7 hours ago
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
This is why you should never trust a man with three names
Robinson's 'big lie' was to convince his customers that some of the world's finest teas could be grown, not in Sri Lanka or China, but here in Scotland.
Last week Robinson – also known as Thomas O'Brien and Tam O'Braan – was convicted of fraud, after a court heard he imported sacks of bog-standard commercial tea from abroad, and passed it off as exclusive, specialist varieties, grown on his 'plantations' in Perthshire and Dumfries and Galloway. Never trust a man with three names.
Read More
Among his victims, duped out of almost £600,000, were some of the UK's top hotels and exclusive retailers like Fortnum and Mason.
In a world where avoiding being fleeced by ever more audacious and resourceful online scammers has become a daily challenge, nothing is any longer safe or sacred – not even the good old British cuppa.
The media is awash with stories of people being left high-and-dry after going along with a plausible story, or an inviting opportunity, only to learn when it is too late that they have been cleaned-out by shadowy and amoral swindlers.
Some of the most heart-wrenching examples are of people who lost their pensions or life savings, after being smooth-talked into investing in dubious schemes.
Banks are notoriously unsympathetic to people who have willingly handed over their funds to people they have only just met, only to learn that they are not what they seemed.
And yet, as we have seen, some of the most suggestible marks for fraudsters and scammers are not pensioners, but large commercial enterprises who really should know better.
Among the most watched shows currently streaming is the Netflix documentary The Search for Instagram's Worst Con Artist and the new Apple series, Cider Vinegar.
Both tell the story of the disgraced Australian wellness influencer, Belle Gibson, who built a huge online following, and made a fortune, by falsely claiming to have cured her brain cancer through alternative therapies.
Gibson rose to fame in 2013 by documenting her fabricated cancer battle on Instagram, gaining more than 200,000 followers. She later launched The Whole Pantry, a wellness app and cookbook, which earned her more than $400,000 AUD.
Arguably more shocking than her deception was the way in which large companies lined up to associate themselves with her and her story, seemingly without doing even a modicum of due diligence.
Taken in by her tale of courage and survival against-the-odds, Penguin offered her a lucrative book deal, while Apple featured her app on its new watch.
Both will have eyed the potential profits to be made in the emerging success of the wellness industry.
However, a 2023 study found that many influencers promote unscientific or unrealistic health claims. Speaking to any oncologist worth their salt would have raised alarm bells at Apple and Penguin, given the planet-sized holes in Gibson's story.
The hotels and shops where Robinson's teas were sold were doubtless seduced by his claims to have developed a "special biodegradable polymer" that allowed his plants – which had names like White Dalreoch, Scottish Antlers and Highland Green - to grow in half the usual time in the inclement Scottish climate. The court was told it looked like a black bin liner.
Prosecutor Joanne Ritchie said: 'When you look at what he was actually doing, the suggestion that this was genuine Scottish tea, or these were Scottish-grown plants, is almost laughable.'
Whether it's a sharp-talking fraudster, an eye-catching ad on social media, or a plausible politician promising simple solutions to complicated problems, we seem willing to drop our defences at the first hint of a likely story.
The notion that the leaves in your teapot were teased into existence on the drizzly hills of a verdant Perthshire hillside was enough to convince customers to shell-out a hefty premium, even though the liquid didn't taste any different to a cup of Typhoo.
Robinson even boasted that tea he had supplied to London's Dorchester Hotel was "the Queen's favourite". Kerching.
It's significant that he wasn't rumbled by anyone who had tasted his tea, but rather by trading standards officials who became suspicious when he couldn't produce any import documents.
A growing source of fraud is social media adverts posted by companies that don't exist, or which deliver products that are wildly different from what is featured online. One Scottish couple was promised a hot tub for the bargain price of £20, but instead received an inflatable children's rubber ring.
Such scams prey on the assumption that most people will be too embarrassed to admit they genuinely believed they would receive a hot tub for such a modest amount, and that they will write-off the loss.
Such a lack of critical application extends well beyond online adverts. The phenomenal rise of Reform UK as the country's dominant political force, less than a year after Labour's landslide general election victory, says much about the willingness of voters to entertain the blandishments of false prophets.
It should come as no surprise that Donald Trump failed to follow through on his range of promises – to end the Ukraine War, solve the Israeli Palestinian conflict, and bring down the price of eggs – all on the first day of his presidency. And yet, his approval ratings have plummeted, as a result.
In our collective desire to improve our lives, we have apparently lost sight of an important maxim, that if a story sounds too good to be true, then it probably isn't .
Anyone who took the time to read the tea leaves could have reasoned that Robinson's cha empire was a figment of his creative imagination, and you can put the kettle on for that.
Carlos Alba is a journalist, author, and PR consultant at Carlos Alba Media. His latest novel, There's a Problem with Dad, explores the issue of undiagnosed autism among older people
