Ron Smith is a con man, and AOC should be bought to the attention of anyone considering using this company!
Our group was on 22 week trip from Cairo to Capetown, we were informed Ron Smith{owner of AOC} would meet us at the airport, instead our Kiwi driver arrived, with no truck and no tour guide, after a hectic time in Egypt, we flew to Addis where we again were expecting to find Ron, only this time with a truck!
On arrival in Addis, again no Ron, our driver was gutted, but organised taxis and searched for Ron, we found him still intoxicated with his Ethiopian "girlfriend" in the truck.
On our first day in the truck, which had old tyres from wrecking yard as spares, tied to the roof and in the back of truck, which we had to climb over everytime entering the truck, not to mention one passenger almost getting seriously injured when a tyre fell of roof and swung into our area!
The first day we set off, half of the mounts securing the back of the truck to the chassis broke, this was on normal road suface.
We also had to rely on the food Kitty as truck funds as Ron had no money to leave the driver, and what funds were available were actually used to make a roof rack to secure those damn tyres!!
This was all in the first 3 weeks of our "expedition". .
The situation got so bad by time we arrived in Nairobi our whole group sent signed by all fax to Ron, as well as TNT magazine, explaining our numerous concerns, to which he replied it was not a "babysitting" tours.

All makes good reading, huh?
Here is a copy of the letter of complaint I just sent to OnThe Go, in regards to a trip which was done with Overland CLub. Apparently OntheGo have their own trucks for the northern sections of Africa, and take the Overland club passengers, and Overland Club do the 'Dodgy' southern leg of the trips. I'm still waiting for a reply.
We were unfortunate enough to have Ron as our driver for half our trip.. .. . - which you might have thought was a good thing.. .. .. . - apparently not. I dont think he can spell "customer service". .. .. .

Letter reads

". .. ..Dear OnTheGo Customer Service Representative.

I am currently in Cape Town. I have just finished a short trip here from Vic Falls with another tour operator. I am requesting a reply to this email ASAP please.

Below I have listed the areas of concern/complaints that my wife and I have from our trip with On The Go/Overland Club. I would like somebody from one of your organisations to address each point of these concerns. Some have already been discussed at length with Ron Smith and "Scott" from OnTheGo, however, I feel that it is necessary for me to put this all in writing.

I attempted to detail these points in my feedback forms, however, I have concerns that these may not have been recieved by your office/s as they were handed to Overland Club staff of whom they were very critical.

1) On one of the nights at Kande Beach in Malawi, a party was organised by the driver and his assistant. The driver in question, ****, and the assistant ****, purchased a large quantity of alcohol to make 'punch' (including in excess of 8 litres of spirits), and encouraged some fairly irresponsible drinking behaviour during the course of the evening. After some people had left the party, in various stages of inebriation, 2 of the girls who were alone in their tents had unsolicited, predatory, coercive sexual approaches made to them, by the driver ****, and his assistant ****, respectively.
One of these involved the young lady in question leaving the party at around 11 pm, and around 10 or 15 minutes after she had gone to bed **** unzipped her tent door, let himself in, and ". .. ..started groping her" in spite of her protestations. She asked him to leave, however he refused. He stayed in her tent for over an hour, and tried to pressure her into having sex with him. However he did apparently became quite agitated when he heard male voices from other members of the tour outside the tent door, and pleaded with her not to raise the alarm. In spite of this it took another 40 minutes for the young lady to eject him from her tent. She was very traumatised by the whole experience, and took several days to even feel brave enough to mention to anyone else on the tour. She told me that she had difficulty sleeping after that period, and felt that the tour had been ruined for her from that point onwards. I spent a significant period of time counselling her about the experince, and the breach of trust that it entailed.
Another of the girls woke up around 3am to find the driver ***, already stripped down to his underpants, in her tent climbing under her sleeping bag. He insisted that he had nowhere else to sleep, because **** was ". .. ..busy with some girl" in his tent, in spite of **** actually having booked into a room. She resisted his advances and asked him to leave. He attempted to convince her to let him stay, and only after around 45 minutes did he leave. Again, the passenger in question was traumatised by the experience, and very upset. She ended up having somewhat of a showdown at the end of the tour, after a lot to drink one evening. **** seemed unconcerned with the effect his actions had on the passenger in question, or the group as a whole once it came out what had happened. He appeared remorseless.

Both **** and **** seemed to be relying on their positions of trust and relative power, and the hope that the girls in question would (and indeed, partly DID) feel that they couldn't complain about the tour leaders, when we were going to be relying on them fairly heavily, as we were only halfway through the tour.

To lend credence to these complaints, I have spoken to another backpacker who was staying at a Dar Es Salaam campground while the tour passengers including myself were at Zanzibar. She recognised **** at a later campsite and spoke to me about an incident whereby ****, whilst drinking in the bar at the campsite, assaulted her. She was sober, and paying her bill, and when she left the bar he grabbed her by both forearms, and insisted that she sit on his knee or kiss him. She refused, and in attempting to force her to do so, he significantly bruised both her forearms with the strength of his grip. These bruises were still present when I spoke to her days later.

2) In addition, **** and **** arranged for our Zanzibar boat tickets. They overcharged everyone (ie 27 passengers) 10 US dollars, and refused to acknowledge their 'mistake'. . They tried to pass it off as a tax or harbour/boarding fee initially, and then simply said they had made a mistake and couldn't get the money back. It was only when I asked that one of them accompany me to the office of the ferry line to ask for the money back, and thereafter to accompany me to the police station if the money was still not forthcoming that they suddenly told me that the ferry company had actually given them the money back. However, they said they'd hang on to the money, so they could use it to pay for our "Zambian Visas". .

I spoke to the woman who arranged the Zambian Visa Waivers, who told me that they were free - she had not paid any fees, nor had she recieved any money for arranging them. Apparently this practice is usual - most of the hostels, and all the other tour companies I spoke to perform this service for free. Indeed, charging for these waivers is frowned upon by the Zambian immigration service, as I discovered when I mentioned it to the border guards. The waivers are free to try to encourage tourism, apparently. ****, however, merely blustered when I asked him to return the ten dollars, and made up a variety of excuses. These ranged from initially telling me that he DID have to pay for the waivers, to then saying that the money was a bribe to the immigration officials, and finally telling me that it was a fee to an "advocate" to facillitate their processing. He seemed concerned that I convey to the other members of the group where the money had gone. It was only when I told him that I thought he was lying that he returned 180 US dollars - there were only 19 of us left on the truck at this stage.

3. In spite of numerous requests to see the kitty records, including 6 requests made, 2 requests each day over the last 3 days of the tour while we were in Vic Falls, **** could/would not provide such records. Excuses included not having completed the records, not having access to a computer, not having had time, and finally, a simple flat refusal.

4. I had only 5 minutes to peruse the spreadsheet of the kitty records for the 2 week 'Gorillas' leg of our recent trip. I was told by Ron Smith that a printout would be given to the driver of the next leg (****) for him to give to me. I asked for this on the last day of the Nairobi-Vic Falls Leg of the trip, and was told that yes he had it, but that he would not give it to me.

5. During the first 2 weeks of the trip, I had several long discussions with Ron Smith about the costs of the trip. Many of these were either hidden, or the information provided to us before the trip was incorrect - sometimes significantly. While I accept that it may be hard to keep abreast of all this data, I think it is important to point out that up-to-date information is one of the things that I consider myself to be PAYING for when I book a trip like this. To be simply fobbed off and told that its too hard to keep up to date isn't really good enough.

Ron Smith's defense was always ". ..well, do you feel like you're getting value for money or not?" is not good enough. If the staff he hires are dishonest, as I believe they were in this case, and steal from their clients, I do not think I'm getting value for money, no. I sincerely feel that **** and **** should not be placed in positions of trust where their lack of honesty places customers at risk. Unfortunately OnTheGo, by association will earn some of the bad feeling, and bad press these events may generate.

I await your reply, and will be intrigued to see whether you attempt to redress some of these events and the issues they raise. I am still out of pocket, and still waiting to see the kitty accounts for both parts of the trip. I feel I am at least entitled to copies of these spreadsheets, and request that you provide them.

Finally - I have spent the last 3 weeks travelling with another overland company to Cape Town. Their service has been earnest, well organised, and professional. In other words - value for money. Sadly, OnTheGo/Overland Club have a long way to go to match their standard.

Regards
. .. ..blah blah blah.

cameron_rosie@hotmail.com

In regards to the above reports we wish to inform readers that Overland Club has nothing to hide and accepts that the above messages may have some truth, (but not all). . Readers are welcome to contact us directly.

Sounds like Ron needs to get his act and the acts of his crew under control. I went on a very successful trip from Nairobi to Cape Town several years ago with AOC. 27 started the trip and 25 finished it. It was a great experience and our driver and guide did an excellent job. Way to go Graham and Mel!
Sorry to hear that AOC has had trouble. They have expanded a lot in the past 5 years. Getting a good driver is difficult. I know they don't get paid much, but that is no excuse for the actions they are accused of. (exaggerated or not they obviously did not handle themselves well) Taking money from passengers under false pretenses is unacceptable. Leave that for the touts and thieves. I hope Ron has responded and cleaned up the company. They had a good reputation, I hope they have done the right thing. If they didn't, they will suffer greatly. Bad news travels fast on the net.

Overland Club are a pretty bad company tbh, I left the trans africa tour in Feb and after being branded a 'childish liar' by Ron I started a little project to warn potential travellers.. .. .. .. .

www.overlandclub.eu - would you risk them?

Hey Alan,

Could you tell me more about your experience please?

I am looking to do the West Africa section with Overland Club next year, as I have just completed their East Africa section & had a great time.

I left Nairobi on the 15th Jan 2007 for Vic Falls. Our group had 3 Overland Club crew Ronnie, Kim & Jason (granted Kim & Jason were training) but they were excellent in their job. Kim had been an ex passenger, who decided to join Overland Club as crew.

Not sure if you were just unlucky with your trip Alan, as I have to say that I had a very different experience with OC and will definately travel with them again, the bonus is that you get a discount with your loyalty card - Yeah £50 off, but its better than nothing hey?!

Overlanding does have a lot to do with attitude and allowing that some things will go wrong. For the length of tours and regions that OC travel you can not expect everything to go smoothly, god we had blow outs on our trip, just something that you've gotta get on with.

In my experience, overlanding is about getting stuck in yourself, not having your hand held through-out, being flexible and understanding that the rough of it is just as valuable an experience as the smooth. Would you agree?

I agree 200%, however I am not the only passenger to feel this way, in the last 2 days I have contacted 5 ex passengers, all of which havent posted there experiences on any forums, and funnily enough, they are all bad, and FAR worse than my story. Feel free to read all these stories on the website, and a lot more are due to come. The latest stories are from Sep 06 right up until last month! To be honest I am finding what I am reading quite unbelievable about overland club, but sadly after hearing from different people on the same trips, its true.
As for Ron's customer service skills? Well, they leave alot to be desired and to be honest, only inflame ones views. Afterall Ron is always right, and his passengers are always wrong. Eh Ron?

Below are a couple of quotes from a couple of stories from a passenger from a tour in Sep/Oct 2006.

"USE OVERLAND CLUB AT YOUR PERIL - RON COULDNT GIVE A DAMN!"

"I have never in my life felt so vulnerable, financially. Physically and mentally. Apart from the other passengers there was no one to turn to and nothing you could do."

"Ron told the guide to collect money from the Ukrainians for park permits, but to use it instead to replace the local payment"

"I too am well travelled and used to overlanding and appreciate things go wrong but our experience of Overland Club is most things went wrong!"

"I was telling the driver I had to catch an Overland Club [truck] back in Nairobi.Then all the stories started. I thought he was just bad mouthing them. But campsites and other tour leaders also told me stories that are hard to swallow."



NOTE:All these quotes can be found within ex-passenger stories. I cannot accept any liability or responsibility for the views/comments expressed.

"I too am well travelled and used to overlanding and appreciate things go wrong but our experience of Overland Club is most things went wrong!"

Note that key quote, I 100% agree with that.


Make up your own mind about Overland Club.

Hmm.. . Sounds like too many people were unlucky with their trips!

I do have to say though that I did have a very different experience with Overland Club and like I said am considering traveling with them again through West Africa.

Its a tough call, I would recommend the company to anyone who asked and I believe that everyone else who was on the trip with me would too, I appreciate that everyone's experiences and opinions are different, something I suppose that happens in all cases.

I think I will do a comparison with other companies, however Overland Club is by far the cheapest operator I have found and may not seem to offer the full range of services that more costly companies could afford.

hmm more wood for the fire.. .. .

www.overlandwarning.com a nice insight to overland club.. .. .