Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackEleven
Vietnam and Peru are pretty different in terms of taxis. In Peru you negotiate the fare beforehand. In Vietnam they actually have taxi meters.
That taxi driver scam in Vietnam that the OP faced though, where the fare suddenly jumps, is a common one.
What they do is when you get in the cab, they set your bags or something else in front of the meter to block your view of it then they drive off. Then they conveniently forget to reset the fare from the last passenger, so when you do finally get to see the meter it's your fare plus the last guy's, plus the guy's before him and however far back they can stretch it.
Always check that the guy zeroes out the meter before he takes off. Sometimes if they have a good fare going they'll get mad or pretend not to know what you're talking about when you ask them to reset it. In that case just get out of the cab and walk away. Usually at that point they'll start to understand you.
The Peru scam I faced most often is where you'd agree to one price and then you'd get there and the guy would insist that the price you agreed on was about 50% higher. That one was worse because at that point it's just your word against his.
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Ya after a bit of research its easy to know the fake cabs from the real ones...
The thing with Vietnam, is they will get violent. Lock the doors (child locks) and have blacked out rear windows. They will also have "friends" waiting near by if you refuse yo pay, and almost always they have a weapon under their seat.
With the meter, it was zero, and as we started to drive it went up fast... to fast... Then suddenly jumped 100,000d. I have taken other cabs since then, and they start at 10d (1000d). a 10 min cab ride is about $4. It is much more expensive then cabs in Thailand, and they wont really negotiate a price here.