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I had a similar issue recently. There was a leak from a flat upstairs which caused some mould in the bathroom (not too much but definitely was there). It must have happened quickly as the previous host 2 days earlier didn’t notice anything.
Anyway, the guest, who was from the US and who the airport driver had told me behaved “very strangely” in the taxi, reacted by not even contacting me or the onsite receptionist, but by immediately checking out and complaining to Airbnb. Airbnb then cancelled the booking and said I wouldn’t get any money, despite the fact the young lady had already stayed a night. [I mean if it was that big a deal she would have seen in when checking in, it’s a very small flat).
The problem took 30 minutes to repair, but if the guest had reacted in a normal way I would have probably given her a full refund and a good review. I’ve done that on rare occasions before if something out of my control happened. My review score is 4.82 so there are rarely problems.
As it was I emailed airbnb pointing out she had used services (one night stay, “free” airport taxi and cleaning) without paying for them which is against the law, and the value was £90.
Airbnb then paid me the £90 (around 60% of the total booking value) and thanked me for being a good longstanding host.[I wonder if she had to pay that, or if airbnb paid themselves …]
I then left the guest 1 star, “Would not host”, and wrote “no comments” [I can’t really write more as I wasn’t onsite and don’t have a full view of what happened or of the guest herself]. She wrote me a very bad review (I only read the first 4 words in email preview and not the rest, I’ll leave that treat for another time).
Immediately after hers I have two 5* reviews. I’m booked up for 5 months, so hopefully her review will be drowned out by good ones. Although I may write a response if no-one makes bookings for a while.
Also I might ask airbnb to remove her review on the grounds she didn’t follow their procedure, and she is clearly an outlier. But I would guess they wouldn’t agree to that, so perhaps it will just be left there.
As an update to this, I decided to do nothing, just leave the review there and not respond. Anyway I made a couple of small updates to my listing, and assumed I won’t be getting bookings for a while.
Next day - I got 2 instant bookings, neither of them mentioning the bad review. So maybe Airbnb has buried it. Thanks Airbnb!
A lot of hosts seem to think that guests are totally gullible and will believe whatever reviews they read. That simply isn’t so. They can see if a review is a outlier, if a guest is a complaining ranter. They know if you have 25 reviews saying the place was really clean and one that claims it was filthy, that it’s BS.
There’s guests who don’t even read reviews- they look at the location, photos, and the price and book.
You do not see the big hospitality companies post anything negative about their guests. Believe me they have this down on how to navigate scammers and such.
In my experience once guests have found one thing to complain about it is easier for them to find another, and another. Even though it’s a few years since I had to bother I always took on board guests “suggestions” though hopefully they were relayed privately and some I thought were a bit pernickety but there you go. For every guest who tells you something is wrong there are 10 who don’t. I had some damp in one ceiling living next to the sea but painted over it with damp proof paint. I’m sure it is there underneath but they can’t see it.
As is often said here a poor review is quickly buried by good ones. I sometimes like to click on 1 star reviews for hotels with say 95% 4 or 5 star reviews just to see how deluded some people are and the pass-ag language used by managers replying to say sorry not sorry. Good luck your place seems lovely.
It’s a badge of honour to have that really bad guest who left that really bad review. They tried to get a refund and you politely told them where to go.
Well, personally I’ve never had a guest who left a bad review or tried to scam a refund. I’ve had nothing but almost all fantastic guests. But there’s a first time for everything.
Interesting. I’m surprised you are able to successfully run a short term rental business in that case. I’d want to know if the review was still on my account, I wouldn’t just blindly thank Airbnb for doing something if I didn’t even know if they’d done it.
