My name is Karen. I wish it wasn’t.
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Personally I find the tone of this “sort out the truth” as too defensive. On face value, to imply your property has NEVER had a roach is more unbelievable to me as a Southerner than the guests claiming there were bugs. Don’t kill the messenger – I’m not saying there were any! I’m just saying that from a guests POV, everyone has had a bug in their house at some point so calling a prior guests a liar doesn’t make you look good. What does make you look good is to reinforce your cleaning standards and the prior experiences of many guests.
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I know. I feel sorry for all the wonderful women I know who actually are named Karen. I guess you just have to keep a sense of humor about it.
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Now you know how all the guys named Dick feel.
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I would just call AirBnb. I bet they will take it down since there’s no photos and you’re a super host.
I also try to get in front of these things by asking people to please contact AirBnb if they’re really upset - most of the time people don’t, but then they don’t feel like they can write a bad review either since I’ve given them the chance to complain directly to the source and they didn’t.
You’d likely lose that bet.
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It seems very unfair that they won’t share the video with you - as it might not be your place at all… can you ask them what they see in the video, so you can check whether you recognise any of the features?
Airbnb are totally unsympathetic to any hosts complaining about a bad review and will refuse to take down - unless it contravenes their (obviously lacking and badly written) policy.
We received an untrue review from
a guest who had no reviews from any other host. We had over 40 (5 star) and were super hosts. Airbnb chose to believe her.
Due to a year of no bookings due to COVID,
this review (just after COVID) caused us to lose our superhost status. Again Airbnb refused to listen to our request to reinstate our superhost status. We are still waiting to get it back (the review was written in December) .
I am concerned as to how such reviews - which included an attack
on my professionalism - could be allowed to be displayed in public. It caused me considerable angst and upset - to say nothing of a huge amount of wasted time trying to get Airbnb to see reason.
We also noted Airbnb’s v shoddy support - with all the people who answered the phone saying they were ‘very sympathetic but totally unable to assist’ - but they would ‘pass the message on to their seniors’ . The result was always a standard text message basically saying the case was closed.
In my profession, if I treated anyone in this way, I would probably lose my job.
Airbnb need to step up and support those hosts who have worked tirelessly to support their business.
@Sentosa Claire, I feel for you, Airbnb is too willing to believe guests even when dealing with superhosts who have consistently delivered superior services as evidenced by great reviews year after year.
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They don’t “believe” guests. It has nothing to do with that. Guest service fees are their main source of income, therefore they are pandered to. There are far more listings than there are guests to fill them. Hosts are expendable, guests aren’t.
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Yes you are right! So again I would argue that allowing untrue allegations to be displayed in public demonstrates absolute lack of professionalism and total negligence on their part.
You don’t have to argue it. I can’t imagine any host thinks letting reviews full of lies stand is a wonderful policy.
1 bad review should not destroy your business. I often read the 1 star reviews of places just for fun as even if 95% are 4 or 5 star it shows how deluded some people are. I like it when the managers decide to not play nice with the boilerplate “we are so sorry our place was not up to your standards and promise to do better in the future” and bite back. Move on, it will soon be buried by nice reviews. Dont do a lengthy defensive or attacking reply as it will just highlight it. Short and sweet “Thanks for your feedback we are looking into it”. Most prospective guests aren’t put off by one bad review, people know what some other people are like.
Imagine if it was true though and all the host had to do to get it removed was ring up and say “its not true about the open sewer in the bathroom, please take it down”. I mean some places are pretty shoddy, not anyone on here mind.
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That’s quite true and I’ve put forth that possibilty before, as well. Just because the hosts on this forum are good hosts, doesn’t mean there aren’t scammer hosts out there, or hosts with really dirty listings, or who have no problem lying- there are for sure.
I’ve read some guest horror story posts and it was obvious that the guest was telling the truth- they had pages full of glowing reviews, had been happily using Airbnb for years with no issues.
But Airbnb could solve this review problem fairly easily. Guests who have been called out for breaking rules, asked to pay for damages, etc, could be barred from leaving a star rating. They could still leave a written review, which a host has the option to respond to, but it would eliminate the serious problem for hosts where one 1* rating can tank their ratings and lose them Superhost.