Oxfordwalkingtoursofoxford Omdömen 

What an absolute scam!!! Don’t pay anything for this tour. And yes! If you want to stay on the tour, you WILL have to pay! We were a group of three people and it’s not even that we refused to pay, we just didn’t want to pay his minimum (£7 per person) and he kicked us off the tour! So much for pay as you like!

Here’s the deal: you start the tour on a side street and get handed a leaflet, which is nicely produced but poorly written and contradicts itself multiple times. There isn’t anything meaningful in the leaflet, it’s just a marketing tactic to make you think that the tour is affiliated with the university (it’s not), that you’ll see lots of sights that you can’t see just by walking around on your own (you won’t), and that the guide is an Oxford graduate (maybe he’s graduated from a university somewhere, but I’d bet it’s not Oxford!)

At the start of the tour, Matthew, the guide, will speak for at least five minutes while giving you no actual information. He will then proceed to walk the group to the bridge of sighs, which is literally five minutes around the corner but he’ll somehow take half an hour to do this. He’ll point to buildings and tell you what they are, but it’s nothing you can’t find out from basic research on google. He also tells you lots of things are coming “in some time”. This is to make you think the tour is worth sticking with. He needs to convince you of this because he’s about to make you PAY for your FREE tour!

After getting to the bridge of sighs and pointing to a tree that was in Harry Potter, which you can only see the top of and, seriously, is just a tree, he will give you a “six minute break” so you can visit the Turf Tavern (he doesn’t come with you, probably because they know he’s a scammer and won’t let him on their property!) He then makes his way around the group with his little card machine. Bear in mind this is only half way through the tour and he hasn’t really told you anything or shown you anything, just made lots of empty promises about what’s coming up! This was the point where we parted ways with his tour.

Honestly, we’re so glad we didn’t end up paying him because I don’t believe it would have been worth it. I’m not convinced he is able to take his tours anywhere that you can’t visit on your own and his knowledge is debatable. He has a nice patter and some amusing jokes, but there’s no real substance.

After we separated from the tour we wandered around ourselves. There’s plenty of information online about the history of the city and there are buildings you can go inside without a tour. I feel really sorry for the people that paid him. I don’t think they got a fair deal, even if all they paid was his minimum.

We had a supposedly FREE TOUR! but nothing is really free it's a scam do not believe the advert, FREE!! because this Tour guide Matthew was very forceful when it's comes to paying or so called donation and we wished we never booked this walk tour! Please be warned it's a scam!!!

Sandra Bingham gave us an excellent 2 hour walking tour of Oxford. She was very knowledgeable regarding architecture, colleges, dates and history. She made the tour all the more interesting by adding things which one would not find in guide books etc but which brought Oxford's past to life. We hope to go on another of her tours an thoroughly recommend her for her friendliness and professionalism.

An absolute scam. We reached the Bridge of Sighs and, after a short break, Mathew insisted on us paying. We left the tour having pointed out (pointlessly) that this was advertised as a free tour.
Avoid at all costs.

Mathew is running an absolute scam. He refuses to let people continue the tour if they do not pay half way through, even though it is advertised as a free walking tours. He will then accuse you of harrassing him if you follow the group. He is not a nice person and must have several names for the company he is running as his phone number comes up for several tours. When we told him we'd be tipping cash at the end of the tour he told us that we had to pay right now or leave the tour.

Please be cautious—this experience turned out to be very disappointing and felt like a scam. We had hoped for an enjoyable tour but ended up frustrated, feeling it was a complete waste of time and money.

The tour guide's accent was very difficult to understand, making it hard to follow the commentary.

Despite being advertised as "free," about 15 minutes into the tour—after repeatedly going up and down the same road—the guide will then show us the price charge and asked for money.

We wouldn’t recommend this to others based on our experience.

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.

Spend more and use an another tour company! We met Matthew ( as a group of 42) we started off with a rambling introduction and eventually moved on to the Bodliam Library, bearing in mind we were only 15 minutes in and he announces we are stopping for a comfort break which was a surprise as I would have thought most people would have used bathroom facilities beforehand, however we were then told that we needed to pay ( a tariff of expected charges was presented to us … from £7.00 upwards) I said to him well can we pay you later as we can’t judge payment as we haven’t really seen anything yet! He said no you need to pay now! We then waited while Matthew collected payment from the group ( don’t worry if you don’t have cash, he has a card reader …very savvy!) we wasted yet another 15 mins for him to coin in his money ( excuse the pun) and started off again, further stop starts and then he informs us that we can go into a college to see a dining room hall and chapel at an additional fee of £5.00 per person payable on the door, we did this and that was money well spent, well apart from some students who were about to start rehearsing a Carol concert ( they obviously were not aware we had been granted permission and paid to see the inner workings of a college!)

Further ramblings more to do with Harry Potter and a tree featured in one of the films ….a little more buildings to see which you could easily do independently. A group of 42 people is too big as we couldn’t hear him!

My advice is either spend more or get yourself a good guide book and walk … don’t feed Matthew’s pockets!

Also tour was supposed to be almost two hours it was way less …

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.

Our guide was lovely BUT the tour is not free as written on the website. You have to pay a minimum of 6£ during or after the tour. Contrary to what’s written you do not enter any site except one, where the guide tells you to pretend not to know one another and enter in small groups while she waits outside. Is this tour very legal? Obviously not.
Prepare yourself to walk to a few colleges with the guide repeating the same things all over again and waste your time.

Amazing oxford walking tour of the city and historic university of Oxford.we will strongly recommend it and highly informative.

This has been the worst "free" walking tour I have ever been on. If you read this - please do yourself a favour and avoid this walking tour at all costs. This is going to be a long review, but I hope that it might help anyone reconsider booking this walking tour.
1) The guide did not check us into the tour. He just handed us a leaflet without checking if we had a booking or not. We did not think twice about this since we were 1 whole minute late, but this should be a red flag.
2) The guide who called himself "Matthew" told us he was an alumnus of Oxford University, and that this was his part-time job. He also told us he was filling in for someone who "got sick". Reading multiple reviews afterwards, this is an obvious trick to make you feel like he's your lord and saviour for filling in the position for today and thus the only reason why this walking tour is still happening for your booking.
3) 10 minutes into humourless jokes, mumbling over some of them, he brought us into the Weston Library, for a toilet break. As soon as you step a foot outside he puts the card machine under your nose demanding your payment of a minimum of £6 per head. If you do not comply or simply want to wait until the end of the tour to see if this is worth your precious time, he will get angry. Saying no will get you kicked out of the tour right away, which in hindsight would have been a blessing. He pressures you into paying right away since "a lot of people walk out midway without paying", and well - I wish I had the same common sense as those people.
4) A lot of people dropped out without us noticing as you are flustered by the immediate pressure of paying the guide. The leaflets will say "£6 for average, 7£ for good, 8£ for amazing, 10£ for mindblowing" guilt tripping you into giving him way more than he deserves.
5) After giving payment, his enthusiasm and facts just.... stop. He gives out the same information throughout the whole tour. Just in different words. On different locations. You keep thinking to yourself "It might get better when we get to those promised stops", well. It will not get better, and you will not see any of these promised spots either.
6) Do you think you're getting into any of the sights? Well, here's the short answer - no. He shows you the outside of the building and says "You can visit in your own time". Sorry sir, besides the fact that this is my own time, shouldn't a walking tour that advertises going to these sites be going in? If I wanted to look at the outside of a building with no further information, I would have just done this on Google Earth from the comfort of my bedroom.
7) If you're a Harry Potter fan just like us, don't bother. You will not go into the Divination Hall (again - we had to do this after the tour on our own time), and you will not visit the tree. You will see the tree though, just obscured behind walls and roofs. Then he jokes that it is just a tree and not worth spending 8£ entrance on. For someone who advertises themselves as a Harry Potter walking tour, why are you making deprecating jokes?
8) Forget about Narnia, forget about Alice in Wonderland, forget about Lord of the Rings. Despite all of the opportunities to talk about these incredible authors and stories, it is wrapped up in a 2-minute session.
9) We were only allowed to go into one sight but only in small groups, saying we would be sent away otherwise. Only to find out that it's not the groups that are a problem - HE is the problem since he is running an illegitimate walking tour.
10) My friend had to call a college on his behalf. From her phone. With her phone credit. To ask a question he should know as a tour guide. Probably because they have his number blocked.

All in all, we did not learn anything about the city, nor the sights we were supposed to see. We did not stop for any pictures or got to ask questions. When the tour ended, we were disappointed we gave this man 18£. If it were up to me, I would charge HIM for wasting my time.

An absolute scam. Do yourself a favour and spend 25£ on a legitimate walking tour done by a current student who has enthusiasm and love for the city.

Harry Potter sites were not fully open but we loved the private tour.

We had an excellent tour guide,who was a graduate of Oxford University.