Mr Ostrich - a cautionary tale

2021-06-03

Luke MacWilliam, June 2021

It pains me to say that there are some rogue traders in the wine industry, and an approach that we come across all too often is from a victim of such scamming.

“Mr Ostrich” has had his head buried in the sand for the last 5 years, ever since he first realised his “investment” had gone south. The “company” from which he bought that case of Mouton 2008 has gone into liquidation and the directors are currently awaiting trial. Thankfully, he was one of the lucky ones whose stock was recovered, but this doesn’t change the fact he paid double the going rate for those cases in the first place.

“I keep getting these storage bills and don’t really know much about wine. I wish I’d never got involved in the first place and just want to get out now, but I want to recover as much of my losses as possible”.

“I’ve been offered £19k for the whole portfolio but I think it’s worth more than that. I don’t want to get scammed again”.

You’ve come to the right place Mr Ostrich. Wine Owners gives you total control of the price you want to offer at and you can benefit from some of the lowest commission rates around with our Collector subscription, 4% + vat.

Our live Wine Searcher feed enables you to see other offers for your wines across the market, to assist you in setting your prices, and I’m more than happy to offer some suggestions/advice if you are still uncertain.

Over the following 12 months, Mr O sold through his 15 cases, and netted £21,691 after commission. Yes, he had lost out overall, but left the market on a positive rather than a negative. Lesson learnt, but damage minimised.

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