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




Friday 15 April 2011

New scam – restaurant searching for top wines

A new scam here doing the rounds in France. An urgent request for grands crus from Restaurant Garnier in Paris looks legitimate enough. The TVA, the SIRET and the company's share capital are all correct. So, too, the address. However, the telephone and the fax are wrong. The actual phone number is 01 43 87 50 40, while the fax is 01 40 08 06 93. Equally the email for the restaurant is unlikely to be a gmail address. Perhaps the bigger give-away is the mention of a banker's guarantee by COFACE, which is only necessary if the wine is being exported, which suggests that the scamster may actually be based in the UK.

Why also does the stationery feature the Yorkshire institution Betty's?







4 comments:

Ian Black said...

Does Restaurant Garnier really have headed stationery that appears to have been lifted directly from Betty's of Harrogate? That's a bit lazy, isn't it?

Luc Charlier said...

The spelling “richbourg” could be a clue too!

Jim's Loire said...

Ian. That had also struck me a highly unlikely. To be fair this scam has been more professionally set up than some others I have seen, which is not saying much!

Jim's Loire said...

Luc. It could indeed be a clue. Also Restaurant Garnier speciality is fish.