Now law firm hits the wine market
A.G. writes: In 2004, I bought Atlantic Wine Agencies shares through brokers Pacific Continental. I have recently been contacted by Courington Law from Boston in the US, with an offer to sell my shares through an escrow agent in Singapore. They say my shares are worth £110,000, and the money is in HSBC, in Hong Kong. The proceeds will be sent as soon as I pay fees of £5,000. I have asked them to pay me first and then I will settle their fee. This sounds too good to be true.
OF COURSE it is too good to be true. It is an out and out fraud. I warned last Sunday that there is no such law firm in Boston. Anyone who hands over fees upfront can kiss goodbye to their cash.
The reader whose letter we published last Sunday was promised £80,000 for his valueless shares in a company called Score One Inc.
I have also been contacted by a reader who says Courington Law has offered more than £70,000 for his shares in yet another American company, Med Gen Inc.
The one thing all these tinpot stocks have in common is that they were sold to British investors by Pacific Continental Securities, one of the most corrupt broking firms ever to inhabit the City of London. It was closed down after a series of investigative reports in The Mail on Sunday, but by then investors had lost tens of millions of pounds.
The tricksters behind Courington Law have simply got hold of a list of Pacific Continental’s victims and are trying to cheat them all over again by offering some expensive pie in the sky. If further proof is needed, then here it is.
To my surprise, when I made enquiries in the US, I found that Atlantic Wine Agencies – which was supposed to operate vineyards in Australia – did not disappear completely when it collapsed many years ago. Its company registration was never cancelled, and over the years it went through several name changes and has now emerged as Tauriga Sciences Inc, a small Connecticut medical business.
This means it is impossible for Courington Law or anyone else to arrange a sale of Atlantic Wine Agencies shares. There is no company of that name, and there has not been for years, and there is no market in the shares.
Clearly frustrated, Tauriga’s chief executive Seth Shaw told me he had received about 25 calls from investors in the original vineyard business, and he knew they had been charged many times what the shares were worth even then.
He complained: ‘People make so much money by stealing it, and then other people have to clean up.’
There is a tiny silver lining to this dark cloud though. I asked Shaw whether Atlantic Wine shareholders now have a stake, however small, in Tauriga. ‘Sure they do,’ he answered. So the shares are still valid? ‘Of course they are valid,’ he assured me. But they are not listed on any stock market. It could be a long wait, but it is worth keeping an eye on Tauriga’s website for news – but don’t send a penny to Courington Law or anyone linked to it.