Authorities in Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport have detained a man for cheating a group of Japanese tourists with his illegal taxi service.
Authorities in Hanoi's Noi Bai International Airport have detained a man for cheating a group of Japanese tourists with his illegal taxi service.
According to the airport, they received an email on December 31 from the tourists, a family of five members, complaining that they were overcharged by a taxi driver and had to pay VND1 million (USD41.66) for a one-kilometre trip from the international terminal (T2) to the domestic terminal (T1).
The family from Tokyo landed at Noi Bai on the afternoon of December 30. They then had to transfer to the domestic terminal to take a flight to Cam Ranh Airport in Khanh Hoa Province.
Police at the airport tracked down and detained the freelance driver, Nguyen Van, on January 1. Van, age 40, admitted that he had charged the five Japanese tourists VND1 million after transporting them from the T2 terminal to the T1 terminal on December 30.
Van does not work for any taxi company which is registered to operate at the airport, but he has often managed to drive around the area looking for passengers. He has even hung the logo of Vietnam Airlines on his car in order to win customers' trust.
The man was asked to pay a fine and return the VND1 million that he took from the tourists. The airport plans to give back the VND1 million to the Japanese family when they return to the airport from Cam Ranh on January 3.
The same day, Noi Bai Airport authorities also tracked down another taxi driver who charged an Indian couple VND2.70 million while the taxi meter showed only VND270,000. That driver was also asked to return the extra money to the tourists.
