How VOZZi Took 100,000 Users for a Ride – Bad Business, Misuse or Pyramid Scheme?

Announced as the first fully digitized road assistance, the VOZZi app has failed in a well-tested manner – overnight, following big promises and even more ambitious goals. The company is blaming their failure on everybody, from potential misuses and the region’s unreadiness for digitization, through inflation, to the foreign partner, the parent company from the Netherlands, which it sued for RSD 140 million.

VOZZi has no intention of voluntarily paying damages to the users, of which, according to the official data from the website, there are more than 100,000. The only solution for them, for the time being, is to sue the company, Dejan Gavrilovic of the consumers’ organization Efektiva says for eKapija and adds that it all seems like a pyramid scheme to him.

That something was wrong was apparent back in October, when the company stopped advertising on social networks. However, it didn’t stop charging for its services, and the users were not notified about potential problems.

From the way the company attracted users, saying that “100% fool-proof, without any hidden costs, without panic, you can solve everything at one click,” we’ve reached the point where the app is not accessible, nobody is answering the phones at the call center and it is not certain that the users will be able to get their money back. With or without panic.

Rapid success, followed by crash-and-burn

The owner of the company KOV Technology, within which the app operated, Vladimir Sijakovic, did not respond to eKapija’s questions. However, in a response to Efektiva, the owner explained that the costs of the services that they provided to the users had exceeded the volume of the payments per packages. As he says, over 12,000 road assistances were provided, in Serbia and abroad, and each one cost several hundred euros, which has caused losses for the company that it can’t cover at the moment.

– Unfortunately, the inflation, the attempt to save the companies with local banks, as well as the withdrawal of the foreign investor have all caused the suspension of the services. We all together fought as a team for the company to succeed, even with a guarantee on my personal property in banks. Unfortunately, the investor with which we have a signed agreement from February 2023 and which withdrew in October 2023 has been sued, which you can check at the court where KOV Technology has sued its parent company from the Netherlands for an amount of RSD 140 million. Finally, 65 people have lost their jobs – the owner said in the response which Efektiva posted on X.



Dejan Gavrilovic of the consumers’ organization Efektiva says that there have not been similar cases in this field, but that the scenario is well known.

– It often happens that somebody experiences a rapid success initially, until they create a network of clients, then the bubble bursts and the users are left hanging. The most infamous examples are travel agencies – says Gavrilovic.

However, while, in the cases of travel agencies, damages can be paid from insurance, there is no such option here. As the company answered to the users when they requested refunds, and the packages cost RSD 5,000 to 6,000 on average, there are two solutions to this situation: the acquisition of the company – purchase by another company and the acquisition of the entire system and the initiation of bankruptcy proceedings in the company. Both options, they say, take time.

– We are working on having all sides in this process compensated, starting from the users, our partners and employees – says the company’s email sent to the users.

However, Efektiva believes that the possibility of collecting damages is under question, especially if the company is blocked or goes into bankruptcy proceedings.

– The first option, acquisition, opens the question whether there will be a partner who will see an opportunity for investment there or a failure. Bankruptcy proceedings open the question of how likely is it for the users to collect their claims – says Gavrilovic.

The company’s account is not blocked at the moment, but 94 bills of exchange have been issued. According to the data of Company Wall, the total income of KOV Technology doo in 2022 amounted to RSD 330,591,000, and the expenditures amounted to RSD 299,683,000. The company ended that year with a net profit of RSD 26,188,000, which is six times more than the previous year, when it had a net profit of RSD 4,753,000. The data, then, show that the company was quite successful and that it progressed with each year.

– Plenty of people were satisfied, but when you’re accumulating little and spend much more, a crash is inevitable. According to the balance sheets until 2022, it is a company which progresses and grows, but there is no balance sheet for 2023. Plenty could have happened in those 15 months. The owner claims that what happened happened, but nobody wants to admit that they’ve robbed people. He says that he has deposited his personal property, which is already alarming enough. We don’t know if the failure is a result of bad business operations or if the foreign partner is to blame. We don’t have enough information, but it all looks so much like a well-planned pyramid scheme – explains Gavrilovic.

Efektiva, which has been researching this case for several months, believes that the membership payments are unlawful, because the provider of the service is not an association, but a limited-liability company.

– What was strange to us several months ago when we started looking into the whole story was how it was possible for the app to work under the insurance principle and collect membership payments. People would contact us and say that they had paid insurance, and that’s not insurance. It seems that VOZZi operated in the grey zone, but nobody reacted – says Gavrilovic.

He believes that nobody will react now either.

– I believe that nothing will happen in the end. As in all cases where people have been damaged, nobody reacts. The only option for the users are lawsuits. There is no organization which can return money to people, we don’t even know whether there’s money on the accounts at the moment. The court could impose temporary measures, but we know how much time that process takes. Everybody will say, ok, it’s only RSD 5,000 to 6,000, but that’s not true, there are other debts there – says Gavrilovic.

The employees have a problem too, namely 65 of them, who have now lost their jobs, as the owner said in the response to Efektiva. Whether the employer has paid them all the salaries is not yet known. According to the data of Company Wall, the average gross salary per employee in 2022 amounted to RSD 211,796.45, and in 2021, it was RSD 175,691.29.

Without panic, you can solve everything at one click

100% fool-proof, without any hidden costs, without panic, you can solve everything at one click – ironically, this was the message of the VOZZi app, launched in 2017. Announced as the first fully digitized road assistant, according to the data from their website, the company had over 100,000 registered users, more than 9,570 successful assistances and 1,500 partners across the network. The app was installed over 200,000 times.



According to the website, in a short amount of time, the app revolutionized road assistance systems. In the case of a problem on the road, the user would click the assistance request button in the app and wait for the help to arrive.

Clicking no longer leads anywhere. If you enter the app now, you will encounter a notice in English, saying that the app is under maintenance and that you should contact the call center. Of course, nobody picks up the phone there anymore.

What the initial explanation made by the company, which says that the VOZZi app is no longer active because “we are no longer capable of fighting the misuses that are present in this business and the fact that our region is simply not ready for digitization and transparent operations” sounds like to the users now, we don’t know. To our interviewee, this explanation seems like an excuse.

– However, that doesn’t surprise me either. Nobody here has ever come out to say “it’s my fault.” It’s always somebody else’s fault – says Gavrilovic.

M. Dedic

Udruženje bankarskih klijenata Efektiva

KOV TECHNOLOGY DOO

VOZZi

Dejan Gavrilović

Vladimir Šijaković

road assistance app

bankruptcy proceedings

acquisition