The collapse of a tech company has revealed a scarcely credible tale of celebrity backers, distraught investors, fake reviews, and claims of threats to drown its former chief executive in the moors outside Manchester.
At the heart of this lies Louis-James Davis, the 35-year-old founder of VST Enterprises Limited, which claimed to have “the potential to revolutionise financial transactions on the internet”.
Among the celebrities who endorsed it are Zara and Mike Tindall who were signed up as ambassadors for one of the company’s key products, the digital “V-Health Passport”.
This was billed as a breakthrough that would help get fans safely back into games as the pandemic lockdown was eased.
“They are the perfect ambassadors to represent us at the highest levels in sport at a global level,” gushed Davis in 2020.
Another of its purported innovations was a sort of QR code called VCode that could supposedly be scanned from as far away as 100metres.
“VCode is set to transform online and offline sales,” boasted VST Enterprises.
But the company went into administration and the long list of creditors includes software company Interactive Digital Systems Limited claiming £430,000.
Founder Nick Halliday says that his company was first used to check then fix product issues: "Davis used IDS for about 50% of the task before I stopped work due to lack of payment."
The liquidator's report shows that in late 2021 the company entered agreements to pay suppliers but these were not honoured.
The report states: “Allegations have been made that the company had no intention of adhering to these agreements.”
The total debts of VST Enterprises come to almost £14million, much of it owed to small investors who bought shares.
The liquidator’s report says: “Comments have been made that information provided to shareholders about the potential value of the company was misleading.”
The statement of affairs filed to Companies House names Zara Tindall as a creditor owed £82,404, and she also had £22,400 worth of shares that are now valueless.
A close friend said: “Zara and Mike joined VST and were excited by the technology being developed but sadly this did not materialise and now like others they are owed money by the company.”
In what would have been an enormous coup, Davis claimed in June 2019 that VST had a prestigious new chairman, Bob Wigley, the chairman of the banking industry body UK Finance.
Mr Wigley told me that his involvement was limited to five months of consultancy work in early 2020 and he never became a director or chairman or has had any involvement with the company since then.
Davis’s talent for associating himself with big names reached as far as Downing Street after he managed to join a British trade mission to India in 2016 and posed for pictures with business leaders alongside then Prime Minister Theresa May.
Another big name brought in as an ambassador for the e-health passport was Scotland and Liverpool legend Kenny Dalglish, while a different Davis venture called Nova Wallet was endorsed by Harry Redknapp and Robbie Fowler.
Nova Wallet promised “seamless and convenient cryptocurrency transactions” and early last year launched its own cryptocurrency, VSolidus.
This peaked at 0.08 cents and has since lost about 99% of even that microscopic value. Despite this hapless performance, Nova Wallet notched up 22,000 maximum five-star reviews on Trustpilot.
That’s so many as to make a cynic like me suspicious, as is the fact they mainly seem to be from people who have never previously posted any reviews and tend to use similar language.
For instance, on January 14 last year someone identified only as Asad wrote on Trustpilot: “I have seen various good thing about this wallet very good project have great future.”
On January 15 Rahul Kashyap posted: “Very good project in future this project will give benefits to us.”
On January 16, Mukesh Kumar wrote: “This is very strong project and I believe that it will very successful in future.”
Nova Wallet stormed to Trustpilot’s number 1 rated UK company in Banking and Money Services, though it lost that accolade after the reviews suddenly stopped in January last year.
Expert digging by the online investigations site Kwikchex has now revealed that reviewers in India were being recruited through the online Telegram messaging app and were offered payment in VSolidus tokens in return for positive comments, this enticement being a flagrant breach of Trustpilot rules.
“The Nova Wallet reviews and excellent rating are a perfect example of how some businesses use online reviews as part of their strategy to mislead and make substantial amounts of money,” said Kwikchex co-founder Chris Emmins.
“It also demonstrates how Trustpilot, for all its claims of trusted information that consumers can rely on, are failing to detect even quite obvious review fraud.”
Trustpilot confirmed to me it has now found “clear evidence” of incentives being offered for in return for positive reviews, deleted thousands of them, and issued Nova Wallet with a cease and desist letter.
"Whilst the vast majority of businesses and reviewers use our platform in the way it was intended, there will always be a small minority who seek to manipulate the system - and we are always working to ensure we’re taking appropriate action against attempts to manipulate reviews on our site," a Trustpilot spokeswoman said.
Earlier this month Davis posted on his Facebook page: “Great to be shortlisted as Global Entrepreneur of The Year at this year’s Great British Entrepreneur Awards.”
I’d heard other news that he had not posted on Facebook, and in a phone call with Davis yesterday I first asked if it was correct that he was issued with a bankruptcy order last week.
“That’s right but it will be paid off before it’s public knowledge,” he said, before going on to make some extraordinary claims.
“The bankruptcy petition was brought by investors from VST Enterprises, they forced me into signing a personal guarantee and still harassed me to put the company into administration. They sent people to my house and threatened to take me up to the moors and drown me.
“They were in it to get rich quick but business does not go like that and because of that they set out to damage me.”
He forwarded to me an email from December 2021 that he sent to the police, claiming he’d received kidnap threats, but I have seen no evidence that any investor was questioned by officers or charged with any offence.
He insisted that he was the biggest loser, foregoing £4million when another of his companies bought the assets of VST Enterprises, and maintained that his VCode product is now a hit abroad.
“We’ve got government contracts inthe Middle East, Philippines, just not the UK because of all the noise,” hesaid.
As for small investors left with worthless shares, he said they had been given VSolidus crypto coins – though I doubt that’s much consolation.
Our call was then joined by Neville Buckley, a director of various Davis companies, and things turned nasty.
“Andrew, for you to be coming on and speaking like this, someone has put you up to this, I think Louis has said enough,” he said.
I explained that I was asking legitimate questions concerning small investors.
“You have no right to this information,” Mr Buckley replied.
“Louis, I don’t want you to say any more, he’s not reporting facts, he’s reporting conjecture. Louis, please jack the call in.”
And with that, our conversation ended.
All the celebrities named here were approached for comment. There is no suggestion of any wrong-doing by them.
You can contact me at investigate@mirror.co.uk.
