Think there is nothing to be done about bad campers? Not quite! RoverPass, an online campsite-booking platform, has just launched the “Flag a Camper” feature. This feature allows RV park owners to flag campers that have broken the rules, created issues, and been generally unruly.
How Flag a Camper works
Directly in the reservation system, campground staff can flag or ban bad campers and record the issue. They can even issue a complete ban. The camper that is banned will see that the site is unavailable when they try to book again. Campers will also receive a notice if they have been banned.
Campgrounds have issues, too
RoverPass provides a centralized booking system for RV parks. The idea for the “Flag a Camper” feature came from campground owners themselves. They obviously have the same issues we see as campers: people that are loud, breaking the rules, ignoring quiet hours, having dogs off-leash, and being belligerent and disrespectful. The only issue I see with this new feature is that staff could carelessly or vindictively ban someone.
Now, what about everyone else?
Now, if only Recreation.gov, ReserveAmerica and the multitude of state and county parks could do the same thing. Flag or ban bad campers! No show? Ban them!
More from Nanci:
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This has got to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard! What could possibly go wrong here? Pretty much everything. I read recently read where a family was actually thrown out of an RV Campground because they received a package via either Fed-Ex, or UPS. The Campground rules stipulated that packages were not allowed to be sent to the Campground. So, using this as a launching point, should this family be “flagged” for something as nonsensical as this? There are so many rules that are broken on a daily basis in Campgrounds, that if you “flagged”, or “banned”, everyone that breaks them, you will wind up shooting yourself in the foot! We do not camp at State and County Parks and have no intention of ever doing so. But this will be the start of a very bad program! As if we aren’t already under the gun from a Government that is in the process of hiring 87,000 more IRS Agents to scrutinize (terrorize) us over Taxes! Now you want to start making camping a totalitarian experience as well?
Let’s ban people over a package but be totally cool with them dumping their black tank on the ground and icky annoying things bad campers do. I camp to get away from it all…..
I agree Sophie. Sometimes it just doesn’t make sense.
I see lawsuits from banned campers who seem to have no appeal rights. Thinking about RVMiles where Jason and his family were unfairly kicked out of a park for receiving an Amazon package off campground. That vindictive campground manger surely would have “flagged” Jason had this new system been around. Although, I can see the need for such an “alert” system for campground owners, I see many opportunities for abuse. Just thing about the “no-fly” list. Same scenario. God forbid your name get on that list incorrectly. For interesting reading see 6 stories of RVers who got kicked out of campgrounds. Was it fair? – RV Travel. BTW, if you ever get to meet Jason and Abby camping like I did, you will find them extremely nice and totally un-deserving of the treatment they received. They are as nice off-screen as they are on-screen.
“The only issue I see with this new feature is that staff could carelessly or vindictively ban someone.” Just what’s needed…getting banned because some campground owner didn’t like the cut of your jib. Would there be some type of appeal process? Sounds like a law suit waiting to happen. How about the opposite possibility…Flag an Owner? Ban rude, annoying owners from getting visits to their website. 😉
What about names? Google your own name and see how many hits you get. There were “About 38,900,000 results “, you see a person with a duplicate for Megan Edwards. Same with the no-fly list you read where some one had a problem.
The system can’t be one sided – it should be that the camper has the right to appeal being designated guilty of bad behavior. This means a neutral party, an arbitrator, is assigned to review the case. If the accused is found not guilty then there needs to be a fine against the campground for filing a false report. If the party in question is found guilty then they should also be subject to a fine in order to put their name back in “good standing” after a given probation period.
And who pays the arbitrator?? Now you’re introducing extra fees to cover the extra costs.
Get banned? Just create a new account and carry on. Gamers and social media trolls do it all the time and never slow down.
Terrible idea. We have seen how people can not be trusted with technology as it is. Time to cancel the cancel culture and all such nonsensical ideas.
Agree.
Really a bad ideal…who is the monitor of this very dumb ideal.
Dumbest idea ever. Though I’m not surprised that a journalist approves of it. For some reason in the US today, in order to be any type of journalist you have to support the nanny state and cancel culture.
Flag a camper is so wrong. There have been many times we have told the parks owners/managers about others no obeying the rules but it’s not up to us to take care of that. The owners/ managers can do something about those who continuously break rules, kick them out. There is a website for owners /managers that they can relay those messages to others to make them aware. You give free rein to other campers, they can say anything, just because you don’t like your neighbor for any reason. Our neighbors site looks terrible, they are noisy and rude. We have said something about their dogs, as they have been on our site loose. If the owners/managers don’t do anything about it, then maybe that’s not a park for you. Again, it’s the owners/managers job to police their guests, not ours. This is just our opinion. I can move😉
“This feature allows RV park owners to flag campers that have broken the rules, created issues, and been generally unruly.”
“Directly in the reservation system, campground staff can flag or ban bad campers and record the issue. They can even issue a complete ban. The camper that is banned will see that the site is unavailable when they try to book again”.
Brenda, This sounds like a tool for camp managers, not just anybody. It sounds like it could be used to good effect, by the campground owners…like you advocate. I don’t think that just fellow campers are able to use this tool. Like you, I would abhor a feature where we become the tattle tales. But we might be able to report things to a manager who could determine if it was a big enough problem to note it on the offenders record. This just gives them another tool to actually deal with the rising problems we all are seeing.
But like Nanci Dixon notes…there could be potential problems, too.
Perhaps flag a camper could monitor complaints until a “three strikes” combination initiates a ban? This would prevent malicious complaints or owners favoritism tilting the results?
Good idea. I see a lot of problems with this. Unless well moderated.
When I saw that this idea came from RoverPass, it raised a big red flag! We used this service once, in an attempt to make a one-night reservation in July. 5 minutes after being notified that the reservation was accepted, we got notice it was cancelled. The RV park refunded most of the money we had paid them, minus a few cents. Rover Pass did not. When I complained to Sam Njani of RoverPass, just got an email basically saying t.s., they couldn’t refund so that they could keep providing service.
I don’t blame Westgate RV Park of London, KY. But I will no longer be doing business with any RV park that employs the Rover Pass platform
I foresee a lot of problems with this. Although well intended. Seeing as how people can maliciously ban people they don’t like for various reasons like skin color, gender or politics…. or being a Chiefs or Bucs fan… or age… the list goes on. Needs proper protections in place. Not a fan of roverpass.
Beware the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Horrible idea. We have a bad situation in this country where peoples lives are being ruined because they don’t agree with someone else’s agenda. I can see it now. You fly a Maga flag, have a pro Biden bumper sticker, or even fly an American flag and some park worker doesn’t like it and you get banned from parks.
This is so wrong on so many levels both morally and there would definitely be legal ramifications. Be careful big brother is watching you.
So, we get to “red flag” campgrounds so they cannot rent sites till they clean up their act ?
Sounds like more of the ‘guilty until proven innocent’ that is going on in the media these days. Once you’ve been accused of something, it’s nearly impossible to prove your innocence. Horrible idea.
Going to go out on a limb here. Personally, we have only had one bad camper, in the last 4 years. It was for being too noisey, well past 10PM.
With that said, if a park owner sees a group of campers who are blatantly violating a rule, get a warning, and continue to flaunt it in your face, or become belligerent. Good example is Grand Canyon, rangers were warning campers, and leaving citations for leaving garbage, garbage bags, and food items outside of the camper, when they were not there. Leave food out, kill a bear. Get flagged!
How about instead of banning people you address the issue at hand and confront the person. If you can’t deal with them then you only ban them from your campground. But to tag someone as a “bad camper”, that’s an opinion. Also banning because they are a no show is not a great solution. You have no idea why they were a no show.