Here is the scam:
You get in the taxi at the airport and tell the driver where you are going. The driver gets a call on his cell phone and tells the caller the name of the hotel (which is likely one of a handful that appear in The Lonely Planet). When you arrive a man approaches the vehicle from the hotel and tells you that they are all full but they have a second hotel that is 500 metres away and is not full. Remember that you are coming from the airport, it is dark out, the street that you are driving through is thronged with people, and you're tired of travelling. So you go to the other guesthouse.
Alright, so Maeve and I were SCAMMED!! We only really realized a couple of hours after we checked into the CRAP second guesthouse. When we pulled up to the first guest house I checked that it was the right place. Although we never got out of the taxi it looked like the lobby was empty and the guy we were talking to was in fact from the guesthouse. I was just told that part of the scam is that they change the sign at this guesthouse to be wherever you are going.
So it would seem that Vietnam is kicking our ass (also, my Swiss Army Knife that I've had for 7 years fell out of my bag) but today has been much better (which isn't hard) and this seems like the most interesting, craziest city I've ever been.
It's really off-putting to have people lie to your face. The only other time I can recall this happening (that I know of) is in Bangkok when a tuk-tuk driver told us that the temple beside us (which we weren't even aware of) was closed. I think that scam works because you are so distraught that you say, yes tuk-tuk man, won't you please take me somewhere else. A guy today approached me in front of an ATM and told me that it might not be working and he'd check it for me. **Only someone was using it at the time**.
You get in the taxi at the airport and tell the driver where you are going. The driver gets a call on his cell phone and tells the caller the name of the hotel (which is likely one of a handful that appear in The Lonely Planet). When you arrive a man approaches the vehicle from the hotel and tells you that they are all full but they have a second hotel that is 500 metres away and is not full. Remember that you are coming from the airport, it is dark out, the street that you are driving through is thronged with people, and you're tired of travelling. So you go to the other guesthouse.
Alright, so Maeve and I were SCAMMED!! We only really realized a couple of hours after we checked into the CRAP second guesthouse. When we pulled up to the first guest house I checked that it was the right place. Although we never got out of the taxi it looked like the lobby was empty and the guy we were talking to was in fact from the guesthouse. I was just told that part of the scam is that they change the sign at this guesthouse to be wherever you are going.
So it would seem that Vietnam is kicking our ass (also, my Swiss Army Knife that I've had for 7 years fell out of my bag) but today has been much better (which isn't hard) and this seems like the most interesting, craziest city I've ever been.
It's really off-putting to have people lie to your face. The only other time I can recall this happening (that I know of) is in Bangkok when a tuk-tuk driver told us that the temple beside us (which we weren't even aware of) was closed. I think that scam works because you are so distraught that you say, yes tuk-tuk man, won't you please take me somewhere else. A guy today approached me in front of an ATM and told me that it might not be working and he'd check it for me. **Only someone was using it at the time**.
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