07 May 2024
Richard Kisembo is a scam artist and total fraud, took our money and never turned up to take us on our trip.
He was always communicative over the phone, on whatsapp and email- especially when it came to payments. But after we paid the final deposit, he literally ghosted us and never turned up to pick us up from the agreed upon place and time for our trip. We called both of his phone numbers from multiple phones, sent emails, and even had staff in the hotel in Entebbe call him off their Ugandan numbers, and never heard a thing.
We then decided to call the hotels that he listed we would be staying at in our itinerary/ programme, and there were no bookings for us, and they also told us that the hotels were actually looking for Richard because he owed them money. He had not purchased our permits for the tours and we never heard from him at all. So this was not a last minute- something bad happened, this was a pre-meditated robbery from the day we booked. We found him on Safaribookings.com, and I regret using this site immensely. We first spoke to him on 5.1.24, paid the first deposit on the 23.1.24, and last spoke to him the week before we were due to arrive- so we were in constant contact.
We spoke to other tour guides along our route and his reputation for being a criminal proceeded him so much so, that other guides actually heard that he was in prison for fraud and that a variety of service providers and agencies was looking for him as he owed them money. We went to the police in Kampala and opened a case against him (there are many other cases open), as we do not want anyone else to get robbed like us and have this terrible experience. Police report: SD- 71/20/04/2024 ; Case- O/M/B/F/P.
There are now many other reviews reaffirming this statement, some have been on tours- but not with Richard, and judging by the comments, have been utterly atrocious. We were actually lucky that our hotel in Entebbe found us a wonderful tour guide very last minute to go on a safari trip and also lucky that we visited in the off season so we were able to get quick permits within a couple of days, as in the high season- they take over a month to process, so we ended up having a great time- albeit not with the fraudulent Karumuna Safaris.
Safaribookings.com- it would be wise to take him off your system.