Bad review from rude guest I cancelled

I had a stressful experience last night, when a very rude drunk guest arrived at my house. He told me he wanted to leave ASAP and that he didn’t expect to be staying in the ghetto. I have a nice apartment in the highlands of Scotland, with beautiful views onto a Loch, so I don’t know why he was calling my area the ghetto, I have never heard this before. Anyway I don’t want an unhappy guest who will leave a bad review, so told him he could leave straight away and I phoned Airbnb helpline on speaker phone, they cancelled him and refunded him. I thought thst was the end of this and I had swerved a very nasty person. . . It turns out that Airbnb allow him to review this experience, and he has written a review which will show in two weeks. I’m sure it will be nasty, I don’t want to see it! I really thought I was doing the right thing by calling Airbnb helpline but they were so useless, I am now considering cancelling all my future guests and just giving up. I know it’s just one bad experience out of 200+ good ones, but still when it comes down to it I do not feel Airbnb were any use at all and offered me no advice or warning that this creep could continue his abuse even after I cancelled his reservation.

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If you cancel your future guests, you will be charged $100 per cancellation. I would wait until the last possible minute to review. That way, if you have any new reviews in the next 2 weeks, it will push his review further down the page.

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Hi @Scotlanddude and welcome to the forum where everyone understands what you’re going through! But please don’t give up your business because of one jerk.

His remark about the ghetto is odd … could it be that on the way to you he saw - shock horror! - someone with a dark skin? If this is the case (and if you could tease it out of him and get him to put it in writing,) you just might be able to get him banned from Airbnb and good riddance too!

If he writes you a bad review (and he was drunk so somehow I doubt he’s going to bother) you will write a reasoned, professional reply and everyone who reads it will be quite clear where the fault lies.

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yeah, hang in there. A couple of times this year, I’ve thought it might be easier to give up (inaccurate review, a mini flood, the dreaded spot cream bleaching), but a couple of days later, and I’m always loving it again.

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I think if you tell Airbnb that you are cancelling your account and getting out of the business they won’t charge you. But one shouldn’t just cancel outright, contact Airbnb for help and if they don’t help contact the guests and ask them to cancel.

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I don’t think they charge $100 per guest, it says £50 per guest which is maybe $75 at most, and maximum 3 before suspension, so £150 total. Airbnb stand to lose a lot in fees because I have a lot of guests coming and all the hassle involved with supporting them. I understand the support of these decent guests. But what about hosts? They are happy to give a random phone call asking if everything is ok but when I have a problem they hide. I’m basically sick of Airbnb’s lack of support. Really useless, they offered me no support at all or advice. It was a big shock when I got an email saying I had been reviewed by this creep.

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If you stick around and read the forum you will see that plenty of people have suffered the same or worse. Airbnb doesn’t care much about hosts. That said you might follow up with customer support or even tweet your displeasure. I’d advise seeing what your review says first. You do get to review him too.

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No I don’t think he was racist, it’s very rare to see anyone with black skin but those who do come here are certainly not causing problems and the area is no ghetto. It’s beautiful, there’s no crime, I have no idea what his problem was. I was happy to get rid of him. I wanted him out because as soon as he started being rude and I could smell the alcohol I had alarm bells ringing and when he told me he thinks I live in the ghetto I wanted to avoid that review. I have a strict cancellation policy but he was refunded and I thought that was the end of that. Airbnb did not tell me he could still review me, and I assumed the problem was gone. Of course Airbnb are not responding to messages at all now, as usual when you need help they are not helping.

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For me 50 pounds would be $175, but I see your point.

Like everyone else said, you will get the chance to review the guest as well. Please be honest so other hosts are forewarned about the possibility of this guest turning up drunk and belligerent. Don’t forget to mention in your reply to his review that he got a full refund, didn’t actually stay the night and was re-accommodated by Airbnb. Don’t worry about one bad review among many good ones. It very quickly gets married, and if it’s your only bad when you’re rating will not suffer for long.

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It is airbnb policy for at least a year now that the guest can leave the host a review if he cancels on the day of check in or later, even if the guest didn’t stay. There are multiple threads about this on the forum.

Airbnb policy:

Never ever cancel a guest. Make them do it themselves so you won’t incur the penalties. As for an unfair review, you have the right to respond. Use it! Don’t hesitate to give a bad review if it is warranted. If a guest gets too many of those they will be removed from the platform. One bad out of 200 is just a blip on the screen. Before you know it, it will soon disappear from your page. But if none of the above makes sense to you, OK, if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

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All hosts will be happier, and will enjoy a better level of mental health, if a) they see Airbnb as merely an advertising platform and not as some sort of good fairy who will look after them and b) don’t worry about reviews.

As others have said, one bad review is irritating but not worth losing sleep over.Neither is the fact that Airbnb is running a business - just like we are - and doesn’t exist to watch over and protect us. It would be a wonderful world if it was true, but unfortunately it isn’t. It’s best for hosts to be realistic, I’m afraid.

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The guest told me he wanted to cancel on the day… is that not different to me wanting to cancel a guest? All I did is agree, and called on speakerphone. I was told in a message that if have bad guest I should call the Airbnb hotline, the guest arrived and wanted to cancel and I agreed with his decision because I thought an unhappy guest = bad review. Seems a bit weird that they can review even after getting what they asked for, a cancellation!!

I’m confused - it sounds as though you cancelled?

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In the title of the thread scotland dude tells us he cancelled.

Duh, typical me, not reading.

And I complain about it when guests don’t read! :slight_smile:

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The guest asked to cancel and I instantly agreed, I phoned Airbnb they cancelled. Update since yesterday, Airbnb have refunded me the money since it was the buyer who cancelled on the day, and my cancellation policy is strict.

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Yea I did, but if you read the whole thing you can see I go on to explain, guest asked to leave ASAP, I agree, I phone, it gets cancelled. Etc…