Taxi Meter Scams (and How to Avoid Them)
Rigged meters, fake taxi liveries, refusal to use the meter. The simplest fix: use Grab or Be.
Vietnamese cities have a well-deserved reputation for taxi scams targeting tourists. The pattern is consistent: a meter that runs at 4× the normal rate, a "broken" meter requiring an inflated flat fare, or a taxi-liveried car that's not actually a registered taxi.
The good news: the fix is trivial. Use a ride-hailing app. Skip street taxis entirely if you're not sure what you're doing.
The standard scam patterns
Rigged meter
The meter ticks up two to four times faster than normal. You arrive at a 20-minute destination and the meter reads 800,000 VND ($32) instead of 200,000 ($8). Some rigged meters have a small button under the dash that the driver presses when a foreign passenger gets in.
"Broken" meter, flat fee
The driver tells you, before you start, that the meter is broken and the fare to your destination is a flat 500,000 VND. The real fare is 100,000.
Fake liveries
Two taxi companies have legitimate reputations in HCMC and Hanoi: Vinasun (white/red) and Mai Linh (green). Both names have many lookalikes — VinaSan, Mai Lin, Vinasum — with very similar livery and identical-looking interior cards. The driver picks you up looking like Mai Linh, then runs whichever scam they prefer.
Phantom 500K note
You pay with a 500,000 đồng note. The driver palms it and shows you a 50,000 note, claiming you underpaid. (The 500K is red; the 20K is also a reddish colour but distinctly different — they look similar at a glance.)
The fix: use the app
- Grab — works in all major Vietnamese cities. Cars and motorbike taxis (GrabBike).
- Be — Vietnamese-owned competitor, equally good in HCMC and Hanoi, slightly better outside the big cities.
- Xanh SM — VinGroup's all-electric taxi service, growing fast, generally clean and well-priced.
All three:
- Show the fare before you book.
- Take card and cash payment.
- Have driver ratings and complaint mechanisms.
If you must take a street taxi
- Use Vinasun or Mai Linh — the real ones. Phone numbers and logo styles are findable online; compare before getting in.
- Insist on the meter before you start. "Đồng hồ, please" — đồng hồ means meter.
- Take a photo of the licence plate before getting in.
- Don't pay with a large note — pay with the exact or slightly more.
- Watch the meter during the ride.
Airport pickups
- HCMC's Tân Sơn Nhất, Hanoi's Nội Bài, and Đà Nẵng's airports all have well-organised taxi stands with named operators. Use those.
- Better still: pre-book Grab or Be from inside the terminal. Walk a few minutes from the taxi stand to a designated rideshare pickup zone.
- Avoid touts inside the arrivals hall. Anyone approaching you with "taxi taxi taxi" before you reach the official stand is to be ignored.
Approximate honest fares (2026)
| Route | Honest fare (VND) |
|---|---|
| HCMC airport to District 1 | 200,000–280,000 |
| Hanoi airport to Old Quarter | 350,000–450,000 |
| Đà Nẵng airport to An Thượng beach area | 100,000–150,000 |
| 5 km cross-city in Hanoi/HCMC | 50,000–80,000 |
If the meter or quoted fare is dramatically above these, something is wrong.
What to do if scammed
- Pay and get out if you feel unsafe. The money loss isn't worth a confrontation.
- Take a photo of the taxi, the driver's ID card on the dash, the licence plate.
- File a complaint — Grab/Be have in-app reporting. Street taxis can be reported to the company (phone number on the side of the car) or to tourism police via the city hotline (Hanoi 0903 415 122).
- Lost item reports — Grab/Be have in-app processes; surprisingly often, items are returned.