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During my time with Airbnb I’ve always tried to leave factual and honest feedback to my guests and hosts. However, when I see all the exaggerations and lies guests write, I’m not exactly getting the feeling Airbnb is a “platform of trust and transparency”.
It seems like guests can write almost anything and get away with it. Even in the cases where the guest’s review easily can be proven wrong, Airbnb refuses to remove those reviews !
I understand Airbnb cannot judge on general subjective comments such as “I didn’t like the location” or “the bed was too soft”. etc
BUT, it surprises me that Airbnb refuses to remove comments that can EASILY BE PROVEN WRONG. Here’s one of many examples:
A guests left us a bad review with the comment “the host didn’t communicate with us 2 weeks before arrival”, I contacted Airbnb telling them I wanted this comment removed as it didn’t reflect the guests actual experience, referring to the Airbnb message thread where I had communicated with the guests several times the 2 weeks before arrival.
I got the following reply from Airbnb:
*“I understand that you are not happy with the review but unfortunately we have only had the possibility to delete a review if it affects the security of an Airbnb user (traveler disclosing the exact address of the accommodation, physical threat on an Airbnb user), if it is discriminatory (racism), if it is rude (insult), if it encourages the use of illegal practice (narcotic use, use of weapons), if it is from a third party and that the traveler has never been in the ad, if it is an extortion attempt (a host refunding a traveler to have a good comment) and finally if it does reference to a case solved by Airbnb.” *
I confirm that xxxxx’s review does not fit into these criteria.
The truth being subjective, we are not there to judge whether a comment is true or false. The comment is simply a sharing of experience. In the right of freedom of expression and as this comment does not violate our security standards, we cannot withdraw it."
If Airbnb really values “trust and transparancy” throughout the Airbnb platform and community, it surprises me they allow people to write all these false things that easily can be proven wrong !
If you feel that strongly, you can respond with public feedback, but most of the time it’s just better to ignore it and trust that future guests will see the occasional unsatisfactory review for what it is.
Despite the fact that I’ve been hosting for so many years, I still haven’t figured out why some hosts seem to get horrible reviews that are all complete lies. Especially when the host supplies great accommodation at a value-for-money price. Who are these people who decide to tell lies and make up all sorts of nonsense for no good reason? How come they’ve got the time to do this? How come they don’t have lives? How come some hosts always seem to get these people and others never do?
@jaquo We’ve hosted around 1600 guests over the past 10 years. 99% of reviews are positive. But it still annoys me that Airbnb allows lies and false reviews to be published. That’s my point
@jaquo When a review easily can be proven wrong, do you think it’s fair to let it be posted? To me, it sounds like you’re on the cheating and lying guest’s side.
That’s kind of harsh. Being a host for ten years + being annoyed does not equal being “annoyed for ten years.” I see the OP’s point. I had a guest who said in the intro message that she booked my listing because of the self check-in since she would be arriving late. I sent keypad info, she said “thanks, looking forward to it, will let you know when we arrive.” She got in fine and messaged us to let us know when she did. Then knocked us down on arrival and communication because she said she rang the bell and nobody answered. Likely she had gotten our review mixed up with someone else’s but did air do anything about it? Nope. So yes, it is annoying and it does happen.
I think a lot of it is due to location. You have a beach rental in Florida so 99.9% of your guests will be there on vacation, right? And you know how to perfectly cater for their needs.
For hosts in big cities who have all kinds of travellers as guests - tourists, business, students, people re-locating etc etc - it’s not so straightforward. Look at your average review score in London, Paris, New York for example and you’ll see some crazy stuff.
Well. You think I’m on the side of ‘cheating and lying guests’ do you?
In forty years I’ve never had a lying and cheating guest. I’ve had some weird reviews though but people are weird and I’m running a business here - so I don’t have the time to worry about something that’s over and done with. And something that I can’t change. What’s the point? I received the guest’s money, they’ve gone now. I have future guests to be concerned about.
Actually, it’s easy to understand why. Do you know what Airbnb’s biggest expense is? It’s customer service. If they started entertaining taking “false” reviews down, then every single host and guest would be contacting them every single time they got a negative review and they’d have to investigate, etc. I’m sure a lot of hosts and guests already contact them and complain about negative reviews, anything more than the quick glance they give the review followed by their canned reply would turn into a drain on their resources. They don’t want to deal with it because it costs them money.
Wondered that myself. I get it that often someone will join up here to have a rant/moan about guests, but it does sometimes feel (to me) that some hosts appear to have a constant flow of bad guests, who post bad reviews that are untrue.
If we constantly got bad reviews for a particular issue, then we’d look to our product, not the guest.
OP’s initial post talked about ONE guest and ONE non-factual review, and in another post mentioned they’ve had 1600 or so guests and 99% of them are wonderful.
Reading comprehension is an important skill that more people could work on developing.
Yes, you are correct and on the basis that I was agreeing with the point made by @jaquo, and did not reference the OP in my post, I’m going to give you a “D -” for your reading comprehension.
I think this may apply to me except rural/suburban vice big city. How perceptive though. That does help me a bit. I am unfortunately one of those who gets lots of problem guests and liars.
Actually the guest I have now is hopefully going to be the guest to cover up the HuGe lie review that had been sitting at the top of what used to be my most booked listing since October, where the only other booking I have gotten there since then is due to Airbnb’s pricing error where they charged more than half off (and later did pay it back to me out of pocket). Unfortunately that “10/10” review went to the bottom as his listed language was not English…
Have you seen some of the crazy reviews on Amazon or Yelp? We’re a service offered to the public, and the public contains some nutters.
If something is factually wrong, reply with a correction. Or just let it be and it will eventually fall off the radar. We’re already paying close to 20% to Airbnb. Those fees should go to running the site (held together with duct tape and unicorn wishes) and handling substantive issues.
Yes. SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES. Like destructive guests, scammers, etc.
So what if a guest thinks my queen bed is a full size? Or that you didn’t communicate 2 weeks before arrival? Or that the jerk who stayed with me last year implied the power was out all day when it was actually 14 minutes between when he messaged and when I reset the fuse?
This is life. There will always be some troublesome person who wants to malign the characters of others in an attempt to make themselves look better. It happens in work, personal life, and not surprisingly, Airbnb land. You can’t spend your time on these people. (And I’d argue Airbnb can’t either). Your reputation will be borne out by the 99% glowing reviews. Everyone can tell who the a-holes are.
I constantly see advice here to “call Airbnb” for what I consider minor matters. Another host recently posted that they got three followup calls for a relatively minor issue. This costs all of us money over the long run.
Airbnb argues in their answer “The truth being subjective, we are not there to judge whether a comment is true or false. The comment is simply a sharing of experience.”
If the so-called “support” agent had taken one minute to look at the comment thread, they could easily have seen all the communication we had with the guest the past two weeks before arrival and easily and by hard proof identified the guests review was false.
If Airbnb accepts lies and scams, fine, but then they should be open about it, instead of bragging about their system being so “honest and transparent” .
