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Hi Alll
I’ve been an Airbnb host for a few years now, consistently superhosting, with 90% 5 star reviews.
Last week I had a guest check in, I showed her around and left.
An hour or so later , I got message from Airbnb, saying the guest was leaving due to cleanliness issues. She left a review , saying it was dirty, dingy etc., totally at odds with my usual reviews.
The guest the previous night gave me 5 stars as did the guest the following night.
I’ve been in battle with Airbnb(who appear to be useless) since , trying to get them to remove this outrageous , untrue review to no avail.
Many hosts have posted similar stories here for years. Airbnb’s stance is that reviews are the guest’s subjective experience. It’s your word against theirs. You could try posting on social media/Twitter (@ airbnbhelp.)
I’m curious, did Airbnb also refund this guest? What did you say in your review of the guest?
I thoroughly understand the drive to respond. We haven’t had many negative reviews. I know I did contact Airbnb, back when they provided actual customer service, and was able to get the two bad reviews I can think of removed. They both contained verifiable untruths.
However, the days of fairly effective customer service seem to be over.
This is what I think I’d do now:
Assuming that all the bad stuff is going to come down to he said-she said, I’d write just as scathing a reply as I wanted to. Maybe even several. But I would write them in Microsoft Word or on paper. And I wouldn’t post them at all. I’d just write it out of my system, delete it, and move on.
If, on the other hand, the bad stuff was verifiable lies, such as “listing said that the house was wheelchair-accessible” or some other nonsense that isn’t mentioned anywhere in our listing or on-platform communication with the guest, I would call Airbnb and do my best to get the review removed. If a reasonable number of attempts didn’t work, I’d move on.
I think the “move on” approach results in a lot less angst.
Airbnb originally said she would get no refund, and they would delete her review, then they said they can’t remove it because she was there for more than 40 minutes…(go figure).
Now they tell me they can’t move it because they are " bound by our content policy".
Dunno about the refund now.
I haven’t left my review yet…I’m waiting until I calm down …Lol
I plan on leaving a scathing review of course, I just need to be careful.
This story is missing something because you cannot see her review until you’ve left one yourself. Perhaps you’d like to fill us in with the missing details?
I haven’t seen her review , but one of the Airbnb staff read it out to me.
She said my place was small, dingy and dirty.
My previous guests (previous day) gave me 5 stars, I’ve had 2 guests just after her, both were very happy , promised me good review.
I think, she decided not to stay, and decided to make these untrue comments with a view to getting a refund.
Wow. That gives you a big advantage then since it’s supposed to be a double blind system. Strange that they would do that for you but won’t remove the review.
As to your implied question about the review, leave aside that you are livid. Just be honest and stick to facts.
XXXX arrived for a one night stay. I checked her in personally and gave the house tour. After less than an hour she checked out leaving me without a night’s income. I wouldn’t recommend this guest and won’t be hosting her again.
If you respond to her review just state the same obvious fact: She didn’t stay and her review are at odds with the others during the same time period.
I’ve read once before of this happening- that the CS rep read the review to the host before it was published.
This is just a case of a clueless CS rep not knowing what they’re doing and not knowing review policy. Unusual that it was to the host’s advantage though.
I’ve actually had a review emailed to me by an Airbnb supervisor. They were not even going to let the review be published (those racist tweekers I had) but I asked to see it and she emailed it to me.
Another time, maybe my 7th guest ever, had a small baby shower in my listing and I was upset about it and Airbnb charged him extra guest fees for it and he paid them but I was sure that he was going to be pissed and leave a nasty review. I had no idea that a review could even removed so that wasn’t my goal, I was just a nervous new host. So, when he wrote his review, they read it to me and told me the star rating too. (It was positive and 5 stars). I think they read it to me just to make me feel better.
I think they do that, read the review to the host when there is a big issue with a stay and it is usually because they are going to remove it but in this case OPs guest wrote a review that didn’t go against the review policy from their viewpoint so they decided not to remove it.
