Dodgy wine investment???

Malthusian

cbain1512 wrote: »

I have his so called "wine" in storage and they want me to jump through all sorts of hoops and pay lots of money to get it transferred and the tax to be paid etc etc etc.

Tell them to deduct it from the sale proceeds of the wine.

If you pay them any money you will almost certainly never see it again, just like your Dad's £103,000.

When Andy invests £103,000 with Bob and some time later Andy tells Bob that he wants to cash in his investment at current values, it's not Andy that has to pay Bob money. That's not how it works.

and now they are saying they have been subjected to scammers and are closing down the company or something along those lines.

If they're closing down the company there's no sign of it on Companies House.

I am trying to see how I can sell my dads wine so he gets some money back before he forgets completely as this has made him very ill.

You will either need to consult a regulated solicitor and risk throwing good money after bad on legal fees, or write it off and forget about it.

Whichever route you choose, it is best to assume the money is gone and treat anything that is salvaged as a bonus. As per AnotherJoe the wine probably does not exist. Does Dow and Jones own some wine, almost certainly, do they have some wine that can be directly attributed and audit trailed to your father's £103,000, almost certainly not.

Do you have Lasting Power of Attorney for your father? If not, get on with it now if you can. Your post suggests that he has some capacity despite his dementia diagnosis.

cbain1512

Do you have Lasting Power of Attorney for your father? If not, get on with it now if you can. Your post suggests that he has some capacity despite his dementia diagnosis.

I have full medical and financial Power of Attorney for my father. It isn't the money that is bothering me it is the simple fact that my father has been so careful and worked really hard all his life and for scumbags to scam and take what they really have not earned from him, well it just makes me sad and angry. I know, having looked at the 5 cases of wine in EHD (not the 10 cases dad purchased from Dow and Jones) that they are nowhere near worth the money that he paid for them and goodness only knows where the other 5 cases have disappeared to as nobody from Dow and Jones answer the emails or reply to telephone calls. Does not stop me wanting to fight these people as they really have made him ill which I cannot forgive. I just wish there was a way that when people reported companies like this that Companies House would have authority to do a bit more to close them down. I was informed by someone that the banks are supposed to look into companies that have "close to respectable company names" to stop this type of scam and fraud but it doesn't seem like this happens. I will read the letter again about D&J being scammed - irony in there somewhere. Thank you for your advice.

Snow_Dog

It would appear that the original posters issue company have now been wound up in the past couple of weeks, from the gov.uk website (useful info at the bottom if you have any claim):-


Intercontinental Wines Limited was wound up in the public interest at the High Court on 23 November 2018, with the Official Receiver appointed as liquidator. The company’s sole appointed director since incorporation in 2011 has been David Angel.
The court heard that the company claimed to be a wine broker and used high-pressure cold calling to target members of the public.
Representatives would emphasise that investments in wine were secure and resulted in profitable returns. Customers were also told that the cases of fine wine would be stored in bonded warehouses under personal accounts.
However, customers began to complain about various matters, including a complete failure by the company to respond to queries, such as information about the safe holding of wines supposedly purchased on their behalf.
Complaints were made to the Insolvency Service, with the following investigation discovering that Intercontinental Wines only made purchases for a small percentage of paid customers on an apparently ad hoc basis and not according to its contractual requirements to do so on behalf of each customer.
And only around 10% of customers had cases of fine wine stored in bonded warehouses under personal accounts.
Further enquiries found that Intercontinental Wines’ bank records and financial statements showed wine purchased by the company was only worth a fraction of their sales by value.
In a two-year period between March 2015 and February 2017 the company made sales of over £460,000, while purchasing just only £100,000 worth of stock. This meant that without knowing it, customers would need the value of the wine to increase by more than 400% to at least break-even.
The company failed to provide records of customers’ purchases and it was only later when investigators obtained the banking records, were they able to evidence that only a small proportion of sales proceeds were used to purchase wine. Instead, the company’s bank accounts were used for personal expenditure.
And the company vacated its joint trading and registered premises in Southampton in March 2018 but failed to disclose this to customers or to the Registrar of Companies.
Irshard Mohammed, Senior Investigator & Case Manager at the Insolvency Service, said:

Intercontinental Wines enticed customers with the promise of attractive returns from building a portfolio of fine wines, entrusting the company to make purchases and store wines at bonded warehouses on their behalf. However, the company blatantly failed to do so in the vast majority of sales made and instead took customers’ funds on face value, frittering it away on unexplained or personal expenditure.

These winding-up proceedings show that we will take firm action against companies that operate in such an unscrupulous way.

By virtue of the appointment of the Official Receiver all public enquiries concerning the affairs of the company should be made to: The Official Receiver, Public Interest Unit, 2nd Floor, 4 Abbey Orchard Street, London SW1P 2HT. Email: [EMAIL="piu.south@insolvency.gsi.gov.uk"]piu.south@insolvency.gsi.gov.uk[/EMAIL].

Reaper

Snow_Dog wrote: »

These winding-up proceedings show that we will take firm action against companies that operate in such an unscrupulous way.

What firm action? The directors couldn't care less that their scam company has been wound up, they have made a fortune out of it already and will now set up another.

There is no mention of them being held personally responsible for fraud. I hope (but very much doubt) that happens as without it nothing will change no matter how much the Insolvency Service pats itself on the back.

Voyager2002

Penny186 wrote: »

Here is the full story on Anthony Collins wine Fraud.


SNIP

{Personal details removed by MSE Forum Team}.

Some interesting details, but (i) you make allegations of serious criminal activity like cocaine dealing against named individuals, and the law of libel means that such a post will disappear very quickly; (ii) no-one wants to know about the colour and religion of the people involved, and giving such information makes you sound like a bigot and so reduces your credibility; (iii) giving your private email online breaks forum rules and will make you a target for loads of junk email.

Reaper

Your valid arguments are weakened by hints of racism. Yes people with foreign sounding names can hide behind more English names because they hope they sound somehow more legitimate but specifying "Muslim female" or saying "he seems to think Kyrone is too much of a black name" (actually it is celtic) distracts from your case.

Believe me from the pages on this forum we see scammers of all races and backgrounds.

This also seems to be a cut and paste from somewhere else as you refer to picture attachments.

EDIT: Voyager beat me to it while I was typing

Penny186

Please let me clear from the outset, there is no form of Racial abuse or intended abuse to anyone gender, race or sex, i am of black origin myself, I have asked a private investigator to investigate, and this is the information that he has come up with. So you idiots are missing the picture of fraud and that the fact that Dow and Jones ltd is a boiler room and they are spending our money on lavish lifestyles it’s got nothing to do with race. I could t care what colour they are the fact of the matter is they are stealing. This information has been passed to be and I’m sharing it end of .

ColdIron

Penny186 wrote: »

So you idiots are missing the picture of fraud

Well this idiot pressed the spam button on your original post because you included an email address which is against forum rules. We have enough problems with recovery fraud as it is

eskbanker

Penny186 wrote: »

nor do you remember Andrew you did a story on him a couple years back.

Who 'did a story' - are you a journalist or did you just mess up some copying and pasting?

AnotherJoe

Penny186 wrote: »

Please let me clear from the outset, there is no form of Racial abuse or intended abuse to anyone gender, race or sex, i am of black origin myself, I have asked a private investigator to investigate, and this is the information that he has come up with. So you idiots are missing the picture of fraud and that the fact that Dow and Jones ltd is a boiler room and they are spending our money on lavish lifestyles it’s got nothing to do with race. I could t care what colour they are the fact of the matter is they are stealing. This information has been passed to be and I’m sharing it end of .

What do the following descriptions add to the sorry tale ?

"muslim female", "black male" , his wifes name, "2 females a black male and a elderly gentlemen". (is the elderly gentleman white, brown, black or yellow? We need to know.


You I would say are "idiotically" missing that due to the interspersed racism your whole post some of which has useful info, is [STRIKE]likely[/STRIKE] certain to be removed.