Put a cork in it? Not when MoS readers are being ripped off
D.H. writes: I am writing about my situation with Global Wine Exchange Limited. I have two cases of wine which cost me £6,000 early last year, sold to me on the promise that the wine would be sold at a profit last July. That wine has not been sold. GWE then told me that if I bought two more cases, they would sell all four. I declined, and the company broke off communication, saying it would not handle the sale of the original two cases.
YOU have told me you were cold-called by Global Wine Exchange (GWE), and last March you paid £2,700 for a case of Chateau D’Yquem 1999 after being told that GWE would sell this for you at the end of July for a very precise £3,218. And in May, you paid £3,500 for a case of the same wine, 1996 vintage, which would also be sold in July.
But as July approached, GWE told you the sale had fallen through. However, if you bought two more cases, all four would be included in a sale to take place in September. Sensibly, you declined. And worryingly, the bonded warehouse that was supposed to store your wine then told you it held nothing in your name.
I asked GWE about this. I also asked the company’s owner, Adrian Loftman, to explain how his business could be just one year old according to Companies House, yet claim on its website to have more than ten years of experience in the fine wine market.
If this was his personal track record, where did he work to gain this experience, I wondered. Finally, I found that GWE had been advertising for junior brokers – salesmen in fact – expected to make up to 300 phone calls a day. So wasn’t Loftman simply running a telesales operation, cold-calling people like you who have registered to say they want no such calls?
He replied: ‘I will put my hands up to the fact it seems a vigorous technique to drum up sales, and since liaising with the Information Commissioner’s Office and taking advice from them, we have massively changed how we operate with regard to the volume of calls made.’
Loftman agreed that you had bought wine on the promise that it would quickly be sold. He blamed a private buyer who had changed his mind. But he denies that GWE will no longer act for you. And your wine has now been delivered to the warehouse, with Loftman telling me: ‘I admit our delivery of stock to our clients has been somewhat pressured and a little slower.’ The wine ‘does take time to arrive from France’, he explained.
There was no comment or explanation though about where Loftman or anyone else at his company gained their knowledge of fine wines or their investment value. I found that the wine you bought for £2,700 could be had for £2,300 without any difficulty. And the case that cost you £3,500 was on public sale for £2,250. The chances of making a profit would seem to be remote in the extreme.
I put this to GWE and the company gave you a refund of £1,650. And then things turned very interesting. Under pressure from GWE, you told me you expected the whole situation to be resolved in your favour, and you added: ‘I have to instruct you not to use any statements that I have made during our exchanges or that I approached you for help.’ You added that you felt bad about this. I explained that you could honestly tell Adrian Loftman that you had demanded my silence, and that I had ignored you.
After all, if I let companies censor what I write, then all they would have to do to stifle one complaint would be to pay the reader, leaving other potential complainants out in the cold.
Have there been other complaints? Oh yes. Loftman says the vast majority of his customers are happy, and that to publish your letter would be ‘extremely unfair and inaccurate and we would challenge it strongly’.
He added: ‘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.’
Well, thank you for the headsup Adrian, see you in court.