Peddlers ‘charge’ Western customers 250,000 VND for conical hats

At around 4:00 p.m. on January 11, Mr. Nguyen Van Duy, owner of a spa on Hang Gai street, through the surveillance camera in front of the door, discovered two foreign customers arguing with a street vendor about prices. The tourist gave two 500,000 VND bills to buy a hat but only received 150,000 VND in change. He questioned, the street vendor initially said “the two tourists only gave 500,000 VND”, but when he learned that there was a surveillance camera, this person agreed to take back the hat and refund one million VND to the customer.

“I’ve been doing tourism in the old town for 20 years, so I can’t ignore this scene,” he said, adding that the price of hats in the old town ranges from 40,000 VND to 70,000 VND per hat.

Mr. Duy then reported the incident to Hoan Kiem Ward Police.

On the afternoon of January 12, a representative of Hoan Kiem Ward Police said he had invited Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu – a peddler on the old street – to come work. Ms. Thu said she sold a conical hat for 250,000 VND to a customer. After Mr. Duy intervened and asked to reduce the price, Ms. Thu reduced it to 150,000 VND, but the customer did not agree so she returned the money.

Ms. Thu admitted that the act of “cutting off” foreign tourists had a negative impact on the image of Vietnamese tourism and apologized to those involved.

Hoan Kiem ward police fined Ms. Thu 225,000 VND for selling small goods on the road according to regulations.

This is not the first time domestic and foreign tourists have been beheaded in Hanoi’s Old Quarter area. In July 2025, a group of Filipino tourists were “cheated” by a driver in Hoan Kiem ward of nearly 1.4 million dong in taxi fare for a distance of less than 1 km. In September 2025, an Australian family was also charged 1.2 million dong by the driver for a cyclo, three times higher than the prescribed price.