Highena

This scam recieved a lot of newspress not just in Thailand but internationally as well probably because it was taking place INSIDE the airport by one of the official companies that won a bidding contract to provide retail services inside the airport.

Basically people were shopping in one of the duty free shops that are in every international airport in the world and had picked out an item which they were carrying around with them when they were arrested for shoplifting. Basically it was not allowed to take an item from one part of the store to another part of the store! That was considered shoplifting! Im not sure if there were signs posted or not, but irregardless, this kind of behavior is unacceptable.

But this is where the scam just starts unfortunately. Because in Thailand getting oneself out of legal trouble is not a straightforward process like it is in the West, and is typically where the profit is made during the scam. Needless to say, it requires much wrangling with authorities, shady third parties who intervene on your behalf for large sums of money in order to avoid the threat of a lengthy prison sentence.

Now to be fair there was a counterpoint made by the company involved claiming they had videotape of the person putting something in their purse, but this was not the only person who had complained about the scam so its hard to believe the company in this case, as well as, who the heck shoplifts in the duty free of an international terminal anyway!?!

OK, here is another scam which actually happened to me! When arriving by air into Ho Chi Minh most people will want to take a taxi to their hotel in the city. Its not far its like 7km. If you arrive late at night like I did you may be disorientated and just take the first option available. This is not advisable.

When you step out of the airport there will be many taxis waiting at the curb. Do not take any of these taxis, almost assuredly all of them will try to rip you off, well they won’t just try they will rip you off.

A taxi to the center of district 1, where almost all tourist stay should run about 6-7 dollars in late 2011. That is about 120,000 to 140,000 dong. So I let some guy talk me into going for 200k. Then when we are leaving he says I need to pay the airport tax fee which is another 50,000. I say ok, another 2.5 dollars is whatever. I later found out that this is only really about 5k. Then when we get to the destination, he asks me to pay before getting out. I do so, I pay the agreed amount. He then points to the meter and tells me I have to pay that too, which is like another 250,000. I say no, that is not what we agreed, he is clearly cheating me here. Basically he wants to get 500k for something which cost 140k.

I say no and am pissed now. I try to open the doors and there are locked from the outside, I keep trying not really believing what is happening. I then say screw it and slam my shoulder into the door to try to force it open. At this point the driver tells me to stop and opens the door, I guess he didn’t want me to destroy his car.

In some ways I got lucky here, I have heard some taxi drivers will keep an crowbar under their seat, or sometimes they drive you in the middle of nowhere and then threaten to leave you there if you don’t pay hundreds of dollars.

HOW TO AVOID THE SCAM.

Take the bus, outside the international terminal on the arrivals floor there are buses outside, the 152. You have to go up a flight, and it drops you in the center of district 1, from there you can take a taxi. It costs like 25 cents. But what taxi?

There are 2 reliable taxi services in HCMC, mai linh and vinasum. But watch out for fakes, you can find pictures of the real thing and fakes on the internet, fakes will spell their name just slightly wrong, like mia linh, or mai lin. You can also try to get one of these taxis that are dropping off passengers at the airport, again you have to go up a floor, for some reason they are never at the departure floor.

I have heard that there is also a government run taxi service that is reliable call sasco. It is to the left at the end when you walk out of the building, i have never used it, if you ever have please write a comment below and let us know.

Well, its happened to me twice now, once each trip I’ve been to Ho Chi Minh City, and I’ll explain it in detail in case any of my readers make it to Vietnam.

Basically someone will approach you on the street, usually in the touristy area of ho chi minh, and it will be an innocent remark, both times were a comment on my clothing, like ” Hey where did you buy that shirt?”. It will be someone friendly and outgoing, but if you are a very careful observer of human nature you may notice something is off.

Another warning sign is that the person is almost always filipino and not vietnamese. If you are familiar with filipinos you may be able to pick out there accent and demeanor. They will try to engage you in conversation for awhile regarding a number of subjects, and since they are friendly they will succeed in talking to a number of people, especially people on vacation whose guard is down and are looking for an “experience”.

At some point they will mention they know someone, a family member usually, that wants to go to your country or is planning to and they would like to invite you to their house to meet them. If you are stupid enough to go, you will eventually get drawn in to a card game where the objective is to win some money off of an unsuspecting rich person, but the victem will always be YOU!

Under no circumstances go to any persons house you meet off the street. Enough Said. I was lucky the first time and ended the conversation after about 10 minutes, I am a young male from the first world and educated and have really no desire to engage in conversation with some middle aged not too educated person that is not interesting, so I was lucky, I didn’t know it was scam at the time. Later I read about it on lonely planet and realized the scam.

Apparently, loads of people fall for this scam and lose thousands of dollars. Next post I’ll write about other scams Ive encountered in my travels.