The Infamous Fraudulent Taxi Services in Ho Chi Minh City

My first day in Saigon didn’t go off quite well. Sharing a taxi with a Russian couple, we had almost become victims of the infamous taxi fraud in Saigon.

Mind to tell you that taking a taxi in HCMC is not that easy. They would make at least ONE attempt to get some extra bucks out of your pocket.

The standard taxi fare from Tan Son Nhat International Airport to the City Center is around 110,000 to 150,000 dongs (6-8 USD). Anything beyond that is considered CHEAT.

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The first cabbie that approached me offered 500,000 dongs. He had actually grabbed my luggage away and put it in the trunk of his car but I took it back and rushed away. Erkk! 

Then I met a young Russian couple, and we managed to get a taxi whose driver had AGREED to 110,000 dongs. He actually asked us to pay BEFORE entering the taxi so we did, the whole of it, thinking that it might be how the system was in Vietnam.

We later found ourselves riding off to the city with a BIG SMILE on our faces thinking that we were spared from the infamous taxi frauds at the Ho Chi Minh airport.

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But were we? Upon dropping us off, he asked for another 90,000 dongs and insisted that we had only given him 20,000 dongs!  We were like … WTF?!

Although we kept telling him that we did pay the whole of 100,000 dongs to him (we even collected money among us to meet that amount), he kept insisting that it was only 20,000 dongs.

(Now I know why many smart travelers suggest that we write down the amount of money that we give away and show it for them to confirm that amount every time)

The taxi driver might think that he was smart and he had probably done it several times before (and actually succeeded) so he knew what he was doing but then …

.. he was dealing with a couple who has travelled half around the world. The Russian couple seemed to keep track of every single penny that they keep and spend away.

‘I think we have a little bit of problem here. I think there is a fraud” the guy said loudly to me, obviously so that the cabbie would hear it too.

Then he talked to the cabbie, showing his hand phone to him and said,

“You want to cheat us. I have a hand phone here and I am going to call the POLICE”.

The mentioning of POLICE seemed to have sent the cabbie into a frenzy. He pressed the paddle and began to drive maniacally.

He began to shout and yell in Vietnamese and he wouldn’t stop even when we tried to ask him to. He kept looking at me as if expecting me to say some nice things only then he would stop. He wouldn’t even look at the Russian couple.

When I finally managed to ask him to stop, we took our luggage and said good-bye to each other and simply walked away.

Just like that.

Phew! Welcome to Ho Chi Minh City!

You see, it’s very easy to fall into the net of a taxi scam in Saigon. Of course you can always INSIST on using the meter although there’s no way of telling if the meter is not tampered with.

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The story with the taxi did not end there. Upon checking in, I casually told the receptionist that the taxi driver at the airport had ASKED me to pay 500,000 dongs for the ride to the hotel (I was actually referring to the first driver taxi that approached me).

How I forgot I was in a communist country where laws are imposed almost like in a military squad or something.

I was about to unpack my stuff when the reception called to ask me to come down to the lobby – urgently!

Apparently the receptionist managed to track the taxi driver down and complained to the taxi’s company about what he has done to me and now the taxi driver was on her way back to the hotel.

It wasn’t long before he turned up red-faced as if he was ready to swallow the whole of the receptionist alive.

OPPPS!

Well, since the taxi driver DID actually try to cheat me earlier, he wouldn’t even look at me directly. He was more on the receptionist and the ashen-faced hotel manager who was there to calm the cabbie down.

While it was so strange that something like that could cause such a magnified furor, I later learnt that a simple complaint like that could actually cost the cabbie his job.

And in a country like Vietnam, losing a job is like being put on a death row.

Be careful of what you say.

This post has been extracted from ho hO HO HO Chi Minh City!