It is not difficult to question the integrity of the company simply by googling "Australian Wine Index Scam" amidst a growing list of high profile fraud cases happening in Singapore such as Assets Wine Management(AWM), Universal Asset Group (UAG), which has left thousands of investors stranded. Australian Wine Index executed a very clever investment scam usually comprising of three stages. Stage one involves targetting the greed. This is done through enticing unwitting buyer into committing large sum of money into buying wines, promising exaggerated yield and guaranteed returns in 3 years time. Unknown to buyers, these wine were sold at way above market price. The company will then prey on the investor's impatience to wait 3 years for maturity by scamming them the second time. This involves tricking the buyer into buying more wines usually with claims that these wines takes less than a year to sell as compared to the earlier ones. The tactic has successfully created thousands of small investors holding on to tiny portfolios of 1 or 2 wines with no way of exit which is naturally so, given that the wines were bought way above market. Final phase of the "Triple Whammy" involves fear. The fear of losing an opportunity to exit. The shanghai auction completes the hat-trick in scamming investors a third time into parting with their money for fear of not be given a chance to enter for the auction.