If you're Italian and send me a request, which I refuse on the sole basis that I hate Italians, no matter how politely, I am certainly acting with bias.
I had an apartment booked in st Petersburg, had been for months. My wife, Latvian, handled communication, in Russian.
Show up. Dude is visibly shocked and upset that I'm not Russian. Proceeds to "angliski blad" and "velikaia schwinoi" me, tells us apartment is closed for renovations starting today.
In Russia this is a problem - when you get a visa you have to list your accommodation - and if you diverge you stand a half decent chance of being arrested and deported, particularly if a host reports you as a no show.
We eventually found a hotel that evening, but it's left me very wary of using airbnb - and I'm a bloody white male. I can't imagine what a dark-skinned Muslim/homosexual/not just British couple/person might face.
Huh, I still don't have that refund, now that I remember. Three months ago.
Just wanted to add, as my comment seemed harsh against Russians - I've had a very mixed experience in Russia over the years. In cities, very mixed bag, muscovites are generally assholes but laugh about being assholes, st Petersburg clearly feel like they're under invasion. Go deeper though and people are warm and kind - we found ourselves being inexplicably adored in random small villages in the urals by the old babushkas sweeping the empty dusty streets. I had a night I'll never forget with a bunch of mobsters in Volgograd - and I met the Russian Slim Pickins as a highway cop near Astrakhan. Taught me to swear and beg for mercy in Russian, and let me go - despite the illegal-on-every-planet manoeuvre I'd just pulled.
Airbnb I've also had some great experiences with - in fact most have been - but it only takes one really shitty situation to sour ones perception. I'll probably use them again but it's still an issue they have to get on top of one way or another.
So then you start a new account and list it again. Change a letter in or the order of the address if needs be to make it look unique. There are many properties which exist multiple times on airbnb.
I live in a city in SW England, in a Georgian terraced house - the four stories above me are airbnb. The house next door is airbnb. The house two beyond that is airbnb.
This street used to be social housing, now it's an illegal hotel. I pick broken glass out of my yard weekly. I even had one of upstairs' guests just walk straight into my living room a few months back and start complaining about water pressure. Practically threw her through the door - not what I needed wedding eve. Par for the course though - last year a hen party were trying to break in through my bedroom window. I've watched the street depopulate over 36 months. I'm leaving soon too - it'll all be airbnb by the end of next year.
So, bad hosts just relist, airbnb really don't care (why on earth would they?!), and the cost to people who live near/under these modern day doss-houses is considerable.
I don't think so, they have been criticized for enabling hosts to make decisions based on racist prejudices, not for the messages exchanged.
I would expect AirBnB to try to cover itself by looking at the patterns of acceptances/declines by the hosts and correlating them with the apparent ethnicity of the guests.
Say you hate Italians with a passion and I send you a request.
You can surely tell me no, politely declining with any excuse you like.
What you can't do is reply me in an offensive way, asking me for more money or anything else which strictly related to your hate.
Or at least, you can but if you do that they can now ban you from the service.
I was pretty surprised when I first read that, but evidently many more people than we think are being explicit about their igno...ehm, hate.