WE’RE WATCHING YOU

A SCAM company that marketed overpriced wine as an investment has been ordered into liquidation by the High Court. Global Wine Exchange Ltd tricked customers into buying cases of vintage wine by claiming that a deal had already been struck for it to be sold at a hefty profit within months.

I warned against the scheme two years ago, and reported that the bonded warehouse where one reader’s wine was supposedly held had revealed that it had nothing in store for him. I asked the company’s boss, Adrian Loftman of Woodford Green in Essex, to comment, and he admitted using ‘a vigorous technique to drum up sales’, cold calling hundreds of people each day. He blamed French suppliers for failing to deliver wine. He then offered the reader £1,650 if he blocked The Mail on Sunday from publishing his complaint.

And he threatened me: ‘If you do publish an article or warning about Global Wine Exchange, we will be challenging it legally and we are prepared to take action against yourself and your newspaper.’

I thanked Loftman for the tipoff and said that I would see him in court, but of course he took no action.

Now investigators from the Insolvency Service have found that between 2019 and 2021, Loftman’s business raked in almost £2 million, but spent only £770,000 on wine for clients. At its peak, Global Wine Exchange banked over £1million in a short time, and paid out almost £600,000 to Loftman and his salesmen.

Despite this flood of cash, Loftman does not even pay his own bills. There are two current county court judgments against him. Why is he not banned from running any company in future?

Put a cork in it? Not when MoS readers are being ripped off

LIQUIDISED: Our warning on the wine scam from February 16, 2020