VietNam entry scam
 

I have been in Thailand quite a while and decided to visit VietNam. I am an American citizen and applied for the online e-visa
and it was approved after 3 days. I fly into Ho Chi Minh City earlier today and wait about an hour to talk to the customs clerk . She tells me that the
number I put down as my passport number has an extra digit inserted and I am suddenly confused because the visa approval
which would be more thorough than a cursory airport customs chat did not show any signs of trouble and I was given the "thumbs up" to visit.
I have to walk over and get a "new" visa...but then it gets ramped up to an "emergency" visa because of this typo.
I ask how much for an "emergency visa" and the cranky clerk says $200 US. I am feeling a little taken advantage of at this point
and say, "Forget it, fly me back to my destination (Bangkok) and he lowers it $170 when he realizes I mean business.
I finally agree to pay for the "emergency visa" and have to exit the airport to get money because he will not take my VISA card. The first ATM will not give me any money and I start to panic. I ask for another ATM location and run 75 meters down by the taxis and pull out 4.2 Million dong.
I walk back feeling like a sucker and start wondering why he would not take payment by VISA card (paper trail!) and am really starting
to get flustered. I walk back to the customs line area and pay the goon 4.2 million dong and leave the airport demoralized...
Anyway, is there anyone I can talk to about this? Airport ? Embassy? They had plenty of time (3 days) to spot the error (if I really made one) and I never should
have been granted the e-visa if there was some kind of clerical error such as they described...much better for them to warn me ahead of time than to throw me into this
Panic Zone.

Do you not have a copy of your evisa to compare with your passport??
Was this customs or immigration?
​​​​​​Unfortunately in VN there is the odd soul who likes to supplement their income, whether this was the case or not I am unsure, but I definitely would have stood my ground more and asked for a supervisor and evidence of the extra number.

Welcome to FlyerTalk.

I don't understand why they allowed you to leave the airport to go to an ATM machine when you haven't cleared immigration. What safeguard did they have that you would return?

Fireman, I did see a discrepancy (inserted 1) between what was written and my actual passport number but it's anyone's guess as to whether
I made the original mistake. You'd think today's software would catch something like that, and you assume everything is kosher after they approve the evisa.
I'm not so opposed to a 10 or 20 dollar fine, but "Emergency" suggests some kind of extreme event like boiling water falling in someone's lap
or heart attack. $170 seems like a lot of money for a simple clerical error in a country where a 3 or 4 star hotel would cost about $12, and the
fact that they would not accept a credit card or give a receipt suggests they were trying to avoid a paper trail of the event...
Anyway, time to move on to Nha Trang. If I had to do it over I would have stood in line again rather than walk over to the special services line.
What are the chances the second clerk would even notice the error?

"I don't understand why they allowed you to leave the airport to go to an ATM machine when you haven't cleared immigration. What safeguard did they have that you would return?"

Great question. Didn't make any sense to me either. The other people who were getting jerked around by these officials were at the ATM outside the airport too. Airport staff saw me doing it and didn't complain after I said "pay for visa" so I go the idea this was a common thing, as weird
as it felt doing it..
I considered running away when I realized I had everything I needed except my passport, which would (maybe) cost less than
$170 to replace, but gave up the idea when I had a vision of my face being broadcast on local TV as fugitive of the week. There is very little English spoken in this airport,and the clerks are aggressive, so most people want to just pay up and keep out of trouble..

Unfortunately what may have been a 50-100usd cost for this visa can sometimes be made more expensive by officials that like to line their pockets.
Something to remember is if they ask you to put any cash fines or similar in your passport and then hand to them is a red flag as those people don't want to be on video taking cash directly to hand.

I would have pushed back a little harder to be shown paperwork with the cost on it.

I hope this doesn't put a damper on your trip. Enjoy Nha Trang, my wife is from there.

From the Dept of State's website, bolding is mine:

Pre-approval for Visa on Arrival:  The Government of Vietnam has authorized some businesses and travel agencies to arrange for pre-approval for a “visa on arrival” at the airport. However, some U.S. citizens have reported being charged unexpectedly high fees and additional charges upon landing in Vietnam. The Government of Vietnam and the U.S. Department of State recommend that travelers obtain a visa directly from an embassy or consulate of Vietnam prior to arrival.

My guess is the current visa wasn't valid due to the "typo" and they were going to process a visa on arrival, which, as I read it, you need to have an invitation letter which most companies will charge a small fee for. But since you are standing there, no doubt they took advantage of your plight and gouged you for the emergency visa. It is Vietnam after all. Seems common if it's on the DOS's website. Best you can do is report it to the embassy so they can have a record of it. You're not living until you get scammed in Vietnam...happens to the best of us.

Hopefully you enjoy your trip there, beautiful country and can't wait to go back.

Thanks for the info golfer. Looks like others have been through this too.
It is so nice, and inexpensive, here in this beach town, it is hard to reconcile it with the nightmarish experience in the airport.
There is some other "gaslighting" stuff too they pulled when they did not offer wifi like other airports, futher alienating me
and preventing me from showing them my flight number and airlines, when requested, ending up with them barking at me in front of a crowd, adding insult to injury...
I posted this experience on Reddit too under "Vietnam Entry Scam" 2 days ago and someone has deleted the whole thread.
I have the overall feeling they do not want people to know what is going on there in the airport...and in response to Fireman's comment I went back
and there is no record of any cash paper trail, after refusing to take a credit card, so all things considered, I stand by my assertion this is a slick scam rather than an anomaly or misunderstanding...

Have had this pulled on me in a number of developing world countries. Gotta stand your ground and politely tell them where they should go.

Yes it is always better to get it from the government rather than the agencies. This was going on in Thailand too just after they opened post pandemic.

So it's a scam because most likely you've entered your passport number incorrectly and is being punished for it ? Or is it a scam because the e-visa people are in cahoots with Nha Trang immigration ?

I'd say it's a scam because they are profiting almost $200 from a simple clerical error that somehow never raised any "red flags" until I got there,
even after a 3 day wait where I got the e-visa approved without qualification before traveling, and their insistence on "cash only" with no paper trail just adds more weight to this notion.
Feel free to disagree, but most people are agreeing this is an exorbitant fee to pay on the spot.

Cash only in Vietnam ? No way Jose....

Hopefully they're coming to their senses with the visa requirement if they want to grow their tourism industry along the lines of what Thailand has achieved.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...d=premium-asia

Vietnam is definitely moving in the right direction.
The behaviour of some officials requiring persons to pay tea money for different infractions is something that will continue to harm their tourism industry.
Unfortunately it is a behaviour that will take some time to be fixed.

We still do not know if this at immigration and as the OP said in the customs? if you try online at the government site, they send you a registration code where you can confirm all the details. I have seen some people being a bit harassed about at immigration because of no e visa. But 200 USD is a scam and especially if they said 200 and then reduced it to 170.

Entered Hanoi a couple of days ago (U.S. passport).
At check-in for the international flight to Hanoi, the e-visa was inspected. However, the immigration chap didn't even care about it.

Then again, on my flight to Da Nang last year, the visa was inspected by that immigration officer.
​​
Can't wait to try more bùn chá and coffee.

That's another point...the immigration woman seemed like she had been advised beforehand about the 1-digit clerical error. Most people would not have even caught that, like
what you describe.

This is a bit strange I would say. How would the immigration official know that you would be coming to her counter in the first place? Was she at the only counter that was open?

We were told that we could do Visa on arrival but shouldn't, even if it cost more just for that reason. And yes, if the official was holding the passport, that was strong psychological insurance against the traveler.

Well, she could have clicked my name on her computer and saw the $$$ light up on her end. Just speculation on my part, but it's plausible.

I am sure the Visa Processing company purposely put an extra digit in the visa. And they are working in cohorts with a senior immigration officer who is directing staff to hit people up for money. Welcome to Vietnam.

At $200 a pop and tourist pouring in 18 hours a day, this is a HUGE racket. So there is enough money to grease everyone from top to bottom.

I have a lot of experience with these places. I would have played dumb and said I only have credit cards. If I has $20 with me I would have pulled that out and said "this is all I have." Most likely they would have given in.

I had similar issues with Indonesia. A company I was working with in Singapore brought two European engineers to Bintan (by ferry). We were getting visa on arrival for each guy. Immigration said "Ten US dollars." The Singaporean director gave him a US $20 bill. The clerk processed the first guy's visa. Then the Singaporean gave the clerk the next guy's passport. The clerk said "Ten ten dollars." The director said "I gave you a 20." The clerk replied "No change." and pointed to a sign.

And all the guy had was another 20. So he had to bend over.

The next time I went to Bintan, I was using the executive express service. You get off the Ferry and skip immigration. A handler takes everyone's passports and processes it. So within 30 minutes of arrival we were teeing off. On hole number 5 the handler came waving her hands across the fairway. Well I have a LOT of stamps in my passport. Even with additional pages, I have to renew my passport early because it is full of stamps. But my passport had full empty pages (Indonesia visas take an entire passport page). But immigration refused to use these pages and made up some stupid excuses.

So I paid an additional $20 and kept on playing. In the end my passport was never stamped in or out.

I have been to Vietnam many times and has always used the government visa processing website and never had an issue at immigration. In Bangkok, yes the express visa on arrival used to be a scam and some immigration officers were arrested too. But it was just the express channel and not for the actual visa. I still cannot understand how the immigration officer can pick you up from all the passengers?
It is actually the airlines fault that they let you board the aircraft with the wrong passport number on the visa. I am not saying that charging you 200 is not a scam. It certainly as specially if they reduced to 175 but if your visa had everything in order then there is no way they could scam you as well.

Chiming in a little late here, but thought I would offer the following.

My company is global and in our industry employees are often asked for "facilitation payments" to get bureaucrats to perform administrative tasks. While we are asked to refuse such attempts, if not possible we are to ask for a receipt.

Sometimes this can cause the bureaucrat to back down if the request is not legitimate.

Fireman, yes, "tea money" is often how it is phrased in our industry. And $200 gets you a LOT of tea!

Went to Hanoi from Manila in January, 2023. We wanted to leave Manila quickly (in a couple of days) and didn't realize that visas on arrival weren't a thing anymore (we are Canadian). We ended up finding an online service that was able to get us a visa within 8 hours of contacting them. It was expensive, but we were on a specific timeline so had no choice. It did seem kind of scamy but we entered into the country without any issues. The immigration officer didn't even ask to look at our e-visas.

Even if you had your passport with you, if you entered the country without an entry stamp you would have had problems when you left the country.

Cebu Pacific should have checked it at check in. If you use the official website it is quick and cheap too. Yes it takes more than 8 hours and around 24 hours to get the e visa approved online. I do not think it is scammy as express service is expensive in most places including Canada. :)

Indonesian bureaucracy thrives on inefficiency, as well as bribes to keep that inefficiency in order.

When I applied for a work visa there years ago, 50 passport photos with a red background were required.

As for the tourist visas on arrival, since 2005 Indonesia has gone from a full-pager, to a half-pager, to a brief period of nothing tangible (only that receipt), to a half-page again. The currency changes a lot, too (last year, I tried using bills from just a few years ago; whoops).

It's a disaster.

Back on topic, I've been to Vietnam about five times, and have never had an issue with immigration. In fact, when a friend applied for a tourist e-visa last year, it was rejected on the basis of an incorrect passport number.

Not too surprising.

Several high ranking Vietnamese politicians have stepped down after being caught in the Vietnam repatriation scheme during Covid. You couldn't get back into the country except on repatriation flights, and people at the VN embassies were charging $9,000 - $15,000 USD for the approvals and flights - flights that would cost $1,000 to $2,000 normally.

You can google "vietnam repatriation flight scandal" to find a bunch of articles. High up in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have resigned already.

The problem was that many of the people they charged were relatively high up people in Vietnam with connections to the government. Thus the ripped off people who, if complained, would be heard.

So the only solace is that they didn't rip you off because you're a tourist, they do it to Vietnamese citizens as well.

Exactly
It's definitely not tourist specific.
Customs officials have a field day with the locals returning back to Vietnam often pulling them aside and trying to get something out of them in the way of cash payments to be allowed through customs.
My Vietnamese co worker who lives in Australia was targeted just a few months ago. After much arguing her 3M VND cash customs duty was eventually bargained down to 1M, cash in the passport then handed to the official.

Well, on the bright side lots of tourists will read this thread and learn the ropes.
Only 5% of travelers return to Viet Nam, as opposed to 50% for Thailand, according to what I have read.

To be fair, it's not unknown for airlines to deny boarding if there's a small typo in your name on the ticket you bought online. Or for money to be lost when sent to a bank account number that's off by one digit. Etc.

The real message is always check and check and recheck when doing business online. It's a basic rule of the internet.

What's your point?

Thailand is the kingdom of scams.

However, it also allows more travelers in visa-free, so it has that going for it. Plus, Bangkok's two airports can get you nonstops to many more places than Vietnam.

Personally, I prefer Vietnam to Thailand ... but Bangkok has the advantage of having the world visit. To me, that means better stocked supermarkets and good medical facilities.

My point is that Thailand is a lot less "scammy" than Viet Nam. I have never been scammed here in over 12 months, with the possible
exception of a Grab taxi double-billing that is being disputed. The 5% return rate for Viet Nam says it all.

Another scam I have seen in Jordan was the immigration clerk taking the visa cash and then pretending being distracted in a conversation with a colleague, and keep asking me for the cash again. He insisted that I did not give him the cash, but he eventually relented. He just tried me for 5 times in the off chance I would give him another 80 bucks.

Wrong.

I've been to Vietnam five times and plan to go again. I was in Thailand twice and don't plan to travel there again.

One thing is that I did my homework before going to both places - I spent plenty of time researching, and reading forums, here, on TripAdvisor, and other places. I was aware that it was my responsibility that all the documentation matches my travel documents and made triple checking that all the passport numbers and travel dates were correct. I was well aware of handbag and phone grabbing practices in Saigon from passing scooters as well as grabbing and running with iPhones foreign tourists leave at their tables in cafes and restaurants (again - Saigon). And I made sure to communicate all this to my travel companions - male and female. So everyone was well aware and nothing has happened during all of the travels.

While I was as aware of jetskis and other tourist scams in Thailand, these extended not only ordinary tourist traps in Phuket but 4* hotels as well. At the checkout, they wanted to charge $20 for a 'missing' tea spoon and a 'broken' tissue box. Fortunately specifically for cases like this, I carry a prepaid card with zero balance.

The above case, the taxi mafia in Phuket, and the fact that I witnessed three traffic accidents on scooters/motorcycles by people under the influence (one of them fatal) in three days I was there - I have no desire ever to go back to Thailand.

I think checking visas carefully to make sure they are in order is basic, although in this case even with the typo/extra digit it was clear that it was the same person.

I am surprised at the charge for the missing spoon and broken tissue box. I really do not know how many times I have been to Thailand. Certainly over a 100 times and while I have seen scams there never have I ever been charged for anything like this.
The Taxi mafia in Phuket is well known and in all countries the taxis over charge. Certainly in Asia probably apart from Singapore. But never in `a 4 star hotel have I
heard of this.

Totally agree. And this will eliminate any scam risk by default.