A high-risk friend-making app that connects teenagers with strangers. Wizz has been repeatedly removed from app stores over child-safety and sextortion concerns. What parents need to know.
Official age
18+
We recommend
18+
Developer
Voodoo
Risks
4
Wizz is a friend-making app that shows users a stream of stranger profiles to swipe through and message — a format often compared to Yubo and to dating apps. It has drawn serious child-safety criticism and has been removed from the Apple and Google app stores more than once over concerns it was being used to target and financially sextort teenagers. It has been age-rated 18+ following that pressure, but the core function — connecting children with strangers they do not know — is what makes it risky.
Teenagers use Wizz to meet new people by swiping through profiles and starting chats. Because matches are with strangers rather than existing friends, and conversations can move quickly to other platforms, it creates exactly the conditions predators and sextortion scammers exploit: an unknown adult can pose as a peer, build rapid trust, and pressure a young person into sending images or money.
Who can contact you
Location: In-app profile and privacy settings
Set to: Most restrictive available — but note settings cannot remove the core stranger-contact risk
Wizz's purpose is to connect users with strangers, so privacy settings can limit but not eliminate the risk. There is no configuration that makes swiping and chatting with unknown adults safe for a child.
Report and block
Location: On any profile or chat
Set to: Use immediately for any adult contact, requests for images, or money
Blocking and reporting are the main tools available. Financial sextortion moves fast, so acting at the first sign — rather than continuing to engage — matters.
Check whether Wizz (or a similar friend-making app) is installed on your child's device
Time: 5 minutes
Have a calm conversation about sextortion: that scammers pose as attractive peers, that it is never the young person's fault, and that they can always come to you
Time: 20 minutes
Remove the app — the combination of stranger swiping and a documented sextortion problem is not something settings can mitigate for a child
Time: 5 minutes
In immediate danger: call 999. For non-emergency police matters, call 101.
Concerned about a child but it's not an emergency? NSPCC helpline 0808 800 5000. Childline for young people 0800 1111.
Last reviewed: 2026-07-27