Beware of Ethiopian Scams!

Unfortunately our group had its fair share of scams in Ethiopia. I was even tangled up in one of them. Hopefully this blog post helps those of you who end up going to Ethiopia to avoid these scams.

SCAM No.1 – Bahir Dar

The young boys on our trip got themselves into a bit of a pickle at a local bar. They didn’t get a receipt for their drinks in spite of all the signs instructing tourists to do so. The bar asked them to pay a second time, and despite their protests, the police ended up being called and they had to pay an extra $5 each. Sonny was amongst them and given that he knew what a night in prison felt like (from his Senegalese experience) he could clearly vouch for paying being the best option.

SCAM No.2 – Addis Ababa

For our good friend Kris’ farewell, a group of us wanted to go to a local tej (honey wine) bar after dinner but the two taxis we piled into didn’t take us to the right place. We gave up and told them to just take us back to our nearby hotel but when we arrived, they aggressively started demanding a ridiculous amount of money (well ridiculous in the sense that the fare was usually half the price).

One taxi driver was demanding 250 Birr (approx. $14) and the other 300 Birr (approx. $17) and we told them to at least get their story straight with each other! They threatened to call the police if we didn’t pay and from experience, the police are often in on it too so we paid 200 birr to each taxi to avoid spending a night in prison. It really wouldn’t have been worth going to prison over a couple of dollars! The funniest part of the situation was that when we thought prison may have been a possibility, we panicked and dumped our valuables in the truck – for most of us that meant money and cameras. For Dom, it meant his chicken shirt. (It’s very trendy in Burkina Faso, don’t you know?!)

SCAM No.3 – Addis Ababa

Poor Tom got into a worse pickle when he lost track of time chewing chat in a coffee shop. He only had a few coffees and snacks over a period of several hours but was hit with a bill for over $200! The bar and several locals must’ve been in on it together as apparently they were all drinking on his money.

SCAM No.4 – Lalibela

We’d read about the ‘notebook scam’ in the Lonely Planet but it actually happened to a few of the people on our tour including Shaun and Karen. Luckily they were clued up on it. Kids approach tourists in Lalibela asking for notebooks for school. They accompany willing tourists to shops to buy them the notebooks and then once the tourist has gone, they return them to the shop and get the money refunded to them.

Ethiopia was one of the first African countries we visited where we encountered so many scams. I’d suggest being a little bit cautious on your first visit here.