KianGO Tanzania Safaris Zanzibar Travel Holidays
KianGo Adventure Safaris
- Located In:
- Size:
- 1-5 employees (Founded in 2002)
- Tour Types:
- Budget camping tours where clients assist with camp chores
- Destinations:
- Price Range:
- $25 to $1,000 per person per day (USD, excl. int'l flights)
Reviews
DE
Email Simone | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
800$ gone.
In January 2017 I paid 800$ for a Safari, I didn't even go to.
David guaranteed me, personally/on the phone and via Email, that I would receive my refund 100% via Paypal.
Still haven't seen my money.
Parents d $800 for 8 tickets cost of which Are $33 each
Do not use this agent. Please google all bad reviews. He over charged us for tickets and three weeks later had still not purchased them. We told him we needed copies of tickets when we flew into Dar to price we had an exit. He said his Pay pal account was in dr so had no money and was trying the get it from other sources. Totally unprofessional.
Email Thea Quin | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
$800 paid and he says he has to try find the money to buy our train tickets. It’s a scam
Absolutely awful I trust worthy this man should not be getting away with what he is doing. We paid $800 for train tickets. We want our tickets and he says when we sent him the money through PayPal he was in a negative balance. So now has to try get money from other sources to pay for our tickets. We have already bought our air tickets to Tanzania. At great cost. We have no train tickets for our planned journey.
Disastrous Train Booking (Daud John Kiango)
I attempted to arrange for a train ticket from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam with Daud John Kiango after he responded to an online inquiry I had made through the website http://tanzaniasafariszanzibartravel.org (which I found through a link on the train travel site seat61).
I took the chance on Daud and paid $75 in advance for him to book me a ticket, which I was to pick up at the Mbeya Tazara train station. However he never followed through and after spending two frustrating days at the Mbeya Tazara booking office I was never able to get the ticket which I had paid Daud to procure for me.
I was forced to take a bus to Dar instead and Daud promised me a prompt refund. He of course never processed a refund but did send me several incoherent emails, presumably meant to confuse me.
I would avoid this company completely.
Reply from KianGo Adventure Safaris
Posted on Nov 6, 2017Dear Mr. Scott Ng.
Thank you very much for your very nasty personal review.
Seems to be directed to me personally.
You seem to be very frustrated by the whole affair but we are not the TAZARA railway company, we are just travel agents offering products and services mainly as middleman.
You failed to secure this ticket yourself through Tazara and or any other 3rd party and after having failed you came to us asking for assistance than made a late payment to us for the seat, which we made further to Tazara Booking Offices in Dar for them to secure your seat starting in Mbeya.
99.9% of the time we do deliver even at such last minute when we recommend payments to secure Tazara seats atleast a month before travel dates or as soon as possible, but you took your time trying to secure the seat through other 3rd parties, you went window shopping and failed.
Upon arrival in Mbeya you contact us by email asking us if your ticket was ready or should you buy yourself a new one, I reply that we had already paid Tazara for your seat, let me follow up but you are free to buy another seat if you are in a rush to do so.
You further ask if you should take the bus as you have a flight to catch in a day or two, now why are you trying to catch a train that is notoriously late up to 2 days at a time to catch a flight which is round the corner and we even advice you to fly a full refund will be made as we are failing to get through to Tazara booking officer who we had made payment to.
Unfortunate you were the 0.01% that just did not work, not due to me or us having stolen your money that you started accusing us of and actually threatening us to contact the authorities that very evening if you did not get a refund by 530pm, even before the train had even been scheduled to arrive at Mbeya later on that night.
In under 10 days you had your full refund, from Tazaras side we did not ask them for a refund as we have 99.9% of our other good loyal customers booking through us, we did not start having a baby and an abortion the way you did, very nasty piece of work, booking a train that sometimes does not even run on schedule over rainy season in the middle of Africa and expecting things to go like clockwork as if you were in Canada.
Reason for the Tazara booking office failing to deliver is that the booking officer had an emergency health issue with her baby and basically delivered than the seat very late to Mbeya station but before trains departure but by this time you were already on a bus.
Scott Ng you knew this all before you wrote your review which is just not our fault if the Titanic sunk, or Concorde caught fire just because we were the booking agents does not make us crooks as you are trying to piant, seems it is only the 0.01% of our guests that make reviews and the other 99.9% that have a great time do not take the time to write reviews and our terms and conditions actually does mention the following...
****Please remember when reading through these terms and conditions that we will bend over backwards to try and solve any problems arising during your trip and will try to avoid charging any cancellation fees wherever possible.
We will beg, scrape and prostrate ourselves whenever necessary to make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible.
Customers are asked to remember that things don’t always go quite to plan in Africa as they do elsewhere, but this is improving with Zanzibar and Tanzania having become very popular destinations in recent years indeed due to the better and higher standard of services involved in every aspect.*****
Mr. Thomas Ng, please note it is only the MOST HIGH GOOD that can stop us providing services and products of anything to our likening and not you and any other guests reading your reviews, as we are trusted and the truth does come out in the end and your truth is far from the truth, we do try and do serve thousands of guests every year for the past 20 years.... you and all the others are 0.01% of nasty people that the MOST HIGH GOOD decided to teach you a bit of patients in Africa is needed perhaps, that things did not work out for your naivety in not doing your home work well enough, if you have a flight to catch in Dar please allow enough days as train is notoriously late in many cases, this is a well established fact and due to circumstances out of our control we failed to deliver than a full refund is made and has been made.
We are even surprised that SafariBookings.com allows you to publish such a hate review in the first place, you did not book through safaribookings.com in the first place so why is safaribookings.com publishing hate reviews from clients not having booked on safaribookings.com when we tried our best to deliver and you have been refunded fully.
So if British Airways system goes down and all flights are cancelled for days it is okay, but if we fail 0.01% of the time we are crooks, whose is the real crook here, Thomas Ng you are really not the MOST HIGH GOD, and with the MOST HIGH GODS power our guest and clients base will always expand, we shall serve and deliver how ever many nasty reviews you care to write, hope your heart will than be content, mine is as we are no crooks as it is the reviewers like you that are the real crooks if the truth ever came out, most of the reviews are just so hateful and not sharing the full truth........
Safaribookings guidelines are completely broken here by the reviewer as far as I can see my full name included surname being displayed on header and the client is well out of order he should book his own services next time that he failed and only after failing does he come to us, we tried, it did not work, how about the 99.9% that does work.....
THANK YOU ALL,
LOVE YOU ALL,
LOVE AND PEACE,
WHAT MORE CAN WE SAY........
WE DO IT FROM THE HEART SO WE GOT NOTHING TO FEAR....
THANK YOU MOST HIGH GOD......
Don't Use David Kiango!
David Daud Kaingo, you asked me to write you a review……here it is!
I have been waiting 2 months (2 credit card billing cycles), to write this review. I will not mince my words, just, DO NOT USE this crook. David (Daud) Kiango has no intention of helping you to book a hassle free trip. To make a long story short, he quoted me a rate, including lodging in 2 different locations, and private charter flights between locations…..and in the end, I was made to pay twice more, above the quoted rate. He was cordial and prompt at first, while initiating discussion, trip planning and rates. But, once I paid for the trip, communication was pretty much non-existent. He urged me to pay via bank transfer, but, for my security, I opted to pay the higher fees in order to have the insurance backing of my credit card company. I was later to learn, that was a very good investment on my part!
I was planning this trip, only one month before our travel date. Normally, I book all travel by myself. But, with time constraints and little knowledge of travel in Tanzania, I decided that I should use the assistance of an agent. My bad, and so unusual for me, I did not research well. There are only a few reviews of this David Kiango, a couple good, a couple minorly bad. I want to change that, along with a more recent review that was posted just before mine. Just move on, do not consider using him!
After a few days of correspondence, I booked and paid for our trip, on 11/10/16, for a trip to take place on 12/15/16. After I paid, I heard very little from David Kiango. He strung me along, saying he was waiting for my payment to be processed. That I should be patient. That funds would be disbursed for hotels and flights, and then he would send me vouchers. I sent many emails, asking for confirmation and trip vouchers. Finally, I heard from him 5 days before we were to embark upon our vacation. It was not the email I was expecting to see….. He said that the flight charter company changed their rates, and I would have to pay more. Not just a little more, but, A LOT more. 5 days before our trip, what was I supposed to do?! I paid again, with the knowledge that I would have to contact my CC company after the trip, in attempt to get my money back. Incredibly, though, this is not the end!
I contacted both of the lodges before our departure. Our safari lodge, the first stop, assured us that they were indeed expecting us, and incidentally, Kiango, just days earlier asked them to book our flights. WHAT?! Well, ok, they assured me everything would be ok. I never again contacted Kiango regarding logistics of the trip. We were picked up by an agent of the hotel, brought to our charter flight, and off to our Safari lodge. Everything was great…… until our last night at the lodge. Apologetically, the manager approached us and told us that Kiango still had not disbursed the balance of funds for our charter flights! The hotel had tried to resolve the situation quietly, while we were there, but, to no avail. You have got to be kidding me!!! ……we had to pay yet again.
What more can I say. Do not take the risk, do not use this crook, also known as:
David Daud Kiango
Kaingo Adventure Safaris
Tanzania Safaris
Zanzibar Travel Holidays Online Shop
ZanzibarMagic
Botanic Country Resort
Made In Tanzania Safaris
DaudKiango.com
I am lucky, I came home from our trip (which actually turned out to be great, despite paying 3 times for our flights), disputed the flight payments made to Kiango, with my CC company, and got that money back. Just trying to save you all from the hassles……don’t use him!
Reply from KianGo Adventure Safaris
Posted on Apr 12, 2016Dear Mrs. Ellen.
With all due respect the only crook in this affair is you Mrs Elle Fulkerson.
All services were provided to you and we have payment receipts to all providers.
We accept that one scheduled charter flight was not provided as you failed to make payment on time with your funds arriving late.
After you paid it takes 3 weeks for the funds to reach uswhat exactly did you expect to hear from us whilst we await payment to arrive.
We did offer you to pay the credit card surcharge of 7% so funds would be available in a weeks time, but you choose not to pay this surcharge and we waited 3 weeks for the first funds to arrive and started disbursing to lodges and flights.
This is when the charter flight operator told us of the change of rates, by the time you made another payment that also talks another 3 weeks to arrive how were we supposed to pay with no funds having arrived yet.
We fully refunded you with all costs for this one scheduled charter flight, apart from your drinks and extras that you also tried to charge us, so yes you did get a 100% refund and more, what makes you a crook is that you made 2 claims for chargebacks as you had made two payments from 2 different banks both for the same thing and now you are bragging about it and dirtying my name all over the internet, when you are the crook here.
The charter flight rates were changed by the charter operators, I do not own these planes, the extra cost was passed onto you and you agreed to pay and you paid directly by email transfer we did not put a gun to your head or charge your credit card directly.
You could have also flown by normal schedule flights without this extra charge for the charter flight, but you insisted on charter flight!!!
We provided you with all services and refunded you for the 1 service that was not provided, you have gone and made further claims and taken money that is not yours, you are the crook and the banks as all proof we have provided and services were provided.
We shall send you a payment request to pay us for the unfair and unjust chargeback you have made or as said we leave it to GOD.
We have been in business for over 10 years serving tens of thousands of customers with no problems, yes perhaps under 1% like yourselves do get a few unexpected things, but no one conned you, you were refunded more than you deserved and you have also chargedback twice more than you deserve.
I trust you will do the right thing and pay us back the extra $2700.- USD you have cheated us, otherwise as said will leave this issue with the MOST HIGH GOD........ and of course a DEBT COLLECTOR will be in touch with you shortly........
IT
Email Ludovico Canovai | 20-35 years of age
The worst experience of our life
Re.: Report of fraud in Tanzania
Hereby I signed Ludovico Canovai want to report a fraud suffered against me during my stay for the Christmas holidays.
The day on December 13 of 2015 to prepare for my trip to Tanzania I booked and paid a rent of 2 bikes for 4 days (24-27 December) in Zanzibar through Kiango Adventure Safaris from the Lord David in Dar Es Salaam.
When I landed at the Port of Zanzibar where I had the 'date for delivery of the bikes, unfortunately the' Agency did not show up.
After several attempts to contact them, we could speak with the head of the Society of hire who admitted he had not paid the 'intermediary and that in 3 days. Would reimburse payment 289 USD
Afther three days from the day of repayment we were still waiting for the refund.
Concerned about what happened, I went directly to 'address of the agency, which unfortunately did not exist. Even though David has answered the phone but did not want to meet us personally.
At January 17 I have not yet received payment
Reply from KianGo Adventure Safaris
Posted on Apr 10, 2016Dear Mr. Ludovico Canovai,
With all due respect you were refunded 100% for the service we failed to deliver.
We are only the middleman and if 3rd party providers change rates or cannot deliver we cannot always be held responsible.
You were refunded a month later 100% of your payment so what is your problem.
Thank you,
David
RU
Email Evgeny | 20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
5-days budget safari tour. Manyara, Serengeti, Ngoro Ngoro, Tarangire
As I understand I had one of the cheapest safaris in Tanzania. So I think for $900 everything was really cool. My guide Com met me at the Kilimanjaro airport in the morning and we started the tour. If you chose the program I had be ready to spend 2 nights in the tent camps and 2 nights either in the tent or in the hostel for $20 extra per night. The tents were good, sleeping bags were offered. The meals were also fine (especially in the hostel). So if you are not afraid of bugs or sometimes the cold water in the shower, be sure, you would like everything! Thank you guys for your openness and kindness.
Doing Business With a Crook
While we did not use KianGo Adventure Safaris for touring we rented a vehicle from the company and the owner David. He is a thief. We paid the full amount in advance for our two week Land Cruiser rental. Upon arriving at Kilimanjaro there was no car, an apparent error on David's behalf. We had to pay the amount again after waiting 24 hours to even get our vehicle. I am still owed over $1,600 and all I get is excuses. Search the internet, I am not the only one. I have no patience for crooks like David
FR
Email Olivier | 50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
wonderfull 4-days safari in Serengeti by our own
We did a wonderfull 4 days-trip by our own in Serengeti and Ngorongoro parks. Accomodations were booked directly and we did the same with David to get a "personnal" car during the safari. The driver was perfect and the car in good condition. The price was discussed when booking and we had no surprise. In addition car permits were arranged directly at the agency in Arusha. A good experience for us.
CH
35-50 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
Mixed experiences
We hired a car with KianGo Adventure Safaris from Arusha. The advice was helpful in Arusha and Dickson, who came with us to sort out all the issues in Arusha, was also great. However, the car was old, there was no chain and no shovel nor any real tools in the car - which would have been helpful on one of the sandy roads. We had a broken steering wheel stabiliser - but again it was Mr. Dickson who helped us get it fixed in the Serengeti.
So, all in all, we had mixed experiences. Good staff on the ground, but medium quality of car and car equipment.