Scam ticket agents 'Feel The City Tours'

Welcome to the forum!

I'm so sorry you got scammed by not buying tickets at an official website. I go to Paris often and ALL the big museums have headers across their pages warning about rip-off secondary ticket sellers. I haven't seen this particular vendor mentioned but there are plenty of other similar ones. At least you did actually have entry tickets!

Your warning is timely though...the re-sellers often are the ones that come up first on a google search. Is that how you got on the site to begin with?

Other than getting taken for paying a huge price for this venue did you enjoy Barcelona?

Wonderful city with excellent value if you know where to look and where not to look.
Scams always leave a sour taste when the sums involved could easily finance an excellent meal, but hopefully the mistake will be my last and was prompted by failing to be properly organised ahead of my trip.

A welcome from me too!
Like Pam, I'm so sorry you were taken in by 'Feel The City'. They are indeed notorious for purposely creating websites that look 'official' but are not, charging premium prices, issuing last-minute cancellations without refunds, and other sorts of nonsense. Here are a couple of previous threads on the subject:

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/spain/experience-with-feel-the-city-tours
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/france/musee-d-orsay-tickets-from-feel-the-city-tours-are-they-valid

And reviews on TripAdvisor? As bad as any I've seen.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g187497-d14181769-Reviews-Feel_The_City_Tours-Barcelona_Catalonia.html

The company used to operate under the name of 'The Walkers Tours', with the same 'official' looking websites and with equally terrible reviews. If they're still operating anywhere at all under that name, avoid at all costs. My guess is that they changed to 'Feel The City' to throw off the folks who got wise to their shady practices. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if they change it again. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/italy/the-walker-tours

I hope this one unfortunate incident didn't ruin an otherwise great day in Barcelona, and thanks for adding yet another voice to the ongoing warnings about this company. Do come back and fill us in on the rest of your trip? I'm sure you have some other useful tips to share!

Paul

Thank you for posting.

I am someone who has been scammed more than once and i try to report it to forum.

Barcelona is a great city. I had a bad experience when I booked a day trip with a tour company. It was not a complete wash out and I got some money back but it does leave. a bad taste in your mouth. Many people get scammed now and then. I try to learn from it and move on.

For "s's and g's" I decided to Google "feel the city tours". They can't even get in front of the immediate AI overview that rips them but good. As does almost everything else on that first page. Two pages in and their site, which is clearly bogus, still barely comes up!

I will offer this general warning - if you are looking for a specific tour of a specific place, which you know exists, and you are on a page that is selling all kinds of tours in all kinds of places, it is merely a re-seller (like Seat Geek, but without guardrails) and there will be no recourse for any problems. Without any guarantee that what you purchased is what you thought you purchased.

Unfortunately i was scammed as well for tickets to the Orsay Museum in Paris. Immediately i realized it for what it was and purchased legit tickets as well. I was able to get a refund however. I called my bank (actually credit union) to report it. They told me that since i was aware of the transaction they could not do anything and i should call back in 30 days. I did follow up and they did investigate. About 3 weeks later they did refund me the money ($167.35 US). Feel The City never actually did send me the tickets anyway.

You’re a wise man no matter what. Glad you posted a warning.

A scam website got me for the Prado, and I’ve been doing this ticket and travel gig for fifty years. These sites are insidious. And I clicked on a hotel website recently and then realized it was a middle- moucher.

And I clicked on a hotel website recently and then realized it was a
middle- moucher.

Elizabeth, was it "Guest Reservations"?
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/tourist-scams/avoid-guest-reservation-web-site

“The company used to operate under the name of 'The Walker Tours”

Kate! I did NOT know this was the dreadful-Walker tours! I accidentally got onto their Orsay website when I was looking for information and only because I go into the Orsay site a couple of times a month did I think the background picture was wrong. I scrolled down to ticket prices and it was something like 45€ which I KNEW was incorrect then back to the top and saw Musee d’Orsay official logo and in teeny print “by Walker Tours”..

Elizabeth, i got onto the stupid-guest reservation site for one of my regular hotels. Again I knew it had the wrong photo on the front page.

Bpurvis - so glad you got your money refunded! I hope you enjoyed Renoir!

The insidious thing is that unless you knew what either of these official sites looked like it would be easy to be taken in.

I’m not sure how AI picks up things so that is why I appended dreadful and stupid, lol.

@kate. It wasn’t guest reservations but something with the name more embedded, and I deleted immediately.
I usually check URLs closely for anything travel related.

Kate! I did NOT know this was the dreadful-Walker tours!

Yep, Pam. I'm looking at a webpage for Uffizi tickets. It looks 'official' if you don't know what the Uffizi's real site is. They are charging nearly 70.00€ (69,90 €) for an adult ticket & audioguide. The same booked through the museum would cost 35€ (29€ for the ticket + 6.0O€ for the audioguide.) In very small text on one portion of the page is, "The Walkers Tours LLC will process personal data for the purpose of managing your purchase." The email address is [email protected]. So, same outfit.

In REALLY teeny type at the bottom of the page...

"Important notice: This website is not affiliated with, sponsored by, authorized by, or operated by the Uffizi Gallery or any other official managing entity. We offer independent tourist services that include tickets and digital content such as audio guides, with the aim of facilitating visitors’ experience. All tickets offered on this website are valid and official, and are purchased through authorized channels. Prices may include additional costs for handling, early availability, customer support, and the digital materials provided. The trademarks, logos, and official names of the mentioned monuments are the exclusive property of their respective owners and are used solely for descriptive purposes, with no intention of causing confusion or appropriation."

Yeah SURE they've no intent to confuse. 🙄

Their Vatican 'official' looking website? Nearly 125.00€ (124.90€) for the "Official" 2-hour guided tour of the museums and Sistine, and the tour's start time might vary as much as 90 minutes different than the time booked. The Vatican's own 2-hour tour of the same, booked through their website, prices at € 40.00, and will commence at the time booked. So, FTC's product is a HUGE markup. Oh, and there's the same text regarding "The Walkers Tours", "Feel The City" email address, and affiliation disclaimer.

A pox on them.

"The trademarks, logos, and official names of the mentioned monuments are the exclusive property of their respective owners and are used solely for descriptive purposes, with no intention of causing confusion or appropriation.""

A pox on them indeed!! I was thinking more along the lines of toro poopoo or FFS.

They are making a bundle so can afford a big legal team. As the posts indicate it is SO easy for even experienced people to get shunted off to their website that it's not surprising someone in a hurry or who doesn't have a good handle on how much things should cost gets taken royally.