My New Job as a Tour Guide Turned Out to Be Fake – BBC News
BBC Homepage
Skip to content
Accessibility Help
Home
- News
- Sport
- Earth
- Reel
- Worklife
- Travel
- Culture
- Future
- Music
- TV
- Weather
- Sounds
BBC News – Climate, World, UK, Business, Tech, Science, Entertainment & Arts, Health, In Pictures
‘My new job as a tour guide turned out to be fake’
Image caption: Ella was hired on the spot by Haggis Waggon Tours after going to a job fair in Paisley.
By Selena Jackson and Emma Clifford Bell, BBC Scotland
Published 8 September 2026
Updated 9 September 2026
When Ella was offered a job as a tour guide, it seemed like an exciting opportunity. The 23-year-old was hired on the spot by Haggis Waggon Tours boss Darryl Smith after meeting him at a job fair in Paisley.
Just a week later, Ella was listed as a "guest favourite" on the group’s website, despite never having done a tour for them or met any customers. She has since discovered its "head office" was an empty property and many of the claims on its website were false.
Ella says she first met Darryl Smith in June and was hired without a formal interview, along with several others. A week later, she received an email, apparently from the HR department, asking for her address, right to work documents, and bank details.
Darryl Smith responded over email to some of the allegations put to him by BBC Scotland News. In his email responses, he said there was no formal interview for candidates as training was offered instead – "giving potential employees the opportunity to see if it is the role for them".
On 9 July, the group of new employees were invited to walk around Paisley as a "training exercise". Ella said something "felt off" when they couldn’t see the bus that Darryl Smith said he had brought. They stopped outside what he described as the "Haggis Waggon Tours’ head office" on Paisley High Street. The building was vacant and locked up.
The same address was listed on the business’ website under the "contact us" section, but the landlord of the building confirmed to the BBC that Darryl Smith does not hold a lease there. The contact address has now been changed to say "Edinburgh".
Darryl Smith told the BBC he had built the website himself and mentioning that address had been a mistake. "That spot was only ever used as a meeting point for new tours leaving from Paisley," he said.
Despite the "red flags", Ella decided to give Darryl Smith the benefit of the doubt and agreed to shadow a Harry Potter themed tour on 13 July. She was due to be picked up on one of the Haggis Waggon Tours buses in Paisley at 08:00, along with three others. But after four hours, no vehicle had arrived.
Ella says Darryl Smith assured the group there had been a mix-up and claimed to be dealing with domestic issues. "When the original concern with the buses was brought up and it was pointed out that the pictures that he was using on his social media and on the website were AI, he had given us the excuse that he hadn’t had all the buses wrapped yet," she said.
"I think to this day none of us have actually seen the buses. They don’t exist, do they?"
Darry Smith says the coaches "do in fact exist".
"Images online of tour buses are AI as [the] company is relatively new and we are in the process of getting coaches wrapped with our ‘Haggis Waggon’ design," he said.
