OxfordwalkingtoursofoxfordReviews of oxfordwalkingtoursofoxford.com

The tour is a scam. They advertise it as a free tour but then demand a minimum of £7 to start. "Mathew" was extremely rude when asked why the tour was labeled as free, yet he required a fee. He is not an Oxford student. Avoid at all costs!

Not free and you're walking around waiting for something to happen. He doesn't guide you inside any buildings, leaves you to go inside in small groups. Even making members of our group ask if certain sites were open. Probably because he isn't legitimate. You could read an online blog or guide and learn more. He makes you pay before you've even experienced anything on the tour. It dragged on forever. No real passion and not a lot of knowledge of the city. Don't recommend. False advertising, it is not free. You can't stay longer than 15 minutes until you pay the minimum of £8.

This is NOT a FREE walking tour as it is falsely advertised all over the website. You can not advertise something as FREE online and then demand payment before you've started the tour. We have done many 'free' walking tours all over the world and whilst they are advertised as free, there is the mutual understanding that you 'tip' or make a 'donation' at the end of the tour dependant on how good you thought the tour was. This is what we were expecting from this tour, to tip at the end. Anyway, we booked this thinking it would be a great way to introduce us to Oxford and learn more about its history and university. Immediately upon arrive, before even so much as a 'Welcome', Matthew, who we assume is in actual fact, the owner and only 'tour guide' of this fraudulent company walks over to us and asks if we were there for the walking tour to which we replied 'yes'. He immediately showed us the back page of the leaflet he gave us, which showed 'reccomended donation amounts' and told us that whilst other tour groups charge £30 for 'the same tour' we in fact need to donate 'what we think the tour is worth' and we can either pay by cash or card and he would come around later in the tour to collect payment, we expected that this would be somewhere near the end. Within 20 minutes of the tour starting (before you actually see anything of interest), he takes you into the library for a 'break', whilst on this break Matthew comes up to you with a cars reader and asks how much you want to pay and points to the suggested prices which state 'pay how much you think the tour is worth and how good it was'. We explained to Matthew that whilst we are willing to 'tip' for the tour, we usually do this at the end, once we know how good it was and based upon what we thought it was worth. Matthew stated that sometimes people run away at the end of the tour and don't pay, and that's why we had to pay at the start. We again explained that we would not be running away and would like to pay nearer the end when we know how good the tour is. Matthew stated that if we did not wish to pay, we could not continue with the tour (which hadn't even really started). Not once did we refuse to pay, we just didn't expect to be pounced upon so suddenly before the tour had even started. This was a massive red flag for us so we discussed as with each other and thought we would give the minimum reccomended (£8 per person) but we saw Matthew then go on to harass and pressure every in the group in to making payment. We actually found it quite rude when we said,'If you don't pay, you don't continue with the tour,' which, in actual fact, if you are advertising it as FREE then, yes, whilst you can hope for tips and donations you cannot force people into paying for your services. Due to this, we decided to leave before making any payment. We were shocked and decided to check out the reviews and as expected, this happens to pretty much everyone. There were approximately 30 people in the group, if everyone paid the minimum £8 recommended donation, that's a minimum of £240 per tour. Matthew runs these tours 3 times a day, so he is potentially getting a minimum of £720 per day. Given how false the advertising is on the website, which in actual fact is just a plain lie, I do wonder how factual and truthful his tour would have been. In our eyes and from reading the reviews of people who continued on the tour saying how bad it was, this whole company and tour just appears to be one big and quite successful scam. It is actually bad for Oxford tourism and has given us a bad taste of the place. We have seen some of Matthews rude replies to the bad reviews he gets on here, essentially blaming everyone and anyone but himself, but having experienced the same treatment ourselves, we absolutely know that all the 1* reviews are telling the truth. No doubt we will get a rude response this this review aswell, stating that we were 'stingy and didn't want to pay, or expected the tour for free' or something along those lines. However that is absolutely not the case. In all honesty, when we attend these tours, we usually tip approximately £10 per person, which when there is 30 people on the tour, we don't think £300 for 1.5 hours work is a bad wage, especially with such little overheads. We will be reporting Matthew and his fraudulent scamming tactics to trading standards and Oxford City Council as this seems nothing other than one big SCAM to us.

This is a complete SCAM. THEY SIMPLY DO NOT EXIST. We arrive early morning from London and nobody was at the meeting point. We called the guide (Matthew) and he just told us the tour guide is unavailable today. No apologies, also VERY VERY RUDE.

This tour is a scam and Matthew is an irresponsible person. We arrived in the morning of January 1 after waking up early in the New Year. No one was at the spot (we emailed them beforehand to confirm). We called Matthew and he told us very rudely that the tour was canceled. Moreover, it turned out that many promised locations were closed. When we asked why they haven’t called us and threatened to write a bad review, Matthew replied: “Do whatever you want” and hung up. AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS. Our New Year was spoiled becuase of them. I’m myself a university professor and if Matthew was my student, he’d soon see his way out of the university for scamming people.

Very average tour. The tour guide is quite persistent in getting his mandatory “donation” halfway through the tour. After questioning this we were threatened with being asked to leave. Would absolutely avoid because of this strange aggressive practise

The “tour” is not free as stated. There are recommended prices that are suggested in the pamphlet to be payed at the end according to your enjoyment of the tour. These fees are collected after about 10 min into the tour and quite aggressively . You are asked to leave if you don’t pay. The only places we went into were the areas open to the public. We could have done the tour by ourselves. Very poor quality tour but the pamphlet was top notch.

Agree with those who called this tour a scam. I have been on many free walking tours all over Europe and have NEVER been given a “sliding scale” for payment nor have we been pushed to pay up midway through the tour. This one smelled fishy right from the start. The narrative was slim with no real history of the university or area. We were told not to walk in a big group when entering some of the colleges and Mathew asked for a volunteer from the group to go to check if one of the buildings was open. We should have walked away from the start. It was only after the tour was over did I realize he wasn’t wearing a guide ID badge.