ABNB false discrimination accusation

1

Has anyone been falsely accused by ABNB of discrimination? Is there any way to have ABNB retaliate against a guest for filing false claims?

I’ve been hosting a guest house for 2 years and all 74 reviews are 5 star. My only bad experience was when a guest made a false discrimination claim about me; He did this AFTER he had left me a 5 star review, and after both he and his girlfriend texted me to say everything was perfect and they looked forward to coming back.

It’s my belief that he filed the false claim in retaliation to my review (about him); I stated that I couldn’t provide a recommendation for this guest.

Despite this one guest, my primary frustration has been with ABNB. While ABNB did close his discrimination claim after reviewing his texts to me and his review of me, they refused to take any action against him for lying to them or posting additional false claims (about me).

It seems ABNB doesn’t care about hosts being incorrectly accused. They only seem to care about ensuring they legally provide recourse to their nondiscrimination policy.

This is the stock letter I got from ABNB
"My name is Greta and I work here at Airbnb.
I’m writing to let you know that your previous guest, James, contacted us about some discomfort that they had while staying in your listing. More specifically, they felt that some negative commentary was directed at their religion and ethnicity.
We know how much work hosting can be, and we’re grateful for the time and effort you put in. We’d like to take this as an opportunity to remind you that by hosting, you’ve agreed to our Hosting Standards

This is the 5 star review I had gotten from the guest
“James April 2018
Absolutely delightful host and fantastic accommodation - spotlessly clean, great living space. Love the coffee, milk etc. Thank you”

I contemplated not leaving a review, but I knew this guy was coming back to Phoenix and I wanted to block him from booking again; ABNB informed me that the only way to block someone is to have written a review. This is my review of the guest, followed by his comments (written after he had left the above review by him).

“The stay wasn’t terrible but it wasn’t ideal, as I had greater expectations based on prior reviews.
COMMUNICATION could have been better. - I got different messages from both parties with arrival times that were different than actual, but since I like to meet and get guests acclimated I was flexible for when each arrived separately. - Responsiveness to my messaging was late or lax. I tried to leave them alone, but there were certain things I needed to communicate and get response. I worked around these issues, as they are the guests, but it showed some lack of consideration for my time or requests.
CLEANLINESS: The place was left fairly clean and in order, but oddly there were crumbs everywhere: floor, refrigerator, chairs.
DAMAGE: I don’t expect guests to wash towels or linens (I provide a hamper for them to be placed in); the Washer and Dryer is solely available for the guest to use for their own belongings. After the guests left I discovered (in the hamper) formerly white towels, now a blueish color. Since they didn’t inform me, I can only guess that these guests washed white bath towels with bright colorful pool towels and the dye from the pool towels stained the white bath towels. Laundry101 Fail. They both texted me that they really enjoyed their stay, so that provides some consolation, but for other hosts considering them, I unfortunately can’t provide a recommendation.”

“Response from James:
I was deeply disturbed at upset by this review. If you look back you will see my prior experiences are SUPERLATIVE. I must assume that this host has alternate motivations. May I please explain the the hosts behaviours so that you may understand why I think he has written such things. 1. YES the host did message me repeatedly after I had checked in. It was to move my car from where he had told me to park it. It took me an hour to respond because I was actually lecturing at the university. Then I drove back from the university to help the host - all he needed to do was move his FJ cruiser into the 3rd garage! 2. YES I did clean his place and YES I did clean the sheets and towels. I did not vacuum crumbs (host really???) as I was not given a vacuum cleaner. I have never bought towels that bleed colour! YES i was 11 minutes late from the airport and YES i did telephone him (the host lives on the property). YES my colleague was 15 minutes late - she was teaching children/students from underserved backgrounds! WHY DID THE HOST WRITE THESE THINGS? The apartment’s front door is GLASS and directly looks onto the patio and pool where the host lives. Both I and my partner found him frequently LOOKING IN. Please note, the pool has no safety guards if you have children. My profound hope is that the HOST does not write about a GUEST (yes we do pay for to stay) who cleaned, washed and obeyed his every need for malicious purpose. I have asked Air BnB to formally review his rental profile based on ethnic and gender parity.”

NOTE: In regards to what James has written above If any of what he describes were true, there is NO WAY he (or anyone) would have left such a great review and advised that he was looking forward to returning. ABNB wouldn’t address his libelous post review. The irony is that his post response is only visible to people that look at his reviews (not mine); I’d like to think that prospective hosts would read his explanation and question if this guy is worth the risk.

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yes there is. Some people just write good reviews wherever they go, unless there was some kind of disaster.

When he let hard done by the review, he followed up with a defence, and then only made a couple of points: looking through the glass door, and pool not safe for kids. Unfortunately, he then followed up with the race claim, for whatever reason (or because you moaned about the crumbs, being late, and the towels.) This is why I hesitate before writing a 4star review…it’s because I know how I feel when I’m on the receiving end.
Good luck

3

I think the guest is probably feeling a bit embarrassed (did you really write “Laundry101 Fail” on their review?! OUCH.) and defensive, especially if they left feeling happy about their stay and not having a clue that you were upset with them.

These seem like pretty minor issues (other than the towels, if they were permanently stained… were they? And do you have instructions for the guests specifically not to wash towels with other towels? Otherwise, how would they know?) Are these things really reason to give them a thumb’s down?

eta: I do think that filing discrimination and throwing in the race card was a bit much, but I totally understand them getting defensive in their response to your review.

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I appreciate your thoughts.

I didn’t detail his lies in my initial reply,

There was no point in bringing up the pool not being suitable for children. 1. Because they didn’t have children. And 2. My listing states it is not suitable for children

He lied about response times and driving back. The issue was he had two cars parked in front of my garage. I assumed he was around and I texted him to see if he could move his car, so I could get my car out. When I didn’t hear back, I made other arrangements, I texted him to ignore the request so he never drove back to move the 2ndcar. It remained there all day

Yes, the crumbs were probably not worth noting but I will say it was extreme. I clean the place myself, and this was beyond anything I’d experienced. A non issue if he hadn’t lied about their being a vacuum cleaner there.

Had he not ruined towels, or at least mentioned it to me, I probably would have just let all slide. But because of that I didn’t want him back and couldn’t recommend him to other hosts.

The most alarming false claim was his assertion that I was looking in his windows. Not only was that something I’d never do, didn’t do, wouldn’t do, but each door and window has shades … there was no one looking in the windows. My point is that if he thought someone was looking in his windows and felt so uncomfortable, then he would have stated such. This is what I wanted addressed by ABNB

I don’t really care about him, but the point of my post was the lack of consideration for truth by ABNB. That is what is most troubling. They allow lies and false accusations stand.

5

Yes. there are instructions that state specifically to leave the linens on the bed, and put used towels / robes in the hamper. I state that the W/D is for the use for their personal belongings should they want to use it. I provide tide pods, etc.

whether they were embarrassed or not, that is no reason to fabricate things that never happened. This man has PHD and is a professional. There was no discrimination and for him to claim so is as bad as if there had been. But that is not something ABNB wants to address, which was the point of my post.

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great reasons not to review in certain scenarios.

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I don’t think so. The feedback system Airbnb has sucks in many, many ways. When I started out on eBay, selling things, there were tons of complaints about their FB system…from buyers and sellers. They’ve tweaked it and it’s better. One way they improved it was to work out a system to allow the seller some control over situations like yours.

I don’t know any business that allows FB where people are happy about it. The FB page for my property management business allows people to rate it…and people have rated it who have never even contacted me at all. How can they rate it based on NO CONTACT? It’s crazy and I’ve learn to pay no attention to some FB systems.

Unfortunately Airbnb’s system is one that a lot of people rely on. I’m sorry this happened to you. Bad feedback or any criticism that is public (which is what bad FB on Airbnb is) really stings and can hurt our business and our bottom line.

8

I agree. If I saw a host that reviewed in a way that said “Laundry 101 fail” I would think twice before booking with them. I am a host but my husband and I do occasionally stay as guests at other Airbnbs. We have chosen not to stay at certain places due to the hosts weird responses to reviews. Guests come from all sorts of backgrounds and some might have made an honest mistake. If a guest had stained the towels I would charge them. And if they had paid for their honest mistake, then it is really more of a reflection of a host if they choose to mention it. As a guest, I wouldn’t stay somewhere where a host was actively noting crumbs and not being lenient with towels. You should be charging more then so this doesn’t bother you.

I think the guest was responding out of defensiveness. If it comes off like you’re nitpicking then there is a chance the guest will nitpick right back. Choose your battles I would say.

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9

Maybe I am missing the point, but could you please explain what the difference is between cleaning/vacuuming the whole place with or without crumbs?

What does this actually mean? Was it an hour, a day, a week, a month before they answered? People do have other things to do than answering messages when they are traveling.

My feeling is you got carried away in a negative spiral with this guest and your review reflects this. Just like @Afinehouse, I would be reluctant to stay with a host who left such a review. I think that your review at least should have been way shorter, more factual, less emotional.
The crumbs are a non-issue to me. Hosts should be prepared to clean their listing in a normal way (dusting, vacuuming, etc…).
The communication you could have just deducted stars, written something in private and maybe one single public line.
The towels: Yes, they should have told you. But next time please consider that their intentions when washing the towels were good, only the result was bad. Why didn’t you just ask them for money instead of publicly scorching them for something that unintentionally went wrong?

The false claim is wrong from the guest, but since he felt your review was really unjust, maybe he was wondering if there was another issue lurking around and wanted AirBnB to have a look in your history for other issues. Then again, the “discrimination” card is often drawn by people who don’t like being called out for their bad behavior :roll_eyes:.

I think it’s a "you were both wrong in your reactions" case.

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The difference is that crumbs everywhere leaves an invitation window for pests, mice in my climate, cockroaches in a warmer climate. Just use a plate innit?

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It’s not just the fact they were careless and ruined the towels, it’s the fact they specifically went against instructions and house rules re laundry. If they had followed rules it would never have happened.

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the whole thing gets cleaned and vacuumed. I guess I’ve been lucky in having guests that use plates.

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They washed towels … Green striped pool towels with solid white towels. They didn’t even dry them … just put the wet ruined towels in the hamper. It didn’t make sense that if you’re going to do the laundry, why put them in the hamper.

Whether I over reacted or not … I left an honest assessment. That doesn’t give anyone a right to fabricate discrimination or lies. That’s my point.

I’m sorry I posted.

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As a host I definitely want to know this. Most guests are considerate of the host’s time and are punctual and responsive to messages. A few are inconsiderate and leave us hanging on for hours. It only takes 30 seconds to send a message. If they don’t want to communicate guests should get an hotel where there’s 24 hour reception staff.

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15

They knew they’d done bad. Dishonest they didn’t fess up or apologise.

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16

the morning of arrival … he advised his gf would be arriving at 3pm and that He would be arriving at 6pm. I offered them self checkin but he preferred the tour so she could get settled before he arrived. At 3pm she messaged to ask if there was a hair dryer … that she was taking a shower and would be by later. gave no time. At 4pm the BF guest called from airport asking for address … even though it was provided earlier that day. he arrived in 20 min and I welcomed him, showed him around. then 30 min later GF, ringing the doorbell instead of going to the guest house. It wasn’t a huge issue, as much as they didn’t even communicate with one another, let alone me.

This was the first bad experience in 74 guests. And as I said, I’ve never gotten anything less than 5 stars (even from this guest).

As I’ve stated, I wasn’t looking for commentary on how I handled it. I was looking for commentary on guests providing misinformation to ABNB and if there was any recourse. There doesn’t seem to be.

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These guests sound high maintenance, borderline clueless and disrespectful of your time. It gives me a mild headache just reading it. I just had one check out - leaving doors unlocked, food out and not in the food bin, bin lids open, shower room flooded, no visitor rule flouted and mad hammering on my door from their visitors whilst I was with a client. They have no awareness of their impact on others or their environment. These sort of guests stand out from the majority responsible ones like a sore thumb.

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@HH_AZ the best you could do now is to ask Airbnb to remove YOUR review from the site.

I had two super messy guests when I felt obliged to notify other hosts about them being them :slight_smile: I leave a very short feedback. The guest can’t contest it as there is nothing negative but the future host will get the message straight away.

Frankly, I don’t understand the issue in this case. They may were a bit messier than normal but it doesn’t look to me like a big deal. I think you overreacted a bit with your counter feedback…

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I’d be interested to know what you suggest? I wonder why you think that Airbnb should believe you and not the guest? Who is telling the truth here? I’m NOT suggesting that you’re lying but how do you expect Airbnb to evaluate the truth?

Airbnb provides a service that introduces guests to hosts. They do not - as far as I’m aware - have truth serums on hand.

You can tell from the reactions above that for humans, it very difficult to evaluate the rights and wrongs of this situation - and that’s without hearing from the guest. So I don’t know how Airbnb are supposed to evaluate it.

For the record, I agree with others that the guests’ don’t sound to be too bad and that the reply makes the host sound way too defensive.

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20

I would have expected a conversation with someone in legal, who sent me the letter. If they are going to accuse me of discrimination, I would expect them to do a preliminary investigation and then assess. Their lack of follow-thru shows that they really don’t care about guests or hosts … they just go through the motions. That is what I find disappointing. What’s to prevent this guest or other guests filing false claims when they are disappointed that someone didn’t think they were a great guest?

As for the guests … one bad apple. I was being honest for the sake of other hosts and to be able to able to block him from booking again. I said it wasn’t a terrible experience but not the best and i went into probably too many details of why I wasn’t recommending them. Next time I’ll reconsider how I handle it the review.

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