A guest in Hanoi shared his experience of buying crabs at the market, spending half the cost on the rope, attracting the attention of the online community.
The guest said that on June 11, when he arrived in Ha Long ( Quang Ninh ) and wanted to buy some seafood as a gift, an acquaintance gave him the phone number of a seafood supplier.
The crab rope weighs 0.9kg, equivalent to more than 500,000 VND (Photo: Character provided).
However, this merchant was busy so he gave the customer the phone number of another person who also specialized in selling seafood at Ha Long market. Going from Cai Dam to Ha Long market, the customer trusted him because he thought that this was a seafood market with many fresh and delicious products, with reasonable prices, so there was no need to bargain.
Here, the customer chose to buy 2.2kg of crab at the price of 540,000 VND/kg of crab meat and 640,000 VND/kg of crab roe. The customer also bought a few other types of seafood, but the cost of the crab alone was nearly 1.3 million VND.
When he got home to process and weigh the crab, the customer was startled to see that the crab rope alone weighed 0.9kg, equivalent to a price of more than 500,000 VND.
"When I was at the market, I looked around and saw that the prices were similar, so I bought it without bargaining. But when I got home and removed the rope, I was shocked because it was so big and heavy. The rope alone cost almost half the price of the crab, so it was really cheap, but it became expensive," the customer told Dan Tri reporter.
When contacted by reporters, the seller always affirmed that "when buying crabs, you have to accept the extra rope because it is all included in the selling price."
"Customers at the market do not complain. But when they get home, they may have put the crabs in a basin of water and weighed them, so how can we control it? At the market, we actually sell to customers.
There is never a case of a crab buyer lacking a rope. Business must be profitable, but we never soak crabs in water to make them heavier so that we can sell them for more profit," the vendor explained.
According to this person, if customers want to buy crabs without strings, they have to accept a different price. For example, crabs with roe can cost up to 850,000 VND/kg - 900,000 VND/kg or crab meat about 750,000 VND/kg. Traders said that even when going to the crab warehouse in Ca Mau to import goods, they have to accept that there is a string attached.
Mr. Tran Thanh Long, a seafood trader in Ha Long, explained that small crab ropes are more expensive, while large ropes are cheaper. On average, about 0.3 kg of rope is needed for each kilo of crab.
"In the case that the customer has to pay 0.9kg of rope, it is a bit much. The customer should have reported it right from the beginning when buying at the market to avoid unnecessary disputes," said Mr. Long.
According to a seafood trader in Hanoi, crabs sent from Ca Mau to the northern provinces always have a rope attached to keep the animal moist. The rope helps keep the crab moist, otherwise the animal's joints can easily dry out, leading to a high mortality rate.
"With damp cloth ties, the crab can live for 4-5 days if mixed with salt water 2-3 times a day. Looking at the thick ropes that tie crabs can be quite offensive, but we also calculate so that the difference between thick ropes and thin ropes is not too big," he explained.
In fact, it is not uncommon for crab buyers to be upset because they are charged extra for the rope.
Recently, a guest named AY shared her experience of buying crab at the Green Market (Van Giang town, Hung Yen) for 890,000 VND/kg. However, when she got home to process it, AY removed all the strings to weigh it, and found that the weight was 0.24kg, equivalent to more than 200,000 VND. AY's post then also caused controversy, attracting many mixed opinions on social networks.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/du-lich/mua-22kg-cua-o-ha-long-khach-buc-xuc-ton-them-500000-dong-tien-day-buoc-20250612110433570.htm
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