An Airbnb host got the ultimate revenge on a guest who left her a bad review by sending the man’s wife footage of him entering the property with another woman.
Shawn Mackey rented the house, promoted as a “Little Bit More Country”, in Memphis for a weekend in the autumn of 2022, at $567 a night.
As you can see, the host, Pamela Fohler, allows nine guests total at the property. Shawn had told Pamela that he’d be joined by three friends over the weekend, but in the end brought way more people over, and refused to pay an additional $960 fee that was issued when Pamela said he’d broken two house rules and invited more guests than allowed.
When he Shawn to make the payment, Pamela retaliated by reportedly emailing his wife surveillance footage of him with another woman, according to a lawsuit in a Mississippi District Court.
Prior to his stay, Shawn emailed Pamela saying: “Rest assured, we will take great care of your home.” But when Shawn arrived at the property, he admitted to Pamela that he was bringing over a total of nine guests plus ‘maybe a few more’, four or five of whom would stay overnight.
Pamela wrote back 10 minutes later saying: “Hello Shawn, we will be able to accommodate a max of 8 guests. This is due to the city restrictions and capacity at our home. I apologize we had not discussed the guest count tripling.”
When Shawn didn’t reply, Pamela followed up: “Hello Shawn, I am asking you to either add the extra guests now or have them leave immediately. We have also gotten complaints of disturbances, yelling and profanity in the parking area. Our home is in a quiet neighbourhood and we need to maintain that.”
15 minutes later she wrote to him again: “I am very sorry but you have violated the no party rule, disturbed my neighbours by cursing and yelling in the parking lot, and have unauthorised guests. I am asking you to leave now. I can’t allow you to stay, I am sorry.”
After checking out the following day, Shawn left Pamela a bad review and asked for a $502 refund. BIG mistake as there was no way Pamela was going to let this man get away with jeopardising her Superhost status.
Pamela obviously refused to refund him, and then sent Shawn photos of him with another woman alongside the message: “Hello Shawn, hope you are well. Sorry it took so long to get the photos you requested together to show your stay at our home. But I had faith, was driven by integrity, so I committed to get these posted for you and Airbnb. Photo at 3:16 AM is especially notable. Should I forward the photos and videos to [Mackey’s wife] Teresa, or will you?’.”
In the end, Pamela answered her own question by emailing the photos to Shawn’s wife with the subject line, ‘nice bag’ . The copy read: ‘I love your bag, where’d you get it?’
So now Shawn Mackey is suing for ‘economic damages and damages to his marriage,’ in addition to the whole drama over who owes what for the Airbnb stay. I guess there are several morals to this story, and one of them is definitely do not mess with a Karen’s Superhost status on Airbnb. Not unless you want surveillance footage of yourself (allegedly) cheating on your wife being sent to her via email. Lesson learned.
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