Awards and citations:


1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Thursday 9 April 2009

Eric Thorman rumbled again!

Delighted to learn of another French producer, who was contacted by Eric Thorman, but who became suspicious because Thorman wanted to order a large quantity of wine without tasting it and said he would pay in 30 days – 60 days is more customary. She became even more suspicious when he kept phoning her and was clearly in a great rush to get the wine. Eventually she must have found the warning about Eric Thorman's scams on Hervé Lalau's Chroniques Vineuses.

Very happy that the message about this fraudster – Eric Thorman – is getting out.

Attention: les arnaques et escroqueries de Eric Thorman et autres

Voir aussi: www.carcassonne.cci.fr/article.asp?id=782

•••

Another example of this fraud/scam just sent in by a leading Bordeaux négociant company. Full of spelling mistakes, this is a round robin email which has probably been sent to many producers. The telephone and fax numbers are mobiles. Jefferson Dee James, who is most unlikely to work for Wine Inns Ltd of Belfast, is apparently happy to place a substantial order without tasting the wines.

From: "wine_inns_ltd"
To: "wine_inns_ltd"
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2009 4:03 AM
Subject: Distribution de vos millsimes en Angleterre et en Ecosse

Cher monsieur,

Suite une visite sur votre site, nous avions eu l'occasion de prendre connaissance de vos activits.

Nous sommes de ce fait intress par un partenariat avec vous en tant que distributeur de vos diffrents millsimes sur l'Angleterre et en Ecosse.

Etant situ au Royaume Unis, nous voulions savoir si vous faites de la vente l'export.

Nous sommes donc dans l'attente de votre rponse de sorte passer d'ventuelles commandes que nous livrerons dans des complexes htelier, restaurants, casinos et bars mais aussi chez nos distributeurs qui s'tendent sur nos deux pays de vente.

Nous vous signifions que nous disposons d'un numro TVA pour l'enlvement par notre transporteur.

Merci de nous indiquer votre mode de rglement vu le fait que nos rglements sont 30 jours fin du mois par virement bancaire.

Nous sommes dans l'attente par consquent de vos diffrents tariffs dpart - cave ainsi que de vos quantits disponibles dj embouteilles de vos diffrents millsimes de sorte ce que nous puissions vous faire parvenir notre bon de commande tout en vous signifiant que nos ventes s'tendent autour de 50000 voir 60000 bouteilles par an.

Nous vous demandons de nous contacter sur notre boite lectronique personnelle qui est wine_inns_ltd@london.com

Merci et bonne rception

Manager
Jefferson Dee James

Wine Inns Ltd
3 Duncrue Place
Belfast, Co Antrim
BT3 9BU
United Kingdom
Registered Number : 00008313
VAT number: GB 617 6139 36
Phone : ?+ (44) 50 1085783
Fax : ?+ (44) 70 92858102
Email : wine_inns_ltd@london.com


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Jim,
I am at the moment helping a former colleague of mine from the french police in his investigation in the same network of crooks. Your information will be useful to us. This post is just to make a comment on the fact that you stated that the email reported above is full of spelling mistakes. Well it's not. In fact you will notice that all the typical french characters (é, è, à, ç, ù, ...) were most likely removed as the email was sent which wrongly suggests typos. Thus discarding these "spelling mistakes" gives a very nicely written email in French. Probably even too nicely written for a non-native (nothing personal there, but I may judge on this as I am French...) which leads me to suspect the possible assistance of a native french partner in crime. Feel free to get back to me would you have more details on this.
PS: I have got in touch with Paul Chadle and await his answer.

Best Regards,

Dominique

Jim's Loire said...

Dominique. Many thaqnks for your message and explanation at the accents. I don't have any recent information about these scams. However, happy to offer any assistance you think I might be able to give.