5 Scams that will ruin your trip to VIETNAM

If you're coming to Vietnam soon, there's a handful of scams you should know about. Vietnam is generally a very safe country, but there are some shady people trying to rip you off here and there. So today I've got five scams I want to cover. I'll teach you what to look out for so you can avoid this happening to you. Number one is a taxi scam, and this is going to happen to everybody as soon as you arrive in Vietnam. When you walk out of the airport, there's going to be hundreds of guys yelling at you, want to take you back to your hotel. In Vietnam, you never want to take a taxi, not even a metered taxi. They're going to charge you three times the price no matter what. So this is an easy scam to avoid. The only way you should get around in Vietnam is using the Grab app. So this is like Uber and Lyft back in Western countries. You can download it on your phone. You can even attach your credit card so you don't have to worry about exchanging any money. Now even if you use the app to call a car, there's going to be guys that run up to you that are trying to convince you that they are your Grab driver. You never want to follow these guys back to their car. Every airport is going to have a designated Grab pickup area. So the app is going to tell you the license plate number and the color of the car. So you just wait there until the exact car shows up right in front of you, jump in, you're good to go. Similar to the taxi scam, in some cities you can take a cyclo around. This is basically a pedal bike with a cart in the front. You can get in and the guy will push you around for a while. These are really popular in Hanoi and Hoi An for example. Just make sure you negotiate the price before you jump onto one of these. You're probably going to be with your partner so make sure the price is for both of you and not per person. This is a really easy way to get ripped off for $10 or $20. Number two is the Tinder girl scam. So this is for my young bucks who think they're going to show up, jump on Tinder and hook up with Vietnamese girls real easy. So in Vietnam it's really common that these girls that you'll match with on Tinder actually work for a bar or get commissioned by a bar to bring in foreigners to spend a lot of money on drinks. So you're going to match with this really attractive girl, she's going to say hey let's meet up at this spot for drinks tonight. You're thinking yeah I'm in baby let's go. You're going to be drinking beer, she's going to be drinking cocktails for five times the price that probably don't even have alcohol in it. At the end of the night you're not going to get lucky but she'll say hey let's meet up again tomorrow night. Don't fall for this one. It's an easy one to see the red flags. Most Vietnamese women are not very forward. If a girl ever suggests hey let's go to this place, you know it's a scam. Most girls will be happy to meet at a park or at a coffee shop the first time. I've actually done a video on dating in Vietnam that I'll link below but my recommendation would be to try to meet girls in person. So maybe you see a girl sitting at a coffee shop by herself or walking around a park during the daytime. You can just walk up to them say hey you're really beautiful would you like to go for lunch or dinner later. That's going to work way better than jumping on Tinder. So trust me try the old fashioned route it's going to work a lot better for you. In case you're new here my name's Travis and I've lived in Vietnam almost six years. I make videos all about Vietnam. If you're enjoying the video so far please subscribe to the channel I really appreciate every one of you. The third scam is the shoe cleaning scam. Now this one sounds a little bit silly but it happens all the time. In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City you'll see these guys you can spot them carrying a big box of cleaning supplies. They're usually posted up at a corner of a busy intersection where you might have to wait there for a light before you can cross the street. They'll just start cleaning your shoes while you're standing there or they might even pull your shoe off you and say oh look something's broken I've got to glue it or something. It sounds crazy it sounds like oh that would never happen to me. But they're so quick they get going before you even know what's happening. And then they'll say hey you owe me ten dollars because I cleaned your shoes. So this one really important that you learn the Vietnamese word for no is không. Sounds a lot like comb that you would comb your hair with. So if you just say không không không you're not going to sound like a day one tourist and they'll probably leave you alone. In general don't let people get super close to you definitely don't let them start touching your things and your shoes. If someone's being aggressive just keep saying no and walk away. They're not going to do anything about it. They're not going to get physical with you. They're just trying to intimidate you. This next game is the most important one to look out for and this has to do with travel booking scams from hotels or airlines. I just saw an example of this where a guy got a message from someone claiming to be from the airline. They say you have to send your credit card information again to confirm the booking. They say there's no extra charge. But if you don't confirm with your information that you'll lose your reservation. The key point here is to never respond to messages outside of the main websites and don't ever send anybody your credit card information. The next really common one is clone hotel listings. So someone will make a duplicate listing of a hotel. They'll slightly change the name of the hotel but use the same address as the real hotel. So you'll pay for a booking you'll show up to the hotel and they'll say there's actually no reservation because you booked on a fake listing. This one is actually pretty easy to avoid too. What you could do is join my travel group. I'll do all the planning for you. I'll find you great options to stay depending on your budget. I've already helped probably 50 people book their entire trips in Vietnam. So that's an easy way to avoid any issues booking hotels. If you want to do it to yourself make sure you do your research and dig a little bit. For example if you look at the reviews if the last five reviews are all 10s that should be a red flag already. The best hotels in the world get reviews of 9, 9.2. So if you see 10, 10, 10 for a mediocre cheap hotel that should be red flags already and avoid that place. Also I would type in the name and the address into Google. Make sure they actually shows up on Google Maps and there should be some Google reviews related to that listing as well. So you put in a little bit of effort you should be able to avoid this one happening to you. Number five. This is the aunties pretending to give you something for free but they actually want money scam. This one is not so serious but just a little bit annoying. So this happens a lot in Hoi An and Hanoi. You'll see an auntie walking around with the two baskets connected by a bamboo pole that she carries over her shoulder. If she notices you looking at her she'll say oh here try it take some pictures. And as soon as you're finished she's going to ask you for 50k or 100k which is only a couple dollars but it's just the principle. You think she's being nice but they're always going to ask you for money. The same thing happens in Hanoi. Aunties will come around and give you donuts to try. If you take a bite of one they're going to pour 10 on your table and then ask you for $10. Now the worst part of this one is these donuts are a day or two old from the bakery so the aunties probably get them for free just to try to go around and get some money off foreigners. If they actually tasted good you wouldn't mind giving a couple dollars. But they're stale and dry and nasty and then next thing you know you got a bag full of them and she's asking you for money. So just be aware that nothing is actually free. Of course you might be willing to pay a couple bucks to take a cool picture with the bamboo baskets for example. Just be aware of that ahead of time. So that's five scams to look out for. The good news is that physical danger is pretty much unheard of in Vietnam and most of these maybe. So it's not the end of the world. Just better to know what to look out for and you can avoid being a tourist that gets taken advantage of easily. For now I've got another video here that you can watch about how to plan a trip for Vietnam. I'll see you in the next one. Peace.