Guest I kicked out left hateful and discriminating review. And Airbnb thinks it's completely OK.

Guest I kicked out left hateful and discriminating review. And Airbnb thinks it's completely OK.

Hello all,

 

TLDR: A guest I kicked out after violating my house rules somehow was able to leave a hateful and discriminating review on my listing. And Airbnb finds it's completely ok.

 

The long version:  My wife and I recently listed one of the rooms in our house on Airbnb. The guest "V" booked for a week and showed up on the check in date. My wife greeted him after he arrived while I was away traveling. When I came back 2 days later, she showed me all the texts that V had sent to my wife of him being very demanding asking things that weren't listed in our listing such as "coffee, lotion, iron, etc.."( in a very demanding tone). We also noticed V left a mass in the bathroom where there are urine stains all over the floor and also around the toilet (Not in there where they suppose to be). Not only the urine odor were all over the place, we also found out that there are strong cigarettes odors inside his room, and there were empty cigarettes packs everywhere on the table, inside the chest drawer and in the trash can. I was a smoker before, and I know the differences in smells when people smoked inside and the smell they bring back to the house after smoking outside.

 

I cleaned the mass in the bathroom and opened the window in his room, later that day I asked him if he has been smoking inside. Although he said no, but i highly doubt it. I told him to keep the restroom clean and the window open when he leaves during the day. fast forward to midnight, he went outside to smoke several times around 2 am and the noise woke up my wife.

 

On the next day, he left a similar mass in the restroom (smaller urine stains again, i say smaller because its only been a night since I cleaned them) and I tried to talk to him again about the bathroom and to try to convince him to keep the smoking to a minimum at night because we are really not appreciate it to be waking up by tenants sneaking out to smoking in the middle of the night. (I did tried to call Airbnb to remove him by violating the non smoking rule earlier, but I never heard back from it. So i figure I will just have to stick with him for the next 2 days.) He then turned back to me and complained that there are odors in his restroom and wanted me to clean it again for him. And this was where I am triggered because the odor came from his own piss! I finally had it enough and asked him to leave, called Airbnb again and thanks to god they were able to figure it out and removed him.

 

On the other side, V called Airbnb as well and started to message us in the Airbnb app and putting out all kinds of lies. He was being very aggressive and started calling us names and accuse us being liars which I have no idea why. Airbnb has filters in their app, so i don't know what he really called me. He then started yelling in frond of my face, and threatened my wife and my 6 month baby who was asleep downstairs at the time, and also trying to find every excuses he could think of to refuse to leave. He also mentioned that our dog tried to bite him during the day where as the dog was with my wife the whole day at work. Our dog is a 2 years old whippet (a very calm and easy going breed, pretty much a median sized greyhound, which is also a coach potato who sleeps 20 hours a day) that never bite and even barked to anyone in his life. I think he was doing this to try to get all his money back from the reservation. At one point he even wanted to stay for the night for free. But Airbnb decided to modified his reservation and sent him elsewhere for his last two days, they even refunded him the difference despite of him violating my house rules first. (Also the Case Manager stated that the guest won't be able to leave us an review due the cancelation, even if he did Airbnb will be able to remove it. But more to this later...)

 

And it was not over, although he did left my house, he stayed in his car for a hour which parked in front of my house. It was very late at night, and I was afraid if the guy was going to sleep in the car. I had to call the case manager from Airbnb again to get him removed too, or else I was ready to call the police.

 

At last, we are glad that he's gone and we don't have to put up with his bs anymore. But in that afternoon, I was surprised that he was able to leave an review under our listing which I found is very hateful and discriminating, and also full of lies. I cannot believe Airbnb would allow him posting such comments after being kicked out from my house by violating my house rule.

 

Now the next thing I need to do it to try to let Airbnb remove the hateful comments from him and to see if can get the cigarettes smells out of my room. I may end up hiring professionals to do the job if I can't get rid of them myself, but I have read somewhere that the guest and Airbnb will not pay or reimburse the costs if there was no security deposit in the reservation.

 

 

Here is the review he left and my wife's response:

https://ibb.co/SrxY21H

 

Here are some chats between him and my wife before I was home.

https://ibb.co/m8yZM5X

https://ibb.co/GRcrckX

https://ibb.co/6cQdm1j

 

 

Here are the chats between the three of us after I asked him to leave.

https://ibb.co/xHQSJ70

https://ibb.co/sy7WwNG

https://ibb.co/bQXBFdx

https://ibb.co/SXZkgd9

https://ibb.co/nk25pmX

https://ibb.co/S0GJY4G

 

 

My comments to his feedback:

We have normal sized toilet, the guy seems about 200 lbs but either way that doesn't justify him not peeing inside the toilet. He's old enough to not let anyone teach him how to piss.

The touch pad smart lock he mentioned is brand new, I installed it two days prior to his arrival. He was the only one using it, my wife and I usually go through the garage because we park our cars there.

We are using two accounts, I am the co-host of the listing and my wife is the primary host. He either simply can't tell the difference in our profile photo or just being an racist by mocking our names.

The location complain is out of our control. The data was taken from google maps without accounting any traffic. If you would include the traffic during rush hour in Bay Area then I don't know what to say.

Insulting on people's accent and their culture doesn't make him any better. Treating people this way won't return him any favor and he definitely shouldn't be expecting any respect back from us. I am surprised that Airbnb would allow such comments to exist without taking any actions.

 

More rant:

We were super-host 2 years ago, just recently picked up Airbnb again. Our new house is only 15 years old and it was remodeled 2 years ago. There are no smells whatsoever and if we cook we always keep the kitchen door closed. And btw we don't eat rotten fish!

 

Airbnb will be doing nothing:

After 2 days of silence, I had to call in to check on the status of my ticket, then I was able to get in touch with a Case Manager Jerry discuss about my case. It appeared to me that Jerry had 0 zero knowledge of my case and I had to explain to him the whole situation again. Oddly enough, he did not find the review aggressive, hateful, nor being discriminating in any ways, and thus he wouldn't do anything to the comment and the rate. He couldn't even explain to me how he end up with this decision. And he also said that the guest have every right to leave a review as long as he stayed in my listing, exaggerate or not, and doesn't matter the fact he was being kicked out after violating my house rules. The call went on about 30 minutes, and I was put on hold for several times for no reasons and even without being noticed before hand. A lot of my questions were simply ignored during the call and I think I was just put on mute for the most of the time. (He did not response, and for several times I thought I was disconnected) The guy just didn't want to listen and speak to me! Then when I asked Jerry if he could direct my call to someone else or perhaps a supervisor of his, guess what! Jerry just hang up the phone and left me in a void.

 

Now this leaves me a whole different level of problems I have to deal with. I am shocked that Airbnb would have such poor customer services. Although they were able to escalate my ticket to a higher level department after I called in a second time, who knows what I will end up with. 

 

Thank you for taking the time to read my story, and apologize for any grammar mistakes as English is my not my first language. I hope you guys as hosts would never have to experience the nightmare we just gone through!

 
24 Replies 24
Ana1136
Level 10
Ohrid, Macedonia (FYROM)

@Yuchen6 yes these things happen, I am sorry it happened to you but it is a matter of time before we all get some bad guest. I hope you left an honest review on his profile. As for your future responses to reviews, make sure to wait until you are calm enough to write one because the response is for your next guests and not for this guy. Don't be emotional, be factual and keep it short and clear. 

Thank you for the feed back! Yes I was very emotional when I first saw the comments he wrote. I should have waited to cool down a bit before responding. But what triggers me even more is how Airbnb handles this entire situration. I guess being racist and aggressive, dropping names and calling people liars are premitted in every way. And the poor customer services really reflects it as well.

I agree with Ana

Robin336
Level 8
Norfolk, VA

i just had a very similar experience! I feel that Once guests violate OUR house rules they should LOSE All ability to be able to leave a review! They are always retaliatory and full of lies to try to get a refund. It is their fault yet somehow they twist it like it is ours????

True

If you don’t leave a review, they can’t leave a review.  I had a guest that was nasty and I knew she was going to leave a bad review so I didn’t leave one for her.  I know it probably wasn’t fair to other host, but I didn’t want a bad review.

Jeff158
Level 10
Caernarfon, United Kingdom

@Betsy16 

 If you don’t leave a review, they can’t leave a review

Wrong, incorrect, not true, your guest chose not to review you.

I thought that was also the case, NOT TRUE! if it goes beyond the 14 days and only the bad guest wrote a review it will be public so make sure that you review them within that time!

I think if you do this business long enough we will, unfortunately,all get a few guests like this. The learning for me is how to better deal with them.

 

I also find that AirBNB sides more with the guest than the host. In the case of formal complaint or cancellations as in this case they should not post the review. I suggest that all of us write this in the feedback area because they do not read all these threads. I also thought that it was true that if I did not write a review then the guest could not, this is NOT true, so make sure to review these guests withoin the 14 day period or it is too late!

 

Here are some of my learnings that I hope will help:

1. in cases of rudeness ...at check in, simply do not check them in and find another accommodation. I have never had things get better with a guest who from the git go is rude and complaining. 

2. Happiness is largely based on expectation. If your bathroom is on the small side, or bed, or the floors creak...then good to say so up front. In my experiences most of our issues are with guests who think they come to a hotel, or expect something else (wanted nespresso machine in room, although i have organic fresh ground coffee to order guest wanted his Nespresso, even though specifically not included in my listing, he thought he was booking a hotel room and came with this expectation. Most guest do not read, this will only help in the appeal case or to point to black and white written description in case of dispute.

3. Have a formal check in process, list cell phone, passport number, address and go through written house rules with them. If any major issues at check in, find them another accommodation.

4. If you do check in (nothin obvious from the beginning) accept that some guests just can not be pleased . Never get angry. smile and listen (very hard for me to do). I tied to convince a large(tall and big)  guest to book our king sized bed room, because the bed in the room he booked is 140cm, he accused me of just wanted more $$ (rooms are a $10 per night difference). He gave a bad review and even commented that I should buy a mattress 4 centimeters longer (he measured the extra space between the antique wooden bed frame and the queen sized mattress ! LOL ).

5. Some people are tidy and clean as can be, others are pigs. Make sure in your house rules that you make it clear that you will "service" the room once a day. For the tidy ones, means no work, for the pigs, well, just depends on how badly they were raised not how old they are. 

90% of our guests are lovely, funny, friendly, interesting and some have become friends. Otherwise we would not do this. So when the 1%ers show up , take joy in knowing that they will soon be gone!

Hope this helps!

You're right. Airbnb thinks it's completely acceptable no matter how bogus the lies are.

 

We had a guest book for two and had 30+ people over. We called Airbnb and they cancelled his reservation. Since we weren't onsite, the police had to escort them out as they would not leave.

 

I will never understand how guests are still allowed to leave a reviews after something like that happens. When they so clearly break the rules that Airbnb itself cancels the reservation!

 

His review, of course, was completely out of retaliation and he called us numerous names (including racist) and made up the wildest lies.

 

After hours and hours of calls and messages to Airbnb they would not remove it. It's not just unfair, it's defamation and Airbnb does nothing about it.

Pat347
Level 4
Edmonton, Canada

omg if I get the client like him I will cry because I will not know what to do lol Thank you for sharing.

Same! This scares me! 

David--Bubba0
Level 2
Taos Ski Valley, NM

So It is not just me who believes Airbnb tends to agree with their Guest's and side with them over their home owning Hosts? Airbnb's inherent conflict of interest with trying to serve their Hosts (who own the properties Airbnb Guests rent) and their potential Guests to rent when it comes to which side to take in a dispute between Host & Guest. 

David McKown
Sean433
Level 10
Toronto, Canada

I can't understand how someone can rent a home to strangers when its a shared accomodation when they have a baby. The risk is way too high but that being said, as soon as he started asking you to fill his water bottle and asking where he can buy a winter jacket for $5 to $10, that was the clue that this person likely had some mental issues and no matter what you do, there's no way to win that one.

 

You should have kicked him out earlier.