Harassment from host after giving a bad review

[Stuart120]

For the first time ever, I had to give a host a poor review on Airbnb. After posting the negative review, I received an inflametory text from the host. The text wrote "Listen Stuart, I want to **bleep** your mother and father together while you looking me and all your family ugly men!"

Obviously, threatening guests after they give you an unfavorable review should not be allowed. I'm concerned for those going forward who also post a bad review to this host that will also be harassed.

How do I go about making sure this person is not allowed to continue treating guests this way?

Below is the review I wrote. By no means inappropriate or out of bounds.

"finding the place is very difficult. enter a door to a small courtyard. there are maybe 10 flats in the building with no instructions which one is yours and no indication on the doors. Host needs to be more descriptive. The only towels in the whole place were two hand towels. difficult to dry off from showering, do dishes, wash your face, etc. with the same rags over and over. checking out was a nightmare. checkout was at 10am so we went into the city for breakfast. at 9am I noticed several missed calls and texts asking where the keys were. I told him checkout isn't for another hour and we were in the city still. when we got back to the place, the door was open (with all our things inside, passports etc) and a cleaning lady was cleaning the place. we grabbed all our things and when walking out at 945am) gave the key to Dario who said "I told you to put the key in the door". overall a bad experience although a beautiful place and location. Dario was very nice, I just think there were some key communication issues and lack of organization and professionalism."

[Sean433]

@Aishling1 

It seems your review of your host was removed because of extortion. Sometimes there are misunderstandings between guests and hosts and clearly there was a big one here but it is important to remember that airbnb hosts are people and not faceless hotels. They generally want guests to be happy and not have needless drama.

99.99% of the times,  if you treat them with respect, they will be very respectful and accommodating. How many times have I also been mistreated by guests because they also didn't take the time to read our check-in details and or better yet, read our description.

If you expect hosts to take mistreatment well, then it may be best not to use airbnb because there is a difference. It is more human and part of the whole homesharing concept but I can tell you that you will be missing out on a lot because every experience I have had was more memorable at an airbnb. I never remember my hotel stays because they all feel the same. And I am a respectful and uncomplicated guest so that usually helps.

[Aishling1]

Sean- a hosts review isn't always the truth. Some food for thought for you  

[Aishling1]

And the host is now harassing me verbally by phone. Reflects more on them than me 

[Sarah977]

@Aishling1  Of course we have no way of knowing what actually happened between you and this host, it's a she said/she said situation. And of course it's very unprofessional and simply wrong for a host or a guest to harrass in the form of messages, texts, phone calls, etc.

But this host has 318 reviews, pretty much all of them glowing. She also has no history of leaving bad reviews for her guests- I read a ton of the past reviews she's left.

Yes, some hosts might lie or exaggerate, just as guests might. But it's unusual for hosts to, as they gain no benefit from doing so, whereas a guest may be angling for a refund. It's usually easy to tell from the reviews a host has left for guests whether that host has unreasonable expectations of guests in general, and nit-picks things that most hosts would consider part and parcel of hosting.

But if a review is removed for extortion, that can't be done simply by the host lying- they have to provide proof that a threat was made- that's usually in the form of a message the guest sent to the host. So if your review was removed for extortion, then it's doubtful that isn't true.

[Aishling1]

There was no extortion. Absolutely not. I never verbally or otherwise mentioned review to her.  In fact i only reviewed her at the 2 week mark because I was made aware she reviewed me. I had no interest in engaging all the negativity.  I then gave a full and fair review but mentioned air bnb refunded me. My review was removed on the basis I mentioned the refund even though i happily agreed to edit it. There was zero extortion and as I said her review is her take on things- and not all hosts reviews are honest. Tbh my issue isnt with the review system- its always going to be one side vs another. My issue is the verbal harassment im now experiencing from this host now on my personal phone. And I want users to know that this happens because I certainly  didnt. 

[Helen3]

Why aren't you blocking her @Aishling1 ?

[Aishling1]

I have blocked her. But unfortunately she has my personal phone number 

[Sarah977]

@Aishling1  You can block incoming calls or texts on your phone from whatever numbers you want. 

[Victoria567]

Hi@Stewart

Take a photo screen shot of the review and the vile conversations from this Ass Hat and post it on this thread so we as hosts can avoid this Nut job!

Name and shame.

[Victoria567]

Typo ...so guests can avoid this nut job!

[Susan1028]

So sorry you’ve experienced these concerning behaviors. It’s definitely not the norm amongst hosts, and we experience it in reverse as well.

Airbnb seems to address each situation case by case and anyone who experiences it should report it to Airbnb and include photos and screen shots. Communications with individuals can be blocked.

Airbnb is not law enforcement. Direct threats and continued harassment are legal issues and should be addressed on that level as well.

[Sean433]

I don't know, the fact the host was still so upset about it 2 weeks after you left to write a review, the fact that she has tons of good reviews and doesn't write negative ones @Sarah977 and the fact that her review was so specific, I am inclined to believe in the host. Not out of bias but because of everything I just mentioned. I have had some of the most dramatic guests you can imagine (part of the game when you host multiple listings) and only once was I still that upset nearly two weeks later to leave a review. It is very rare amongst seasoned hosts to be upset for that long since our skin gets a little thicker with experience so obviously something was done to really upset the host.

Also, why would she risk her status as a host to "harass" you. She knows she could easily get kicked off the platform for that. Unless she has absolutely no sense which if it was the case, she would probably not have so many good reviews with so many stays under her belt. Just very inconsistent behavior. If what you say is true, it must be some sort of breakdown probably somewhat brought on by you. Very interesting.  

[Sarah977]

@Sean433 For the same reasons, I'm also inclined to believe the host. However, we have no way of knowing for sure- there are always people in life who can set you off, push all your buttons, and cause you to behave in ways which are out-of-character. Perhaps this is one of those cases. We have no way of knowing if it's going both directions- the host may have started out sending this guest a somewhat harsh message regarding her behavior, the guest may have replied in an aggressive way, and many back and forths have ensued. The guest says the host is harrassing her, but we don't know for sure if the guest is also answering those messages in a belligerent way, thereby keeping it going.

Whenever there's an unresolvable dispute between two people, even if no one is actually lying or stretching the truth, each party is going to portray their side in a favorable light, and maybe omit crucial details.

I may be inclined to believe something, based on what is in plain sight, like review history, but I'd never make a definitive judgement on something where I don't know all the details or know the people involved. 

[Aishling1]

It was me who waited two weeks btw to write my review because I didn't want to engage in negativity- not the host. Anyway I'm not here to fight sides. That wasn't my intention. As had been said, no one knows what happened unless they were there.

I only came here to warn guests that harassment from hosts on the guests personal phone line is a real risk and you should be aware of it. I'm sure it happens to hosts too. Hopefully people are more aware of the risk. I know there are lots of great hosts also. Anyway im done with Airbnb, just wanted to flag this and so im signing out.