh steal somebody's idea yeah that seems to be a popular way to become a billionaire yeah uh but so he founds uh westgate resorts uh as it is we mentioned the largest private timeshare company in the world he founds it 1982, and he starts with a 16-unit resort at Westgate

Vacation Villas on one of the properties he had purchased. And as of today, there's over 27, I think now 28 resorts, and I believe 14,000 or so different rental units or ownership units with quotation marks. So wait, when a timeshare does that, is anyone staying in it? Or is everyone essentially paying fucking maintenance dues and nobody's getting to be a part of the timeshare? You're all paying and with certain agreements, you each have fixed terms that you like. All right, it's yours to use right now. Right, right, right. And other times it's more

floating like first come first serve right and we'll get into this but they're being sued uh in a class action lawsuit for essentially they're floating timeshares one of them in tennessee is being sued because the people said we bought these units and then every time we went to book our vacation it was busy oh really so they think they're just like selling the same property like hundreds of times and like not letting people use it um but i mean it is like that's why timeshares are so profitable because you're selling the same property like you know hundreds if not thousands of times yeah it's like i have a photo of a horse and i'm telling you hey listen once a year you can ride this horse and it's a great horse and all you need to give me is like 100 bucks which is a lot cheaper than buying a horse and I'm telling you, hey, listen, once a year you can ride this horse. And it's a great horse. And all you need to give me is like a hundred bucks, which is a lot cheaper

than buying a horse. Oh, great. Can I ride that horse? You just have access to the horse now. Yeah, right. That's a thing that's in your life. I'll give you the photo that I have too. But when you want to ride the horse, we'll talk about that later. Meanwhile, the horse has been dead for ten years. You go to like try to sell the horse and you're like, look, I can

give you one hoof on the secondary market um but so essentially 82 he founds westgate resorts and business booms and uh he becomes a billionaire essentially through this timeshare business model which uh you know i mean it's a very scummy shady uh let's say scammy way of doing business as will be reflected in some of the different lawsuits he's been involved in which we'll get to but um essentially just to kind of take you up to the year 2000 uh he alleges uh in the documentary that he's single-handedly responsible for george w bush defeating al gore in florida in the year 2000 um and the documentary filmmaker asks him why and he says quote it may and he says i shouldn't say because quote it may not necessarily have been legal what he did to get al gore elected in 2000

he says that he says that in the documentary yes wow um but so he kind of clarifies to bloomberg and i'll just read you this whole quote about what he did in 2000. Whenever I saw a negative article about Al Gore, I put it in with the paychecks of my 8,000 employees. I had my managers do a survey on every employee. If they liked Bush, we made them register to vote, but not if they liked Gore. The week before the election, we made 80,000 phone calls through my call center. They were robocalls. On election day, we made sure everybody000 phone calls through my call center. They were robocalls. On election day, we made sure everybody who was voting for Bush got to the polls.

I didn't know he would win by 527 votes. Afterward, we did a survey among the employees to find out who voted and who wouldn't have otherwise. 1,000 of them said so. How is that not? Yeah, apparently Bloomberg says that's not illegal. Really? Yeah. Polling your workers and then letting them leave...

Well, wait, you didn't go over that. Well, yeah, I guess he did. I guess they made sure that the Bush voting employees were able to get to the polls. So that seems like the most illegal part. Right, right. Oh, you want to vote for the other guy? Well, you got to work late tonight. Certain employees get benefits based on their political inclination yeah that seems uh like uh communist china well uh the reputable website run by notoriously not corrupt

mayor michael bloomberg says that that is not illegal so i'm going to trust them. But, and essentially like he gets, uh, kind of famous in 2012 for sending an email to his employees saying that if Obama wins reelection, he's going to have to do layoffs because, and I'm paraphrasing, but he's like, if the government is going to take my money to, to spend my tax money and do shit,

then I can't afford to pay my employees anymore. And of course this is a guy who like hugely benefited from obama's uh bailouts and these sorts of things but neither here nor there i just kind of want to go through um a couple different takeaways from the queen of versailles documentary and then we can kind of go through the lawsuits that he's been involved in that are they're not really uh mentioned in that documentary But we've kind of alluded to Jackie Siegel, his wife. She was Miss Florida in 1993. And after his two divorces, which were particularly expensive for him, even though he was kind

of a deadbeat dad for the first one, but I believe the second one he paid out something like $200 million in court costs. And then he gets involved with Miss Florida in 1993, Jackie Siegel. And they eventually get married. And then they're building this Versailles house. And she confesses, Jackie Siegel in the documentary, that up to 2008, she was spending about a million dollars a year shopping, which is like you can kind of like see her closet in the documentary and you're like oh that's where all that goes yeah on her uh 50th

birthday party which uh one of the minnesotans is about she's giving away fur jackets as a party gift a gift to her patron the people that come to the birthday party um yeah and so she has enough fur coats To just get You know like you're like Oh I bought an extra bottle of hot sauce I'll just give this to a friend She does that with fur coats That's how it feels for most of America

Giving away a hot sauce Yeah right right It's fucking crazy She gives one to Loading over people She gives a fur coat to his son And he instinctively starts eating it Better than the cabbage mom She gives a fur coat to his son and he instinctively starts eating it.

Better than the cabbage, mom. Oh, there's something. I don't know if I'll put it up in the Tumblr, but they briefly pan over in the documentary when they're going through a house, through the house. There's a painting of them, Jackie and David Siegel, on a stallion. It's just like the most gaudy rich people shit. And it's like... They have a bunch of gold gaudy rich people shit. And it's like. They have a bunch of gold shit too. Yeah.

I mean it's like. Gold chairs. They really are like Trump rich people where it's like there's multiple points in the documentary where Jackie Siegel is just like going to McDonald's and getting these like huge orders for like all her like people and stuff. You know. So it's like whatever you want to call it. The kind of. Unnecessarily rich. That's what you call it so it's like whatever you want to call it the kind of unnecessarily rich that's what you call it it's like you know one thing i've learned from watching about

two hours of various uh jackie siegel interviews and her attempt at making reality tv is like you know sure we cover billionaires that are uh frivolous frivolous frip flip frivolously frivolously it Frivolously. It's not easy to say, guys. Anyway, you knew the word I was trying to say. I mean, but there are thousands upon thousands of millionaires that live similar lives. Yogi's been very hungry, so he can't remember words anymore. His dad has only been sending him clothes.

Clothes and cabbage. It's been a hard life. By life, I mean two days. Sorry sorry what are you saying no but i mean like you know you talk we talk about uh billionaires and the corrupt ways they got that way but then once they become this wealthy there's no concern for like oh i don't know let's not waste money on bullshit but that's what a good chunk of their lives usually are yeah and i mean it's just interesting where it's like the whatever you want to call them the kind of trump effect where essentially again she's spending a million dollars a year on uh shopping and she still eats at mcdonald's where i guess that's just the way she was raised but it's like she's a buffett fan yeah but that's the thing though

it's like they have this like air of like i mean yeah we've spent a million dollars shopping but you know i'm a regular person i eat mcdonald's and it's like yeah maybe that makes it worth it in her mind right right she's actually very um you know shrewd well i'm like in your shopping in the uh i poison myself just like anybody else in the uh celebrity wife swap uh at the uh seagulls household they they were doing Botox injection parties with the children around, and she's got like two young twin girls, and the wife of the other husband,

I can't remember his name right now, is like, yeah, we're going to shut this Botox party down. I don't think this is appropriate for children. And then David Siegel's like, that's how he talks in my mind. But it's just... Just after the injection. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He just eats a whole fish. Oh, oh, oh. But so, essentially, like, the documentary chronicles them dealing with the 2008 meltdown, and it's pretty interesting, where we mentioned they were kind of living high on the boom years,

building this huge house. And so Dave Siegel himself says, and this is a quote from the movie, anybody that was breathing and had the down payment, we would write them. We would underwrite their loan for a timeshare. So essentially they were selling these timeshares for 10% down, 90% mortgaged. And then they were packing those into mortgage-backed securities and selling them off, which as of at least 2017, they are now again securitizing their mortgage loans and selling them off for timeshares. But it is just interesting where it's like,

you know, he was just as responsible as everybody else for this meltdown where you're writing 90% mortgages and not giving a shit if they have the underlying financials to repay that mortgage because you're selling it off. But ultimately, the construction on the house has to pause. They put the house on the market, try to find a buyer.

They're not able to sell it. They've since been able to continue construction, and they say it's going to be done in a couple years. But they show in the documentary they have to fire about 7,000 people from the company, which is, you know, I mean, sad. It's a lot of people got laid off because of his irresponsibility. They sold off about $350 million in assets, according to him. They also show in the documentary, at the start of the documentary, they have 19 people working at the house.

They have to fire 15 of them. the documentary they have 19 people working at the house they have to fire 15 of them so they only have four people working and it's interesting because there's like i think three dogs in the house yeah so the camera uh uh people keep showing like various shots of just dog shit on the carpets oh and like their fish dies and stuff because nobody's looking after it just like the kind of shit that happens. Yeah, the household crumbles because nobody realizes when you're not hiring an army of people to take care of everything, shit's going to pile up like poop, literally. Right. But so the documentary also chronicles their opening of this big resort in Las Vegas, which I think they sank like 300-some million into. And the bank keeps being like, just give it to us.

Right. They're like saying... And eventually they have to sell this big resort in Las Vegas in 2011. They sell it, but they have since, I believe in 2014, he re-bought a property in Vegas for $180 million. So he was able to, in 2011, he sold off this Vegas property. Then he was able to repair, excuse me, repair his finances enough to re-buy a different property in 2014. And Barry Manilow has a residency there oh so if you're interested in

barry manilow and you would like to uh have a property you will not be able to sell uh i know somewhere you can go in las vegas um but so yeah essentially the documentary um details their fall and he would sue the documentary for like implying that Westgate was like bankrupt because he said it was like hurting his business because obviously nobody will buy a timeshare if they think there's no money in Westgate. The lawsuit was eventually thrown out because it was entirely his own statements in the actual movie.

Um, but they, they struggle, they eventually recover and uh, now they're doing fine. Well, they are doing fine, except for the... Well, should we talk about the overdose now? What do you think? Yeah, I mean, so it's interesting where...

Jackie Siegel's an interesting character where essentially she said she likes the limelight and these sorts of things. But so they have this Queen of Versailles documentary in there for three years. And their daughter, Victoria Siegel, goes through different things throughout the documentary. But you can imagine maybe having filmmakers in your house for three years is kind of a stressful thing in addition to growing up in a rich family where your father doesn't love you

and is constantly yelling at you to turn off the lights. And just these kinds of stuff. uh their daughter victoria siegel uh sadly died of a drug overdose in 2015 it was a zoloft and methadone overdose she was 18 years old and uh she was a prominent part of the documentary so you know yeah i think in uh some of the interviews with david and Jackie Siegel, they talk about how Victoria, the daughter, put herself in rehab for an addiction to Xanax, I believe. And in rehab, she met a guy who became her boyfriend. And that boyfriend's ex sent text messages that were very rude or heinous. And that was what pushed her over on the overdose. But the thing that I find most damaging and terrible is that

in one of the main interviews that I see with Dave and Jacqueline, they say, like, I mean, you know, we didn't know. If you look at the photos, her eyes were never glassed over. Like, we just didn't know. It's like, oh, really? When it came to fucking over millions of people, you didn't figure out that your daughter was on fucking drugs, you pieces of shit? And the 50th birthday party that i mentioned earlier happened uh in the same

year that her daughter uh overdosed and so she's having this lavish affair and there's just like one quick aside where she's like i mean it's it's kind of uh sad that my daughter died this year but it's nice to know how many people care about me. It's just like, you fucking tone deaf idiot. It's fucking horrible. At this 50th birthday party, I just want to mention this. She always has like fake surprises that she clearly knows about.

But there's a little person stripper that's in a cake that's going to pop out. And she calls him a midget in a clip that might be gifted to you at the end of this episode. But it's so great to see David Siegel at this 50th birthday party sitting next to a little person dancing half naked and just being like, what the fuck did I do with my life? This is fucking stupid.

His daughter's last words were, Dad, I'd like to buy some of your property to do a new timeshare idea. It's a new strategy for timesharing. If I could just get 10 of your acres. Yeah, she died in Vegas while they were vacationing in Utah. And it's like, I don't know, it's like, you know,

an overdose is very sad regardless of the situation. But the reality is if you're vacationing while one of your children is overdosing, I'm going to put a bit more of the blame on you. Well, I mean, there's really nothing to say more. It's obviously tragic, but you can watch the documentary yourself and just the way she deals with her clearly dysfunctional family and extreme amounts of wealth, I think, is enough to fuck anybody's head up. And, you know, I'm reading I'm reading this article on Daily Mail about the death of Victoria. And it's it's apparently that celebrity wife swap episode was broadcast just days before the daughter died, but her mother admitted that their house was so big

that they could go days without seeing some kids. Healthy family. Yeah, yeah. You get words that your friends are there to play with you, and they'll be here in like two hours. They're at the front door, so you'll see them be here in like two hours. They're at the front door so you'll see them in about 20, 22 hours. They have to have a map.

This is a topographical map. It's like Chubagi. They're like, how do we get there? They're like, at least our daughter didn't have to see a midget jump out of a keg. But so, I do just kind of want to talk about uh the various um oh and they set up a charity yeah they set up a charity website uh you know who gives a fuck what it's titled but on it you can donate money to uh one of those self-promotional charities right you can donate money and like i

was showing steven like you can donate money to a billionaire and he promises he'll spend it to do something about addiction. This guy that has spent most of his life frauding people in various ways and make you believe you own something you don't will totally take your money and use it

to support awareness on drug abuse. What drug abuse exactly? It's up for debate. On the website it says like donate here and like a whole bunch of like the charity rules and it's like your charitable donation is 100% tax free and in my head it's like David Siegel put that in

being like well I feel like rich people will donate knowing that it's 100% tax free. I don't know. It's terrible is what it is. Maybe the real drug is money. Get the fuck out of here, Sean. You're off the podcast. We're going to hire Connor Arpwell. But so I guess we should kind of talk about

why we're being so disrespectful here because there have been a ton of different lawsuits. And I guess I want to start with um the employees because this one is like really heartbreaking to me and you know we talk about david siegel being a deadbeat dad he's also a deadbeat employer and again he's going around self-proclaiming himself as a billionaire but he's also fucking his employees out of money like whatever you think about um condo sales itself it's like there are people who are working for him on commission and in 2007 uh 350 of them filed a class action lawsuit against him which essentially said he just didn't pay them their commissions you know so in 2013, and so this is just kind of like

what happens with the legal system is that rich people have the ability to wait it out. If you are like an ex-salesperson who like is about to lose your house, you don't have six years to wait for your money to come. So essentially what happens is this 2007 lawsuit, eventually I think they were asking for about a million dollars between them,

the 350 employees. It's I think settled for 650,000, but then Siegel doesn't pay. And so the employees get more and more desperate and then they take 500,000. Oh, wow. So in 2013, they agreed to take 500,000, which is about half of what they were asking for.

And there's this article where they quote a couple of the, this is from Myrtle Beach Online, I'll put it on the Tumblr, but they quote a couple of different employees, and Geraldo Aliviera says, quote, it's shameful what they've done, but I have renal disease and might not see the money if we have to wait another three years to get it.

Kara Sullivan says she is, quote, tired of fighting a very long battle. If we had stolen from Mr. Siegel, we would have been put in jail. He is stealing from us. 500 grand is what they eventually received? Yeah, between 350 employees. Fucking pennies.

Fucking pennies to David. Yeah, and again, this is for straight up wage theft. Right, right. Like it is stealing from people. And the most fucked up part is they pay out in 2013 after essentially waiting the employees out to take half of what they had been rightfully owed under the law. In January 2015, Westgate Resorts sues them. And this is just straight up from Wikipedia. But according to the Orlando Sentinel,

many of those claiming that it deserves to recover these sales commissions that it just paid out from the Orlando Sentinel, many of those included in the new lawsuits feel that these new legal actions are, quote, retaliation for the award granted to the defendants in a class action lawsuit. And then one of the lawyers representing those employees,

quote, said it is, quote, unconscionable. Unconscionable? Unconscionable. Sean, have you been having cavities? Yeah. That fucking swamp cavity. Yes.

I tell you. you but so basically he didn't pay his fucking employees because he's a cheapskate deadbeat and uh you know he's a fucking asshole oh and then the other thing we we should mention uh in the documentary there's uh there's a scene where they he hosts like i believe either the miss america or miss world scene where he hosts, I believe, either the Miss America or Miss World contestants. He hosts them every year, and he's a fucking creep to them. Yeah, of course he is. And unsurprisingly, he would, of course, be found liable in a sexual harassment lawsuit, which we'll talk about in just one second. But essentially, in the documentary, you can see, first of all, he's very touchy,

putting his arm around. The camera kind of captures this pretty well, like the various Miss America or Miss World contestants. And then the filmmakers are like interviewing one of them. And I guess he's asking her if she wants to like settle down and have babies. And she goes like, oh, I don't know. And then he's like, well, I'm just waiting for you to accept my proposal. And then he walks out of the room and like she's just kind of like nervously like he's he's like, well, I'm just waiting for you to accept my proposal. And then he walks out of the room and she's just kind of nervously like, he's a funny guy. Gross.

And of course, again, he's married and we believe still married to Jackie Siegel. Yeah, I know he still is. In the last Minnesota that does that fake reality show or real, who cares? There's a Super Bowl party and david is in vegas and she is celebrating it in florida and she's like say hey how many people are going to come to the event and he's like oh it's 10 000 and they're talking she's like all right well i love you and he's like oh i love you too like begrudgingly saying i love you at the end of this phone call as if to say there's women in the room that he's about to fuck and he's got to say i love you on the phone um so this sexual harassment lawsuit was originally filed by one

of the former employees at his spa um and uh she i believe she eventually got i think six hundred thousand dollars according to orlando orlando magazine but um she has said her name is Dawn Myers. She's a spa employee, and she said she was fired after working there for 14 years. She claims Siegel offered her a million dollars for sex, and that he also sexually harassed and groped her repeatedly in the 1990s and 2000s while she dated one of his sons. And she also alleges that he exposed himself to her on at least one occasion. Again, this is his employee. And they went through the legal wranglings for a while

and eventually she was awarded about $600,000 for this. But yeah, really just a profile in trump voters today yeah it really is it um boy are they terrible human beings uh not only because like you shouldn't you shouldn't be judged the rest of your life for something you did when you were 52 i mean like they're they're criminals you know that's the thing that I hate about uh this sometimes is that like we can't just outright be like oh no they're there literally you know the term criminal is is um mentally you think of people in prisons but really this class of people should always be considered when we talk about people who are doing illegal deeds to benefit

themselves and fuck over the world what do you think Dave Siegel's favorite part of Judge Kavanaugh's judicial philosophy is? I think he appreciated all the beer talk. Did you hear Bud Light sponsoring Kavanaugh? He's going to be wearing that Bud Light jacket on the Supreme Court. Instead of a cloak, or a robe rather, he's going to be a that Bud Light jacket on the Supreme Court. He loves beer. Instead of a cloak or a robe, rather,

it's going to be a t-shirt. It's like Bud Light, I love beer. It'll be a tank top. Every time anyone else will be like, dude, do you agree on this? Yay or nay? The court just be like, yay. He's going to go, what's up? That's his... i bought one of those

notorious rbg shirts and uh kavanaugh's exposed dick is in the background it's on her shoulder um but so we should just kind of talk about um a couple more of these lawsuits and then we'll get to your wonderful gift but so as of September 2018, there's been... Sean, could you be more excited about the gift? We really want to ask our listeners to finish the episode. Some of you have asked about the gift. It's coming. Four hours into this podcast.

Even personally. Look, you know what would really get you the gift is if you just signed on this dotted line here. But so September 2018, there's been a class action lawsuit against one of their places in Tennessee. The lawyers allege that there's a, quote, secret pocket in the leather binders that Westgate salespeople will present to the clients. And basically in this secret pocket is the document that says in most states, you have usually five to 10 days to essentially say, nevermind on a timeshare purchase because of the high pressure sales tactics

and people don't always know what they're getting into. So the law usually says you have five or 10 days to be like, no, nevermind. I'm sorry. But so Westgate employees were putting this part of the disclosure thing in a secret pocket on the leather folder that they would give to people and then they were also in the flex packages as we mentioned they would just you would save spend thirty thousand according to one woman spent thirty thousand another spent eighteen thousand and then every time she went to book it you would say spend $30,000. According to one woman, spent $30,000. Another spent $18,000.

And then every time she went to book, it was busy because they just sell the same property a million times. In that secret pocket, it's that piece of paper, and it's also drenched in chloroform. The secret pocket is where the food he was going to send to his son is. There's a little ad urging them not to vote Gillum. And then I think, Steve, you looked at this, but they were also, I believe, sued for illegally selling to Brazilian people

where they would have the sales materials, all of it in Portuguese, except for I believe this five to ten day walk away paper would be in English yeah the sales contract and everything was actually just in English and there's no translator provided which is just so fucking scummy and they paid I believe nine hundred thousand in 2009 for basically telemarketing violations they were like people on do not call lists that they would still call and harass so they paid about 900 000 i think they paid about

500 000 for aggressive sales tactics um to cft um in another lawsuit and then of course you know the um the consumer financial Protection Bureau we mentioned. But it is just kind of interesting where you can like look at the court filing. So and I'm just quoting from it. First, Westgate argues that the bureau is unconstitutional and thus has no authority to investigate its content. And then like there's like a four page legal thing where I think in March they ruled, like, multiple courts have ruled that the CFPB is constitutional. So we will allow the document turnover to go over. But basically, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, we kind of mentioned, was investigating them.

And it demanded the turnover of a bunch of documents for all of these kind of sales tactics that we've mentioned this high pressure stuff. And then, you know, uh, Trump got elected and the investigation disappeared, but it is kind of funny where it's like, um, is it funny?

Well, I was just thinking like, it's kind of like, it's kind of like being a soldier for the Khmer Rouge where being a salesperson for Westgate where like you're out there killing people, and then he's like, yeah, I'm not going to pay you your commission either. Right, right.

You know, eventually the violence you visit on others will be visited upon you. But you know what, guys? We should talk about, and I know this isn't going to be received that well, but all of the money that David didn't spend was... I know this isn't going to be received that well, but all of the money that David didn't spend... I know this isn't going to be received that well, but there is no gift. Listen, guys, all the money David

didn't use to pay his employees was used on million-dollar shopping sprees by his wife and family. Not for the kids, but for the wife. And I think that's pretty romantic. That house just got one room bigger. The gift is all of you can stay in the palace at Versailles

in Orlando for one week. But yeah, so as of 2017, they are still building the house at Versailles. They are still married. Jackie Siegel is still kind of on a self-promotional blitz. Dave Siegel is still a billionaire, still a Trump supporter. And, you know, until the next bottom falls out of the securitization industry, they're doing all right. I guess anything else we didn't get to?

And with that, this has been Grubstakers. Wait, we did promise them a gift. Well, they'll get it, but after the credits. It's like a Marvel movie. Yeah, exactly. Well, listener, we know you've come this far just for the gift. And we would never record a podcast where we tease something at the beginning and then have no plan and intend to throw something together in post for your listenership.

God, no. All of this have been building up to the reveal. Much like the writers of Lost, we started with the gift when we were researching this episode. That's right. And you are going to hear it right now, and it ties all of this episode together. And once again, we want you to know that this final gift is going to be received by you, as long as you hadn't paused or stopped this episode. And you also made sure to subscribe to our podcast and leave a five-star review.

And leave the password davidsiegelisafraud in your review of our podcast. And more importantly, you looked beautiful today. Because we know you don't look good as well. If you're disappointed with the gift, our first question is, did you pause the episode at any point? Did you come back and listen to it next day?

Because that's not what we said. You broke the terms of the contract. No gift for you. And with that, I'm Yogi Poliwal. Steve Jeffries. I'm Sean McCarthy Andy will be back Next week To get you to sign up For our Patreon

I ask Schultz questions That I assume All wrestlers Have been asked Dozens of times What? Is this a good business? Yeah it's a good business

I wouldn't be in it If it wasn't Why is it a good business? Because only the tough Survive That's the reason You ain't in it And this punk

Holding the camera Reading he ain't in it Reading these rednecks Out here ain't in it Why is it a good business? Because only the tough survive. That's the reason you ain't in it. And this punk holding the camera reading he ain't in it. Reading these rednecks out here ain't in it because it's a tough business. That's terrific. Wait, is that all you got? I'll ask you the standard question.

You know? Standard question. I think this is fake. You think it's fake? What's that? Is that fake? Huh? What the hell's wrong with you?

That's open hand slap, huh? You think it's fake? I don't know. Huh? What do you mean?