TONY HETHERINGTON: My £100k of wine is missing!

Tony Hetherington is Financial Mail on Sunday’s chief investigator. He battles the reader’s corner, reveals the truth that lies behind closed doors, and wins victories for those left out of pocket. Below you can read how to contact him.

BP writes: Can you help me get a refund from Wines Premier Cru Limited? They or their agent Rosevelt’s Limited called me cold and convinced me to invest over £100,000 in wines they said they had in an account for me.

They have sent me lists of wines they say I own, but they refuse to send the wines. After requesting a refund, Wines Premier Cru refunded part of my money, but the balance was never paid.

Tony Hetherington replies: This is a strange story of two wine firms, one of which traded after his death and was run by a serious tax offender, while the other handed over your wine without getting paid for it and then refunded you thousands of pounds which you were actually broken down to the other company.

Confused? I know I was, so let’s start at the beginning. Around 2016 Rosevelt’s Limited salespeople were unsolicited people offering expensive wines as an investment. Their company was new, but they claimed to be associated with Wines Premier Cru, which had been operating since 2008.

According to Dominic Hall, who runs Wines Premier Cru, ‘While we entered into a limited partnership with Rosevelt’s Limited in an effort to market our fine wine investment services to the right clients, this venture proved decidedly unprofitable.’

He told me that Rosevelt didn’t bring him a single new client and that he scrapped the deal. But if Rosevelt’s hasn’t introduced a single new customer, what are you?

According to Hall, he sold wine at Rosevelt’s and never received a dime from you. However, I have seen an invoice from Hall to Rosevelt’s issued on 6th April 2018 showing wines in your name at a cost of £82,000.

And now things get even weirder. Because on April 6, 2018, Rosevelt’s Limited was in the hands of liquidators and should not have been allowed to trade. More than a year earlier, in February 2017, the liquidator was appointed and ten days after the date of the dodgy invoice, the company was formally dissolved.

In short, Rosevelt ordered wines worth £82,000, they received but did not pay Wines Premier Cru, who handed over the wines on credit. What makes this so strange is that Rosevelt’s own records show that it already owed Wines Premier Cru £5,000 when it collapsed in 2017.

So on the face of it, Dominic Hall’s company already owed £5,000, but delivered wines worth a further £82,000. Meanwhile, you paid Rosevelt’s, thinking they were trading for Hall, so Rosevelt’s got both the wine and the money.

I asked Hall to comment on this and he told me he believed Rosevelt stopped trading only in 2021, not 2017 as company records show. He added that although he had no clear obligation, he had decided to pay you nearly £68,000, explaining: “The reason I took on the responsibility was that I strongly believed that this was the only way Mr. P would ever see money from Rosevelt’s.’

And he emphasized that you had always paid Rosevelt’s, not his Wines Premier Cru company. As things stand, he thinks he’s paid you everything except about £11,000.

Hall couldn’t explain how he was still dealing with Rosevelt’s even after it went into liquidation, but he did say that when Rosevelt’s paid for wine, he was asked to store it in collateral in the name of Mr. Jay Lance Stevens. This was the owner of Rosevelt’s.

Stevens, 44, from South London, formerly ran Watches 7 Fifty Limited. It went into liquidation owing an estimated £27,000. He recently set up a new company, Rocking Horse London Limited, to trade in watches and jewellery. He is known to the tax authorities as a bad payer. By 2021, he had accumulated £57,859 in unpaid tax bills dating back to 2010.

I contacted Stevens at his new business in Ilford in Essex, but he made no comment on his dealings with you, the wine he got from Wines Premier Cru with your money, or how his business was doing a year later. failed.

However, Dominic Hall had one last comment. He told me, “I think the best way to resolve this situation is to contact the police fraud unit.” He’s absolutely right.

My top-up of € 744 has failed

Ms LW writes: Seven months ago I received a letter from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) stating that if I paid £744 to HM Revenue & Customs my state pension would increase by more than £5 a week.

I paid the £744 but have not heard from the DWP. When I call I am told to wait my turn. I asked about timetables and the DWP speaker said they had been told not to give any.

After our intervention, the pension increase went ahead

Tony Hetherington replies: You already receive your state pension, so the offer to supplement this should take effect immediately.

I asked the staff at DWP headquarters how long you would have to wait and they told me that they aim to pay everyone’s increased pension as soon as possible after receiving the details from HMRC. This wasn’t an exact answer, but the good news is that your pension increase has now been implemented.

A spokesperson told me, “We apologize for the delay in processing Mrs. W’s voluntary national insurance contributions.”

Immediately after the DWP told me this, your pension rose to over £184 a week and you received over £200 in arrears.

Do I owe wayleave money?

MB writes: A telecom company has connected a new line to a BT telegraph pole on my land. According to the BT website, the landowner is entitled to compensation for leave if an additional line is attached to the pole for the benefit of a third party. However BT says it’s up to the other telecom company to pay me while they say it’s up to BT.

Tony Hetherington replies: I suspected that a previous owner of your property may have made a deal with BT in exchange for a lump sum. Sure enough, the BT contract showed that the developer who previously owned the site and built your house pocketed £150.

The contract gives BT the right to add more cables to the pole without paying more. However, the contract is dated only five days before the purchase of your home.

On the face of it, this means that what was delivered to you on completion did not match the state of affairs on the earlier date you exchanged contracts. This was sneaky behavior by the developer and makes it worth going back to your lawyer.

If anyone should get the £150 it should be you.

If you believe you have been the victim of financial misconduct, write to Tony Hetherington at Financial Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY or email tony.hetherington@mailonsunday.co.uk. Due to the large number of questions, no personal answers can be given. Only send copies of original documents, which unfortunately cannot be returned.