Todd’s brother here and was also affected by this. In the process of the personal property claim. Quite a bit of paperwork that needs to be submitted, etc. so I have yet to get the point of formal disposition. Going and finding replacement value for my missing bottles was quite a task. Also in the past week there have been a few additional developments with this whole mess of a situation. Do not want to discuss publicly at this time but will have an update eventually.
I learned a few things through this whole process:
There must be a lot of don’t ask / don’t tell in the wine buying business. This guy sold millions of dollars of other people’s wine and it appears some even reputable retailers didn’t seem to think twice about buying it from the owner of a storage facility.
You can’t over insure your collection. Keeping up to date values for replacement cost might be a chore, but it is worth it to ensure that you are entirely covered in the even of a loss. I know this sounds like common sense but in our busy lives we often don’t think about spending time to make sure things like this are protected.
I am still upset about the loss, but in the end it is just wine. Health and happiness is much more important!
It is unfortunate that this occurs but we’ve watched it happen again and again. Mare Island, Sausalito and in a small way, Amedeo in Napa in my area. The losses in the millions of dollars for many individuals and the collapse of several wineries. Investigation across multiple jurisdictions across the nation or world make it even tougher to come up with a prosecution in a timely fashion. Most of those we’ve seen involved in this type of criminal activity know their time is limited and set up ways to disperse the stolen money so it cannot be seized/located until the crook gets out of jail and needs his nest egg for the next con or comfortable retirement.
How many of you have wines stored at, for example, 55 degrees in St. Helena or off the other major storage facilities in another state than where you live? If it disappeared today, when do you think you would find out it’s gone? Live inventory is when you look at it personally and hold it in your hand. Imagine storing wines at a facility for twenty years and you find out your oldest bottles are gone. The owner stole it and sold 6 years ago. The statute of limitations has expired, there will be no prosecution. Gather up all your spare cash and hire an attorney to go after the owner civilly and hope there’s assets you can obtain.
Other than this thread, there seems almost no other complaint or allegation about this operator. I wonder if other customers are either unaware, or just staying quiet while pursuing recovery.
Below is a dead give-away that this operator was problematic, at outset.
Each customer releases the operator unconditionally of all loss liability, unless he or she signs up for a “coverage plan”----from the operator itself, conveniently. The Coverage fee is a flat $30 monthly, regardless of the total value covered, oddly enough, which sounds like a bargain for customers with big collections. However, a customer should thereby doubt if any storage operator is properly capitalized or licensed to sell property insurance. Upon a material loss, especially if operator-related theft, any claim would seem very unlikely to be paid. As another example of default correlation risk (like Negam-Aki), this would resemble buying travel-based life insurance from your current airplane pilot, who guarantees to pay your estate after he or she crashes.
“…Under the Basic Storage Plan, the Tenant hereby releases Safe Harbour Wine Storage, LLC and the landlord from any and all liability whatsoever for any loss or damage regardless of the cause thereof, to the wine stored. The Tenants wine is stored at the sole risk of loss or damage from any and all causes…I agree that Safe Harbour Wine Storage, LLC., and the landlord will not be responsible for, and I hereby release Safe Harbour Wine Storage, LLC and the landlord from any liability for loss or damage to my wine while in their custody UNLESS I HAVE SIGNED ON THE PAGE MARKED ‘SCHEDULE B’ FOR THE PREMIUM COVERAGE PLAN OFFERED BY SAFE HARBOUR WINE STORAGE, LLC. …”
On a side note, you’d think the book, The Grapes of Wrath, and the mess in Vallejo would create some kind of message of, “you are going to get caught” - that guy got 20+ years behind bars.
Thanks for all the kind words and support. I used to visit this board every day but I have hardly been on it since July 6th - the day we found out our wine was gone. It is quite shocking and we have found that many people have been affected. I wish someone would have posted 2 years ago when this all started…probably would have recovered a lot more of my wine and other people would have had a chance to get their wine back as well. I suspect Bill robbed Peter to pay Paul. I have learned he settled with AIG and at least one other client. I am sure our wine as well as others was used to pay those settlements as well to fund his lifestyle.
Unfortunately, I am covered for very little…my policy only covers about 10-15% of the value of what I lost. Lesson learned although at this point it does not matter. I am going to stick to beer going forward…best drunk fresh and you dont need to store it! I hope I can look up the SOB someday and find his inmate number in a federal penitentiary.
Wish that worked as well as it was written. I’ve testified on a number of cases that didn’t fly and testified on civil cases with a slightly higher success rate.
Boy, Todd, you seem to be giving up kind of easy. It may not be worth it to you to pursue this, and it may be that there is little left to recover, but if he used your or other people’s wine to pay for the earlier settlements, I would think he is starting a new legal liability from a SOL perspective. Also, no matter what the contract says, he can’t waive liabilty for gross negligence. And outright theft or fraud perpetrated by one of the parties to the contract would seem to be unwaivable to me as a layman.
I am sorry for your loss, and willing to chip in some wine for an offline if things develop into one.
I’ve learned many things from this board, but one painful lesson reinforced by what you read here is that you have to be very skeptical and to a degree distrustful of anyone you give your money or your wine to. Not news, but still. Since the PC debacle, I have limited my spend with any one retailer and am happy to keep all my wine at home once delivered. Easier for me to do now that I no longer am buying futures but I still watch what I have awaiting delivery so that if the retailer craters or skips off to Bimini with my money, the pain won’t be too great. I recognize that some have no alternatives, and I am not “blaming he victim,” just acknowledging the painful reality
so sorry to hear that this has happened. i wanna echo others in saying if you are ever near me in upstate SC let me know and we can find some fun bottles to open, my treat.
Anyone that still has wine with Safe Harbour / Bill Holder should contact me via PM and I will put you in touch with the appropriate person at the FBI. I couple of people have contacted me and have spoken with authorities. It keeps getting more and more interesting by the day.
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