My first 1* rating

I would change the last sentence to, “Had this guest (name) read our listing before booking, or arriving, she would have known all of these things. Unpleasant demeanor during her stay.”

As a host, I would appreciate seeing something like this on a guest’s review. She’s never going to book you again anyway.

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But her review was accurate. She just listed everything that already was written in description and listed in amenities .
I wouldn’t respond . The 1* was unfair but what you are going to do with guests like this.

It’s up to you of course but I had to change my perfectly good full size bed to Queen. The reason was is that I made a lot of guests struggling on that bed. Especially had problems with Americans and I got couple of bad reviews that was 100% related to bed size

Howabout: “Oh so you can write, but you can’t read, you big shithouse”.
See how better you feel :slight_smile:

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I am no longer of the “no response” team. Like others on this thread “it depends”.

Last year I had a negative review from someone for whom I had made many accommodations. Yes-I know, be wary of people who ask for extras and they never give you “credit” for being helpful. The review had 3 key inaccuracies about my rental (bed size & number, TV channels available)

I addressed inaccurate items in review but kept emotion & opinion out of the response (not easy).

My reason for the response is I feel guests are more likely to read reviews than they are the rental description.

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I’ve had 2 annoying negative reviews (amongst 80 positive reviews), and promised myself I’d calm down before responding. Unfortunately that took me more than the 2 weeks you get to respond, which is probably a good thing.
(If there’s no time limit on responding to a review, please don’t tell me)

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What on earth possesses guests to leave a one star review for such minor inconveniences? I wonder if there were other things going on with her … perhaps she and the tobacco-factory husband had had a flaming row and are on their way to the divorce court …

Anyway, whatever the reason, she gave you a completely undeserved and nasty review and you very naturally feel bruised with the injustice of it all. I’ve forgotten how much time you have to respond, but this what I would do:

  1. Write what you really want to say (@Barns has some good ideas above) Hone it so it will really ruin her life when you send it.
  2. Leave it alone for 4 days
  3. Write another version which is reasoned, balanced and shows what a courteous and reasonable, but firm host you are.
  4. Leave both reviews for another couple of days.
  5. Decide which of the two you will send.

At this point the probability is that you will send neither, but you will have got it out of your system and expressed your feelings and you will hopefully be able to move on and chalk it down to experience!

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UPDATE: GOOD NEWS! Taking mrichman’s advice, and in the “it’s worth a try” category, I decided to call Air to see if they would be willing to delete the review. The agent on the Superhost line was very responsive and after reviewing the nasty review, my listing and my rating & review history she told me she would escalate my request to one of their Case Managers. Only an hour later, I received an email from the Case Manager telling me they were taking down that review. I checked, and it’s gone…Score one for the team! Thanks to mrichman for the great advice and Thank You Airbnb!

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Thanks for your good advice, mrichman. See my Update in my original posting.

Very sound advice. It’s so tempting to vent - but people are smart enough to read the other reviews. I do think Airbnb could put some simple cross checking onto their system. I had someone who rated me 4 overall and 5 on each category with a glowing review. the program could easily stop guest form being inconsistent in this way

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“TO HURT” oR “TO WARN” are merely two of the threads of “The us in TRusT” that AirBnB & the community is trying to uphold, no ? The listening EARS in the fEARS of "AirBnB Wanna-Be TERRORI$T$/PayBa¢K$ are REAL! And when mistruths and the rACE card be dropped & POSTED by AirBnB guests, perhaps?!? there needs to be a “BEWARE LIST” of potential unsavory characters that appears to be spiraling out of control! FIVE guests to our space had only ill intentions of destroying any & all trust…not to mention the toxicity let behind by ignoring all the rules and then begin making up their own.
Just “Always expect THE UNEXPECTED!”…and what’s with the “New Norms”, that POINTING MATTERS OUT is NOT ALLOWED ???
~echoes of hope~

¿¿¿ :face_with_monocle:

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Huh? Are you feeling ok

RR

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Me too. I upgraded from a double to a queen this summer. I noticed that some older couples found the double bed too small and left 4-star reviews. Only one guest said something publicly, noting “the bed is only a double and it’s short.” She wrote some nasty stuff in the private review about how her feet hung off the end of the bed. I considered replying neutrally pointing out that the dimensions of a double bed are 53 x 74" and mine was exactly that, and that I said 3 times in the listing that it is a double. However, I decided it was best to let it go and let her review scroll of the page. Her review is sandwiched between guests saying how comfortable the bed is so she just looks picky and clueless.

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Wow, thanks for the great idea. We also use VRBO and got a low score from a spoiled millennial who wanted a Hotel Beverly Hills instead of a comfortable apartment. They left the place so dirty, it made my cleaning fee double for cleaning up after them. GRRRRRR.

I just wrote a great reply and hope that renters will understand that the guest was a pest!

Judy Helm Wright–Author/Blogger/Intuitive Wise Woman

Did your star rating go up after they removed the review? As in, did they remove the score as well, or just the written review?

Everything is gone,; review, ratings, my response…so my stats are restored! (now if I could just erase the memory of the annoyance…)

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Nice! I may try having my one and only bad review removed then. It was a retaliatory review because I asked her to pay for all her guests that weren’t on the reservation, and the guest just filled it out outright lies about me and my house.

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Good for you for sticking with it!! It makes me feel better towards airbnb that they used reason and took down the review! I know I would have been inclined to respond but I can see the point about if you never respond, this would make it stick out. I don’t respond unless I am terribly moved by a review which has happened twice in 5 years. Anyway, all’s well that ends well!

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It’s certainly worth a try. They took down this review because I had verifiable facts in my favor. Each thing the guest complained about was clearly written in my listing, so it wasn’t a matter of he-said, she-said. If you can show proof of the lies, then you are likely to get a better response from them. Good luck!

Thanks. So far, no luck. They’re telling me that there is no bad language or threats, so it doesn’t violate the TOS. I’m sticking with it though! The case manager is telling me that reviews are important for transparency, but a guest making up a bunch of lies about me is anything but transparent!