Barrel To Bottle 

My advice to anyone who won'ts
To invest in this shit company is stay away at all costs. Robert is one dodgy man full of bullshit not to be trusted. I'm still waiting for my money back after lots off emails and phone calls promising to return it ?

I leave my (amended) original 1* review in situ.

I was asked by "Paul" to amend the actual original as bad reviews were not good for the company; he stated that as being the reason for changing the name from James & Pearce.

He sent me a bottle as goodwill, but that now seems nothing other than a cheap bribe, and I feel ashamed and mildly embarrassed.

I wanted to sell my investment, and he returned £500 of it as a 'deposit' and claimed to sack "Andrew" who had been a problem due to his attitude.

On Thursday, I called for a progress report, and Paul was unavailable according to someone who sounded remarkably like Andrew.

This person said that due to the rocketing price of brandy, Paul advised it was not the time to sell, going back on his agreement.

I was now offered another barrel in which to invest that due to the rockeing prices, I could buy for £1950 and sell 3 months later for £12,000 or more. When something sounds too good to be true........

Anyway, I temporised by saying that I was prepared to utilise the profits from the original despite its wonderful new value - only to be told that despite the rocketing price, the best he could do was return my initial investment.

A phone call from Paul was arranged for this afternoon between 14.00 and 15.30 as I was not sure exactly when I would be around. No contact by 15.55 so I called again, this time saying that I would have a free window between 16.30 and 17.00 and expected a call then (without, of course) holding my breath. Needless to say I would still be holding my breath.

Great news - the person I spoke to on Thursday claimed to be Paul's boss, also head of overseas investments or some other weird and wonderful meaningless title as they are merchants not investors (something he may have forgotten in his rage and in a voice getting ever more agitated) and the person I spoke to today said HE was going to sack Paul. Strangely enough, this sounded surprisingly like the Andrew that Paul had sacked in November.

Even this is a toned down version of the post I prepared over the weekend. Emails to my CC company and Action Fraud are pending in anticipation of this all ending in an ugly mess - one richly deserved by this merry band.

Whether or not returning part of my investment, without intending to sell it and forward the balance constitutes an outright scam, it certainly ranks as a highly dubious modus operandi.

Terrible company! My father has been waiting 3.5 months for a refund after he cancelled within the company’s cancellation terms.
The company agreed to pay in instalments but when the date for the first instalment came, no money was received. I seriously doubt whether we will receive any money from the company and do not trust or believe anything we are being told. DO NOT INVEST WITH THIS COMPANY!
Edit: the company’s response below is clearly false. There was no investment as cancellation was within the cancellation period and a full refund is due. In the 3.5 months all we have received is a string of excuses and one token payment of £50.

After reading the reviews on trustpilot I was obviously a little sceptical but I have to say my experience has been nothing but positive. I first engaged with them back in August and only decided to go ahead with my investment this week, can honestly say I wasn’t pressured at all!
After reading numerous press articles about what a good investment Cognac is at the moment I’m looking forward to seeing a good return!

I’ve used this company now for a year and I must say I haven’t had a bad experience at all my broker Robert is very polite and does everything he says he will do next thing is for me to complete on is selling some of my stock fingers crossed this goes well I’ve had all of my stock transferred into my account and some delivered to my home , I will keep you updated as and when this happens.

JJ

Barrel to bottles, specifically William was very helpful throughout the process of making my first investment into the Cognac market, I was advised of all strategies and agreed on one which would work best for me and had a very smooth on boarding process. Hopefully will be using them again for any future business and would recommend.

Had a decent experience with Barrel To Bottles, ordered a couple of bottles of their Ange Noir cognac. The cognac itself was very smooth and not too harsh on the palate. Customer service was fine, from payment to delivery was around 4 days. All packaged how you'd expect. Would certainly look at buying more.

Received a call from one of their sales team, very pushy and didn't listen to my concerns. Felt like a boiler room scam call.

Read up about them after the call see other people have reported similar bad experiences.

This company used to be called James & Pearce Associates Ltd until June 2024 though I see that James Pearce is no longer a director.

Further update: 8-Nov-24. I see there are now a total of 9 reviews on Trustpilot, 4 have happened in the last 24 hours, all from people with only 1 review and giving 5 stars. Anyone else smell a rat? I imagine their "sales" people are starting to bash the phones again to look for more victims and hence an effort to boost their review scores with a bunch of fake reviews.

12-11-24 Received a reply to my Trustpilot review. Interesting they cannot deny facts but will try to gaslight other readers into thinking they don't use high pressure sales tactics. I have a recording of the call I received from them and they were basically promising 35-40% ROI within 3 months, were not listening to my requests but kept pushing for sales. A totally unprofessional outfit.