Interesting. Do you know if guest supplied Airbnb with photos of their alleged allegation? If not then it is a “hesaid-shesaid” type situation and certainly very unfair. How long after complaint did they issue the refund. We had a situation a while back with another guest from hell who asked for refund based on lies. We had called airbnb and provided photos proving claim was untrue and they refused to refund. These guests were themselves hosts, and after that their listing disappeared.
Our recent problem guests were also hosts who happened to come from same town, and I cannot find their listing, nor reviews (apart from the one we gave!)
By my calculations it takes about 16 five star reviews to get back to your previous star rating.
Photo of huge spot in the middle of the bedding, I personally changed all the linens and it was perfect. When I went to the property it looked someone smashed something on the comforter. Bug spray was sitting on the counter. It is in Florida and we have our share of bugs but, the condo association sprays and so do I. I have never had another bug complaint. Everyone is always so positive. It is an older unit 1980’s but I have new furnishings and update linens as needed. It really bothers me!p
After six weeks has now been resolved by Airbnb. As an host I would like to help prevent this kind of thing from happening again as it was an extremely stressful experience which, if it had occurred soon after we had started hosting, would have caused us to terminate with Airbnb. I have to say that Airbnb CS were responsive throughout and phone wait times were very minimal. The final outcome was that we were allowed to keep the payout without any chargeback, but as their review apparently did not violate policy, it would not be removed. At one point I was not going to send a response as I thought doing so might draw more attention, but changed my mind because the bad review took top position and first line started out “Warning! Warning! Warning!” and as it was our slow season we thought it would remain in top position for a while. We got lucky and had another booking within a couple of days followed by a great review.
I disagree with Airbnb reviews policy in that where reviews are obviously malicious when considered against all other reviews given to host, they should be removed. In this case we got a one star even for location, in spite of the fact that guest had visited the area within the past year and had even remarked after first night that everything was great. I still think we were right in refusing a refund as there was no basis for that and it amounts to extortion. I really thought we were being set up for a lawsuit (and maybe we still are). I did some background check on this guest which turned up a very very long record of court cases and judgments, along with fraud and theft convictions. That information helped me decide to give a bad review in the hope that it would stop other hosts being victimized.
I do not know if Airbnb gave in to their refund demand out of their own pockets, as all they told me was that the case was resolved and we would not be charged back.
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