I invested with Oeno in 2020, everything seemed fine with buying, but since 2021 I have been struggling to get answers & updates. Looking at Trustpilot I don’t think I am the only one who thinks their service is appalling. I literally started to think they were a complete scam - apparently not, but the thing they seem to do best is taking your money and then disappearing… I have even been in touch with their CEO Michael Doerr, and had lots of promises, but no progress. What I really want to know from this forum is if anyone has found a way to get their money back out of Oeno?
From a brief bit of desktop research Oeno has a wine bar/shop in Royal Exchange, EC3. Perhaps a personal visit to their establishment might help with progress. The Doerr corporate empire shows a balance sheet (two years old) that shows a level of solvency but that may of course have changed.
Not sure their operation in Royal Exchange still exists, does it? Their resident MW Justin Knock left some time ago…
…the only thing I can offer on that point is that there is a 5* Google review of the bar written 4 weeks ago…and reservations are still available to book on the website.
See Fattorie dei Dolfi | Tom Cannavan's wine-pages.com which may give you some insight…
Thank you Lionel - So from this Tom Cannavan site I am confused if it is the former CEO Daniel Carnio who is a scam artist, and who seems to have disappeared, or is OENO a scam?
I am not near London so can’t visit. It seems like for the wine bar they get good reviews, but for getting money back out after you have made investments it is very common to have the same struggle as I have. The last Trust pilot review with a really similar experience to mine was just 3 days ago. I am just really worried about losing my money.
Thanks, Andrew. Perhaps the answer is to do a Bill Baker: go to the wine bar, order wine to the amount you are owed, and refuse to pay for it.
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Scam - not my words - but their (then) CEO was posting under a pseudonym to promote ‘investment grade’ wines. Make of that what you will.
I like Jancis’s suggestion.
I’ve bought from the wine bar on the way home from work or on the way out in the evening before and had good service in store. Will try and swing by again next week and see if it’s still there. Will have to find an alternate source of Giacomo Borgogno Barolo otherwise!
I want to add for others’ benefit that after a year of contact directly with Michael Doerr I am still in the same situation of having to constantly chase them via phone and email, eventually receiving promises that wine is being/has been sold and that money will be transferred to me, and nothing happens. Please warn anyone you know never to invest with them!!
Should you wish to ‘doorstep’ him, you can find a domestic address for him in Orpington, the home of the curiously named Luxuria Capital.
Orpington always strikes me as an odd place, though possibly coloured by the memory of my one and only I visit when I arrives carrying the remainder of a bottle of Ch Montrose 1970 I’d won in a raffle(!), planning to give a taste to my then girlfriend who had been at the same event. Having carefully hauled this nectar from Somerset on the train she was totally disinterested. In similarly poor taste it - Orpington - and environs seem to have a disproportionately high representation in reports of organised crime?
E.g.
Eight convicted for ‘boiler room’ scams across East of England | East Anglian Daily Times.
Blackheath man jailed after conning friends in £760,000 wine scam | News Shopper.
We eventually made some progress and got money out with the help of City of London Trading Standards. Now the final step is to have the wines transferred out of their custody. That has been requested and promised but as usual we are waiting for action…
It seems that people working with them have the same doubts about the company’s integrity that we do… https://www.glassdoor.co.uk/Reviews/OenoFuture-Reviews-E5228480.htm
It looks like there are allegations of fraud and commingling of wine supposed to be held for individual customers. The website (https://oenogroup.com/) has been updated to relfect a notice published by the City of London Corporation Trading Standards Service, and suggests that the company will be placed into administration.
Up until this notice was posted (https://oenogroup.com/) we (NEXUS Wine Collections) had been successful in helping some of Oeno’s clients retrieve their wines into safe and independent storage. Those who acted early…more successfully than others.
I believe that LCB Eton Park (where Oeno store) have offered to open accounts directly with LCB for Oeno clients with a view to retrieving their wines (if they actually exist) so they must have been given some level of authority over Oeno’s stock. If anyone on this forum is caught up in this, it’s probably worth contacting LCB - obviously no guarantee of success but worth a try?
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