The American Greed Report, Wine expert Maureen Downey explains how Fox was able to run a long con

Here’s the video of Maureen’s comments for American Greed about John Fox/Premier Cru. The explanation sure fits a couple others that have been hot topics on the board.

She said that whistleblowers were called Chicken Little, but were right.

I’m grateful to those people. I stayed away from the pre-arrivals because of them, and they totally saved my hide.

We’ve seen that here on our board.

+1

I would venture a guess that she was referring to Berserkers.

+2

Excellent lead in. Kudos Maureen.

For those who want to watch it, the American Greed episode on John Fox is supposed to air tomorrow night, August 7th at 10 PM Eastern. Check when it’s on in your time zone.

Next on American Greed: Wine, Women and Fraud

August 7th…

Thanks, couldn’t figure it out looking at my watch. I’ll change it. [head-bang.gif]

The naysayers started on the eRP board way before WB. I spent over 30k with PC, my first purchase was in Jan 2005, delivered April 2007, and my last purchase was August 2008, which was delivered October 2009. All the warning signs were there…it took more than twice as long for wines to arrive. You had to hound them to get your wine! The killer for me was my '05 Bordeaux futures…wines that I ordered in the first week of June didn’t arrive until October of 2010. It should NEVER take 4 and a half years to get first tranche Bordeaux futures. It was obvious that they were not sourcing the wines at upfront…

I never received 3 cases of 05 futures. Got tired of hounding them. Chalked it up to a life lesson.

I’m pretty sure this is the place (and Squires previously) she was thinking of when she made that statement.

I never bought from them.

I did get the offers. So, I admittedly knew of the outrageous bargains…

So, I gained by not doing business with them, but knew of their business. I could have lost thousands, but benefited from my dubiosity.

Does that significant gain put me at risk for clawbacks?

Breaking even may make me a target as they try to make restitution to those who lost.

Going to have to watch the rerun at 10 PM Pacific because it got busy and missed a lot. Carrie has been shredding old orders and came across 5 orders by John Fox/Premier Cru, mostly older Bordeaux wines we had. Back then, we weren’t suspicious. We’ve had to hunt a bottle or two to fill an order when we failed to note the number of bottles available and Premier Cru was still a touted retailer. Unlike Ray Walker, we had never met nor had contact with John Fox to size him and his operation up.

I guess this was an outtake because she doesn’t appear on the show. And PC’s fraud is completely different from fake wines – her expertise.

Also, what she says about cons being likable and fun doesn’t really apply to Fox, so far as I know. Rudy and Rodenstock partied and shared trophy bottles. But I’ve never heard about Fox socializing with customers, or sharing fancy wines. And he wasn’t that likable so far as I was concerned. I hung out at PC’s tasting bar regularly when they were on Piedmont Ave. in the 80s, and I found him aloof and arrogant. I was a decent customer then but he was always kind of snotty. The secret of Fox’s success was unbeatable prices, not charm.

What time frame were those orders?

The one time I visited the University Ave./Berkeley store before they shut down – 2012 or 2013, I think – I was surprised at how little inventory there was on the shelves, and how uninteresting the wines were.

I saw the American Greed show tonight; frankly I thought they went easy on him. And the sex/extortion angle was overplayed to the point of making Fox look more like a victim in all of this.

At least they gave a “shout-out” to WB.

Bruce

Bruce, from what I saw, I agree with you 100% They almost made him a victim of his dick.