At a meeting where the deputy director of the Hanoi Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism failed to recall the city’s rip-off hotline number, the official rattled off a list of instances in which tourists had been overcharged for goods, including one couple who were forced to shell out VND800,000 for two bowls of phở.
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“A Vietnamese-American couple went to eat phở in Hanoi the other day and were charged VND800,000 [US$36.75] for two bowls of the noodle,” said deputy director Truong Minh Tien, reports Tuoi Tre.
After refusing to pay, the owner buried his knife into the table and yelled, “shut up,” according to Tien. “The couple eventually had to pay VND800,000 and quietly left.”
He added that he will “review to identify the eatery that ripped the couple off.”
This rip-off story was one of many recent black eyes cited by the paper with others including a VND600,000 charge for a chicken in Thanh Hoa Province, VND420,000 for a 420g crab in Saigon and a double charge at a Ha Tinh restaurant.
“Rip-off is like you steal from the tourists, which will certainly affect Vietnam’s tourism,” Minister Hoang Tuan Anh said at the meeting, held to recap the six-month activities of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
After praising the rip-off hotline for “running effectively and…exposing many cases,” Tien failed to produce the hotline number when asked, “shocking all other attendees at the meeting.”
It looks like there are some fundamental shortcomings related to Vietnam’s tourism industry that tactics like visa waivers won’t fix.
[Photo via noisynoodler]
