WE GOT SCAMMED (Sierra Leone)

hey guys just want to give you a quick update of the last 19 hours of our life so right now we are sitting in our hotel in freetown sierra leone we woke up at 5am starting in monrovia liberia and we drove all the way through in and today was maybe the most intense hectic anxious travel day i've ever had yeah one of the most so we're just gonna give you a quick recap of what happened because we think that this story needs to be told and we want you guys to know first of all what it's like to to travel in west africa over land with your own vehicle and also some of the problems that that are dealing in this part of the world which need to be discussed in a public manner so first off we jumped in the car at 5 am we drove to the border of liberia um which actually at that at that first border we didn't have too many issues they were very friendly that one six six checkpoints only one they stopped us yeah passports what's happening right now nothing uh the seventh passport in the day marlon's taking our passports in hopefully it will be just that check let's see yeah and the lady was friendly oh the first border check very friendly yeah every official on that side of the board the liberian side was super helpful yeah yes so quick side note our driver was forced to pay uh 1100 us dollars from the border of guinea and liberia and we did not think he was going to get that money back i said it was like five percent chance yeah and shockingly enough he got it back so good for him everybody was happy so we exit liberia fine so right now we're crossing the border from liberia to sierra leone over the river and welcome to sierra leone and then we get over to the country of sierra leone so i'll let about to tell you what happened we find a local fixture so our fixture from the liberian side leaves us with another dude extremely helpful really nice guy friendly moves us to the little building like one one level building a few different rooms in that building a little hallway really narrow hallway the building was probably like 50 years old quite like run down yeah we get there they check our visas first two guys look in the or we have everything essentially everything was paid for it was an actual visa we could get in no problem but obviously they were looking at the papers up and down they've never seen something like it i understand it's a little bit like a weird process but we had some screenshots from an email they just read that and they're like they were quite happy so you and i were positive yeah like hey we thought this was this was going to be the major problem in all our trip in west africa because that visa was a little bit edgy but we hurdled that obstacle quite well after like 30 minutes of talking to the guys and we thought that that was the only hurdle that we had to cross that's it normally right guys you go through immigration that's it no we just got really scammed at the border of liberia entering into sierra leone by the syrian union officials and not a good welcoming into sierra leone they say okay come in the hallway and go it's almost like a hospital like a doctor's office right yeah it's like you go into the next little room so then we go into the next little room and there's a guy that can't be older than me he's probably 25 years old sitting at the just have that little like cocky face on like hey give me your yellow card speaker so okay no problem here's our yellow card everywhere in africa where we've been which is almost every country you just show the yellow card and they usually just check check the date done move on this guy checks it he goes this is not accessible you don't have a cholera shot and first of all i don't even think a collar is shot i've never heard of people i think your color was eradicated we're connected to every single traveler who does this for a living and no one has ever said that you need to call her a shot or anything obviously we knew he was he knew he was from the beginning so we looked at each other and said no we know this is all we need we can get into the country especially the only thing the only vaccine you need to travel into these countries is the yellow fever yeah and we had that shot we had it it was clearly stated everything was perfect he just invented this scene we needed yeah then i i was kind of quiet because that's just how i am in nature and navado kind of got a little yeah i was like a little bit aggressive with the guy because i know we both knew what was going on i was like hey man you're trying to pull all these you know you essentially want to bribe we're not going to do anything we are on our right we just need to yell fever and that's where the guy like i got to take down he reacted like uh like like aggressive okay aggressive very good his buddy came in and oh this guy said yeah he okay so they basically threatened to send us back over the border send me back and they also threatened to like hold us captive like handcuff us and keep us there for six days like six days we got we we took note of everything yeah yeah few they had all these printouts on the wall that basically just said world health organization which they clearly just typed it out on nothing was official and they said like oh you need this shot but it's just all and they go oh look this is what you it's just it's this is we're going to get into the bigger problem here in a bit let's just finish the story yeah essentially yeah another two guys come in civilian like civilian clothes yeah they were not officials by any means and they started shouting they just their their role everything is theatrics yeah everything was already staged they've done it before and they probably do it again yeah that's why we're doing the video so they started shouting and just pushing us around like i from that moment i shut up because i knew it was better just we kept quiet and we agreed and i apologized i excused myself and we just we we laid low we just let the guys get pushing and pushing and pushing and just try to beat us to the corner basically essentially and your first ask for was it 350 yeah 500. he didn't ask us we left the room and they they they talked to the fixer and i don't know so he wanted a big sum of money and we ended up getting it down to 50 a person which is still it was it was a complete bribe it's see it's it's their bandits and and they're they're robbing us essentially the only reason we paid is because we were already super behind in our schedule and we couldn't afford another hour another two hours just waiting it out because we would have stayed and slept in the border yeah that's the only reason we're totally against bribery and and like contributing to this corruption we were really pissed and the fun the funniest part and then we'll finish this part of the story is when when we're all in the room like negotiating at the end the guy actually took out the needle and he was looking at us directly in the eye and the vaccine was coming out of the shot i'll give you the shot one second touching the knees touching the needle like bro okay anyway so we ended up paying them the money and then and then we eventually got out and then we drove yeah it was ridiculous and then we drove eight hours basically to freetown and we it was a 19 hour journey the whole time we're here now everything's fine and safe this is not only so i also want to say something that this is not a problem with sierra leone i don't necessarily hate the country of sierra leone i have met a lot of nice people so far and it was actually a beautiful drive here great guys we met on the road we stopped for lunch we met a lot of people with the drones absolutely people were being great but this bribery problem specifically is in many african countries specifically west africa and it's in my opinion it's one of the reasons why this this part of the world is not progressing because these problems are scaring like we're i'm telling you this message now and you guys now know what's happening right and things need to be changed in this country if they want to progress moving forward it's a very difficult subject to talk about we actually did tell them this like yeah this is not helping the image of sierra leone and then they came up with different arguments they were completely unconnected and illogical they just wanted a payoff that day yeah and they got it essentially that's that's the thing and abuse of power i feel defeated and it's it's pretty as a traveler to go through that and and we knew we were getting into some things like this and listen it's our last few countries so we're up for the adventure but we just want to communicate to you what happened today um but damn that was crazy yeah we're never pinning one again no in a few days we're going through genea and the border to kanakri and we've heard that it could be even worse but now we are going to try to do the best we can to not pay that so that's it all right man crazy day time see you guys [Music] i'm druvinsky and if you like my travel videos please click subscribe and join me as i plan to visit every country in the world

Channel: Drew Binsky

Views: 2,296,388

Keywords: sierra leone, drew binsky sierra leone, sierra leone drew binsky, west africa, travel west africa, bribery, bribery west africa, bribery in west africa, corruption, scammed, scammed in africa, africa travel, drew binsky africa, getting scammed, what is a bribe, bribery and corruption, freetown, liberia, border crossing, west africa road trip, how to travel west africa, africa road trip, africa travel tips, africa vlog, sierra leone vlog, sierra leone vlogger, blood diamond, darn

Id: U0hNtt_Fj_E

Length: 8min 9sec (489 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 28 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/snb75]

This is NOT a story that I'm proud to share with you, but nonetheless, it's very important that it gets told. This trip of traveling across West Africa in our own vehicle has been a nightmare in pretty much every category. We are trying to look past the negatives and stay positive, but it's impossible when situations like this are happening to us every day at every single border crossing and police checkpoint. The level of corruption and bribery is out of this world, and we've experienced the worst here today on the border of Liberia entering Sierra Leone. We were scammed because we didn't have a cholera shot (which is 100% NOT the requirement, only yellow fever is). We were asked to pay $350, which we eventually settled at $150 (for 3 of us), and the worst part is that this money went directly into these corrupt official's pockets. These guys, in full uniforms, are bandits. Thieves. And it makes me depressed thinking about it. I feel defeated. But we are moving on.

[u/Hoot1nanny204]

Lol Welcome to the world.

[u/RICH_PINNA]

border of Liberia entering Sierra Leone.

Sorry I started laughing here.

Come on, what the hell do you expect?!

[u/AutoModerator]

Please remember to write a short paragraph explaining your photo or link. Ideally at least 150 characters with trip details. Tell us something about your trip. How long did it take to get there? How did you get there? How was the weather that day? Would you go back again?

Submitted content should be of high-quality. Low effort posting of very general information is not useful. If you don't add a short explanation in the comments, your post may be removed.

No information posted? Please report low-effort posts if there is still nothing after about 30 minutes.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.