APW Australia Portfolio Wines

[4Life]

Re: cellar link

i've just seen it. thanks for letting us know. yeah, it's interesting to know why cellar link doing the website maintenance at this time of the year when it's supposed to be the best time for selling wines.

Hi All,
We have the wine virus as well. (212 bottles initial cost approximately $16k AUD valued at $10,700 AUD at 30/06/2011 by Cellar Link. Plus $4849 AUD costs for the last two years charged by Cellar Link.):
We have at last stopped all fees except storage costs, hopefully. There is only a small window of opportunity, 17th to 26th December to do this via their web portal. Cellar Link will only be there between 19th and 23rd December to “assist”.
We received this confirmation and costing for release to a London, UK address (approximately $4300 AUD) or destruction of our wine ($2547.20 AUD minimum).
"Dear Mr and Mrs X,
We acknowledge receipt of your notification that you do not wish to continue with our services.
As per your below request the estimated costs involved in releasing your wines to a UK address or having them destroyed will be approximately as follows:
Estimated Handling out fees: 54 GBP ex VAT
Estimated CCT: 22.72 GBP ex VAT
Estimated Duty: 513.82 GBP ex VAT
Estimated Delivery to London metro: 77.93 GBP ex VAT
Estimated VAT on the above services: 118.11 GBP
Estimated sub-total: 708.65 GBP + deferred VAT due on the wines
Approximately 1128.17 AUD + deferred VAT as at 14/12/11 exchange rate AUD-GBP 1.5920
The deferred VAT is calculated on the initial price at which you purchased the wines and is 20% of that amount.
Final cost will be sent to you once your request to transfer your wines out via the Global Wine Management Portal online.
You were looking in having the wines destroyed as an alternative, this service would be charged 400 GBP per hour and it is a minimum of 4 hours. The reason for that is that the wines are currently under bond in the UK with taxes due on them as per below quotation, and they have to bring an independent auditor to witness the bottles’ destruction in the bonded warehouse. It is a long procedure because they have to photograph each single bottle destroyed as a proof. No other costs are involved and no taxes are due once it is done.
Both of these options are expensive, and this is why we wanted to suggest you to have a further look at the email sent on 13/12/11 by Amanda Egan detailing the implementations and changes made to the new Global Wine Management Portal. I particularly draw your attention to the quarterly management of the sales contract which would allow you to only renew for another quarter with Cellar Link to try to sell your wines at clearance price and thus reduce ongoing costs and at least try to recoup part or all of the costs of taxes and charges involved.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Stephanie Blanchard | Private Client Advisor - Wine Brokerage
CELLAR LINK Pty Ltd (ABN: 45 132 635 842)”

But after reading through your posts we are very concerned to what if anything will be delivered or destroyed.
Help please.
Anybody interested in going to Glasgow for a working holiday destroying bottles of wine; ($636 AUD per hour.)

 

[wstaton]

Heck 4life that's horrendous. Talk about "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea"

Here is the status of my current problems with Cellarlink.

I received a Phone call from Eamonn Egan where he said he was going to bury me. I hope he did not mean this literally. Anyway it would appear that he is very touchy about anyone casting aspirations about him.

He said that I wanted a fight. But actually I don’t but I will not back away from one.

Now! this is all about Cellarlink not doing the right thing for it’s wine investors.

I dug out an email sent by Cellarlink in September 2010 here is a copy.


Dear Wilf,
As you will no doubt be aware the wines that are held on your behalf with Cellar Link have been held now for 18 months in storage with a view to selling the stock and recoup your funds tied up in the investment. Typically the stocks are worth more than the cost of storage and as a result in a normal fluid market this debt would have already been cleared and not normally concern Cellar Link.
However as you will have witnessed, the wine market has not really improved over the last 3 years – in a substantive enough manner to settle your debt to Cellar Link.
Therefore, we have no choice but to advise you that from 1-10-2010, ALL WINES held by Cellar Link on your behalf will be sold (offered for sale) in a global wine sale to take place between the 1-10-2010 and 31-12-2010.
The price point will for the sale will start at a 50% discount from the present market price, and get deeper as required, in order to clear ALL the stock in the account. We cannot take a selective approach to the clearance.
ALL stock will be listed for sale. Sales at the prevailing rate will be credited to your account and towards clearing the active balance.
We don’t make this decision likely – however, we have 30 accounts that owe us over $250,000 AUD in storage liens – and growing. We too must run our business sustainably and responsibly. If you wish to pay your storage lien in full, before the close of business on the 17-9-2010, then we will not forcibly sell your wine at the discounted rate.
I apologise in advance for having to take this action, but the global marketplace is such that I cannot afford to carry on this debt any longer. Your understanding is appreciated.
Sincerely
Eamonn Egan
Managing Director

This did not happen. Why? At this time my debt was $1,384.03 which selling my wine even at a heavily discounted rate should have covered.

I have gone through all my emails and found constantly being told that the problem of selling Australian wine was because of the downturn in the market. Yet! Cellarlink does not appear to have a problem staying in business, by I assume, selling Australian wine. Wine other than ours that is.

This phone call is indicative of who we are dealing with here.

 

[Eamonn Egan]

I would like to introduce myself.
I am Eamonn Egan, Managing Director - Cellar Link Pty Ltd and the one referred to on several occasions in this particular forum.
I am going to respond to all of the false allegations, general market frustrations and also the defamatory statements made here by may parties, over the next few days. If you want to ASK (as opposed to assume, that the poster is accurate or correct in every instance) me questions then please feel free.
I will answer you in this public forum including your account details so you can be properly identified and to be complete and transparent. Of course if anyone wants’ to say or imply something about my company or me personally, I suggest you are certain of your facts before doing so. I have no problem whatsoever taking responsibility for my own actions, words and statements so long as you do too!
Thank You
Eamonn Egan

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Re: APW Australia Portfolio Wines & Mr & Mrs Marie and Wilf Gerard-Staton

Cellar Link Pty Ltd Account ID: 31293 (Account Holders - Mr & Mrs Marie and Wilf Gerard-Staton)
In response: (please also see the attached)

Dear Mr. Wilf-Staton,

What I actually said on the phone when I called you - was that I would bury you in legal court cases, because of your false allegations. But typical of your present dealings with my company you only hear what you want to hear. It is unacceptable for you to make untrue allegations and assertions, and to that end I will both defend myself and my firm in the courts and on this forum as required.
I did send you the email which you have copied above. As you know you own 75 bottles of d’Arenberg Coppermine Road 2001. Unfortunately, for you, you only ever purchased one wine from Australian Portfolio Wines Pty Ltd (APW). I suppose it’s akin to purchasing Telstra shares and saying that the whole stock exchange is a scam because of that one stock. We did place your stocks in the market and they failed to sell.

A very important point is: APW sold you 75 bottles but sold the client base over 13,410 bottles of the same wine.

Secondly Cellar Link Pty Ltd, NEVER offered nor SOLD you ANY wine whatsoever. To that extent, Cellar Link Pty Ltd is only responsible to store and attempt to sell your wine if you instruct us to do so.

It is self evident why bottles all have not sold, and commonsense why the wine has lost value in the market place.
If you had paid your bill when requested then we would not be where we are, your expectation that I should be your banker is neither reasonable not tolerable.

If you had shown up to the court last week – we could have had a polite conversation with you and agreed or not as the case maybe, now as a hearing date has been set for your matter, you will find yourself bearing more costs, and additional actions for defamation.
I have attached for all to see your account details (at a high level) showing the stock you have repeatedly inferred not to be there, are infact there, and proof that you have never paid a single bill since you became an account holder.
I am sure others will understand this is not how you should behave, when you don’t get your own way !

This information is supplied solely for the purposes of refuting slanderous and defamatory comments made by the account holder. Under normal circumstances, Cellar Link Pty Ltd would never disclosure any information whatsoever about any client. Cellar Link Pty Ltd regrets having to take this action.

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Re: cellar link & Mr. John Roezler & Mrs. Judy Roezler

Cellar Link Account No: 11396
The Trustee for 4 Life Superannuation Fund
Dear Mr. John Roezler & Mrs. Judy Roezler,
I have made 8 attempts to call you, to advise you that I don’t believe it is ethical that you publish the name of the employee that was only attempting to assist with your enquiry. I have no problem, with my company name being slandered but I do have a problem with that of the employee. I respectfully ask you to amend the post to remove this.
The costs you mention are for the storage of your wine and services such as the ones you are damming below. Bear in mind if you store you wine in any location then it will cost you.
Also you are not Cellar Link “Investors”, we never sold you wine in any way shape of form. We have only ever been charged with storage, valuations, and resale in the markets in which we operate. If the drinking public don’t want the wines you chose to invest in then, I suggest you review your investment strategies! As a self managed superannuation account holder one could only assume that you are a sophisticated investor given the typical requirement for such a self managed scheme is $250,000 AUD to begin with.
Such an investor would surely have read the purchase invoice/contract from APW and realised that the goods don’t have TAX paid on them, as such when you want to release them you much now pay the tax, it’s not going into Cellar Link’s pocket, it goes to HMRC (Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs) so your blame is pointed in the wrong direction. Even if you did not realise then, you do now, and should have for a long time because this is information provided to you on Cellar Link’s management portal (screen shot attached) and this information as to the stocks TAX STATUS was declared by YOU upon applying for the account with Cellar Link. So, how you don’t know this is required to be paid is beyond me, especially given you are a sophisticated investor.
Again, you choose to defame Cellar Link implying the goods are not at the warehouse (see attached proof of stocks at LCB).
Cellar Link’s offices are open all the way through Christmas and New Years except for Australian Public Holidays. So there is no little window as you put it. Cellar Link’s contract specifies that you must give us 5 business days notice to remove your wines, from a practical perspective. What else would expect. I fail to see the issue, other than you may have misunderstood the written PDF we supplied to you.

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Warregui - I suggest that you clarify which company you are in fact discussing:

Australian Portfolio Wines Pty Ltd (now deregistered and previously located in Sydney)

Australian Portfolio Wines (UK) Ltd (currently operating in Soho in London)

It may help forum users to differentiate using APW –UK and APW-AU, these are two separate legal entities and it is both unfair and simply incorrect to tarnish both by default.

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Background and History Cellar Link Pty Ltd and Australian Portfolio Wines Pty Ltd

Australian Portfolio Wines Pty Ltd
Founded in 2002 in Sydney and deregistered 18-10-2010. It was owned and operated by many parties over its life. A company search will reveal any information pertinent to this company. Robert Rees (now with: Welcome to Wine Exchange Asia - Wine Auction & Wine Portal - Home), was one of the main sales persons, under contract, who conducted the business (selling wines) of Australian Portfolio Wines Pty Ltd in Singapore and Sydney.
ASIC Free Company Name Search

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Australian Portfolio Wines (UK) Ltd

Australian Portfolio Wines (UK) Ltd - Australian Portfolio Wines - Taste the value of your portfolio
Is a company registered in the United Kingdom, was never a division of or part of Australian Portfolio Wines Pty Ltd (Sydney, Australia), however there was one common director and shareholder, being Adam Dawson, no other directors or shareholders which were common and Australian Portfolio Wines (UK) Ltd continues to operate today, having being sold to another owner in 2004.
The company name and branding were similar, but when the sale of this business was conducted in April 2004, by Robert Rees the Intellectual property was inadvertently sold alongside the business.
A company search will reveal any information pertinent to this company.

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Cellar Link Pty Ltd - Our History thusfar

Cellar Link Pty Ltd

Founded by Eamonn Egan on 08-08-2008 in Sydney. Eamonn Egan is the sole director, sole shareholder, and there has never been any other shareholder or director.

A company search will reveal all the information pertinent to this company.
ASIC Free Company Name Search
History:

Eamonn Egan, was recruited by Mondo Search recruitment in October 2006 to act as Export Manager (on contract) for Australian Portfolio Wines Pty Ltd. From October 2006 through February 2009 Eamonn did his best to realign the business to maintain proper stock management and develop more complete end to end resale opportunities. It became obvious to him a short time after joining that the model was flawed and did not adequately offer the required solutions for an ever changing marketplace.

Over the proceeding 2 years Eamonn did his best, to fix APW, if you like, but it was broken and most likely beyond repair. Eamonn advised the then shareholders and directors that they would need to stop selling wine portfolios made up only of Australian Wine, which they did. Given APW did not have the required European connections and buying power to secure First Growth Bordeaux, which by then had become the flavour of the wine market, as opposed to Australian Wines.
To this end APW would have required the investment of many millions of dollars to reshape its own and its client’s destiny. Alas they were not or able to invest as required.

At this point Eamonn Egan could see another nightmare like Heritage Fine Wines, and Wine Orb coming on, with client’s being left in the middle of a changing market and having to deal with stocks lying in the UK/HK/USA and AU markets.
Eamonn made the then shareholders of APW and offer to buy the database of its existing clients, which was duly accepted and on the 19-02-2009 he made an offer to that database of clients with a opportunity to become clients of Cellar Link Pty Ltd.

Some 1600 clients did take up the opportunity, 80 did not. This left cellar Link with some 660,000 bottles under management as a result of this database purchase

• Each and every client was given the opportunity to sight and sign a new contract online, they were provided with an online quote for the first years services and they then duly accepted or not as they elected.

• On average 45% of the stocks under management are up for sale at any one time.

• It took APW 9 years to sell its client base the wines they now have.

• Since Cellar Link commenced we have sold over 90,000 bottles of premium wines.
•
We have set up online retail stores and operate them in Sydney, London, and Hong Kong.

• We employ 16 staff in Sydney, and pay over $1.5m in wages a year.

• We have invested over $4m in our own technology to run the company and client information systems, as nothing suitable was available off the shelf.

• Many clients are very distraught and annoyed at the market and continue to berate Cellar Link and its staff as a result, whilst most often not taking responsibility for their own investment choices.

• Cellar Link does not and never has offered wine investments; we only manage collections and offer the contents thereof for resale if so instructed.

• Cellar Link has 4500 clients worldwide and as such does not expect to keep each and every one of them happy. In fact that is an impossibility given the recent and ongoing GFC.

• Clients of APW who invested in wines generally did not understand the full extent of the commitment they were getting themselves into; as a result they also did not understand the complexity of same.

• Cellar Link has carried for over 2 years debt associated with accounts where people have struck hardship from other areas of their lives, with the continual hope that the market would turn, and the wines would sell, we could recoup our advance payment of clients costs, and return some funds to the clients concerned. That said, our generosity has been greatly abused and now we have over 40 clients in court for failure to pay their account. Many of the wines they may offer us in offset of their debt are proving unsaleable, or unsaleable in sufficient volume to provide for their account to be serviced appropriately. When Cellar Link has insisted on payment whilst the wines remain for sale, some have not been forthcoming. Leaving with us little choice but to seek remedy in the courts. After all we have a broader responsibility to all of our clients to ensure the financial stability of the company as a whole.

• Clients who don’t like the fact that we are exercising our rights under contract, instead of paying their account have in some instances chosen to use certain forums to slander and defame the company, its directors and in some instances employees. Personally, I don’t think it is fair to attach an employee’s name to any post on this forum; the employee is then tarnished on the internet in the mix of such commentary. One such employee named recently has an MBA in Wine marketing and management from the wine school in Bordeaux, why would a client want to tarnish this employee’s opportunity in life. So we will be asking for this post to be modified on those grounds (I am sure the majority of you would agree).

• Cellar Link Pty Ltd has an extensive client contract in place, with the terms of the contract presented prior to any services being provided or an account being opened; it is available to view on Cellar Link - buy premium wine, wine collector services including inventory management, brokerage & storage under terms and conditions. Some 3 years after the contract now, since many of our APW legacy contracts were formed some clients are now choosing to read the contract they signed and as is typical in a consumer environment, they don’t like not like what they read. However, what many clients fail to realise is that trading wine around the world is fraught with complicated regulations such as customs, liquor licensing, remittable taxes, retail taxes on resale, storage conditions, drinking windows for each product, and the list goes on. Our terms are extensive and globally reaching because they have to be not because we want them to be.

• Cellar Link Pty Ltd, manages an inventory of stock in 7 warehouses, for 4500 customers, totalling up to 660,000 bottles, and 2050 individual SKU’s.

• Cellar Link does NOT operate its own warehouses. All 3rd party Logistics Warehouses are operated by mainly large and publicly listed warehouse operators.

• All stock is in names accounts under the Cellar Link master account, and immediately identifiable by any auditor.

• Cellar Link raises in excess of 45,000 invoices per year for a variety of services, but none of them are for WINE INVESTMETS and never will be.

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Hi All,
We have the wine virus as well. (212 bottles initial cost approximately $16k AUD valued at $10,700 AUD at 30/06/2011 by Cellar Link. Plus $4849 AUD costs for the last two years charged by Cellar Link.):
We have at last stopped all fees except storage costs, hopefully. There is only a small window of opportunity, 17th to 26th December to do this via their web portal. Cellar Link will only be there between 19th and 23rd December to “assist”.
We received this confirmation and costing for release to a London, UK address (approximately $4300 AUD) or destruction of our wine ($2547.20 AUD minimum).
"Dear Mr and Mrs X,
We acknowledge receipt of your notification that you do not wish to continue with our services.
As per your below request the estimated costs involved in releasing your wines to a UK address or having them destroyed will be approximately as follows:
Estimated Handling out fees: 54 GBP ex VAT
Estimated CCT: 22.72 GBP ex VAT
Estimated Duty: 513.82 GBP ex VAT
Estimated Delivery to London metro: 77.93 GBP ex VAT
Estimated VAT on the above services: 118.11 GBP
Estimated sub-total: 708.65 GBP + deferred VAT due on the wines
Approximately 1128.17 AUD + deferred VAT as at 14/12/11 exchange rate AUD-GBP 1.5920
The deferred VAT is calculated on the initial price at which you purchased the wines and is 20% of that amount.
Final cost will be sent to you once your request to transfer your wines out via the Global Wine Management Portal online.
You were looking in having the wines destroyed as an alternative, this service would be charged 400 GBP per hour and it is a minimum of 4 hours. The reason for that is that the wines are currently under bond in the UK with taxes due on them as per below quotation, and they have to bring an independent auditor to witness the bottles’ destruction in the bonded warehouse. It is a long procedure because they have to photograph each single bottle destroyed as a proof. No other costs are involved and no taxes are due once it is done.
Both of these options are expensive, and this is why we wanted to suggest you to have a further look at the email sent on 13/12/11 by Amanda Egan detailing the implementations and changes made to the new Global Wine Management Portal. I particularly draw your attention to the quarterly management of the sales contract which would allow you to only renew for another quarter with Cellar Link to try to sell your wines at clearance price and thus reduce ongoing costs and at least try to recoup part or all of the costs of taxes and charges involved.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Regards,
Stephanie Blanchard | Private Client Advisor - Wine Brokerage
CELLAR LINK Pty Ltd (ABN: 45 132 635 842)”

But after reading through your posts we are very concerned to what if anything will be delivered or destroyed.
Help please.
Anybody interested in going to Glasgow for a working holiday destroying bottles of wine; ($636 AUD per hour.)

HI 4Life, interesting reading! Can you post the email of the 13th as well as a list of the wine you purchased? I will pass it on to a UK merchant and at least you can get an idea of what your wine is really worth.

If your wine legally belongs to you (who knows how APW have structured this. Could have been done legally or on the back of a bar coaster) then you are liable for the VAT so make sure you get proof of descturction before you pay. If you didnt pay the VAT I guess the UK government would get it touch with you and then sue you for the VAT. How they would do that is another question... Does Egan really want the UK government looking at the books?

Can you also post any info you have on how the wine was transfered to the UK. A list of charges, etc. including AU tax credits?

Wine Ghost - If you would like to ask then please do so about anything to do with the structure of the wine ownership.
ALL clients wines are in their name in our master managed account in each 3PL warehouse, as demonstrated on several replies posted today - (screen shots from LCB).
You may not be aware but the legal importer is responsible for the wine taxes, be they deferred or not. In this case Mr. Roeszler as trustee for his Superannuation fund is the account holder, as a Superfund, the fund is responsible for the taxes not him personally. However, the wine was sold to him by APW as IN BOND (all taxes deferred) – delivery to LCB, from Melbourne, Victoria. In fairness APW did get this part right.
There are NO clients registered for UK VAT, so there is no such thing as suing the Cellar Link account holder for the VAT. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, will bill LCB directly and consequently bill Cellar Link Pty Ltd and we will have collected the funds from the account holder PRIOR to placing the order for the release at LCB.
As the warehouse is a restricted customs facility, clients cannot go there to “break” bottles of wine; seriously did you even think this was possible.
The wine was exported to the UK in 2002-2008 by Australian portfolio Wines Pty ltd, under their AWB Export approvals and Export license. There are NO AU Credits, as the wines were sold for delivery to the UK, and NO GST or WET was levied against the wine. The clients paid for wine, and 3 years storage only as part of the purchase price.
Any other questions – please address them directly for a clear and precise answer as to the FACTS !

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Re: cellar link

But what is there to stop you turning up in Glasgow and taking your wine (apart from logistics and the fact that it might not exist)?

P.Boyles - Well firstly there is the tax due on the wine, the handling out fee, and the matter of the outstanding account due for 12 plus months. ALL the wine exists, contact the Managing Director of LCB Glasgow - Alf Allington’ if you don’t believe me. Stop saying the wine does not exist, it’s a blatant untruth.

once our account is settled, the client can have the wine within 5 days of booking its release.

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Re: cellar link

Hi wineghost,

Thanks a lot for the advise.

btw, cellar link sue some of us because we walked away from it as the wine is "apparently" overseas.

While in regard to the forwarded cellar link's email below,

1. I notified cellar link prior 24th December 2010 (and i have fully paid until end of 2010), that i want to walk away from it and told them not to charge my credit card. they still try to charge my credit card, and charge me dishonor fee (because i obviously cancelled the credit card).

2. As you can see at their email below:
- my account has been suspended (indeed i can't access my wines anymore)
- my wines no longer insured
- all wines shall be cleared at no reserve

i have no problem with number 2, as that's what i want (walk away from it). but now nearly 1 year latter, cellar link sue me and demand payment for:
- full fees including the insurance fee and portal subscription fees (i was already suspended from the portal, and they said the wine is no longer insured)
- dishonor fees (not only one, as they tried multiple times)
- interest
- filling fee
- service fee
- anything else i may missed out.

where is the justice here? Anyone has any inputs on this?

also, according to the cellar link's email, they're actually trying to sell the wines, but i've never ever received any money from cellar link.

Thank you very much.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
xxth January 2011

Dear xxx,

Cellar Link Account Name: xxx
Cellar Link Account ID: xxx
Amount Due: $xxx


We refer to our previous communication of 24th December 2010, where we informed you that we had issued the invoices below and the amount payable was due. We would like to inform you that we were unable to withdraw the amount due from your nominated credit card or bank account on the 4th January 2011 as the payment was dishonoured. Please note a $40 dishonour fee has also been applied to your account.

Invoices due:

Storage 2011, by Location (quarterly or annually as applicable to your module)
Brokerage listing fee (as applicable to your module)
Global Wine Management Portal (GWMP) subscription fee (as applicable to your module)

All of the above are available now on the Global Wine Management Portal. Once logged in, you can view the PDF invoice(s) by selecting 'my finances' and then 'statement of account'.

Please note if your account is overdue, your account is immediately suspended and therefore your wines will not be insured (Refer to clause 14.5 in Cellar Link’s Terms & Conditions) and we will not be able to process sales in your account.

Any account remaining unpaid, shall without further notice be subject to a lien on all its stock, whereby stock shall be cleared at no reserve. (Clause 12 in Cellar Link’s Terms & Conditions).

If you have paid your outstanding account before this email reaches you, please disregard this notice.

We would also like to remind you that:

Trade Sales Payments

Proceeds for sales that have occurred up until the 3lst December 2010 will be remitted commencing the 28th of January, 2011. As we remit quarterly, for sales that have occurred after the 3lst December 2010, the remittance will be received by clients in the next trade sale payout period on the 28th April 2011. At the same time that we remit the funds to our clients, an invoice will be uploaded on to your account which will detail the specifics of the sales that have been transacted on your behalf, such as the price the wine was sold for, any taxes etc.

In order that payments and debits are always made to you on time, please ensure we have up-to-date credit card and bank details on file for you.

If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Service Team on 1300 270 110 or +61 2 8622 5000 (if overseas) during office hours 9am-5pm AEST.


Yours sincerely,


Eamonn P. Egan Sig

Cellar Link Pty Ltd

Eamonn Egan
Managing Director
ABN: 45 132 635 842

victorious - interestingly - not once did you read the contract, you can’t walk away from the wine and close your account, you must remove the wines from the warehouse, in order to close your account, read clause 22. Its headed termination. Here’s the link: Cellar Link - Terms & Conditions - Super Premium wine, Fine & Rare Provenance Wines, Wine on Sale
If you buy wines which are ultimately unsalable in any market then it’s your issue to deal with, I am happy to assist where I can, but it’s no different to buying a lemon of a house…. And I did not sell you the wines! You seem to forget that easily.
If you want further advice please do reach out.

 

[floater]

Re: cellar link

but it’s no different to buying a lemon of a house…

Exactly! It's the same as a "lemon" house, and a "lemon" house can be sold at no reserve.

 

[Eamonn Egan]

Re: cellar link

Exactly! It's the same as a "lemon" house, and a "lemon" house can be sold at no reserve.

Floater - Yes, if sold to a willing buyer, I presume you have heard of the term PASSED IN, and of course you have taken into account the other 13,000 “houses” (aka wines) in the same row all up for sale at the same time, with NOTHING to differentiate them.

Now which one would you choose to sell? Or in fact by for that matter?
We sell wines like this on a FIFO Basis (FIFO - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), first in = first out. Another term I am sure you are familiar with !

And of course then there are the taxes the client has not paid in advance to be paid for, so how would you propose that selling at ZERO reserve will in fact pay them. I suppose you would like Cellar Link to indemnify the client and help them avoid their responsibilities in this regard also. If the goods cant be sold “in bond” then they have to be sold retail (all taxes paid).

What would you propose. I am happy to hear your opinion on how you would achieve the best outcome for the client in this particular situation?

Stop the pernickety comments and come back with something meaningful, unless of course that’s all you have to offer.

 

[pboyles]

Re: cellar link

Floater - Yes, if sold to a willing buyer, I presume you have heard of the term PASSED IN, and of course you have taken into account the other 13,000 “houses” (aka wines) in the same row all up for sale at the same time, with NOTHING to differentiate them.

Now which one would you choose to sell? Or in fact by for that matter?
We sell wines like this on a FIFO Basis (FIFO - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), first in = first out. Another term I am sure you are familiar with !

And of course then there are the taxes the client has not paid in advance to be paid for, so how would you propose that selling at ZERO reserve will in fact pay them. I suppose you would like Cellar Link to indemnify the client and help them avoid their responsibilities in this regard also. If the goods cant be sold “in bond” then they have to be sold retail (all taxes paid).

What would you propose. I am happy to hear your opinion on how you would achieve the best outcome for the client in this particular situation?

Stop the pernickety comments and come back with something meaningful, unless of course that’s all you have to offer.

You do realise that these attempts at online reputation management rarely work.

 

[pboyles]

No win no fee service for wine scam victims.

Wine Investment Claims Milton Keynes, Resolved Claims Limited

 

[rodcar]

No win no fee service for wine scam victims.

Wine Investment Claims Milton Keynes, Resolved Claims Limited

"Typically once vintage wines have been bottled they will then be stored in a bonded warehouse in a temperature controlled environment for a further period of time which means that many investors never physically see their investment for a long period of time if at all before it is sold. These extended time frames are not only good for the quality of the wine they also serve a use to the fraudster"

quote from the website
sound words indeed.

 

[alexwuk]

Hi,
I'm Alex. I have no affiliation with anyone. I have bought wine from CellarLink UK in the past - quite a bit in fact. I have the good fortune not to have been involved with any wine "investments" - I own 10,000 bottles and my collection is probably worth quite a bit - but it's not an investment. The cost of storage and the eye watering costs of sale make investing in wine crazy: the underlying value needs to appreciate by 40% just to breakeven! If you want to invest in real assets I'd humbly suggest you try commodities, watches, houses - basically anything that isn't wine. If you *really* want to: buy LVMH stock, the transaction costs are 2% (so, wine has 20x higher transaction costs) and they own a bunch of good high end wine brands - if wine prices keep going up, you'll make money.

CellarLink do have real stocks of wine. Tons of them. They are indeed in LCB Glasgow. If you have wine stored on your behalf there, you want to move them & have the contractual option of transferring them, but don't know where to go, I'd recommend LCB's own service at Vinotheque (Welcome To Vinotheque) or the Locke-King Vaults at EHD (EHD London No.1 Bond - bonded wine warehouse and distribution company).

The Australian wine market in Europe is indeed really, really bad. Whether it is as bad as the prices CellarLink are currently selling some bottles at suggest, I doubt it - but that's just my personal opinion. That's between them and the owners of the wine. If I personally were try to sell the same bottles and maximise value (which I am not), I would probably use a UK auction house like J Straker, Chadwick (J.Straker, Chadwick & Sons) or a web auction like Bid for Wine (Bid for Wine :: Online Wine Auctions :: Fine Wine, Rare Wine, Bin Ends and Vintage Wine. Buy wine from and sell wine directly to other users.) *for disclosure, this is run by an old University friend of mine.

CellarLink are indeed difficult to deal with. From personal experience I have emailed them regarding orders, delivery logistics, etc and received no reply and my requests were not actioned. They have been very good at arranging the mechanical process of delivering ordered wine to the address specified - everything else, IMHO, not so good. I have an outstanding issue with them which I will not comment on in public at this stage.

Calling Eamonn or anyone else a fraudster is not helpful; I don't have enough information to know if he is, but he has generally supplied the goods I purchased: that's more than I can say for every purported wine merchant out there. Whoever *sold* you wine was probably a shyster and the buyers were guilty of investing in a market in which they had little or no knowledge. Any estoteric investment should be treated with a strong mix of fear and scepticism (I speak as a Hedge fund manager).

I haven't read enough of this thread to understand the nature of the contract most wine owners have with CellarLink, but I hope the above post helps clarify some alternatives and options. I'm happy to try and answer any questions you have. Just bear in mind that I am buying a material amount of the wine that is being sold and therefore despite trying to be helpful, I am probably inherently conflicted.

Best,
Alex W.

 

[alexwuk]

Having read a little more, I can add the following:

Tax. Britain has two taxes on wine. One is a fixed price per bottle (duty) and is around £1.80 per bottle. The other is VAT and is a percentage of the sale price (20pct) if the sale price is low, therefore the tax is low...

Wine can be sold In Bond and therefore free of tax, provided the buyer has a professional storage facility (most serious ones do).

Thinking about this a little more, if anyone is being charged storage and just wants a disposal, feel free to contact me and I can see if I can bid for the wine on a tax free basis. Again, remember I'm by definition conflicted in that case as my interests would be for a low sale price. Caveat vendor, but maybe I can help some people out. I'm probably one the five biggest cellar link buyers in the UK. Having read this thread, im not feeling so great about that right now.

Best,
Alex

 

[pboyles]

Have you actually personally received any of the wine you bought? I mean picked it up or had it delivered to you home?