Voices of 48,000 Complaints: What UZ Shoppers Say in Public

In 2025, the Antimonopoly Committee of Uzbekistan received more than 48,000 complaints from citizens. Most of them were about providing consumers with false information.

That's a public figure. The body of these complaints is not. Who exactly complained, about what, in what words — that data is not open, and rightly so: personal appeals should stay private.

But Uzbekistanis talk about marketplaces very publicly — on otzovik.com, 2gis.uz, Yandex.Maps, Google Play. Last weekend we read 200+ such reviews across the five largest marketplaces in Uzbekistan (Uzum, Olcha, Asaxiy, Texnomart, Mediapark) and categorized them by hand. The result is more complex than you'd expect from reading just the "48,000 complaints" headline. We're sharing our methodology and findings.

What we read and how

Platform· Status· What we got otzovik.com· primary source· aggregated profiles of all 5 marketplaces, review text visible without sign-in 2gis.uz· primary source· the largest volume of UZ-specific reviews; pickup-point profiles concentrate operational complaints yandex.uz / Maps· partial· the Asaxiy.uz internet-store profile returned 18 dated complaints; Texnomart and Mediapark on Yandex were blocked by SmartCaptcha — didn't get them Google Play· blocked· the apps' DOM only exposes aggregated ratings, individual reviews come only from the signed-in client Trustpilot· blocked· uzum.uz returned 403; UZ coverage on Trustpilot is thin overall

Out of the total pool of 120 individual complaints, we quoted them verbatim with the author named and (where available) the date. Another 80+ neutral and positive reviews we read for a general sense of tone, but don't quote.

Period: the earliest quotes are from late 2019, the bulk from 2023–2026.

Languages: ~92% Russian, ~8% Uzbek (Latin script). There are almost no Uzbek-Cyrillic complaints in the sample — Cyrillic speakers tend to voice their concerns in Telegram channels, which we didn't parse.

Honest about the limitations: Public platforms attract dissatisfied users disproportionately. The real share of problems is smaller than the sample suggests. otzovik is documented to practice paid moderation — we use otzovik for what people say, not for how many say it. Uzum dominates the 2gis sample thanks to its large pickup-point network. Asaxiy and Olcha are represented less because they have fewer pickup points in the 2gis catalog — that doesn't mean they have fewer problems. We do not have access to the Antimonopoly Committee's 48,000 complaints. Our sample is a slice of the public web, not the Committee's corpus. We don't pass one off as the other.

The full methodology and the list of quoted URLs are in the research file in the repository.

Top 7 complaints in our sample

After categorizing 120 quotes:

#· Pattern· Share· Loudest 1· Delivery and fulfillment· 34%· Uzum 2· Support doesn't respond / doesn't resolve· 27%· Asaxiy 3· Returns / refunds refused· 16%· Uzum / Asaxiy (evenly split) 4· Price tricks (fake "sales", shelf tag vs checkout)· 9%· Mediapark 5· Phantom stock — item "in stock", actually not· 8%· Asaxiy 6· Counterfeit and questionable authenticity· 3%· Olcha 7· Suspected review manipulation (a soft signal)· 3%· Asaxiy

The headline of this sample is delivery, not "fake discounts." That's the first important correction to intuition: when a Uzbekistani complains about a marketplace in public, they most often complain not about price, but about the order not arriving, the wrong item arriving, or arriving in poor condition.

Why 9% is the most important segment

So why are we building BirBozor around price tricks rather than around delivery? Because the available remedy differs across these categories.

Delivery is governed by the general consumer-protection law. A lawsuit is possible, but it requires an individual process. Not fast.

Support has no specific legal protection — it's a matter of corporate standards, and for the buyer the only lever is to complain publicly.

Price tricks have, as of October 21, 2025, separate and very concrete legislation: a Cabinet of Ministers decree prohibits the artificial inflation of prices; the "old price" against which a "sale" is calculated must equal the minimum price over the past 30 days. A complaint to the Antimonopoly Committee here is not an individual lawsuit but a filing with concrete arithmetic that is easier to prove, and the regulator enforces it actively (in April 2026 it fined 6 developers for exactly this practice).

In other words: 9% is the segment that just received a powerful regulatory lever. It's the smallest of all the others by loudness, but potentially the largest by legal effectiveness per complaint.

BirBozor is built around these 9% not because they are the loudest, but because they are the most actionable. And, along the way, it is precisely in these 9% that the consumer today has no tools to verify on their own — and a 30-day price history solves that in one tap.

Across the 5 marketplaces — what shoppers say

Uzum

The dominant pain is the pickup point. Queues, rude staff, refusal to accept defective goods without the seller's consent. The Telegram support is separately flagged as "deceitful" — that's a serious signal, because Uzum positions TG as its primary channel. A separate theme is AliExpress orders via Uzum: parcels get lost, and refunds aren't issued even when the system shows "returned."

"They don't deliver on time, support on TG is only capable of deceiving" — @sahsatp, otzovik, 17.11.2025

"the order didn't reach the recipient, they write 'returned'. Four times!!! And they didn't refund the money" — @gizatulinafirda, otzovik, 24.11.2024

Olcha

The harshest single accusation in the whole sample is about Olcha:

"90 percent of the perfume is counterfeit! Lots of expired goods!" — @Oltintog, otzovik, 27.07.2024

This doesn't mean 90% is actually counterfeit — it means at least one public review claims that figure. The Antimonopoly Committee already found counterfeit goods on UZ marketplaces in May 2025, including Olcha. In parallel — a pattern of "accepted the order, then canceled it with no alternative" on large appliances.

Asaxiy

The most legally vulnerable pattern in the sample belongs to Asaxiy: phantom stock + refusal to refund. It's an identical complaint structure across different authors in different years:

"They confirmed twice that it was in stock — turned out to be false information" — Michael A., Yandex Maps, 24.12.2025

"They took the money and vanished off the radar... They don't answer calls" — Igor Ryzhov, Yandex Maps, 27.09.2023

"I returned the item, but they didn't refund the money" — Shokhrukh Khakimov, Yandex Maps, 15.01.2025

Texnomart

The main storyline is the price gap with the "Malika" bazaar. Shoppers put it bluntly:

"Prices are 1.5 times higher than at Malika!!!" — Shokha Khudaykulov, 2gis.uz

In parallel — the catalog says "in stock", the showroom doesn't have it; international cards aren't accepted; they don't answer calls.

Mediapark

The drive of complaints is shelf tag vs checkout. The most extreme: "it was 2 million, became 4+ million on the receipt."

"The shelf tag was one thing and the actual amount turned out to be different. The price was originally 2 million but ended up over 4 million" — Roza Jumagaldiyeva, 2gis.uz

This is a direct candidate for a complaint to the Antimonopoly Committee under the new law: a discrepancy between the published price and the actual one has long been prohibited by the advertising and consumer-protection law.

A few voices we want you to hear

"Different prices for the same item when viewed from different devices" — @Anonim7065683, otzovik, Uzum, 23.01.2026

"No consumer protection whatsoever! No refund guarantee whatsoever!" — @KatrinaBorzaya, otzovik, Uzum, 28.01.2024

"They constantly promise 'we'll get in touch' and then disappear" — Shon Ness, Yandex Maps, Asaxiy, 08.10.2025

"If you're a buyer — suffer; if you're a seller — suffer twice as much" — @xander123, otzovik, Uzum, 29.09.2023

These aren't cherry-picked extremes — they're the structure. The same phrases appear from different authors on different platforms in different years. When the regulator writes "48,000 citizen appeals," it's catching the tail of this distribution. On otzovik and 2gis we see the same distribution, only without the anonymization.

What to do right now

See a "sale" with a round "old price"? Under the new law, the "old price" = the minimum over 30 days. If it only appeared right before the sale — that's a violation. Screenshot + URL + complaint to the Antimonopoly Committee.

A discrepancy between the shelf tag and the checkout? That's Article 14 of the Law on Consumer Protection. The store is obligated to give you the item at the shelf-tag price. Don't back down.

Order didn't arrive, money not refunded? First — a pre-trial claim to the store with a stated deadline. Then — a filing to the Main Department for Consumer Protection or to court.

Subscribe to @birbozor_uz on Telegram — we check prices by hand every day, and every week we post a "receipt" — a specific case with a specific store. The beta of the app that automates the 30-day check is 7 weeks away.

What we couldn't get

To keep the article honest, let's list what's missing from this slice:

Reviews from Google Play and the App Store — the DOM is protected, you need a Console API or a paid scraper. Yandex Maps for Texnomart and Mediapark — SmartCaptcha blocked every attempt. That's hundreds of dated complaints we didn't get. Telegram complaint channels (@uzum_jaloblar-style) — not indexed by ordinary search. Requires a separate run via the Telegram API. The Antimonopoly Committee's corpus itself — private, and we don't try to circumvent that.

That's why the article is framed as: "here's what 200 public reviews say across five platforms." That's a weaker claim than "here's what the Committee's corpus says," but it's one we can defend.

Next article: "220 fakes on Uzum: a guide to checking authenticity" — out in week 3. Subscribe to TG @birbozor_uz so you don't miss it.

The full list of quoted reviews and URLs is in research/consumer-reviews-w2.md.