Guests see hosts ratings/ reviews.
Hosts see guests reviews and ratings
Guests don’t see the ratings, only the review.
If you have a 2 faced host who may see a noncommittal host review, may have to dig a little further to see the rating categories.
Guests only see the review and can be very surprised to find they have crappy ratings.
As a non-IB host, apparently we can see guest ratings now (I haven’t looked), but we never could before, so if a host left a non-informative written review, we could not double-check against the star ratings. So 2-faced host reviews were utterly useless and often misleading to Request-only hosts.
However, what I used to do is cross-check to see what kind of reviews that hosts left for other guests, and it became pretty evident which hosts were the dishonest, cowardly ones. I almost felt they deserved to get bad guests for their lack of concern in warning other hosts about them.
Let’s be very clear, I am only talking about extreme cases, like 2 weeks ago when somehow the guest caved in the front of the dishwasher! How is that even possible? He denied it, of course, Airbnb paid me $650 for a new dishwasher. If I mention that in a review he’ll just open a new account.
When I see a poor review or a low rating I often message the host and ask them what went wrong and then make a decision on whether that’s an issue for me. I’ve had hosts ask me the same questions.
I stayed with a host last year who said she never accepts guests with a lower rating than 4*.
I’m fed up with guests abusing me for reviews where I’ve said things like, I had no response to messages but they left my home immaculate so are recommended. One guest told me it wasn’t all about me and they had a busy life, another said that I was immature, I’m 67 and he looked about 22.
I’ve been abused because I said that it took longer than normal for the housekeeper to clean up, one guest said, I’ve reported this review to Airbnb for them to investigate.
Another one called me a scammer when I asked them to pay for ruined sheets.
I should state that these abuses have only occurred after covid.
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um, have you seen the current british PM. uncombed hair and swearing is not a problem in the British upper class!
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It’s not for me either and I don’t think anyone would ever say that I’m upper class. 
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I found this - clause a host was kind enough to mention- to protect
from nonsense lawsuits- do you think this would be helpful to put into
rules (or would that seem overboard)- I’m in Canada- but it seems like
it could work in N America?
I do have it stated in my house rules, that any guests who contract
with me by making a reservation, agree to mandatory binding
arbitration in the case of a dispute. I suggest other hosts add that
to their house rules as well. The reason for having that is that,
whereas it costs nothing for a guest to sign up a sleazy attorney to
take their case on contingency and sue you over absolute trivia or
false allegations, it WILL cost a guest to enter into binding
arbitration. So requiring binding arbitration is a deterrent against
meritless legal action.
Yes, that might be attractive to put in. You might adapt some language from Airbnb TOS that applies to disputes with Airbnb. Find them here. Terms of Service - Airbnb Help Center
But at some point if you want real assurance that your provisions are enforceable or have the greatest possibility for enforcement you’re going to need to pay a lawyer to craft the right language . So view this kind of language in your rules as temporary until you get that lawyer and recognize that it might not hold up because of missing, inapplicable or poor language.
Then recognize – and I don’t KNOW for sure that this is the case (you’d need to ask that lawyer) but I’m pretty sure – you’re very likely going to need a signed legal agreement.
So I think this kind of language is better than nothing, but I don’t know how much better than nothing it is.
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All you non lawyers need to stop talking about legal language and what might happen unless you are attorneys. Seriously.
It’s obvious that most folks in this thread have no clue about liability or laws, but you’re all beating that dead horse. It doesn’t help others to have a help forum full of nonsense that will end up on “Bad Legal Takes” on Twitter.
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I completely agree with this take. Putting fancy legal sounding language in your listing doesn’t mean people will read it, and even if they do read it there’s no guarantee that they’ll understand it.
A quick google of terms like “implied acceptance of TOS” provides some links to useful information I won’t regurgitate here, have a scan if your interested and you’ll get some idea what you’re up against.
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I don’t know how it hurts to put language in EXCEPT that it might discourage a renter. On the other hand it might provide some barrier that opposing counsel needs to overcome. Whether that barrier is a trivial one, I don’t know.
The bottom line if the Host wants security: Get a signed legal agreement drafted by your attorney.
Hi Nigel, just reading through your part of this thread and I can see some people don’t believe you! In my experience I have seen a few cases where the same guests pop up under different accounts after a poor review, although it seems to me these are usually as part of a subsequent couple or group booking where they are the “plus 1” to the main guest,
I will say though that I personally use a similar approach on other web platforms to get around certain restrictions. For example, I’ve never paid full price for a meal order via Doordash because I just churn my email address and credit card number to get continuous 30% signup bonuses!!
How is cheating to get a 30% discount “getting around restrictions”? Since when is paying full price for something a restriction?
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I nominate this as the ‘quote of the month’ - a host actually telling other hosts that they will use deception with airbnb and other online services.
Happily, having this 'host / scammer’s information and listing info will keep us safe from these crude thieves. I will put it now into the forum’s super-secret listing that airbnb asks us to provide them. Does anyone have access to the Doordash report line?
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People never cease to dismazye me.
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When I was 25 or so I might have done something like this, comforted that it was ‘legal’ that I had not [technically?] lied, thought of it as a ‘hack’ before that word existed. I might have been smug about it, boasting, happy with myself. There are worse things.
As I’m now in my retirement years I look at it differently. I know some VERY GOOD people who have done things like this, and much more, that surprised me. They explained that they’re getting the shaft from big corporations and if they see the opportunity they’re going to ‘get theirs’. And of course we ARE getting the shaft, and it’s not just from big corporations.
I get that but – I hope without being ‘pompous’ – it’s very concerning. If this is how our society is going in the U.S., and through my little window, it seems like it is, well, it’s a downward spiral that feeds on itself downward.
Remember the movie ‘Pay it Forward’? Well, some folks ARE paying something quite different forward, and it’s not a good thing. It’s discouraging others, becoming self-fulfilling. Who wants to be the schmuck who plays by the rules when the game IS rigged? How many Hosts are a little cynical or grab that cancellation penalty when the grandmother is on the respirator because they don’t believe the story, or it’s ‘legal’ or they too want to ‘get theirs’ in a dog eat dog world?
So this is the world we live in now, and each of us will find our way between being simply naive prey to becoming somewhat of a predator ourselves, defining ‘somewhat’ in our own way.
I remember a story an Italian relative told me about Italy – he deploring the rampant corruption there that he said was a game for all. An American was decrying a bridge that was built for $600 million but should have cost just $400 million. Still, millions over budget, years behind schedule, the bridge was built and looked pretty good. “We would never put up with that in Italy,” he said. We sold a bond issue for a bridge, budgeted for $300 million but came in at only $200 million." “Which one is that bridge?”, he was asked. “Oh,” the relative said, “it never got built.”
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Not to mention an online service which depends entirely on ordinary people just trying to make a living (the Doordash drivers).
This isn’t Microsoft, Chase Manhattan, or Walmart.
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There is no longer any shame, because society no longer shuns those who behave badly. When I was a child, those who did wrong were shunned and not allowed to take part in polite society.
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Well, I can tell you I did that with my own kids. Anti-social behavior resulted in an immediate go-to-your-room, no explanation or discussion- that came later after they stopped yelling or crying in there.
And if they were young toddlers, too young to say that to, or have that discussion with, they got scooped up and put on a bench outside the back door. I even had a blanket handy I could instantly wrap around them if it was cold outside, before setting them on that bench.
Unless a child is mentally deficient, I can assure you they will associate being removed from the family dynamic with biting their sister, if it is done instantly. No words are required. Sort of like training dogs- you have to catch them in the act to reprimand. If they rolled in dead fish an hour ago, they have no idea why you are mad at them, nor can you explain it to them.
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When I was a little kid if I or anyone else in the neighborhood misbehaved, a parent might take us by the ear and bring us to our parents to tell what we did.
Today that would not happen, and if it did police would be called on that neighbor. Kind of ‘it takes a village’ thing.
I’m not saying I’d want that now, but back then it seemed to work.
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That happened to my daughter when she set her 3 year old out on the front porch at her uncle’s house, when he was throwing a tantrum. Some neighbors called the police, saying there was child abuse going on.
I hate this phenomenon where people now make anonymous calls to report their neighbors. Of course, people shouldn’t turn a blind eye and act like it’s none of their business if they suspect abuse is happening, but whatever happened to going to talk to people face to face, to first establish if you simply misconstrued something?
When I lived in Canada and was a single mom with 3 kids, there were never enough hours in a day. At one point,I had a pile of old lumber stacked up just outside my fence on the grassy verge next to the side laneway. It wasn’t in anyone’s way. It was intended to be chopped up for kindling for my woodstove, I just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. My place did not look like a dump.
One day some guys from the city came by saying they had had an anonymous complaint about the “unsightly mess” and that I had to move it. I know exactly which neighbors did this, as I was friendly with all my other neighbors. But these people lived behind me, across the laneway, and their house wasn’t even on my street, but on the next street. Their backyard was on the laneway and my pile wasn’t anywhere within eyesight of them. But they never accessed their house from their own street, they always took the shortcut through the laneway, on the side of my house. They never had a smile or a friendly wave, they just glowered at me.
One time she purposely ran over my 5 year old’s tricycle, after yelling about it being in the laneway the week before.