Kilimanjaro

We Paid For Our Tanzania Trip Twice

Kilimanjaro and the Serengeti were incredible. Getting there cost us double, because the guy who booked it never passed the money on. Here's what happened and how you can avoid it. We went in January 2017 - two of us, eight days up Kilimanjaro on the Lemosho route, then straight into a safari leg through Tarangire, Serengeti and Ngorongoro. Full board, camping, $2,825 each, $5,650 total. We booked through Bramwel Safaris in Arusha. The trip itself I'd do again tomorrow. Ngorongoro is the thing you shouldn't skip - the crater walls, the greenery, the whole enclosed-world feeling of it is stunning in a way the Serengeti savannah isn't, and the savannah is beautiful too. The coffee plantation tour surprised me; they roast and brew it for you on the spot and there's a dance ritual around it. Sounds touristy on paper, it was great. We also visited a Maasai village, worth doing. The guides, drivers and porters were all good at their jobs. Now the part I actually want people to read. A friend of mine did essentially this exact trip two years earlier and had a flawless experience with the same touring company. So I copy-pasted his itinerary and booked the same outfit on his recommendation. This wasn't a random Google result or an Instagram ad. We emailed back and forth with a guy named William, everything felt professional, he sent a payment link, we paid by credit card, and an invoice came through with a reference number and full bank details. Everything seemed kosher. We found out later that he kept the money. We found out mid-trip. At the start of the climb when we got there that he never actually paid the safari people. So we paid them directly, in cash, on the spot in order to actually do the clim. By the end we'd covered the full cost of the trip twice. Once to William, and once to the people actually delivering it. We filed a chargeback with Mastercard when we got home and won it after some disputing back and forth. So we came out whole financially, but only because we'd used a credit card. William kept the original payment. Nobody ever clawed it back from him. Mastercard ate it. That's the whole lesson, really: pay by credit card, never wire. The human side of it was strange. When we raised the problem, William didn't dodge us. He invited us to his home and we sat with his family. He wasn't hiding. When we got back into town at the end of the trip, the police had arrested him and we saw him in custody. He wasn't fighting the accusation - the look on his face was closer to shame and acceptance. The detective on the case was named Innocent, which is a detail I still think about. I stayed in touch with him for a few weeks after we flew home, nothing came of it, and I never heard how the case ended. At the end of the day we got our money back, and who knows maybe he really needed the money for something because when they arrested him he didnt have it anymore. On whether the company knew: my instinct is that this was William, not them. My friend booked the same outfit two years earlier and had a perfect trip, and the crews on the mountain and in the parks were professional throughout. I'm not accusing anyone else. But I can't rule it out either. The operators did get paid — by us — so the trip ran, everyone downstream got their money, and the only party out of pocket at the end was a credit card company. Whether anyone else knew the funds weren't coming through the normal channel, I have no idea. The investigation never reached a conclusion I ever heard about, and a case that just goes quiet isn't the same as a case that clears someone. So, what to actually do: Pay by credit card, always. Not wire, not bank transfer, not cash up front. From 8,000 miles away, a chargeback is your only real protection. Get the ground operator's direct contact, not just the booking agent's, and email them a week or two before you fly to confirm your trip is paid up on their end. One sentence. That single email would have saved us the entire headache. Keep every document — the invoice, the itinerary, every email thread. That paper trail is what won us the chargeback. Remember that a friend's recommendation is a recommendation for a company at a moment in time. My friend's trip through the same outfit went perfectly. Mine didn't. The individuals inside a company change, and so do their circumstances. And budget a real buffer. We had to cover a night's accommodation and an entire safari leg unplanned. If we hadn't had access to the funds, we'd have been stranded mid-trip. Would I recommend the trip? Completely. Kilimanjaro and Ngorongoro were worth all of it. Would I recommend paying one person up front with no way to verify the money landed where it's supposed to? Obviously not. It worked out in the end, and now it's just a story — but the guy who took the money kept it, nobody was held to account, and it could have gone a lot worse for us. Do the trip. Protect your payment. I've attached the invoice and the full itinerary we received, with my personal details blacked out.