Guests violate House Rules, show aggressiveness, rudeness, verbal abuse, dishonesty, hatred, etc.

[Cat-Phuong0]

Dear Community of Hosts,

We just had a terrible experience with a group of Korean guests, and we'd like to share it to get opinions from other hosts who might have faced similar problems.

Due to high competition in our area, we have no choice but to allow Instant Book. Until now, we had managed to attract mostly guests who met our expectations in terms of communication, integrity and respect.

We had got a booking from this Korean guest 2 months before his stay. He had introduced himself, saying that he would stay in our place for a week with 2 coworkers, for a business trip. We had quite good communication with him, so nothing to really worry about. Until his coming approached.

First, when we reminded him a few days before his trip that we would need copies of their passports (to comply with local laws), he replied quite aggressively, stating that other hosts didn't ask him that before, asking why he should share private information, etc. We kindly explained why, and he said ok.

On the night of his arrival, it was past midnight already, we met him and he announced us that he wouldn't stay in our apartment, and that instead the 2 guys with him would. Wow ... Of course, he hadn't mentioned that at all before.

That is one of our main House Rules: the person who books must stay in our place.

What to do at this point of time, past midnight ... So we reluctantly accepted, but we clearly looked and were uncomfortable, and asked the contact of one of the guys. That was clearly not a business trip any more ...

The next day, we tried to get in touch with them, to check if everything was ok, as we do with all our guests.

The guy replied aggressively and rudely, saying that he was busy drinking with his friends. We were shocked. We had never faced it. So we asked him to respect his hosts. And it became worse and worse. He was drunk and ended up accusing us of not liking Koreans, basically ... whereas we treated them like we treat all our guests.

So that same night, we contacted the guy who booked our place, reporting the whole conversation and warning him that if his friend didn't apologize the next morning, he would have to leave our place immediately. We reported to Airbnb also.

And indeed, we received apologies the next morning.

So we kept quiet with them for the rest of the week. We just asked him to go and check our place before the 2 guys checked out.

And since he didn't stay in our place, we asked him not to review us.

But after having said sorry a few times to us, he avenged himself and posted a hateful review for us. We almost always get 5* everywhere, and he gave us a few 1* ratings.

The message was written in Korean, so aimed at Koreans, basically comparing us with dictators, and showing total dishonesty and hatred. He mentioned again the passports thing, which is written in our House Rules. And said that we annoyed him ...

But since he was used to easy-going hosts who let them do everything, he couldn't refrain from showing his hatred towards people who imposed him rules, in a nationalist way.

We had to call Airbnb to ask for help, which resulted in his hateful review being removed shortly after.

To our regret, our honest review about him, to warn future hosts, was also removed, and his profile stayed in Airbnb.

So that's the experience we want to share with the community.

We had read a lot of stories from hosts having tough time with Korean guests.

But our case isn't about lack of cleanliness. Our place was clean after they left.

But being verbally offended, and then reading his hatred towards people like us, really gave us stomach pains.

Is that a coincidence that the first guests openly breaking our rules and reacting to our care in an opposite way as all other guests do, were Korean guests?

[Andrea9]

@Cat-Phuong0

That is really a terrible experience, so sorry to hear.

There are a few things that esp. not so experienced hosts must know:

1)

Even if you use IB, you can choose the option to only accept verified guests and also only those with prior good reviews.

For what that's worth - it's not a guarantee, but would prevent guests with no history on the site from automatically booking.

2)

What ultimately happened with the 2 guests staying without the person who booked is that it is a 3rd person booking, and is not supported by Airbnb. By accepting them into your home like that anyway and for ex. not calling Airbnb about the problem, you are not backed or supported by Airbnb. If there had been any problem, you would not be able to take recourse through them.j

Make sure you have Airbnb phone # on speed dial, and next time say "Oh, I'm sorry, we now have a 3rd person booking. This means I am not covered by Airbnb and that is a problem for me. Let's call Airbnb right away and see how we can solve this."

The only exception to 3rd person bookings is when a company has an Airbnb business account for booking. You would be able to see this in an inquiry or booking request.

3)

If somebody had such disrespectful and rude behaviour, I would have been extremely uncomfortable about it and been on the phone to Airbnb right away to a) get it on record and b) have them contact the guest about the problem.

Do you see why it is important to make sure you don't give guests access to your place if the main booker is not present? Because in this case Airbnb would not have had to support you. Although it would have been worth trying anyway in your case.

4)

If a guest becomes racially or otherwise discriminatory it's another reason to report your being uncomfortable with them and to get Airbnb's assistance in the issue.

Remember, every time you involve Airbnb, it is recorded with the reservation and on record in case of later problems.

Every conversation on the booking page can and will be looked into by the helpdesk in case of later problems, so make sure you use it as record of proof. For ex. repeat or confirm diffiult conversations or situations or what a guest agrees to off-line through a message.

Here's a post by Christine on how to change guest count on arrival, but in principle the same applie...

http://www.thehostingjourney.com/deal-difficult-airbnb-guest/

https://airbnbsmart.com/remove-bad-airbnb-guest/

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[Cat-Phuong0]

Hi Andrea,

Thank you so much for your reply and for your compassion.

We don't have years of experience as hosts, just a few months, but still already over 20 completed trips and we've already seen the whole world. But this case was so in contrast with the rest.

Regarding your points:

1/ We know about that. We don't filter on these 2 criteria because we want as much visibility as possible. But we request people to verify their Government ID when they actually book our place.

This guest had good reviews from previous hosts ... clean, tidy, polite, etc. the usual mini review.

But we know, especially in our market, that many hosts accept every type of guest and don't care about what's going on during their stay. Recently, we had our own guests bothered all night by another apartment, where most likely, another group of Korean guests was playing. This is a building partly used for Airbnb rentals, fyi. Can you imagine, loud music from 1am to 11am ...

So, because of that, you have guests like him, with good reviews, instant booking, and they're used to doing what they want.

It's like they rent a few apartments for playing all week, and they dispatch their friends ...

When the loud music incident happened, the host was nowhere to be seen. Even the building doesn't know who it is. And if you want to know the end of the story, the people refused to open the door when security staff came, so finally they had to cut the electricity in their apartment to stop the noise. And still after that, they refused to open the door, because they were scared. So we have understood that only threat works with these people.

2/ Let me clarify. The guy who booked arrived with his 2 friends. All 3 came with us to our apartment. He told us he would stay in another apartment in the same building. And we told him that he would be responsible for whatever happens in our place with the 2 guys. I understand that we should have called Airbnb urgently, but it was past midnight, he didn't say anything about his plan before, and we don't have a local Airbnb number here, in Vietnam.

When we decided to call Airbnb after the hateful review, because we hadn't received a reply from our written report, we had to call the Philippines call center (redirected from Singapore). It's complicated to talk to Airbnb from here ...

Indeed, after this case, we have decided that, if it were to happen again, we would give the guest 2 options:

a) We refuse the check-in, and we'll settle it financially later. Up to them to find another place where to sleep, it's not our concern.

b) We accept, but under one condition. We text him in Airbnb and ask him to acknowledge that he won't stay in our place he booked, without having asked us before, and to commit that he won't review us.

And then we don't communicate during their stay, because anyway, they don't suit us at all. We only ask them to return our apartment in clean state.

All we want is our peace of mind first.

Andrea, since you're very experienced, what would happen if we had refused the check-in (a)?

We have strict cancellation, and they had booked 7 nights.

And one more thing we want to underline, he lied to us when he booked our place 2 months before.

We wonder whether saying business trip wasn't a way to make us feel comfortable, having dirty plans in mind.

3/ Again, the main booker was present. He just went to stay in another apartment, a few floors higher, from another host.

And after we reported the incident to him, he talked to the rude drunk guy, who then apologized to us in text message.

We sent screenshots of the aggressive & rude communication of the guy to Airbnb.

4/ Same as 3/ All of this had been reported and documented to Airbnb after 1 day. But by email for help, not on the phone.

And he still sent that hateful review after his departure.

So we assume that calling Airbnb has more short-term impact (or only has impact) and next time we'll do that.

But like I said, yes his review has been removed, but his profile is still there, and his previous good reviews from hosts.

He can still give miserable time to other hosts like us, who are highly educated, the contrary of him.

And the reason is Airbnb needs proof that he can repeat that behavious with other hosts. One instance isn't enough.

So I hope this clarifies things for you.

Thanks a lot for your links, we'll make good use of the content.

Cat

[Kelly149]

@Cat-Phuong0

Cat, I was dealing with a very similar situation last weekend. Strict cancellation, guest breaking rules, paid for himself as a guest, came with others, but then later left & stayed elsewhere. 

CS was emphatic that I would be allowed to cancel "for no penalty ", other than the penalty of not being paid. 

So, yes, you could have refused entry & you could have prevented the review but you would not have been paid, regardless of your cancellation policy. 

[Cat-Phuong0]

For the time being, as I explained, we've decided that if it happens again, without warning in advance, we will accept under one condition, which is to write in Airbnb messaging something like:

- I acknowledge breaking my hosts' House Rules by not staying in the place I booked without asking the permission before

- and I commit not to write a review after my stay

What do you all think about that?

We're highly conditioned by what happened specifically in our case, which is a lying guest avenging himself in a hateful review to be read by his community because we reported his breaking of our rules to Airbnb.

And our otherwise dithyrambic reviews from most of our guests play in our favour.

[Tracy0]

I think the rest was well covered I just wanted to say that it must be coincidence entirely that your guests were from Korea.  I have had many guests from all over the world - including many from Korea - and this kind of 'attitude' is not a cultural thing but a thing specific to those guests you had (unfortunately for you).  I always very much look forward to guests from Korea, so much that I have started to learn to speak some Korean!

[Scott216]

@Tracy0  While I applaud your accepting attitude and wish that for all the AirBnB community, the interaction that you might have as a British westerner versus a person from Viet Nam can be very different.  Regional animosities and historic grievances often play much larger closer to home, sad to say.

[Tracy0]

@Scott216 I think that goes without saying, really, however you're making a lot of assumptions about me and a presumed lack of awareness of the world based on where I happen to live at the moment 😉

I don't doubt that what you say is true (not that it should justify actions based on those attitudes).  I was simply saying I thought it was coincidental that they were Korean.  One's perceptions of an entire group of people may be reflected in how they describe that group of peoploe, but it doesn't mean that these perceptions are true reflections of the behaviour of an entire group of people, if you see what I mean...

I have judgements about groups of prospective guests sometimes based on negative experiences with people from that same cultural background.  I see that as a time for me to double check *myself*, be sure that expectations are mutual and that my own house rules are clear, not as a reason to judge a whole group of people.  What ever do we get beyond money if we don't look at every meeting as an opportunity to grow?

[Cat-Phuong0]

Actually we live in Vietnam but my husband in French and our standards are western, as well as the way we see things.

We don't expect to meet guests as educated as we are every week, but we really don't want to have people like that.

It's true that Koreans aren't positively viewed in Vietnam in general (very negatively to be honest).

That kind of guys comes to Vietnam to do things they can't do or afford at home, and I guess they look down at people hosting them here. Maybe after being warned by Airbnb, they understood how much we also looked down at them ...

[Paul154]

I must say that is a clever trick your guests used. I too would have been suckered.

One could argue that they did not break Airbnb rules. They paid for 3 people. The 3 people came at checkin.

1 of the 3 did not formally "stay", but had access and could "stay".

Sorry you had this experience and you would be right to kick them out.

Early on, I too had an Korean agent book for 2 others. Worst stay ever.

[Cat-Phuong0]

I don't think we can assign the word "clever" to people like that, who only have aggressiveness and retaliation to oppose to our education and intelligence.

They did break our House Rules, because we specifically say "The person who books must stay in our place."

And it's only a side of the story.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Cat-Phuong0

I'm so sorry you had a tough time with rude, abusive guests. Please know, not all Korean travellers are like that - BUT knowing what I know as a fellow Korean, I would be VERY wary and reluctant to host a group of males only in their 20s ~ 30s, even if they claim they will be travelling for business. Many Koreans like to drink and party late into the night - this is a FACT that anyone who has traveled to Korea will know simply from the number of bars open all night, every night that you can see everywhere you go. Also, being on a "business trip" means they can use the corporate card to pay for drinks so double yea~ for them. Like others said, once you let them break one rule, they will assume rules don't apply to them. I think in general, you will find a few of these types of people from every country so personally, I don't believe nationality really matters when we talk about "bad guests". 

With all that said, I hate to admit it......BUT there has been media coverage about the type of people you explained. This type of attitude and behavior is more easily shown when the person thinks they have the upper hand, are older than the other person (seniority), has more money (customer is KING) etc. They see agreeableness and efforts to be accomodating as something to take advantage of. There is a Korean word for this type of behavior "갑질 (GAHP-JILL)" which basically means "power trip+bossy, overbearing & abusive behavior ("because I can~")" It looks like you were a victim of 갑질.

Remember the Korean Air "nut-rage" incident ??? - Classic 갑질! 

[Cat-Phuong0]

Thank you for your answer, Jessica & Henry.

These guys were closer to 40 than to 30, indeed, and we're older than them.

Actually we live in a neighborhood where a big Korean community lives, so we aren't stranger to the behaviour of some of them. Specially when they're drunk, even women. They cry loud in public, they break things, they let their kids do everything ...

Maybe we fell in the case you described. Because yes, they reacted in an opposite way as what we expected, although we already assumed that they were bad guys. You can't be good when you don't respect the rules.

Actually we regret not having humiliated them by kicking them out at 1am in the street, but we would have incurred a loss of one week of earnings, I guess. And we find it unfair because by booking our place 2 months before, they blocked it for 2 months.

If we had known his intentions, we would have got his booking canceled beforehand.

I think that if we had had to refuse the check-in to feel safer, we would have deserved a compensation from Airbnb, because for 2 months, we had no chance to get a booking from honest people instead. We were hostages of their dirtiness.

Anyway, he didn't leave our place with empty hands. He's flagged everywhere in Airbnb, and we hope he'll be gone soon, even though we know these people might register again under a different name ...

Fyi, until we hosted that group, we'd had only dirty requests from Koreans. Systematically, they were asking if they could bring Vietnamese girlfriend (meaning prostitute). And when we asked them to refer to our rules, they said ok 🙂 ...

Now we know the meaning of these small messages.

We just rejected one actually. Inquiry for 2 people, we ask him who's the second person, and he replies "Ok..Good..I just check in alone..". We concluded that he was planning to bring a prostitute for one night.

Do we correctly decrypt these small messages with "..."?

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Cat-Phuong0

Yes, your interpretation is spot on!!!

That kind of behavior is one of the main reasons why I would be extremely hesitant to host a men-only group of Asians, regardless of age and purpose of their visit.

[Scott216]

@Jessica-and-Henry0 Good for you two.  That shows maturity.  It actually heightens my respect for a people, nation, group, whatever, when they can not just fall into the typical defensiveness, but recognize that there are regional characteristics, behaviors, etc., that are not always what we're most proud of.