Unofficial guide and guard scams in Egypt

Ticket control at Pyramids in Egypt

Ticket control scam at the Pyramids in Egypt

Where? At the path in front of the pyramids in Cairo.

Who? A guy claiming to be an official tour guide, he shows you his badge (it’s just a printed and laminated fake badge), he firmly asks to see your ticket.

How it works? You show him your ticket and he takes it from you then guiding you along towards the stalls and giving you photo opportunity in right in front of the Sphinx. You think “oh great because I can’t get there!”. The truth is, nobody can get up close to the Sphinx anymore these days! He just takes you to the empty sands in front of the Sphinx and then asks for money, you are vulnerable as you ‘re isolated from the rest, they target single travellers!

Tips:
• Never show your ticket unless it’s a tourist police officer in white uniform (and even they participate in scams!)
• If you don’t want a camel ride or a souvenir, just wave off everyone quickly and walk on slowly but firmly!
• Show that you know all about their scams, they don’t like experienced travellers!

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A lot of stories of being scammed in Egypt

A lot of stories of being scammed in Egypt have been surfaced all over. A working instance is around the Giza Pyramids in Egypt. The pyramids are tourist scenes. I do remember longing to visit the pyramids while in highschool, however I could not make it alone due to lack of all that money and the fact that I was still young. My father therefore promised to take over to Egypt if my results would be good on that particular year(2012). I didn’t disappoint in my studies and now it was the turn of my father to keep his promise.

Egypt was the best place so far. We were really amused how at first the guides around provided their services cheaply, not knowing that other charges were not catered for, in fact, the fee only catered for the ride around.

Dear traveller, I would always ask you to engage official guides and prepare to have extra cash on you while traveling to Giza Pyramids in Egypt

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A tour guide that never was

A cab driver took me around Giza, and from there, I needed some Arabic speaking guide to at least give me directions and map out my itinerary. Well, the cab guy hooked me up with one mid age man, who introduced himself as Gamal. He gave me a roadmap of the place I would want to visit and historic places around Giza, but he seemed to go round and round till I bashed him for this. In the end, he had exaggerated his mileage and pay per hour. He met his match when ii called the police. That guy would have ripped me off.

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Have encountered like 20 of the site’s scams in two days

I think we’ve encountered like 20 of the site’s scams in two days. Luckily didn’t fall for them too badly.

Few that weren’t on the list:

1) our hotel taxi driver gave us his personal number so we could book the rides directly from him, without the involvement of the hotel (more money and control to himself)

2) young boy near Giza was selling some figurines. He was really pushy, wouldn’t leave us alone. He put the figurines into my dad’s pockets and when my dad tried to give them back, they fell to the ground. Then he demanded payment for damaged merchandise.

3) a security guard/police (not sure which) at Giza tried to encourage us to climb the pyramids. If we had done it, he probably would have fined us. He demanded money for information as well.

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Ended up paying $120 instead of normal price of 120 Egpyt pounds

OMG

I didn’t see this site on Egypt time before travelling to Egypt. I fell into a trap of a suppose nice local who swindled me out of my cash.

He posed as a local tourist guide and the price he gave me was quite cheaper than my hotel. On the day of the tour, he brought a taxi that took me to Giza pyramid and sakkara desert.

The local guy discussed with the people he said would give me entrance ticket, I never knew he discussed inflating the price.

I ended up paying $120 instead of normal price of 120 Egpyt pounds for just Giza pyramid entrance fee with camel ride and quad bike ride at sakkara desert.

After my experience in Egypt, I don’t think I can trust any Egyptians again. Thanks for this wonderful site as I have learnt a lot from it.

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