I’m a client of Boltons Investments (UK), but am quite concerned that something is wrong…
Their website is essentially missing - content is gone and a hollow shell remains.
www.boltonsinvestments.com
They don’t answer their phone and the owner’s mobile appears to be disconnected.
Does anyone here have any info on their status? Any other Boltons clients out there?
Whom should I speak with to try and ascertain answers?
Thank you in advance.
thank you
I can’t tell you if they’re defunct or not, but I have made a point of not buying anything from them since a nightmare experience a few years ago with the owner’s previous company - Bordeaux Connoisseurs - where I had to call in lawyers…
The owner, a guy by the name of Vincenzo, made me an offer for a parcel of wines I was selling. I accepted and transferred the wines to him. He then spent the next six months making endless excuses and eventually lying to me through his teeth about why I hadn’t been paid… On three separate occasions towards the end, he promised me 100% that the money had been sent to my account only to offer increasingly bizarre and unbelievable excuses for why it never seemed to arrive… Finally, he was forced to admit that he had been lying all along, and started sending me invoices that he had sent to hedge fund clients who hadn’t paid him yet. The implication was, when he got paid he would pay me… At this point, after literally dozens of phone calls and emails, I couldn’t stand talking to the guy anymore and didn’t believe a word he said, so I told him that he if he didn’t send all the wines back to me I would sue him…
He tried to stall a bit more then eventually admitted he had sold half of them. So I got him to send the rest back to me and replace the others with other wines of a similar value… I was at the point where I would take almost anything to get clear of him before he went bankrupt and I lost it all… Shortly after that he shut down Bordeaux Connoisseurs and set up Boltons Investments - presumably to start afresh after burning all his clients…
The whole experience was very disturbing and has made me much more careful ever since in my dealings with merchants…
Let me state categorically that nobody should do any business with this guy… He is completely untrustworthy…
Peter, I don’t like to be the bearer of bad news… The reason for my post, apart from unloading some of the anger I still feel toward this guy, is to suggest that you not hold back in hiring a lawyer if you are owed money or wine… There is no reason to expect goodwill or professionalism on his part…
Thanks for your candor Eric.
I’m in the U.S., so any advice/references you could provide would be greatly appreciated.