According to a facebook post posted by a local man who witnessed rip off toward foreigner and decided to take action. This posted has gone viral and has got a lot of shares.

The whole story

Today i went to buy coffee at a shop that i always go, however today it was closed, so i went to buy at a shop nearby. I ordered 3 plastic glasses of coffee. Then, there was a foreigner came to buy one coke and one sting. He asked seller, how much, in English. The seller replied 2 dollar. Then the foreigner handed her 5 dollar note to her helper. Then, the helper passed it to the seller and the seller told her helper to give the foreigner 3000 riel (0.75 dollar) changes. However, her helper didn’t follow what the seller said. The helper asked back, this is 5 dollar note, why give him only 3000 riel changes. The seller replied, it is not your business, just give the change to him. I (OP) asked the seller, why only 3000 riel changes. She didn’t reply me and she took 3000 riel and handed to the foreigner by herself. The foreigner was doubt and refused to take the changes. So I (op) asked her why she did that and finally she told her helper to give the foreigner 12000 riels (3 dollars) changes.

Note, this happened near Toul Tom Pong or Russian Market

good work op.
vietnam has a really bad reputation for this.
it stops people from visiting.
one of the great assets of Cambodia is the friendly people, and honesty seems to be a well developed trait among young people here who have an education.
it sets Cambodia apart from some other countries in the region- in a good way.

frank lee bent wrote:one of the great assets of Cambodia is the friendly people, and honesty seems to be a well developed trait among young people here who have an education.
it sets Cambodia apart from some other countries in the region- in a good way.

Hahahaha!

I went to the shop round the corner from my place about a week after I'd moved in. All I wanted was a couple of cans of Coke... the fat sweaty bastard at the till asked for $4. I was just in the middle of telling him where to shove the cokes when his wife arrived, apologized and asked for $1. Never been back since. They've lost out on around $1,500 of business because of it... (we go through a lot of coke with our friends Jack Daniels and Jim Beam here).

i would have refused to pay $2 for a sting and a coke! what a rip off!!

I remembered, i was doing the same thing at Pich Nel. I bought a piece of pineapple for $0.50, then when a barang went to buy it, the price went up to $1. I then talked to the seller and he got the same price as me. I actually hate it.

Jamie_Lambo wrote:i would have refused to pay $2 for a sting and a coke! what a rip off!!

Yeah, today a streetside lady charged me 2500 riel each for two Cokes and I thought she was somewhat taking the piss. I won't be back.

Coke plus sting should be $1 I would think.

Cam Nivag wrote:

Jamie_Lambo wrote:i would have refused to pay $2 for a sting and a coke! what a rip off!!

Yeah, today a streetside lady charged me 2500 riel each for two Cokes and I thought she was somewhat taking the piss. I won't be back.

Coke plus sting should be $1 I would think.

considering 2 cans of beer from a street vendor would come to a dollar you would have though so lol

frank lee bent wrote:good work op.
vietnam has a really bad reputation for this.
it stops people from visiting.
one of the great assets of Cambodia is the friendly people, and honesty seems to be a well developed trait among young people here who have an education.
it sets Cambodia apart from some other countries in the region- in a good way.

Seldom have I experienced anything close to this in Hanoi. Perhaps a HCMC thing?

frank lee bent wrote:good work op.
vietnam has a really bad reputation for this.
it stops people from visiting.
one of the great assets of Cambodia is the friendly people, and honesty seems to be a well developed trait among young people here who have an education.
it sets Cambodia apart from some other countries in the region- in a good way.

Remind me again why Khmers hide behind gates and barbed wire. Or why so many people here have been robbed by freshy boys on bikes. Or why most of us who have had businesses have been endlessly ripped off by our friendly and educated staff (while the "honest" ones look the other way) . Or why "educsted" Khmer kids pray in pagodas that they can get away with cheating rather than studying. I forget. Petty theft is a big problem in HCM but honesty as a core Khmer trait? How deluded can you be. Face and personal/family self-interest ranks way way ahead of honesty, educated or not. .