American tourists accused of being “charged” one million dong for a motorbike taxi ride in Hanoi

At around 5:00 p.m. on February 24, Clarissa, an American tourist, left the Museum of Ethnology on Nguyen Van Huyen Street, Nghia Do Ward and prepared to book a motorbike taxi to go to a restaurant on Trang Tien Street, Hoan Kiem Ward. The distance is about 7 km, the price is 70,000 VND depending on the time. At this time, a traditional motorbike taxi driver approached, offering to drive Clarissa to her destination.

“I didn’t ask the price first because I had a pleasant experience with a traditional motorbike taxi for two weeks in Hanoi,” she said.

Even though he was informed about the exact destination, this driver kept stopping at locations that were not on the itinerary, and Clarisa thought that was the way Vietnamese people show hospitality.

Initially, he took Clarissa to the train street and asked a woman to take pictures of both of them. While taking photos, the female tourist said the driver even tried to kiss her. She was then taken to a memorial and the American tourist had to open Google Maps to remind the driver to go in the right direction.

When we neared the destination, the driver announced that the ride would cost 500,000 VND. Arriving at a restaurant in Trang Tien, seeing that Clarisa still had money in her wallet, the driver changed his mind and asked for one million dong. Even though she knew she was being scammed, the female tourist still accepted to pay to avoid trouble.

The same evening, Clarisa and Ngo Trung Duc, living in Hanoi, went to Hoan Kiem Ward Police to report the incident. On the afternoon of February 25, a representative of Hoan Kiem Ward Police said they had found driver Pham Van Lich, 62 years old, who was transporting Clarissa. Mr. Lich declared that he drove to many places beyond the tourists’ request, such as Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, train cafe, and then arrived at the destination of Trang Tien, and at the same time asked Clarissa to pay one million VND.

At the investigation agency, Mr. Lich returned one million dong to Clarissa. The female tourist received and sent back 200,000 VND, the cost to pay Mr. Lich for transportation on February 24. Currently, Hoan Kiem Ward Police complete the dossier and punish Mr. Lich for the above behavior.

Trung Duc, Clarisa’s friend, said that during the two weeks Clarisa was in Hanoi, her group of friends always took the initiative to take her out. On February 24, everyone was busy so Clarisa took the initiative, leading to the incident of being “cheated” on motorbike taxi fares.

According to Mr. Duc, the amount is not large but will leave a bad impression on foreign guests. Therefore, he decided to go with Clarisa to report on the night of February 24 to prevent similar cases from happening.

In Vietnam, cases of tourists being cut off on travel fares often happen in big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. In July 2025, a group of Filipino tourists were charged more than 1.4 million VND for a distance of about 1 km in the old town. Earlier this year, a French tourist also accused a taxi of being charged 900,000 VND for the distance from Noi Bai airport to the city center, three times higher than normal.