Sure JB, just to clear it up;

The drunk, high aggressive guy was one of the PHs.

The camp/concession manager was just there as a host, because the two PHs who were the same outfit were basically running their own show.

How do we know the elephant died? We know the tracker was present when it was wounded, because he told the story, which the concession mamager confirmed and by the last day freely admitted to having shot the elephant.

IMO - any drunk and or high person in ANY active safari camp is a whole lot more than an inconvenience....

Matt, there is a time and a place for everything. Sometimes on safaris we have all had a few, or a lot of drinks. But in any place, when everyone is sober, and one person gets wasted and starts carrying on, it's a real pain in the ass.

Just a couple of thoughts here.

Nganga made this statement:

quote:

We tend to get a bit of hero worship and look up to them and overlook their "issues". Try and keep everything in perspective.

The title is Guide, Not God. Guides/outfitters/PH's are after all only humans with human faults/prejudices/shortcomings and vices.

Secondly, and not trying to come off as a know it all, anytime anyone is planning something as major, both financially and time wise as a guided/outfitted, hunt/safari, they really do need to get a list of references from the operator they are thinking about using, and contact as many of them as possible.

As others have stated, and even though it should not be that way, getting on this or any other forum and filing a bad report really does not affect the operator of the safari company or the guide/outfitter/PH that much,. and usually ends up in a pissing contest with the person making the report having to try and prove they are not just spewing sour grapes all over the place.

Was this hunt sold as a bargain hunt to start with, sometimes if it sounds too good to be true it is.

Please post the names of the PH's, the camp and their safari company name.

We never did get the trophies.

The hunt was booked through Nuno Santos Dias, a Portughese man who "guaranteed" there was a 70lb elephant with trackers following it.

He also provided the signed contracts which stated what we would pay and what would be returned if he did not shoot the elephant.

The other guides were Antonio Santos and Miguel (can't remember his surname)
Miguel was a piece of shit. He is the one who would get drunk and shot up the camp. He is the one who bragged about being a fuckup and a junkie.

Antonio seemed like a better PH, though he appeared to be the boss of the situation.

Nuno was the one who hooked us in.

Mia Telles was the concession manager/lease owner, and he seemed to be a fool, and desparate for money.

Misona I believe as the name of the outfit the belonged to Antonio and Miguel.

Telles had another safari company in his name, but I am fairly nure niether of those operate or exist anymore.

Nuno is guiding and selling hunts still, whether he has cleaned up his act or not, I do not know, but I just recently heard about someone being offered a hunt by him, doing some research and declining.

So ladies and gentlemen, those are some names I would recommend you look out for.

This should be spread across every inch of the Internet.

Real shame to hear of this sort of thing.

I doubt your crock will be ok to use and I am almost certain your permits are never going to come through.

If you want another croc I suggest you contact Carel Maartens Chawalo Safaris - http://www.southernsafaris.co.za/mozambique.html

He is in it for the long run and has great croc and hippo in his concession. Probably the best Hippo and Croc concession in Africa.

What a shame.

I think it's pretty safe to say that we aren't going to get our trophies, as we were never actually issued with hunting licenses, which means no export licence...and after the blame shifting, it seemed that Mia Telles was the only one willing or able to get the export permits but he too dissappeared.

I am going to politely disagree with Cal. I think you should name and shame these people on every single forum you can and then start a public blog or two detailing your problems. Of course, you title the blog and/or Facebook page, "XXX OUTFITTERS IS A BUNCH OF THIEVES". You should then email all the relevant links to the offenders making it very clear that you plan to leave these posts and blog sites out there(expanding and updating FOR ALL TIME) for all the world to see until reparations are made. Then make it clear that you plan to privately email every hunter you know about the misdeeds until reparations are made. In short, make it clear that you plan to cost them FAR more in future revenue than the amount stolen from you. It can, of course, all go away if reparations are made. Make it clear that the game of "destroy the outfitter" is your new favorite sport unless they fix it.

This may seem like an impossible thing to do...but in the age of the internet it is quite costless and effective.

Without overdoing the pessimism, I was told about fifteen years ago by a very experienced hunt broker, "once you are on the airplane they don't know you anymore". If you believe you are the exception try withholding your dollars and see what happens.

I have had good agents. One in particular stood by me when Fico Vidale kept a refundable deposit. Jeff Neal ended up eating the entire deposit as we worked things out over a couple of years.

Most guys in the hunting business are honest but money has a way of corrupting some. Be careful, do your homework, use a "real" agent and not someone doing favors for discounts on hunts.

Firstly i am sorry for the lossesyou went through and that you were scamed like this. It is guys like this that f&$k the industry up. I totaly agree with Tendrams, make it public. Go global! All hunters should be warn of outfitters like this. Someone should start a blacklist for dodgy outfits for everyone to see.
It is amazing what some people will do for a quick bug! They will look you in the eye and feed you b€ll s$&:t.

Once again, sorry fir the loss

Best Regards
Gerrit

quote:

Originally posted by 404WJJeffery:

Once you post here, prepare to be attacked- as a whiner, prima donna, bad shot, moron, mascara lover, etc.

Well I'm glad 404WJ was wrong about the reception this my story would get, and I appreciate and thank everybody for the understanding.

In hindsight it really was stupid to pick up and take off on a safari on the word of a stranger. In my defence, the guy who proposed it, Nuno Dias was fairly well known in the spearfishing circles, which is very much a brotherhood of good people, with very little economic interest. So I had no reason to doubt him.

The rest, well, if the elephant had been killed, the rest would have been a party. But in this case, it didn't and the "professionals" didn't want to wear the expenses of thier failure, which is what turned the Whole thing nasty.

Since then I have been on another hunt that was terrible, but not a bargain, and now am very wary with outfitters, to the point that I loathe having to talk to them to book hunts.

It's only money, and even when it is scarce, I firmly believe that for oversaeas hunts we should be prepared to spend as much as is needed, and then some. Because when these things happen it ruins our day, memories, the experience, which cannot be repaired with the money saved.

What a disgrace. Please note there are many renowned operators out there and a bunch of good PH's who more often than not will guarantee a first class African experience on a hand shake.

I think that any operator who is an AR member is proven here and the reports speak for them selves.

Best I can do is to email my contacts with the names that you have supplied. Name and shame goes a long way nowadays.

I might be able to offer you an affordable option on croc, maybe on one of my popular AR group hunts?

My hunting companion for this hunt, the guy who was supposed to take the elephant has coincedently just informed me that Nuno has been trying to sell hunts on a Facebook page called Hunting Wild Africa.

He posted a message on the same boar warning people about the guy.

quote:

Originally posted by EXPRESS:
He posted a message on the same boar warning people about the guy.

A good start but you really need to hit hard and fast and with a very pointed objective. I once had a very nice restaurant (the Manager if you can believe it) terribly insult four guests I was with. The events were horrible and nearly caused a brawl in which I would happily have participated. I posted very harsh reviews on no less than five sites and brought up the issue on a couple of Facebook groups related to the restaurant (but not run by them). I then forwarded all the links to the manager and owner with the comment that I have all the time in the world to dedicate to the process... and had every intention of escalating my actions until they made amends, they were run out of business, or the manager was fired. Within two days we were offered an apology and a full dinner (with three bottles of wine) for six. I accepted, my insulted friends dined well, and removed all reviews as promised.

I realize the level of reparation needed here is much greater...but so is the level of damage you can JUSTLY inflict upon their business. Hit hard, hit quick, and hit often.

JMHO

Express - what you have stated here is very serious .
First of all , you will not get your hippo as they are now not possible to export ( Cites ) for the whole world .
Second , if you are sure they did not take your hunting license ( you could have even beeing arrested ) , you will not receive your trophies for sure.
Get your complaint to AMOS , i can give you some emails if you need , get your story to all nunting forums, tell your story to the country organization from where the involved Phs are , hunting report , etc.
Depending on the area where the hunt took place , fazenda do bravio or thcuma tchato , because i do not believe this hunt was in a Coutada , you can also send information directly to the Ministry of Agriculture , i can also give you more information if you want to PM me.
This kind of situations happens not only in Moz but in other countries unfortunatelly , and honestly sometimes it is our fault as we have not done the necessary homework to find out with who are we intending to hunt with.
PM me , i have business in Moz , i can also spread the word here on our little but important market for Moz .
This kind of people must be expelled from beeing in this industry.

Was Miguel Almeida Bruno the other Ph ?
Is Rui Maia Telles the other guy that had another concession ?

Indi, you're not the first person to ask me if the Miguel was Almeida Bruno, but that was not his surname.
I had it written in a PM which is no longer on the server, and to make everything worse, I lost my old emails in a server transfer.

Maia Telles is the name of the man who had the concession, located on the Zambezi river, his company was called Mozunaf Safaris. I think it was near, Chiramba, Sofala province, but that is just what I was able to find from an old facebook conversation.

For the duration of the safari, we did not see one single animal other than goats, crocs and hippos, so it was not much of a hunting area... I mean literally, not one wild animal, yet we had been promised plenty of buffalo, and even sable .

It is my understanding, at this moment in time that Maia has the trophies in his possession, and he claimed that he was going to ship them. This is what he told my hunt partner in email.

It is my belief that the situation probably went like this:

The elephant probably did exist, and had been seen visiting the machambas in the vicinity of the camp. Telles said he shot and wounded it when some villagers called him while it was in their corn. He said he shot at it because he didn't know there were hunters coming. Nunos’ tale of the trackers following it was a lie, plain and simple. I have that part in writing.

Antonio and Miguel had some sort of agreement with Telles to use his concession, but Telles claimed he didn't know we were there for elephant until we told him. At this point I realized there could not have been any licenses at all.

Nuno Dias was acting as an agent, selling the hunt in return for a promised percentage of the profit.

So Nuno spun the story to get the clients, and looking back I cannot believe he was acting entirely in good faith, although he probably didn't think it would turn out to be a robbery attempt.

They probably planned to get us in and out, shoot the elephant, not bother with any licences or permits, also because we did not take our guns, having left on under two weeks notice, also because he claimed there were trackers on the elephant, then work out how to ship the trophies out later. That is, if They ever intended on worrying to send them at all.

Once in camp, they found out the elephant had been shot, but naturally did not tell us. From there things went South, fast. They now found themselves probably having to pay some money to Telles for his camp and use of his concession, to pay for our food, fuel, and they had no way of making any profit.

Nuno complained that he too was getting shafted by his friends, which I can believe, though they were partners in crime, and I heard they all went fishing together some time after the safari.

I have gone over some of my facebook conversations with Nuno, and there was also a lot of switching prices and making promises he would never keep. He was trying to present the hunt as cheap as possible, then hoist up the prices to make a bigger profit margin for himself. I discussed the price changes with him and he accommodated them, now, I can see, too easily…

While we were in the camp, we did make the most out of it. We did hunt, my friend got to look for elephant, which he did in a satisfactory manner, and I got to hunt hippo with my bow, which was a lot of fun, and shot a croc, which was more fun, though there were quite a few things I have not mentioned yet that generally would not be considered as acceptable on a safari.
Considering the interest in this, I will write up a detailed report, include all the juicy details and post it in the hunt report section here, and on the hunt report website, as well as the places others have suggested.
Since it seems that Dias is trying to get a start in the safari business, and he is the only person I can really hold responsible, because he gave us his word, presented us with signed contracts stating we would pay much less than we eventually were extorted for, and that we would have been entitled to partial refunds, I would be willing to call off the dogs if he could make things right and get us our trophies sent out, does that seem reasonable?

quote:

Originally posted by EXPRESS:

While we were in the camp, we did make the most out of it. We did hunt, my friend got to look for elephant, which he did in a satisfactory manner, and I got to hunt hippo with my bow, which was a lot of fun, and shot a croc, which was more fun, though there were quite a few things I have not mentioned yet that generally would not be considered as acceptable on a safari.
Since it seems that Dias is trying to get a start in the safari business, and he is the only person I can really hold responsible, because he gave us his word, presented us with signed contracts stating we would pay much less than we eventually were extorted for, and that we would have been entitled to partial refunds, I would be willing to call off the dogs if he could make things right and get us our trophies sent out, does that seem reasonable?

Absolutly not! Bad outfitters need to be brought out into the open, even at your own loss
I am sure every legitimate honest operator out there would agree. If you feel you were wronged and can support your case with facts you must do so, however be sure of the facts.....

I recalled that name.
It was Miguel Tomé. Together with Antonio Santos, who formed Misona Safaris.


I have rethought the where to place the blame here, and while it is easy to put it all on Dias, because he was the one who made the promises, sent and signed the contracts, but he was acting as an agent, and did not get to pocket the money we handed over for the "permits and export" as well as the daily rates and the rest. I don't believe he was completly honest and knew there were a lot of things out of place.

When I get time, I'll do a compelte write up and put it out there.

quote:

Originally posted by tendrams:
I am going to politely disagree with Cal. I think you should name and shame these people on every single forum you can and then start a public blog or two detailing your problems. Of course, you title the blog and/or Facebook page, "XXX OUTFITTERS IS A BUNCH OF THIEVES". You should then email all the relevant links to the offenders making it very clear that you plan to leave these posts and blog sites out there(expanding and updating FOR ALL TIME) for all the world to see until reparations are made. Then make it clear that you plan to privately email every hunter you know about the misdeeds until reparations are made. In short, make it clear that you plan to cost them FAR more in future revenue than the amount stolen from you. It can, of course, all go away if reparations are made. Make it clear that the game of "destroy the outfitter" is your new favorite sport unless they fix it.

This may seem like an impossible thing to do...but in the age of the internet it is quite costless and effective.

exactly right !

express,

sorry for your loss , i know how you feel. it's just not the money but also a loss of time that cannot be replaced. especially if your working and used vaca time.

besides internet forums and social venues like facebook, make sure the regulating body, minister of tourism and the police know of the fraud you endured in their country.

they can run, but they can't hide !

the internet is faster than a speeding bullet. and far deadlier.

thumbs up for your next adventure.

It's tough out there. Sorry for your troubles.

I hunt with people I know; or I hunt with who they recommend. People at the shows seem not to understand that no matter how good a pitch they have, unless they are recommended by someone I know, they don't stand a chance.

I just thought I'd exhume this thread, the parties involved have gone underground and cannot be reached but I have heard a few reports of them surfacing peddling hunts from time to time.


A quick summary;

Together with a friend I went on a elephant hunt in Mozambique and shot a hippo and a crocodile. We got ripped off big time, lied to, threatened, watch drunk PH shoot through camp, fights, and never recieved the trophies we took.


The names to look out for:


Nuno Santos Dias, a Portughese

Antonio Santos and Miguel (can't remember his surname)

Mia Telles was the concession manager/lease owner.

Misona name of the outfit that belonged to Antonio and Miguel.

Mozambique is one of those countries in Africa where you REALLY want to book with someone who is reputable and has good recommendations, this kind of advice follows most countries specially in Africa but Moz would be one of the countries were I would be specially careful specially with an elephant, I have known of a couple of reports by people who were sold hunts and were disappointed as the only thing they could shoot was a croc, which seems to be really abundant there. I am deeply sorry for your bad experience, and wish you the best of lucks sorting this out.

Express, I had problems twice, But they were not as bad as yours.
This is my take on dealing with hunting trouble in South Africa:

1. The hunting report is kind of a lame publication, but it has a lot of reader apparently. I complained about Two Water Safari on the Hunting Report and of course they got a rebuttal in . Then suddenly, there were several glowing reports about them, being posted.

2. Trophex Taxidermy cheated me so I requested a partial refund before a certain date, and got it because I threatened to post pictures of their work on You Tube.

No one ever thanked me for posting these warnings. Generally, I just got shit on.
(Some of you may remember what happened when i critisized the terminal performance of a bullet.)

Venders get away with this stuff because they can. There is little recourse in the Hunting Tourism industry as far I a can see and the relevant hunting associations are a ineffective.

Express, your situation has a lot of appeal for hunters and Anti hunters. If you want to spend the time and energy and maybe money to get even and or maybe get some money back, make (or threaten to make a You Tube presentation. (No one wants that much publicity) Send the pricks a outline of your proposed presentation showing how bad they are. Tell them that you will make them famous. "It will go Viral!"
(If you had a couple of damning photos you would be laughing. You could put lots of spin on it.)

I feel that it is good, even a public service, to inform other hunters/consumers about this stuff but people don't usually appreciate it and it's a big energy drain.

I get real pissed when I read what happened to you. Brian

quote:

I get real pissed when I read what happened to you. Brian

We all do.

Hunting is supposed to be an enjoyable adventure, and it should be.

Yes we all do, I have been trying to track down these people to try to get the croc and hippo we shot, but since they have themselves unfindable I decided to reanimate the thread to bring their names back into the spotlight so no one else falls for their tactics again.

AMOS is trying to do good things, so it is worth making a full report. Then to magazines like African Hunter and MAN Magnum, if just as letters to the editor. If the PHs involved hunt in other countries, like Zim, then to their associations like SOAZ too.

It may not make any difference in the end and what is done is done but it's worth getting the word out.

Really sorry that happened.

I was provided with an email address for the president of AMOS and never got a reply sending a half dozen emails.

I'll check to see if there is any new info available.

Someone also gave me an email address for the Mozambican Minister for Tourism ahich also never got a reply.

One of the two names, and I can't remember off hand which, AMOS or Ministry was Adamo Valli.