It’s Wayne’s World –so watch out!
Ms K.S. writes: In September last year I gave my 18ct Rolex watch to Wayne Montgomery, of UK Time After Time, with instructions to sell it for me. We spoke on the phone after that, but later my calls went to a machine that played a message asking callers to email him. I emailed, asking for my watch if he had not sold it. There was no reply. I went to his office in Tamworth, where staff from the building called him and I was able to speak to him and ask for my watch. He made tentative arrangements, but it was apparent he was stalling. I have a receipt he signed, saying I might expect £4,000 to £4,500 from a sale, but now I cannot contact him at all, and I have found he quit his offices last February. YOU may have thought you were dealing with a registered company called UK Time After Time Limited, run by Stephanie and Gail Montgomery. Stephanie is married to Wayne Montgomery, and Gail is his sister-in-law. I asked them both about your watch, and Gail told me: ‘I know nothing about the issue’. She had never heard of you and added that her company had never even traded.
I pressed her for more information and Wayne Montgomery intervened, telling me that you were not dealing with the limited company at all, but with him personally, using a mere trading name. Dramatically, he added: ‘I have been the victim of an armed robbery, when I, my wife and son, were tied up whilst being robbed of stock and cash.’
And as if this was not bad enough, he told me: ‘I have recently suffered financially when a large Welsh dealer went bankrupt for an amount estimated at £9million. He had quite a few of my stock watches as well as repairs, which have apparently been lost.’
So was your watch stolen? No, it wasn’t. It turned out that Montgomery had passed it to another dealer, who in turn had passed it to the man who went bankrupt. I offered to contact the bankruptcy trustee to recover your watch, but Montgomery said this was pointless as the bankrupt had been arrested on suspicion of fraud.
But this should be Montgomery’s problem, not yours. You handed the watch to him, and he signed the receipt. Montgomery agreed, but quibbled over the figures, saying £4,000 or more might be expected from a private buyer, but as a dealer he would only offer a trade value of around £2,000. ‘It will be two to three months, when I have freed up the funds,’ he added.
That was more than four months ago. Since then you have received nothing, except a different offer from Montgomery to give you a replacement watch, which you accepted. But the new watch has not been forthcoming either.
Montgomery told me in September that he was waiting to sell a property in ‘early October’. When I made clear to him that I knew he had told others that he owned 13 buy-to-let properties, a Range Rover and a Jaguar, he told me the cars were ‘on finance’ and the properties had been sold, either at a loss or that he had simply lived on the proceeds. He has now broken off contact with me.
The only surprise in any of this is that Montgomery reinvented himself as a watch dealer. I first warned against him in The Mail on Sunday as long ago as 1996, and several times again after that.
Back then, he was running gambling syndicates that always seemed to lose. He was behind Belmont Sporting Services, Ventura Racing, Regency Ventures Group, the Integra Club, and a list of similar companies. They followed a familiar pattern. Advertisements claimed huge successes, including a return of £525 a month for a single stake of £250. But every time, after punters invested, they received a letter saying there had been a run of bad luck and their money had gone. Montgomery rarely used his own name. He often hid behind accommodation
addresses and offshore companies, though in 2010 the Insolvency Service caught up with him and won a High Court order to liquidate three of his betting businesses.
I know you will be reluctant to throw good money after bad, but your only remaining hope might well be to sue Montgomery and if necessary force him into bankruptcy. In Wayne’s World, this is probably the only threat he will understand.
If you believe you are the victim of financial wrongdoing, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TS or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Because of the high volume of enquiries, personal replies cannot be given. Please send only copies of original documents, which we regret cannot be returned.