Guest Leaves Fake Review and Threatens me for Refusing to Pay his Parking Fine

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I had a guest last week who raised no issues during his stay, but left a review warning other guests not to book my listing as I had given him incorrect parking information, which caused him to receive a parking ticket.

I thought that perhaps he had been given a parking ticket in error (it’s happened a couple of times in the past), so I reached out to him and told him that, if he provided me with the parking ticket number, I would be willing to raise an appeal with the council on his behalf. He ignored me, so I reached out to Airbnb and asked if they could reach out the guest to let them know that I could try to appeal their parking fine if I had the ticket number.

The Airbnb agent misunderstood me (no surprise there) and thought I was offering to reimburse the guest for the parking fine they had been given. The guest hasn’t paid the parking fine and won’t have to as he doesn’t live in the UK and the local council is’t going to pursue a case overseas over a parking ticket.

The guest thought he was getting free money, so he provided Airbnb with the parking ticket number, which they then passed on to me.

To give some background: On the second day of his stay, the guest sent me a message informing me that all of the parking spots on my side of the street were full and asked where he could park. I told him that he could either park on another road (it’s less than a 30 second walk and always has plenty of spaces available) for as long as he wanted, or could park on the opposite side of the road, as long as he moved his car by 08:00 the next morning.

When I looked up the parking ticket number, I saw that the guest had not followed the parking instructions I gave him as his car was caught parked across the road at 9:15. There are also plenty of parking spaces available on our side of the road in the pictures, so it wouldn’t have taken him long to move his car.

I got back to Airbnb informing them that the fine was justified as he wasn’t parked in the correct area.

Airbnb then asked if I would be refunding the guest for their fine.

I told them I would not as the council were correct to have given the guest a parking fine as he was not parked in the correct place. I had ample evidence that I had provided the guest with correct parking information and he had not followed the instructions he was given, so I asked if they could delete the review as he was clearly lying. In addition, he also claimed that my property was not actually in the town mentioned in the listing, but is really 25 miles away (it’s right in the centre of town).

Unsurprisingly, Airbnb will not delete the review as they consider it acceptable behaviour for guests to leave malicious, false reviews for hosts due to reasons that are outside of the host’s control.

After I informed Airbnb that I would not be reimbursing the guest for the parking fine, Airbnb seems to have reached out to the guest again. I’m not sure what they said, but they claim just to have asked the guest to clarify where he had parked. The guest apparently lied to Airbnb and told them that he was parked in the space right outside the flat (the pictures attached prove otherwise).

In any case, whatever Airbnb said to the guest clearly angered him greatly as I received the following in response:

'You’re a f***ing liar! You’re going to be the one to pay the parking fine, trust me.

You advertised free parking in the area, but then I got fined. This is theft! You falsely advertised your listing and then stole from me! You owe me money.

How dare you refuse to pay the fine. You can cry and lie to Airbnb all you like. It won’t do you any good.

I’ll make you regret crossing me, trust me. Nobody gets the better of me. Refusing to pay the parking fine will be the last thing you ever do.’

So basically a death threat. Although I doubt he will travel all the way back to the UK just to kill me over less than £50 (which he won’t have to pay anyway…). Airbnb has said that they will ‘warn’ the guest about his outburst and they consider this to be the end of the matter.

The worst part is that this guest has over 50 reviews and an overall 5.0 rating, so hosts aren’t going to realise what they’re getting themselves into with this one…

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If he posted this in the Airbnb message system, or if he texted you and you have a screenshot of the message, then he’s shot himself in the foot.

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It’s on Airbnb. The case manager handling the case just said that he will ‘warn’ the guest.

Once he’s closed the case, I’m going to report the message directly to improve my chances of getting a better case manager.

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I’d report him right now.

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Call Airbnb back and tell them that he basically threathen your life! That’s not acceptable behavior and he should be kicked off the platform. I’m so sorry this happened to you.

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In the past I’ve always ended up with the same case manager if I raise an issue with a guest I have an open ticket with (even if its completely unrelated).

The case manager I had didn’t think his threat was bad enough to warrant anything other than a warning.

Once it’s closed, I’m more likely to get somebody else assigned and Trust and Safety should hopefully get involved.

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If I have a Tech or Trust and Safety issue, the very first line of my message says “TRUST AND SAFETY ISSUE”.

I have found this tends to get me past the clueless CS reps, who pass it on to the appropriate team rather than send me useless and ridiculous responses.
So you might try that tactic.

What this guest did is outrageous. I’d be inclined to report it to the police. Not only should he get banned from Airbnb, he should be on a red flag list with immigration for threatening the life of a UK resident while on holiday. You’re lucky he wasn’t allowed to bring a gun into the country. This is the kind of nutcase who shoots someone for knocking on his front door or walking across his lawn.

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I’d try posting on twitter and facebook Airbnb pages with the screenshots of the threats.

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Demand another one. This bloke has threatened your LIFE. I’m sure it’s an empty threat but he’s definitely unhinged.

Ask for this to be escalated.

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The original ticket was closed shortly after I created this topic. I have already contacted Airbnb again about the issue and I was assigned a new case manager.

They’ve basically told me that they will investigate, but they can’t inform me of their decision. I’m assuming this is how Airbnb usually handles issues like this and the only way I’ll know if the guest’s account was banned is if his profile disappears?

I want to point out neither my partner and I are concerned about the guest acting on his threats. For starters, we host our listing in the UK from overseas. Secondly, the guest isn’t going to travel abroad track us down. He knows we don’t live at the listing and he only knows my first name. I personally see no real danger here. However, the guest obviously poses a risk to other hosts if he acts in this way over a parking ticket…

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You are correct, Airbnb will not share the info with you as to whether a guest has been banned. A host who reported finding a bunch of bullet casings after a guest left, and a pile of dead squirrels in the yard he had shot did see that the guest’s account was gone, but it took a couple of weeks after they had reported it.

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Killing for fun is a characteristic of a serial killer. I hope Karma gets that guest from hell. Hope he’s banned from the platform for life.

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What an awful situation! I hate this new trend with guests who think it’s acceptable to flat out lie in reviews. I think they must know they can get away with it. And you’re right- Airbnb seems absolutely loathe to do anything about it. I recently had a guest who wrote in her review warning people not to book my property because the ceilings were too low. She said ‘I’m 5’5" and I hit my head on the upstairs ceiling.’ What??? I called Airbnb and said this is clearly an outright lie and unless she was jumping on a trampoline there’s no way this would have ever happened. The photos in the listing show normal ceiling heights and over 150 5-star reviews make no mention of low ceilings- it was obviously a fabrication, though I have no idea why. We had no issues during her stay. In any case, all the CS rep would say OVER and OVER again, was ‘I can’t penalize a guest for leaving an honest review.’ OVER and OVER like it was some bizarre script he was reading off of. I’m like, what part of this is an honest review?!? He suggested I respond to her review but I’ve learned on this forum not to draw attention to bad reviews by responding to them.

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“I’ll make you regret crossing me, trust me. Nobody gets the better of me. Refusing to pay the parking fine will be the last thing you ever do.’” Well that is totally crazy.We all know Airb&b tends to favour the guest in disputes but this is a threat plain and simple! If a host were to say something like this to a guest they’d be thrown off the platform. This person, 5 star reviews or not crossed the line as far as I’m concerned. If it were me I’d keep going until someone does something about it at Airb&b. Zero tolerance!

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Just curious, what country was the guest from? I thought only the USA had the problem of guests frequently flat out lying! Airbnb needs to step up. If they are presented with written and photographic evidence, then they need to take action. I would understand, if it wasn’t definitive, but you have communication in writing and a photo of the car illegally parked (after 8AM). If I was to present this type of information, in the case of a traffic accident, to the police or view on dash-cam, the insurance company would take responsibility or the police would issue a citation (in many jurisdictions). You bring to the forefront the issue and the lack of support by Airbnb. And the threats?!?!?! That guest should be banned from the platform!! :rage:

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