Common Tourist Scams in Vietnam

Unlicensed drivers paint cars in near-identical liveries to Hanoi's trusted metered operators (Mai Linh's green, Vinasun's white-and-red) and install meters that tick 3-5x faster than a real one — a documented case shows a genuine ~130,000 VND Old Quarter-to-Tay Ho ride reading over 650,000 VND in a lookalike cab.

The Vietnamese dong's many zeros make same-colored, similarly-designed notes easy to mix up — the 10,000 VND and 200,000 VND notes are both greenish-toned, and 20,000 VND and 500,000 VND are both blue, a mismatch that lets a vendor "palm-swap" a large note handed over in payment for a much smaller one and then claim the customer underpaid.

Cyclo (pedicab) and xe om (motorbike taxi) drivers quote a reasonable price to get a passenger moving, then demand several times that amount on arrival — sometimes claiming the price was per person rather than per ride, or that an extra zero was "misheard," and it's an awkward, physically vulnerable position to argue from once the ride is already over.

A friendly stranger, cyclo driver, or "guide" steers visitors toward a shop selling amber or gemstones at supposedly unbeatable prices; genuine amber is rare and expensive, so what's sold is frequently pressed amber, plastic, or glass passed off as authentic, backed by fabricated certificates and high-pressure sales tactics.

Some rental shops demand a passport as a deposit — which they have no legal right to hold — or a large cash deposit, then refuse to return either at drop-off by claiming scratches, dents, or engine damage that were often already there at pickup. Reported deposits withheld this way run roughly $260-390 USD.

In tourist hotspots including Hanoi's Old Quarter and lakeside areas, children are sometimes sent out to beg by adult family members or, less commonly, organized rings with nightly quotas — sympathetic faces and a sleeping infant (sometimes not the beggar's own) are common props designed to pull at a tourist's heartstrings.