Zizoo bankruptcy

„Germany's leading online and international charter agency went bankrupt last year and duped customers' money was lost. This was predictable, but we weren't allowed to write about it lest we risk being accused of causing the bankruptcy. But one thing should become clear with this insolvency, and that is that the "marketing idea" of offering prices that don't cover costs ultimately lead to what we have seen here and experienced countless times in the past. This applies to both online and charter providers. Therefore, we can only advise our customers not to be blinded by overly grandiose advertising and offering a selection of 25,000 yachts and more, sometimes through mail order companies in Berlin to give the impression of a German company, while the real headquarters of the company is abroad.

Unfortunately, some review portals are of no real help here. Because even with these companies, the reviews you buy are usually good until the problem becomes obvious. Then they suddenly turn negative.

Prices that are out of the market for the same boat, possibly with the same charter company, should be accepted with caution. In addition to the Zizoo case, we have other experiences where the boats were not booked and the client, at best, had to pay again the entire charter on the spot, at worst if the boat was at anchor (we reported on the recent Myboatrent insolvency case). Our first experience was with the low-cost provider BluBalu, a bankruptcy in which over seven hundred customers initially lost their money (but fortunately were eventually insured through Yacht-Pool).

Caution is also advised when a boat for which you have an option is suddenly offered at a super price, as we know of cases where these options are accessed in the existing database. A business practice that should be a serious first warning to any skipper!

In all these cases, however, there is also a deeper problem with investors, who are being told by originators about the profit opportunities they dream of. Compare that to Airbnb or Uber or online hotel bookings. Of course, in their logic, losses have to be accepted before realising growth and gaining market share. And at this stage, you can keep inexperienced investors in line and sell their losses on IT investments as profits. But it's only a matter of time before the truth becomes apparent. The fact that investors in this sector often display an optimism so incomprehensible to insiders is not just a matter of business naivety, it has a lot to do with the background of the investment. It's about dream things like sailing and yachts. And it is not uncommon for investors or their advisers to be involved in sailing in their spare time, where hobbies and commercial thinking intertwine. From our observation of the market, that's also why this won't be the last online agency where investors lose their money if they don't make a clear distinction between hobby and business.

The other problem, however, is that, under these bad investments, companies that operate solidly and have to finance their day-to-day costs from day-to-day revenues suffer enormously and, if they are not patient enough, do not survive this unequal battle. Of course, this could, in theory, also be the investors' strategy. But only the theory of the insiders. Because the market works differently. And results show practical experience. It's just that this is not always so obvious and doesn't always make it into the press, because in favourable cases liquidations are sometimes quietly carried out and online providers that have become insolvent are continued under a different name. In such cases, charter skippers have just been lucky. Deals where debit and credit don't match in the long run always hurt everyone. In our case, both charter customers, who are increasingly complaining about poorly maintained vessels in some countries, as well as agency employees and ultimately the fleet operators themselves, who ultimately suffer the damage to the image of the whole industry, at least as accomplices. With our CHECKED&TRUSTED seal of quality, which you will find on audited companies, we have been striving for 25 years to minimise this charter risk. The requirements for this are strict and annual financial figures from the balance sheet must be provided to us for verification. This sets us apart from all other 'Quality Seals'.„