Agency frauds show how to deceive customers in Croatia and sleep peacefully. And justice sleeps in a folder

It has been exactly 16 days since Lider began its investigative adventure regarding travel agencies that defrauded their customers by charging them for arrangements that were never realized. The current story about the agency Svikoncerti.eu has been the subject of much media attention, and the portal Index repeated the entire story on Facebook yesterday about how people have been waiting for over two years for a refund for arrangements abroad (bus plus concert ticket).

The owner of the agency, which is now in pre-bankruptcy proceedings, Tomica Drvar-Trtinjak, has ignored requests from travelers for refunds for paid concerts, which in most cases were not held due to the pandemic. Angry customers seeking their rights, both from the owner and from Croatian institutions to which they have reported fraud multiple times, have formed a Facebook group 'Svikoncerti.eu – where's the money?', which, according to one of the founders, Marina Babić, now counts as many as 450 concerned and wronged members who paid several thousand kuna for concerts abroad.

Now, when the pandemic restrictions have passed, and when some performers are returning to the stage with new concert dates, they are still unable to attend the same concert, if they have not already received a refund. Every agency is obliged to pay insurance in case of insolvency, from which debts are later settled. In this specific case, it is about Generali insurance, from which only a few lucky ones managed to collect.

The same owner opened a new company Travelego.eu in the name of his wife and is still doing the same thing through the new company.

– When we did not receive any information about the refund, we formed a group on social media, which today has over 450 members. The first disputed concert was by Billie Eilish back in 2020, whose tour was canceled. Since I paid for cancellation insurance, I did not receive a refund. At that time, the agency offered disgraceful settlements, such as a 20 percent discount if we hired them five times for trips. The owner said he had no money for refunds and that if we sued him to the inspectorate, he would declare bankruptcy and we would never see our money again. The same applied to going to the media.

As a group, we made an effort to investigate the owner's business and concluded that he did the same thing 11 years ago when he had the agency Investigo, which also went bankrupt, then opened Svikoncerti d.o.o. which operated in this way until the pandemic. Then he opened Travelego in the name of his wife. We suspect that for most arrangements he did not even buy tickets or is now reselling them through the new agency. What remains unclear is why he does not take the same guests who have already purchased tickets through the former agency. His suggestion was that we report our claims to Fina as creditors. Interestingly, he himself found himself on the list of creditors, but under the item buyer/citizen. We also contacted some concert organizers to inquire whether Drvar purchased tickets from them, and some responded that they had never collaborated with him – said Marina Babić, adding that Drvar has another company Travego for passenger transport and vehicle rental and that there are indications that he used the paid money to purchase new vehicles.

– We reported him to DORH at the beginning of April, that is, several people individually filed a criminal complaint, however, they also did not receive any feedback because it is a 'secret' while the case is being resolved – says Babić.  

And here begins our adventure, more specifically the correspondence with the State Inspectorate in Zagreb, the State Inspectorate in Varaždin, the Misdemeanor Court in Zagreb, the Municipal Court in Varaždin, and DORH. All these are institutions to which the complaints of defrauded customers were sent. And so we spun in circles for 15 days, starting from the State Inspectorate where everything ultimately ended.

In the first response from the State Inspectorate, it states the following:

– The Tourist Inspection of the State Inspectorate received a number of complaints from travelers regarding the operations of the travel agency in question due to unreturned funds paid for an unexecuted travel contract in a package arrangement. Based on the received complaints, the tourist inspectors of the State Inspectorate conducted eight inspections (in one inspection, multiple complaints from travelers were included), where it was determined that not a single traveler was refunded the funds paid for the unexecuted travel contract in the package arrangement. The tourist inspectors filed four criminal charges against the competent court for the established offenses, i.e., for repeated offenses, with a proposal that the committed offenses be treated as a prolonged offense, in accordance with the provisions of the Misdemeanor Act, based on which the Misdemeanor Court in Varaždin has not yet issued a ruling. Also, after the inspections, the tourist inspectors informed the complainants about the established facts and measures taken – they say at DIRH.

However, as we unofficially learn from group members, after the case was transferred to the court in Varaždin, the inspector also unofficially called some members and said that it is best to negotiate with the agency owner 'on the side', because what good is it to punish him?! Furthermore, the Tourist Inspection of the State Inspectorate states that it has no authority to order the travel agency to refund the paid funds to travelers for unexecuted contracts because this is not prescribed by the Tourism Services Act and that it is only competent to take prescribed misdemeanor measures against the travel agency. According to Marina Babić, no one has received a response or resolution regarding whether any misdemeanor measures have been taken.

At DORH, they told us that criminal complaints were filed directly with the competent County State Attorney's Office in Zagreb and directed us to their address from which we received a response that 'The County State Attorney's Office in Zagreb is taking measures and actions within its jurisdiction in the mentioned case. The complainants will be informed about the actions taken in accordance with legal provisions.'

At the Municipal Court in Varaždin, they say that on March 21, 2022, a criminal charge against Drvar was received and that the case is in the judge's office – Other cases in which the aforementioned defendants are mentioned have been referred to the Municipal Misdemeanor Court in Zagreb, and those proceedings are being conducted at that court, so I suggest you request information from them – the judges in Varaždin replied.

The Municipal Misdemeanor Court in Zagreb says that there are two cases, both referred from the court in Varaždin, on their table. One case has been definitively concluded in such a way that the criminal charge was dismissed due to deficiencies in the written accusation by the plaintiff – the State Inspectorate in Varaždin. The other case is being resolved, referred on April 4, 2022, but two main hearings scheduled for April 28, 2022, and May 16, 2022, have been postponed.

To somehow catch this whole saga by the head and tail, we called the State Inspectorate in Varaždin to see how they composed the 'accusation' that was dismissed, we even got inspector Ljubica Oreški who is familiar with the whole case, however, in the end, we were 'shut down' by the press service of the State Inspectorate who asked us to no longer contact officials and to stop putting pressure on the judiciary:

'Any commentary on the work of courts or judges in the process of making individual court decisions, as well as commenting on non-final court decisions, can be interpreted as pressure on the court's work that must make a certain decision, and such pressure means interference and violation of the independence and autonomy of the judicial authority, i.e., courts and judges in making court decisions.

Consequently, we cannot comment on the work of courts and judges in the process of making court decisions, nor on non-final court decisions.'

And all this from an inspection that has no judicial authority in the Republic of Croatia, as they themselves wrote in the first correspondence.

Just as we, apart from walking from address to address, are not any smarter in the end, so too are customers unable to find out whether they will ever get justice and their money. In the meantime, Tomica Drvar continues to sell arrangements for concerts and people continue to fall for the incredible trick: 'you will receive concert tickets on the bus'.

In an imaginary bus that does not depart from anywhere to anywhere, but, according to members of the Facebook group, has so far 'transported' more than half a million kuna of real kuna, of which every trace has been lost. 

To make matters worse, the owner does not always have the same 'template'. Sometimes he actually takes some passengers to the concert. Sometimes he answers the phone, trying to negotiate, while he removes and blocks some from his pages. He has never answered our calls or emails.

We also asked the Ministry of Tourism and Sports what the exact criteria are for establishing a travel agency, especially in cases where owners went into pre-bankruptcy or bankruptcy and then continued under a new name with the same practice. Namely, Svikoncerti d.o.o. is not the only such case recently. Jutarnji list wrote about two other agencies that never executed the paid arrangements for travel, Alga Travel which after bankruptcy is today Alga Turizam and Kontakt Tours which 'rose from the ashes' as Jadran Alpe Nautika.

The Ministry emphasizes that they have no legal authority or obligation to verify the operations of former companies.

– All complaints that indicate violations of the provisions of the Tourism Services Act are forwarded to the Tourist Inspection of the State Inspectorate for action, including the agencies mentioned above – they said at the Ministry.

When asked how many similar cases of agencies that decided to save their existence during the pandemic at the expense of customers still exist, they replied that they had received complaints regarding about a dozen travel agencies with which there was a problem of refunding funds paid for unexecuted trips due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The pandemic is, by all accounts, at least a temporary past, agency owners have just put on another guise and continue to operate without masks, while our judiciary is under too much pressure to protect citizens and punish those who enrich themselves at their expense. But at least we have implemented European directives.