A taxi driver in Hanoi has returned overcharged fares to a group of Japanese travelers after being criticized for fleecing them in a post spread on social media, according to local police.

On Saturday evening, police of Hanoi’s Hoan Kiem District said they had clarified the case in which a 24-year-old taxi driver allegedly overcharged his foreign passengers on August 31.

The driver, of Thanh Nhan Taxi Company, came to the district police office on Saturday to report about the case and said he had repaid the surplus money to the passengers, police officers said. 

This seeming rip-off had been earlier described in a social media post that accused the driver, L.D.H., of charging two Japanese students VND420,000 (US$18), or ten times the amount displayed on the taximeter, police said.

In his report, H. said that he had served a group of three foreigners, not two as mentioned in the post, and one of them gave him a VND500,000 (US$21) banknote when the taximeter showed a charge of VND42,000 ($1.8).

H. received the note and handed VND100,000 ($4.3) back to the passenger, and when he had yet to repay him more, the entire group got out of the taxicab, the driver claimed.

Because of the language barrier, H. failed to properly respond in that circumstance and then drove the cab away, the cabby told police.

That means he received VND358,000 ($15.2) more than the correct fare of VND42,000.

Perceiving that his deed was wrong, H. came back to the hotel to meet the group of foreigners on the evening of August 31 for apologizing to them and returning them VND360,000 ($15.3), which rounded up the overcharged amount, the man reported.

H. had made a commitment not to repeat similar offenses in the future, police said.

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