My wife and I are Superhosts of 7.5 years with 4 (Guest Favorite) listings and almost 950 guest reviews. The issue occurred at our 4.99 unique property that's in the top 5% of listings in our area. Guests asked a few days before the stay about staying 1.5 hours after checkout due to an online meeting at noon. We explained, as we always do when any guests ask to stay late, that we're unable to accommodate later checkouts due to the schedule of our wonderful cleaning team. We suggested a coffee shop nearby that would be perfect for an online meeting. I saw that the guest read the message but didn't reply. On checkout day, I waited just offsite 20 minutes past checkout, as I was meeting a contractor who would be trimming and cutting trees in this wooded area for our guests' safety and needed to park his work truck where the guests were parked. We reached out via messaging to the guests with a checkout reminder but got no read receipt or response. Finally I went to the door and knocked; the guests seemed surprised to see me, and the man said his girlfriend needed to have a meeting on her laptop. I said I knew that and we'd already suggested an alternative location, but they asked if they could pay to stay later. I pointed to our Latina cleaner standing nearby and said that she was waiting to begin cleaning, but the guests then began walking around the property taking selfies and not hurrying at all. I told them that it wasn't about the money but that our cleaner's time was being wasted and we'd need to pay her extra. I explained we'd send a request for that amount to them after the stay. When I sent the request, the guest claimed I'd told her they didn't need to pay extra, which I certainly didn't. Then rather than paying anything at all, she filed a claim of discrimination against me saying I had told her I would "expect more" of Asian guests. I would have no reason to say this and it makes no sense; we've never had a claim like this and also we happen to have lived in Japan for years and traveled in China for pleasure. I would never say something like this, but Airbnb locked down our listings until I acknowledged that I understand the nondiscrimination policy. I did that and had our listings reinstated but was sent an email that said "if we receive any further reports of not following our Nondiscrimination policy, it will result in account removal." We were never asked anything about the issue, just presumed guilty based on zero evidence. I tried to reach out multiple times over 3 weeks and can find no one who will dialogue about this via email (the only way the specialized team will respond); they just keep re-stating what happened and saying the case is closed. It's clear the guest wanted to get us in trouble and knew exactly how to abuse the system to do it; if she'd left a review it would've been considered retaliatory. Now if one other guest knows this trick and tries it on us, our account will be closed. Btw, this guest had no reviews and we still accepted her to stay. Wondering what our recourse is, as it seems Airbnb is entirely uninterested in actually investigating what happened. Much easier to automatically side with the guest, apparently?
