So.... Is "Catfished" The Right Word?

Question

[Short Term Rental]

Scenario 1: Guest plants a DHH (dreaded human hair) in the refrigerator. Sends a pic of the hair. Wants money back.

Scenario 2: Guest says "The hot tub is dirty" "Ok no problem we're on the way to clean it" "We won't use it at this point (5 days left) don't bother but we are disappointed." Wants money back.

Did I paint a good enough picture?

Is Catfished the right term for this? Or is there a word I'm not aware of? Or do I need to make up a word?

Julie McCoy · Answer

I'm pretty sure catfishing is when someone pretends to be someone/something they're not.  These are just obnoxious guests. :p

Ken Boone · Answer

That is a bummer.  Some people are just scam artists.  I will say that during the first 3.5 weeks of covid when we lost a ton of bookings and had to slash prices in half for a few weeks, we seemed to have picked up a bunch of problem guests like that though.  Not quite that bad, but we normally don't have guests that nit pick things like that, but man cut the prices in half and see who shows up.  Crazy really.

We had a lady last year who stayed at one of my cabins that was a new construction.  Probably about 3 months old.  The builder put in a crummy bed in the upstairs master so we replaced it with a nice hospitality grade mattress.  Cleaning was going well etc.  I can't remember all the details now, but basically this lady texts my wife on day 2 I think.  Tells here there was a towel left hanging on the bathroom door with a hair on it, there is thick dust all over the ceiling fans like it hasn't been dusted in forever, their is dust elsewhere, floors are dirty, something else I can't remember and that the bed in the master bedroom was so bad they can't sleep on it and has never slept on a bed that bad in their life.

We happened to be in town 10 minutes away.  So my wife responded with I am so sorry I will be right over to take care of the dirty towel and bring you some clean towels and will take care of the dust and as for the bed, that is a new hospitality grade mattress that is used in just about every Hilton in the country and it is a mattress that is between firm and soft but beds are very subjective to the individual and I am sorry you don't like it.

Well when she got that.. she quickly responded - no don't worry about coming over, we moved downstairs and that bed is much better and don't worry about the rest of it.  - yea right - because the rest of it didn't exist.  I was there 2 days before and my cleaners took pictures of things like that after every cleaning.  I know the cabin was spotless.  Just another scammer trying to get a free stay.  Once we offered to come over right away, we got that response from them and never heard from them again - thankfully.

Ranjith Marappan · Answer

Just curious, did pricing tools like pricelabs, slash the booking  price  any time this year?  Is price a factor in this Higher number of bad guest behaviors that we seem to notice

Kyle J. · Answer

Sounds like unreasonable people at best, scammers at worst. I’ve stayed in all kinds of STR’s and had things happen from time to time (i.e. fridges that flooded, large bugs inside the house when the house was in a tropical location, etc).

I’ve always just chalked it up to “things happen”, and it’s never been enough to ruin a trip. I’ve spent $8K-$10k for some of these places, and never once asked for any money back for any of the issues I’ve encountered.

Certainly can’t imagine expecting a free stay over a hair. But I guess there’s all types.

Collin Hays · Answer

We have had an unusually large volume of these types this year.  Several no-shows claiming credit card fraud etc.  crazy.

Michael Baum · Answer

Not catfished. Just terrible people. The worst kind really. They are the kind that think they are generous and nice, but everyone knows they are the worst.

John Underwood · Answer

I think catfish has to do with dating sites?

Man you have had a string of bad luck!

So.... Is "Catfished" The Right Word?

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