Maria C.

Vacation in Sharm El Sheihk. 2 adults and 2 children. We flied with another tourism agency and AnexTour agent met us there.
Next day, in the morning the AnexTour agent Karim (Egyptian probably) came to tell us the most important that we need to know about our stay and give a voucher number without which we could not safely go outside the hotel.
In reality, nobody asked about this voucher number at all.
All that AnexTour agent did was to frighten us that Sharm El Sheihk is not a save place to be, everyone tries to trick you, and that the only person whom we can trust is him. He started his speech with "I'm your brother", etc.

He told us about our health insurance. He said that in case of an emergency we should not call the doctor in the hotel as he will change us 85$ for only speaking to us, so we'd better not even say 'Hi' to him if we see him in the hotel (weird joke). Instead, we should call the number of the insurance and they'll come in 30 minutes and we'll not pay anything except 30$ that is the franchise cost.
This was not true, we had an emergency at the hotel with our son and went to the hotel doctor, we found him in 5 minutes, he helped us and we paid him the same 30$ (he asked if we have insurance, but did not look at the papers at all)

In the same meeting, AnexTour agent started talking about different excursions we can buy from him, threatening us that we should not buy these excursions from local agencies as everyone will trick us.

First he convinced us to go on a 'free' city tour next day with a Belorussian woman guide. The agent said we go to a state pharmacy with fixed prices and they give certificates for the products without which you cannot take anything from Egypt in your luggage. (This is a lie again, no one at the airport checks these fake certificates)
We visited some monuments and an orthodox church and after that most of the time we spent in a mall (not a pharmacy), right near AnexTour office. The name of the markets are Oriental Treasures and Le Delice. There work Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussian and other Russian-speaking women and locals.
There the guide told us that we can buy the best Egyptian oils that are very efficient for health and beauty and perfume which lasts 48 hours.
She started to tell us how her father's health got better after using the oils. Also, said that without Black Seed oils and Lady Diana perfume, she will not let us back into the bus, we need to buy them.
At the mall, they had us try some back seed oil and described some other oils that treat all kind of diseases (which is not true again). They said the oils
As my parents are ill, I bought many oils (380$) and a perfume (65$ for 30ml). The prices were 20% discounted but are 4 to 8 times higher than those near the hotel.
I also bought 1kg of baklava with 40$ (we can find it cheaper in our country)
We also went to another 'state' market where I wanted to buy some lokum in transparent package where you can see how much it is, and the guide said 'no, this is $#*!', and gave me another heavy box where she said there is 1kg of dates in chocolate for which I paid 12$, but when I came home and opened it there where less than 500g. You can find the same dates in chocolate near the hotel for 15$/kg.

Next day after buying all this, I searched on the internet and saw some bad posts about Oriental Treasures, then inspected the oil bottles and understood that they are not even closed. I opened one of them (1 out of 9) which should have been 'Rucola oil' and saw that there is sun flower oil, very little aromatized, also the sandal oil was white while it should be pale yellow or yellow. We also bought some packages with karkade and lemongrass, they where also not factory-closed and 100g was 7$ while I got 130g near the hotel with 3$.

As I understood that I was tricked, I called the AnexTour agent, and told him my problem. I said that I did not open anything and I want to return back the perfume and the oils and get my money back. Hearing that, the agent started to say that I do not respect him, that he did not take my money from my pocket, I decided to buy by myself, he has nothing to do with that. After I insisted, the next day, he said he talked to the company and the market said it can give me back only 40%. Hearing that, I told him I do to the tourist police and went to talk first to the police and security staying at the entrance of our hotel.

So, I found out that Sharm El Sheihk is a secure tourist city and police is taking care of visitors. They called Karim, the AnexTour agent, and he said that next day he will send a car for me, we'll go to the Oriental Treasures market and we'll solve the problem.
So, we went and out of 445$ they gave me back 90% which is 400$, saying that 10% is the banking fee as we paid with credit card.

We also bought a dolphin show from AnexTour for 90$ (30$/adult, 15$/child), while on the dolphinarium's website: http://dolphina.net/ the tickets for adults are 20$, the kids younger than 7 years do not pay (the case of our children), there were 2 adults with 2 kids in our bus who paid the driver 50$ and attended the show.

We bought a boat trip from AnexTour for 160$ (80$/adult) + diving for 30$ (15$ each). The boat was an old 'katamaran'. He said there will be a seafood lunch, and we got 2 shrimps taken from soup (not tasty at all) with some rice and pasta. Instead of showing us a lot of corals while diving, they made me stay in different positions for photos and video, then asked 35$ for photos, and 35$ for video. This trip was not worth 190$ at all!

So do not trust AnexTour, they are always lying to you in order to take as much money as they can get from you. Also do not be afraid to tell your problems to the police and the security who understand English and can help you anytime.

I'm sorry I did not take photos of the fake products, but I was so upset, I did not even want to look at them. I just made a phone of the certificate which had lots of stamps with 'We do not take back or exchange the bought products'. The certificate also contains some number which I think is fake, the labels on the bottles are just printed with some names of certification like 'SwissCert', their website is not functional: https://www.oriental-treasures.net/, and there is no Oriental oil factory in Egypt.
Instead of going to the seaside, I lost half of the day and money and had my vacation ruined because of Anex Tour.