The Crooks of Coys – or a truly new beginning?

As not all comments help the discussion, we have decided not to publish any new comments.
Of course, you can keep sending us further information on your experience but that will be, for now, for our eyes only.

Thank you all who commented.

We have also been burnt badly by Coys through the conduct of Nick Wells and Chris Routledge and I have read with dismay the many sad stories of duped and defrauded enthusiasts and collectors on your comments page.

The one question that remains unanswered in this whole debacle is what on earth was the bank HSBC doing, what were Coys auditor’s doing ? What was HSBC’s views on their annual accounts ? This was no simple administration of a poorly performing business with a redundant business model, in fact the classic car market has been booming “better than gold,” and all that, in the run up to their administration. They should have been making good honest money !

Reality though this was a ponzi scheme illegally feeding lavish director lifestyles that had finally run its course, the pyramid had collapsed. A bank conducting proper client due diligence should see this coming by observing how the account is conducted.

Furthermore, directors being arrested, a plethora of county court judgements and the ever increasing volume of online noise of disgruntled and ripped off clients emanating from social media, ongoing for more than 3 years, should have made their bank HSBC aware that they could be also liable for colluding in and assisting the illegal dissipation of client funds.

I am a director of a specialist car company of 30 years standing. This type of theft of client money and cars via a ponzi type structure could never happen in our business. Our bank , also a leading high street and corporate bank service provider would never have lets it happen.

They have software that tracks trading activity, they monitor and observe client account activity through this software. They have massive compliance, credit approval and legal departments to ensure they are providing banking services legally. With the risk of money laundering being so significant in this space given collectors are international, funds flows often very significant and coming from every global geography, they should have been all over Coys.

They should have been demanding annual accounts to show a healthy P&L and if not their corporate relationship manager should have been all over them for explanations to mitigate the bank’s risk. At a minimum like our bank , if funds come in from non EU territories they immediately ask who is it from, where is it going and what KYC have you got ? The banks monitor for good practice in the conduct of trading businesses and then question if a client is suitable for their profile given their own reputation and need for integrity, honesty and best practice.

The truth is all the money in question, nearly 6 million has gone. That is not an insignificant amount to go missing … where were Coys bankers in all this. Sorry, to say they had no clue is not good enough in today’s world of banking oversight required by the regulator.

In cases like this, if there is to be any restitution, then those with the deepest pockets become the target, which in turn ensures Banks make sure their clients conducted themselves correctly so the funds they, the Bank are asked to hold and disseminate is done legally. I don’t think this was the case here and if you have also been burnt then this should be part of a class action for all of us defrauded by Coys against HSBC for letting this happen. If you think there is merit in participating you may find there would be a willing expert class action specialist ready to work with us.

All interest in such a class action should send an email to office@prewarcar.com and they will forward this to me.

Well written , Laurens.
And a good warning ⚠️
Personally , I don’t see why a reputable person would want to buy / take over what has been proven to be a very treacherous path..
For me , the name Coys already was and remains MUD..
I truly wish all people that got hurt the very best..

The problem for anyone working for the new iteration of Coys is that those of us who have been sniffing the wind for so long now will assume that any current employee or associate is part of the smell. People, where large sums of money are involved, are unlikely to give them the benefit of the doubt. My advice to the recently employed would be to put as much distance between their name - single or double-barrelled - and that of Coys as quickly as possible, for it is difficult to get rid of the odour of rotten fish. I feel sorry for those honest operators who came up through Coys in earlier days, who shiver with embarrassment at any mention of their old employer. At least they can credibly claim innocence, but that will be difficult for recent arrivals. And of course, the relentless efficiency of internet search engines makes it impossible to hide embarrassing chapters in any career.

Ever since the mid 70. have I enjoyed visiting London from my homes in Ireland and Denmark. One day was always set aside to scout the various classic car dealers in and around Kensington here of cause also Coys of Kensington, where I met a young junior specialist, Simon Kidston. In future dealings on behalf of my classic car friends, I stuck to Simon, as he was reliable and trustworthy.
Some years later, I was interested in buying a chain drive Fraser Nash and visited a guy, who was a specialist on those cars. On my visit to his workshop somewhere in the midlands, I was surprised to see not less than 4 of those at various stages of completion. It was obvious, that apart from some engine parts, everything else was new. The gentleman explained, that he completed one replica a year for Coys of Kensington, who sold them as being original. That put me of Coys forever.
Therefore it came as no surprise, when news broke of vendors not being paid. I have forever since wondered, why does people still sell and buy through a company such as Coys with such a poor reputation. I just don’t understand, call me old fashioned.

I have fond memories of Coys of Kensington dating back to 1972. I was just 22 years old, when the great Charles (C.A.R.) Howard was the proprietor. Frequently visiting London my first stop was always Queen's Gate Mews where, with my nose against the showroom windows, I saw Mr. Charles sitting behind his Louis XIV Boule desk. He saw me admiring his miracle Automobiles but ignored me. Only after my 2nd visit he decided to invite me in. His philosophy ( one I have adopted ) "the boy may be young but he will grow older and perhaps one day he will become a client". Together with Charles Lemaitre in the USA, Bart Loyens of the Netherlands I consider him one of my Automotive teachers. In later years, when Douglas Jamieson and Jeffrey Pattinson had taken over, it was still a respectable old Company selling great cars. I remember a deal we did together when I entered a large number of Supercars from the Dürst Collection for their Auction at Silverstone. All went fine. But I noticed my name as a Coys of Kensington consultant or representative in their catalogue and told them to remove it. Years later I had a visit from a German couple who were very unhappy and asked my help to get their money for a car Coys had sold. And to Mr. Oliver Gatland ( Pendleton ) may I suggest a first name for your children. Lord/Baron or Count come to mind. Modesty is a mighty fine virtue. But seriously. Forget the name Coys of Kensington or Coys.
Perhaps Alves Reis, Madoff or Weinstein Beautiful Motorcars LTD ! It would be the decent thing left to do in honor of Mr. William Coy. Give him RIP !
Coys is finished for ever.

Jack Braam Ruben van Maaskant Scholten. ( My Mothers name is Scholten )

Car dealers are descendants of Horse dealers who nobody trusted . So why trust a car dealer.

I have been in the motor trade all my life and you must start by not trusting anybody and then when proved accept trust with great care.

Regards and hope somebody brings the whole circus to a full stop for good.

Sam

At long last, publicity about Coys and the criminal activities of its directors. Jeffrey Pattinson may have bought the company from an honest and highly respected antiques dealer, Charles Howard in 1981 but it didn't take him and his fellow director Douglas Jamison long to branch out into dodgy dealing. I had the unfortunate experience of their evasive activities in 1988/89 and was considering the sale of my works Austin Healey 67 ARX. Robert Brooks had just left Christies and with James Knight and Doug Nye they were putting together their first auction, to be held at Donnington. In October I contacted both companies with details of the car and both were highly competitive in offering below 5% seller commission rates for their autumn auctions. Coys sale was in seven weeks time and Brooks shortly afterwards ; both auction houses were looking at estimates of between £80,000 and £90,000 (the previous Works Healey had been sold by Christies at £45.000)

So I filled in entry forms for both houses and faxed them off. James Knight from Brooks rang back and both he and Doug Nye were very enthusiastic about the provenance and originality of ARX and how I had undertaken the rebuild back to '62 RAC rally spec refurbishing all of the original parts, including the delicate NS 5 aircraft aluminium alloy wings. They also offered, if I was to bring the car up from Cornwall to Donnington, to film me driving it down and around the Melbourne loop and then through the woods --sideways of course--and to send the video to their top 20 buyers around the world. No charge.

So the deal agreed over the phone and I faxed Coys, October 20th for a December 12th sale, to say ignore my fax from yesterday but I have decided to stick with Brooks. By 11.00 am that morning a three page fax came back, signed by Gregor Fisken, who worked at Coys at the time, outlining the causes in their entry form and that I had "withdrawn from the sale" I owed them £25,000! Even though they had not accepted the car into the sale and only received the entry form the day before, they now reckoned that the car would sell for £125,000 (their estimate 24 hours earlier £80/90K) and that their "lost sale commission of 10% (3.5% the day before) meant that I owed them now £25K.

Needless to say I told them where to go but, legally, I had to defend their claim until we finally got to court 7 years later. As to ARX , Brooks did a brilliant job and Doug Nye's extensive research brought out some wonderful extra information which revealed which rallies had resulted in the various dents and repairs on the chassis. They sold it for a new world record price of £135,000.

Coys, Douglas Jamieson and Pattinson, continued to pursue me and I started to gather information on them. A few years before, so not long after they took over the company, I found how they had been allowing sellers of cars to also bid in an auction for their own car but would somehow, never be teh final buyer! How a well known vintage Bentley dealer together with a well known ex rust proof paint manufacturer would could together in selling cars through Coys. And through Companies House how "Coys of Kensington, established 1919" would always appear to be the auction house but the sale would sometimes be through Coys of Kensington Sales Ltd or Coys of Kensington Auctions Ltd or three other non "Coys" named businesses. How Coys of Kensington Holdings Ltd was where the cash went through and each company had different year ends so that the money could be moved around to suit the accounts for each year. How Jamieson and Pattinson were Directors in all of them.

The classic car magazines were not interested in any of it. The only reporter who had revealed some of the dodging and diving was Sarah Jame Checkland of The Times. She wrote an article about an American woman who had bought a Pre-War Ghost, perhaps the one mentioned earlier from other posts, paid around £635k for it and then five years later when she came to see it only to find out that it was a bitsa made up from a Post war Ghost. The case had come to the High Court and Coys and she was reporting how Coys had been found guilty, fined over £100k and made to pay compensation.

I hear that Nigel Dawes was lucky, in the 1980's, to get his £1m+ reputed price from auction for his genuine lightweight E Type when in fact it had never sold and was allegedly sitting in Pattinson's garage in the Cotswold's.
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I'm sure other cases will come to light but meanwhile the original 1981 Directors appear to have been smart enough to get out just in time. Their apprentices, Routledge and Wells would have known what had been going on for years. How could they not know?

And finally what on earth made the Luxembourg company, Kamri Invest, put money into a toxic brand name like "Coys of Kensington"? Perhaps some smart arsed second-hand car salesman convinced them that it had a (good) reputation.

Very interesting article.
For at least twenty years, everybody knew Coy’s business was fishy.
I always wondered how people could ignore that and trust them. I suppose they were hoping for better than real conditions, and therefore they somehow shared the responsibility.
Now, why would someone invest money in a name with such a bad reputation?
Why wouldn’t they create a new company, a new team and a new name? They have a long and hard work ahead of them if they want to bring Coys back to the 1980s level...
I would -and will- continue to steer very clear and so should everybody.

Thank you Laurens for publishing this very informative article. All in the old car world need this type of information out in the open. What with the travel industry using covid-19 as an excuse not to refund passengers, all we need are auction houses not fulfilling their legal obligations.

The more publicity to fraud and criminality the better

Wells, and the past Directors of Coys were all complicit in the illicit activity. Never, ever do business with any of them.

No one should use Coys.
It should be long dead and buried.
Too much baggage, too much doubts, too much at stake hence I would steer clear from that risk.

You're going to be flooded with unpleasant stories about Coys. Well done indeed for highlighting the dirty practices perpetrated over the years by the previous management. Anyone doing business with the 'new' company should be aware of the history and keep eyes wide open - and cash firmly in pocket. And remember that no-one has ever seen a leopard change its spots.

In support of this, I have a story to tell. I placed a lovely MGB with the old company, to sell at a Silverstone auction held under the auspices of an MG Car Club meeting there. I had completely stripped and rebuilt the car to an advanced Fast Road specification, so insisted on a fairly high reserve. A friend attended the auction as I was engaged elsewhere, and he telephoned me on the day to say that the car had just been sold after some lively bidding, at a little over the reserve price. I then phoned Coys, who told me that in fact the car had not been sold. I expressed surprise; they started to get difficult about making arrangements for me to collect it, until I mentioned the name of the friend who had witnessed the apparently successful bidding.

This friend was a very well-known character in vintage Bentley circles. When working for a prestigeous car manufacturer before setting up his own vintage Bentley business he was sent to the US for a spell, and decided to sell his four-and-a-half litre Van Den Plas tourer through Coys while he was away. Long story shortened - a reserve was agreed, the auction took place, and my friend was informed that the car was sold - a long way below the agreed reserve. Being pretty well-placed in the Bentley world, the friend discovered that the car had not been sold, but Coys had decided they liked it and wanted it for their own stock to sell through their showroom. Solicitors were instructed and the car eventually recovered. The man I was talking to evidently remembered this episode, and I was able to recover my car fairly quickly. I still can't work out what was going on with my car, but whatever it was the mention of this friend's name brought things to a happy conclusion. I judge that I had a narrow escape.

Well done for publishing this. As others have said, there are many other good people involved in the old car trade, why would anyone dream of using Coys now, with their past record and present inclusion of criminals in their team??

Thank you for a well written and honest story. At Essen in 2018, I bought a Mercedes 280SL for my cousin, 70.000 euros. The seller never received his money and Coys was very unresponsive. The paperwork was lost, everything was wrong. In the end my cousin and the seller both lost 35.000 euros. Terrible.
Later at the car shows, I found out that many dealers and industry people were well aware of this going on, but they were not talking about it. ..

Interesting article and well done for publishing it - in my legal career I had to take out action against Coys to recover cars and money for clients in scenarios similar to or worse than those above. Interesting though that you choose to publicly slap Coys and Mr Wells in the face because they tried to rip you off amongst others but that you have stoically stood by another notorious dealer who has done all of the above and worse for decades suppressing any advert that even obliquely criticises him. Perhaps because he pays you a flat rate of 12,000 a year for advertising?

I sold 2 cars bu Coys at auction in Maastricht 2019 .
I have to wait weeks and weeks before I get information how they gonna pay .
After e-mails en telephon calls i get no money .
I used friends Classic carcdealers to ask Nick why they not pay !
After 2 months of calling every day , they send by post 2 cheques on paper .
2 cheques from a bank of London , after again 2 months
calling my bank several times i got my money .

This man Nick is a guy who has to live in gail !
Coys is a team of criminal people !
NEVER DO ANY BUSINESS WITH COYS !!

Now then boys, we have all known Coys were corrupt a long long long while ago, ever since the ‘unfortunate’ warehouse fire when all the lots were burnt out. It was a time of deliberate bankruptcy, almost a common business practice for the unscrupulous and it would seem still is as shown recently in Australia and here as detailed above. There will always be another sucker, and so it goes on. The antique trade now insists on. ‘Client accounts ‘ for auction houses to avoid corrupt trading, perhaps honest auction houses should comment here with their thoughts

The Bugatti type 37 Story & high court order very clearly answers your questions as to whether Mr Wells is indeed a crook. Without doubt he was up to his neck in the previous companies frauds addition to perpetrating some himself & as we know Leopards do not change their spots. How he can enter back in the business in under a similar name is quite beyond me. Utterly Brazen.

I would urge any defrauded sellers to show up with placards at any future Coys auction & warn the gullible people who have consigned cars to get them out of there post haste. For Wells to deny previous impropriety on his part simply tells you he thinks nothing of lying though his teeth at every opportunity & is continuing to do so.

So much for starting with a clean sheet!!!

Thank you very much to the excellent staff at prewar car for publishing my comment on COYS and Nick Wells, l don't go in for commenting on forums, but Wells made me so angry messing me about over the Aston parts and to think he was now the MD of so called COYS l had to!
Wells had the Aston remains advertised on prewarcar under his name nothing about COYS, when I first spoke to him, he said he had found the Aston parts in a storage building that had once been storage for an auction house, so maybe stolen off so poor person by COYS.
I asked him about the remains but he said he didn't know anything about which year or model. He was the sales man for COYS so he must have known, he just played dumb.
If I'd known he was connected with COYS l wouldn't have continued the phone call, l have never been so messed about by a vendor in my life, the other funny thing was the Aston remains remains unsold and advertised on prewarcar for over a month till the morning of the excellent article about COYS, that must tell you something. Please don't trust Wells, l think he must have known what was going on at COYS.

There are plenty of well respected auction houses, why would anyone go to the only one with a very dubious past?

Well done PreWar.

Thanks for telling it like it is, unlike some other classic car organs that I presume don't want to live without revenue from Coys V3.

As for Mr. Nick Wells appointment to the 'new' Coys, I'm aghast and genuinely don't understand it. One thing for certain, my shadow won't cross their door.

Just before christmas 2020 Nick Wells had the remains of a 1930s Aston Martin for sale on prewarcar, l rang wells to buy it, l asked him the price he said he'd been offered x for it and if l better that l can buy it so l offered him above his asking price and said l can come right away, he said he wasn't available till the following tuesday
The following week l rang him and asked if l could collect, he said he now wanted 50% more l want happy but agreed he then said he was busy for the next few days he would ring me when hes available
He rang a few days later to say he had somebody else interested and now wanted another 50% more being double his original figure
By now I'd had it with well and told him that he was a total time waiter and to stick the parts
This is the new md of Coys, l wouldn't use COYs

What a pity. I'm sure the original owners that started the company are rolling in their graves. And then to use ANYBODY from the old personell. Foolish. Or brazen more likely. Not for me, but I will say I like to sell or buy direct from a owner to owner perspective. I've met so many wonderful good folks over the years. Auction companies, not so good.........

https://www.facebook.com/groups/446266502634580

It takes a long time to build a good reputation and a very short time to lose it.

Would I ever go to Coys. No thank you. A change of name would obscure the firms murky past and good luck to the new owners trying to play that down.

When I started looking for my first proper car in the late 1980's Coys had one advertised I was particularly interested in. I arranged to go and view it but when I got there the car wasn't around and it turned out it was in store awaiting an engineers report from a prospective purchaser. That person had agreed a provisional sale a week before I spoke to them. After asking around friends I was told of several dodgy deals arranged by Coys.

A very good friend had bought a late 'original' Silver Ghost. When he was seen out in it another very well respected motoring person saw it their comment was 'Oh we wondered where that had gone. We remember put that together from various cars years ago' The wheels were from a Phantom 1, the carb from something else and so it went on. Coys agreed to take the car back and the lorry driver who arrived to collect the cars was amazed when it drove out the garage. 'Oh they don't normally work when I have to collect them back' But the refund only came through the day before a Court case to settle the claim. That car was then sold to America as an original car but a few years later there was another Court case against Coys when the then owner was told the truth. Another friend had problems with Coys regarding an earlier Ghost.

Then the case of a historic racing car that returned to the UK having spent decades abroad in the same ownership. It was shipped and spent time in the workshop here. A fake copy of the car had been made and was sold by Coys as the original to a German owner. Suffice to say that after having had the Police and Customs Agents crawling all over the car here it was deemed to be the original and the German Owner of the fake took action.

And another friend who sold his Lagonda through a Coys Auction for a substantial sum. He never got his money, despite Coys being paid, as they conveniently went into administration a week after the event.

Ah, Coys, a name synonymous with others such as Philip Green or Bernie Madoff. I love replicas (I can't afford the real thing) but I do move in the somewhat esoteric world of Lynx replicas. So in 2003, I saw an advert in a magazine offering one of the five Lynx low drag cars for sale. I telephoned, was sent wonderful pictures, and made an appointment to visit and see the car. I arrived, was asked to sit and wait - and wait, and wait - before someone appeared and said "We are sorry, but the car has been moved and is not available for viewing right now". So, I asked when it would be available, having made a 90 mile trip to see it, and was asked to come back in two days when the detailing had been finished. I phoned, I arrived and was told "sorry, we sold the car yesterday".

None of this was the truth, as you may well gather. I actually knew the full history of what had gone on and was testing the rumours surrounding Coys. I knew that the owner was thinking of selling his car, and that Coys had taken it, taken photos of it, and returned it to the owner all the while advertising it for sale without the permission of the owner, who had decided to keep it anyway. The car was later sold with his wonderful collection some years later; by another auction house of course. Since then, wherever possible, I have tried to warn people from using Coys; unless they want to dispose of the mother in law that is. She'll disappear, as you wish, and you'll never get paid.

My experience with Coys goes back to 2003. I bought a Bugatti which they had offered without succes in an auction. When I went to Coys in London I could see some papers with a name from the seller, I didi not know the person but could contact him to have some more history... he insisted that I should buy the car directly from him, but I felt Coys had done their job and I should not ignore them ! ( I should have known better) . So the contract was signed. I could go and collect the car which they said was ready to go... I did not need a trailer ! Luckily I went with a trailer... the tyres were flat, they lost the key and did not know how to start the car. The 'Bugatti responsable' was not there. After some hours they found the key We decided to push the car on the trailer and rushed home...in the end everything was OK ...for us. We learned later that the seller had to work very hard to get his money, which he got after many actions ! This was 2003 but already it seems that problems are 'people related' and when they start with small lies they will end up with big lies !

I cannot understand that the new company takes the name and people who were involved at the time...If they want to start from zero, why keeping the name ? Honestly I think Prewarcar.com is very kind to the new company and to Nick ! Prewarcar in the end you make their publicity . Are you sure of what you feel ???

Everybody should be aware that when buying a classic car you listen to your heart you believe everything the seller says...so some ( many???) of them tell you anything , often not everything... being private or professional sellers

I can't see how they can be considered to have turned a new leaf when in their launch they continue with the misrepresentation of "Founded in 1919". This claim was sanctioned by the Advertising Standards Authority some years ago. The old Coys had an appeal against it thrown out in the High Court because that the claims in question were capable of misleading.

https://marketinglaw.osborneclarke.com/advertising-regulation/founded-1919-classic-car-business-challenges-asa/