Help Getting Revenge Review Deleted as a Guest

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The link is indeed clarifying. So, the best approach to ensure reimbursement would be:

  1. Say nothing to the guests during their stay and let them remain happy, no matter how damaging their behavior is. Instead, document everything thoroughly—take pictures, record videos, and collect written evidence such as messages. Let them believe there is no issue and that you intend to leave them a great review.

  2. After checkout, promptly leave a review for the guests to encourage them to review you in return, ensuring both reviews are published.

  3. Submit the damage request within the required 14 days from the checkout date. This request will first be sent to the guests, and if they refuse to pay, you can escalate the issue to Airbnb’s damage protection team."

2 Likes
22

To follow up on this. I got nowhere with Airbnb and deleted my account. Fortunately, I use a different account for booking stays than I do for hosting. I’m very reluctant to use Airbnb as a guest in future as they seem to punish anybody who complains about a host/guest.

Their own guidelines specifically state that this review violated their guidelines:

‘They also may not be used as an attempt to mislead or deceive Airbnb or another person. For example, guests should not write biased or inauthentic reviews as a form of retaliation against a Host who enforces a policy or rule.’

While they use an example of a host enforcing a policy in the example, it’s clear that it’s just an EXAMPLE and that a host getting revenge on a guest should also not be permitted.

Several Airbnb employees told me that they knew the host was lying but couldn’t do anything about it as the fictional events portrayed in his review may have been ‘his interpretation’. I was met with silence when I pointed out their own rule on retaliatory reviews.

Attempting to get anywhere with Airbnb over the listing has also been pointless. Neither Trust and Safety, the first stage CS agents or their supervisors seem to understand why this is an issue. I haven’t been able to escalate beyond the supervisor as I am told that I am speaking to ‘The CEO of Airbnb’ at this point, despite the fact that the Indian women I am speaking to sound nothing at all like Brian Chesky.

I can’t seem to figure out how to multiquote, so:

@Rolf The reviews were left after my stay. Both accounts reviewing the host were new accounts with no reviews from anybody other than the host. Both reviews mention how private the private room is and focus on bathroom privacy. They’re very odd and clearly fake. The host would have known that a bad review was coming the moment Airbnb spoke to him.

@RiverRock I left the review five minutes before the checkout time two weeks later. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the cutoff time and he was able to leave a review 14 days and 2 hours after checkout.

@jaquo I had little choice but to stay the first night as I checked in at 01:00 in the morning. I didn’t use the bathroom at all and reported it to Airbnb the next day. I was moved to another listing and was refunded by Airbnb themselves (who chose to pay the host in full) as the host refused to offer a refund. Other than relocating me, Airbnb handled the situation extremely poorly as the host should have had his listing immediately suspended pending investigation and the payout should have been withheld during this process. Unfortunately, his listing is still up three weeks later as Airbnb has done nothing about it. I wonder if this is because I didn’t observe him looking through the peephole and merely refused to use the bathroom. Perhaps they would be taking it more seriously if I was actually spied on, rather than there only being the potential for the host to spy on me. However, I can’t be certain of this.

The bathroom had both a toilet and a shower, with both being fully visible from the peephole.

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To provide another update:

The listing is, of course, still up. Another guest has left a review saying that they didn’t stay as there was a peephole in the bathroom. She also has a one star review from the host accusing her of leaving a fake review due to her request for a refund being denied when she wanted to cancel the day of check in.

Airbnb is continuing to avoid talking about the rule against retaliatory reviews, which his reviews clearly violate, and are adamant that his review doesn’t break a single one of the policies (while providing me with a link to an article confirming that his reviews do violate their policies).

On the removal of the listing, they are claiming that having provided me with a full refund and relocating me is a sufficient resolution. They don’t seem to understand the severity of what the host has done and are under the impression that I am requesting additional compensation from them, despite me never having requested this.

Attempts to escalate are getting absolutely nowhere.

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I have issue with that- I don’t agree with deception and there really isn’t any need to tell guests you’re going to leave them a great review, especially if you have no intention of doing so.

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There’s something very odd about this. I’ve read so many host accounts of hosts having their listings suspended simply on the basis of some scammer guest calling Airbnb to report a totally made-up “privacy violation”, just to try to get a refund. Airbnb then immediately suspends all the hosts’ listings pending an “investigation”.

So why they are ignoring this one is strange. Is this maybe one of those hosts with hundreds of listings whose bad behavior Airbnb turns a blind eye to because they bring in so much money in service fees?

One thing I have found is better if you are reporting something serious, either about a host or a guest, is to message, rather than call, and start the message with, in this case, “TRUST AND SAFETY ISSUE- PLEASE PASS ON TO THAT DEPARTMENT”, then very briefly and concisely describe the issue- use bullet points, not descriptive paragraphs.

I can’t guarantee that will work, but I have successfully had return messages from Trust and Safety reps and Tech team reps, rather than endless back and forths with low level clueless front line reps, by doing this.

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I never said, @muddy, I like this approach; in fact, I don’t like it at all. However, for the moment, I haven’t found any other way to apply constraints to guests without risking your relationship with them, your rating, your Superhost status, or losing future bookings and income as a result.
You might argue that diplomacy and a sense of humor can save you in any situation, but unfortunately, that’s not always true.

Now, back to this thread… I just want you to consider another possible reason for a peephole in a bathroom wall. In my country, it’s legally required to cut a peephole in any room containing a gas burner. Another possibility is that the owner started installing something in the bathroom or removed an old device that passed through the wall.

At the end, I simply wonder how hard can be to cover that peephole with something or place an object between the peephole and the bathroom inside? Was the owner asked to cover it? It’s a matter of seconds to place a hanger near the wall.