Advice for false reviews 1 Star

Thank you. I will respond to their review first using the wording from Muddy. I will then contact AirBnb support one more time. Hopefully third time lucky. They definitely need to be accountable. Appreciate everyone’s advice.

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I have similar problems with Air Bnb` review system. As a host we provide the capital and the labour and the effort and yet the review process favours irrational and quite often vindictive reviews. It is well overdue for AirBnB to start supporting its host community and get rid of the negative reviews written by so called experts particularly when they are inconsistent with the other reviews.

I think that some hosts will encourage you to do so but others won’t. I wouldn’t waste the time. But a lot depends on your circumstances. I simply don’t have the time to worry / hassle Airbnb when I could be using that time to earn money or drink wine. :slight_smile:

If you’ve got plenty of other reviews and if you’re booked up then the bad one will soon disappear. When people read a hundred great reviews about something and then a single bad one, they’re really not going to pay much attention.

In that case, the easiest way out would be to simply not use them.

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I would have thought that this is all about improving the product. Airbnb is a product, but the review system is bias against the host and allows unfair reviews to be posted for public view. An individual host has a cats chance in hell of getting a false review removed simply because big business is not about caring for an individual host by doing the right thing. Walking away from the issue does not lead to incremental improvement it just allows a bad system to perpetuate.

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Improving the product, to Airbnb, means making it fast and seamless for guests to book.

The more guests who book, the more revenue they haul in, which is all they care about.

They just made an announcement of changes that will make it easy for guests to book “in 60 seconds”. Seriously. There is no hope in hell that this company will ever be more supportive of hosts.

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David, as I said above - and it was in all seriousness - if you don’t like it, no one is forcing you to use Airbnb. Please tell us why you don’t simply go elsewhere.

Maybe you just like being argumentative? The regular members here are all perfectly happy using Airbnb - we wouldn’t use them if we weren’t.

This is the culture of the world we live in. More is better as is bigger is better and the small person is ignored. Unfortunately history and nature prove that to develop a sustainable system one needs incremental improvement. Air BnB`s review system is a problem as is their failure to create a booking system that prevents the host from contacting the guest directly by telephone or email prior to confirming the booking which is normal practice. I like the fact that they get a commission and would not want to avoid that by dealing directly with the guest but I would like to be able to speak with them sometimes. Also is there a way of looking at the types of reviews a potential guest leaves before accepting them as a guest because I would bet money that a lot of these bad reviews are left by serial critics and Air Bnb are fully aware of the issue but as you so rightly say they are only interested on the revenue stream and not on the capital, labour and caring of the hosts who provide the product.

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Yes, you can easily see reviews guests have left for past hosts.

One way is to download the AirReview extension. Then you will see the host’s review, the guest’s review and any responses all at the same time.

The more tedious way is when you look at the review the host left for a guest, click on the profile photos of the other hosts who have left reviews for this guest. This will take you to that host’s profile page, where you can scroll down to see if you can find a review from that guest.

I’m not sure what the reasons are why you would find it necessary or preferable to speak to the guest by phone or text before they have made a confirmed booking. The Airbnb messaging system seems perfectly adequate for communicating pre-booking. And while Airbnb doesn’t allow for exchange of phone numbers, etc, because they are trying to prevent off-site booking, personally I don’t want a guest who hasn’t paid and been confirmed to have my phone number or email address- they are total strangers. I have no idea if they are some kind of psycho or not.

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I wouldn’t go so far as “perfectly” happy, :laughing:

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Maybe VRBO is a better platform for you. It is easier to communicate directly with the hosts. It’s similar to the Airbnb Inquiry function.

The review process is different but you can’t have an unfair review removed easily. I tried. I couldn’t.

Maybe create a direct personal listing?

With Airbnb we have direct access to millions of potential guests. There is no such thing as a perfect platform.

I decided to take the bitter with the sweet.

You’ve invested a lot of time & energy detailing Airbnb’s faults. Airbnb isn’t going to read this forum & certainly not going to make changes based on our feedback.

I’ve certainly used the forum as a whine platform.

Life is full of choices.

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Use Vrbo as well. Vrbo is easier to communicate with potential guests but Airbnb brings in significantly more enquiries. My suggestions relate to improving the guest review system so as to show consideration to the people who are putting their houses up for rent and for providing for the guests needs. The issue is that these houses are not five star hotels and are a different product, problem is that due to Co Vid the market has shifted and there are more guests staying in Airbnb accommodation who usually travel overseas and stay in five star hotels. Perhaps Airbnb could provide more education to guests about how to write a review and point out that those reviews can actually hurt another person and their income.

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Are you under the impression that hosts haven’t been sending feedback, ad nauseum, for years, to Airbnb about their terrible review policies?

Are you under the impression that Airbnb is interested in educating guests?

Are you under the impression that awful guests who leave damaging reviews will think twice about doing so if they are made aware that they are hurting the host and their means of income?

If you answered yes to any of the above, all I can say is that you are rather naive about both Airbnb’s attitude, and the type of guests who write nasty, vindictive reviews. Airbnb wants hosts to live in fear of bad reviews, so they will tiptoe around guests’ bad behavior and never file for damages.

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Honey they ain’t reading or listening to our posts. Airbnb Moderators do monitor posts on the Airbnb community.

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Airbnb is a booking and payment platform. Sure, they make noise about being more than that but if you get sucked into that you’ll be disappointed. If you think that guests should be “educated” in this regard, then start educating your guests. Lots of hosts provide guidance to guests about this and there are many posts here about it.

Personally I’ve never “educated” a guest or asked for a review. 618 reviews in, it’s worked okay for me but others have had success with different methods.

It has been said many times on this forum that the quickest way for a problem at AirBnB to be kicked upstairs is to complain loudly and publicly on their Twitter page.

There is always hope that common sense will one day prevail over the science of stupid but I guess that may not be the case when you are communicating with a robot!

There is always hope.

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Hi, this main problem with airbnb. They doing own business and do not care about owner. I proposed few time, stop take any renting by month and we will see what this assh… can do.

I would caveat that (personally) that I am not unhappy enough to not use it. ;-). It still leaves a lot to be desired from my perspective…

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It may be answered already but using the Chrome extension can be helpful if you use a laptop.