Bus conductors ripping off foreigners now and then?

You're fighting a losing battle unless you can speak Vietnamese; its wrong but there's not really anything you can do about it.

conductor asked u for  30,000 but u pay 21,000  u save 9,000
conductor try to scam u  40 cents ....crooks are everywhere in vietnam
pls report to the police [ cong an ]

KruChris wrote:

This morning, I took a 7,000 d government bus. Chris

Which bus was it?  Was it blue or yellow?

Haha, You just paid less the 2 Euro for how many KM?  If you took this service in your country then how much it cost?

KruChris wrote:

At work, I'm getting bogged down with a silly workload some local could do. It's like asking a chef to chop vegetables. But they like it to be  h a r d  & painful, don't they?

Chris

"Some local could do...."   Is it just me or does this sound incredibly colonialist? 

What are your amazing credentials Chris that you don't have to mix a little drudge work in with saving the world?   I worked in corporate agriculture and had mechanics at my disposal.  When a machine broke down, I was on top that machine figuring things out before I called the "hired help" so that I could get back to budgets and reports.

THIGV wrote:

"Some local could do...."   Is it just me or does this sound incredibly colonialist?

I thought it sounds very arrogant, but I'm old enough to know that people who rate themselves too highly are often legends only in their own minds.

I asked the OP for the bus name, route, and colour because I had a feeling he might be a bit confused on the fare.  Not all "government buses" charge 7000 đồng, and not every part of a route is charged the same price.  I know about this, because just two days ago on Monday, I had a friendly debate with a bus driver, a conductor/ticket taker, and two other passengers on the difference fares of different buses.  In the end, I learned that the information I acquired from the Internet was completely bogus, and the lower fare for which I thought I was qualified didn't even exist.

Even if you were "ripped off", keep it in perspective. You paid less than $2 in total, which is less than tip money in your home country. It just isn't worth worrying about.  Smile, be happy.

A: it was the yellow and red government bus in BAC NINH. Serving the route from the bus station in town to SAMSUNG's plant with 40,000 employees.

In another city, on a route which I've taken xxx times, a conductor doubled the fare arbitrarily. Then I just paid up. // In HA LONG, one guy demanded 500,000 d on a trip to MY DINH which should have been 1/5 of that. The fellow passengers have been amused. Let's see how this foreigner will take it?

The aim is to go through life over here without sweating the small stuff. But then, by paying up one will be responsible for the next foreigner's trouble from the same person "who will have liked blood"

Like you, I draw the line at being overcharged 400,00 dong. That is when I call upon my wife to do a tap dance. It works every time.

My gf's ma just got 10 million pickpocketed by the bus conducteress on a private minibus. Lovely people here.

Thaiger wrote:

My gf's ma just got 10 million pickpocketed by the bus conducteress on a private minibus. Lovely people here.

"Lovely people here"?  There are bad people and good people everywhere -- in your country, my country, and Vietnam. 

I had 10K snatched from my hand by a greedy bánh cuốn vendor who wasn't satisfied with the exact change I gave her (50K for two plates of "bánh cuốn breakfast").  That's the only bad incident I encountered since moving here.  OTOH, at least half a dozen wet market vendors have given me back the extra bills I unintentionally paid them, and so many of them have hand-picked the choicest fruits and vegetables for me when I didn't know what to look for. 

This morning, a young man stopped in the rain to take the unopened umbrella from my spouse, opened it over spouse's head, carefully arranged the handle and a few other items (including a to-go cup of hot coffee) in spouse's both hands until we and our goodies were protected, bowed his head to us, then went on his way without saying one word.

Last week, the security officer at a Sacombank escorted us to the ATM on the sidewalk, showed us how to change our pass-code, then turned his back to give us privacy and shield us from the line of people waiting to use the machine until after we finished with our transaction.

A few weeks ago, seeing us weighed down with backpacks, laptop bags, and other carry-ons (we were moving from one place to another on foot), a cảnh sát giao thông (traffic police) stopped the traffic so we could cross the street safely.

I don't know you so I'm not saying you're the type, but those who look for the bad in people will surely find it.  I've always believed in the goodness of people, and I've seen plenty of evidence to support that belief.

If I believe in Peter Pan, will I live forever? haha.

I beleive in my experiences and statistics.

I must say that social behavior is quite low in VN, yes there are many good people here, but there are lots of unscrupulous people here.

The only experience I had with cops in VN, was when I rode with my ex from Saigon to Phan Thiet. I was riding and two traffic cops stopped us near Phan Thiet in the evening (10pm). They asked for my driver license, my ex told them we didnt bring licence or passport. They asked us to step behind a bus in the shadow. My ex said: "No, talk to us here."
Then they let us go. I guess they wanted some money or so.

Standard M-O for the beige mafia.

KruChris, my reaction upon arrival in VN was like yours initially.  Prices seem arbitrary and it seems like people take advantage of you and that bothers me.  Not because of the money value which is very little but because it happens.  After travelling in SE Asia for awhile, this no longer bothers me and I just accept it.  There may be an explanation or not.  Who cares, it's just pennies or a few dollars.  Wait til you have to pay hundreds to the airlines.

As far as the extra charge, my girlfriend has to pay extra if she has excess luggage on the same route she takes back to her hometown every weekend if that makes you feel any better.

TBH, I have encountered both, a rude mob and incredibly kind folks.

* reclining the seat on a bus? The man behind me went ballistic, kicking and screaming. Reclining his own seat? Not an option.

* a girl wanting to learn English instructed and paid a motorcycle taxi. I texted her that she bought 5 hours of 1 on 1 lessons with her 50,000 VND. (it happened so fast - I was not trying to take advantage of her like this). The old man did a great job, too.

* a stranger gave me a lift!

* near Noi Bai airport, a motorcycle taxi demanded 100,000 d to drive me 200 m. I declined and carried the 40 kg myself.

-  Two days ago, spouse and I took a shortcut to Coop.  Being pedestrians, we've taken advantage of every shortcut we've come across.  To date, I believe we've known and used more than 50 of them; a few hundred more and we can create a map of shortcuts in Phú Nhuận if we have a mind to do so.

Anyway, on the way back from the market, we turned into a wrong hẻm which would probably have taken us into Tân Bình eventually.  A dozen steps into the narrow alley, I heard somebody calling, "Cô ơi!"  (Hi there Miss!)  Even though I haven't been a Miss for many decades, curiosity made me turn my head.  Yes, I was being flagged down by a woman who was probably not much older than I,  "It's the other alley you want to turn in, not this one." I was so surprised; I have never seen this woman before in my life, how could she know the direction where I should have headed?   But she was correct, it was a wrong hẻm.

I asked, and the woman said, "I saw you and your husband this morning exiting from that hẻm."  How's that for being thoughtful and caring?  (The fact that spouse is one of a very few Westerners in 10 wards probably helps people to remember him.)

-  This evening, at a bánh cuốn restaurant well known by the locals (our first time there), spouse accidentally overpaid the bill. He handed 350K instead of 150K to the waitress to pay a 130K bill (the 200K note was stuck to the 100K note, that's why.)  The waitress gave him back the extra note, plus the correct change.  We practically chased her down two flights of stairs to return the money, only to hear her saying it's not her error but ours.  The returning of money has happened to us more than half a dozen times already.

Yes, there are dishonest, mean, and rude people in this country as well as in any country in the world, but so far, our experiences have been 98 or 99% positive and we have no reason to think they would change for the worse.

I told the housekeeper at our apartment building that I wished to try out bún riêu (vermicelli soup with crab eggs) from the famous vendor who has received hundreds of praises on the Internet, as well as a spot on Google Map.  She's horrified, "The old lady pushing the charred wood around in the stove with her hands, then with the same hands scoops up vermicelli, takes money, and gives back changes. She also uses one small basin to wash dishes, without rinsing."  I told her none of the reviewers mentioned those things.  She said, "I don't know why, maybe they feel bad for her because the old lady has been cooking for more than 50 years, or maybe they're all blind. You should not eat there."

I was very disappointed but reluctantly followed her advice, and told her so. 

One day in the subsequent week, the housekeeper sent her daughter (who is her assistant) to our apartment asking me not to cook lunch because she'll bring up something special for us to try at noon.

Spouse and I came down to the apartment's community room (where a washer, dryer, two-burner stove, and large refrigerator are located) instead of waiting for her delivery. A feast was laid on the long wood table: fragranced  bún riêu with full fixings (everything was homemade), as sumptuous and tasty as in any good restaurant.  It was her treat to me -- a poor woman who cleans rooms and does laundry for a living giving the slightly richer apartment tenant a gift of food, just because.

I was speechless. We all sat down on the benches and had a wonderful lunch together.

BTW, she wore plastic disposable gloves while handling the food she served us.  Evidently not all Vietnamese are unhygienic as wrongly believed.

Ciambella wrote:

I told the housekeeper at our apartment building that I wished to try out bún riêu (vermicelli soup with crab eggs) from the famous vendor who has received hundreds of praises on the Internet, as well as a spot on Google Map.

My experience is that "famous" places are almost always a letdown.  We ate bun rieu at least once a week at a sidewalk place in front of the owner's house on an alley off of an alley, that no passerby would ever see.  Actually there was no sidewalk; the tables were just on the street.  They opened about 6 AM and finished around 9AM or earlier whenever they ran out, as often happened.  We would never have know of the place, even though it was close to our apartment, unless a neighbor had not told my wife about it.  They certainly weren't on Google but they certainly were well known in our neighborhood.

Ciambella wrote:

BTW, she wore plastic disposable gloves while handling the food she served us.  Evidently not all Vietnamese are unhygienic as wrongly believed.

These days plastic gloves are a pretty good indicator that a street vendor cares about quality and hygiene.