10 February 2010

Cameroon visa scam at passport control

Today some past clients wrote to us with a story of their time in Cameroon. The following scam should be a warning to all travellers: make and keep copies of your passport and your visas.

"Our trip went very well, due in a large part to your efforts. Douala (Cameroon) went OK, but another entire set of bureaucrats in another city, Garoua, did not. They demanded that I surrender my passport to go to another room and when they returned they had peeled off the visa (revenue) stamp and told me the visa was not valid because it had no
stamp. I was able to produce a copy of the visa, provided by you, indicating that the stamp was there. That did seem to slow them down, but money seemed to be the lubrication required to get the wheels of government to move." J.H. 10 Feb 2010.