I was recently received a 2 star rating for my usual 5 stars listing. I felt betray and fustrated as he is a Korean who don’t speak much English and never message me until his check-in date. I was the one who message him and never get responsed. He show up early morning at 6 am (my check in is from 3pm). He is in his 70 I believe. I was in bed and check the CCTV , seeing a group of old people travel overnight and arrive early looking tried so I have one empty studio the night before I decided to call my doorman and ask them to check-in them at 6 am. (Something I shouldn’t do). It was stated clearly that no cooking allowed + there is no cooking facilities. However they cooked there (they brought their own cooking facilities). As stated in the listing I am an employee who work full time and I won’t have time to go to the studio/apartment to check with them but my doorman and the family at the basement are very helpful with them , calling them a cheap Tuk-Tuk and help them as much as possible. After check-out he leave me a last minute review with all 2 stars including communication. Seriously , I was mad. I have never received any message through my Airbnb app , only a few of my messages that was unresponsive by him. His review is in Korean which stated something like “ the House is on 3rd the staircase is 1 Meter each difficult to claim”. I use google translated. However let me break it down , firstly it was stated clearly in the listing that you need to cliam the stairs and it is on the 3rd floor. Why it is difficult for them claim? Because they brought their cooking facilities. I have no lie in my listing and was praise for my honest description and I usually received 5 stars for this listing. (Overall 4.8) and now with one unfair review it is 4.3??. I lost my hope in hospitality on Airbnb.
Awe vegan… don’t lose hope. You are a great hostess and he is a jerk.
We’ve all had terrible and unfair reviews. We’ve all had bad guests.
One good thing though is that the reviews from foreigners will be put last.
You can try calling Air and telling them that the review is unfair because you don’t allow cooking and they brought their own (who does that???) and on that basis they might remove it? I don’t know. I do know you can respond but sometimes that makes it worse.
And here you let them check in at 6am, and they still did this to you…some guests are simply horrible. Ugh.
It’s not you, it’s them. Don’t let this clown make you feel bad for one more minute, okay?
Chin up buttercup. 
️
Hi @konacoconutz : Airbnb has their own community but trust me i always come here , it is my favorite Airbnb forum. Everyone is so helpful specially you who always cheer me up. You are correct , one in a while there is a jerk but this guest just make me speechless , like you said , who does that?. I think in this situation , respond to him will just make the matter worse however i felt okay as i also rate him 3 stars and stated that he cooked in the non-cooking home. To me rating anyone (host or guest) below 2 stars is not acceptable unless they are so horrible that you also need to report their profile. I need to think twice to list my listing suitable for family , every time family come there is always bad thing happened. I am a hotelier and hospitality expert myself , i will never give up in hospitality and short-term rental but currently Airbnb has so many bad guests and start to treat Airbnb rating system like a hotel which make me so disappoint. Guest can always make a new profile but it is not the same for host. I use to love Airbnb so much , always traveling and hosting with them when back then a lot of guests are so nice and treat the space with respect.
I know my dear. I had a really terrible horrible mean guest this past summer and I wanted to quit. In fact, I did close it off for three weeks just to sulk. He left the worst review and called me a crook. Said I misrepresented the place and should have changed his sheets daily. Even though it was absurd I was crushed! I thought it would be the end, but New guests didn’t even seem to notice the bad review! If they did mention it, it was to laugh!
I did recover, and so will you.
I am so glad you left the guy a bad review for cooking! He deserved it! And believe me, it’s much harder for guests to recover from bad reviews than it is for hosts. No one wants a troublemaker or a rule breaker!
You could try closing it off to families since you do get more trouble with them.
I hear you about the way Air is changing. A different type of guest is renting more and more. Entitled, spoiled and nit picky. They expect a five star hotel at a two star price.
You will keep getting more guests because you are obviously great at what you offer. And as I said, since he is Korean, his review will be on your last page.
Stay strong!
Vegan because you work in the industry, do you think hotel guests in general are better than Airbnb guests? I wonder why?
I will stay with you when I visit Asia next! 
@konacoconutz : I feel you when you mention SULK , i plan to do so for at least a week as i also have other platform to received guests from. Please do so when you visit Southeast Asia. I will also stay with you when i visit US (i hope you are hosting there if not please correct me and let me know where you are hosting so i can make sure to find your listing). Uhmm…before Airbnb guests was my favorite , they treat the space with respect , friendly , polite but currently no so much. Like you said most of them just want to find a cheaper version of the hotel. Hotel platform usually on the hotel side more than the guest side (since we bring them ton of commission each month) , i felt like hotel guests is much better than Airbnb guests at the moment specially long term. I have an apartment building which consist of a few studios so i also list my place on various platform such as Booking.com and Agoda Home. Airbnb , Booking.com and Agoda Home these three are the top on my list. Airbnb use to be my favorite because like i said the guests was so nice and on top of that we pay very little to Airbnb compare to the other platform , i felt like Airbnb are protecting the host so well until recently where i received bad guests and issue with my payment ( this issue probably easier to solved if you are living with in the countries that you easily contact Air by phone and not so much if you live in Southeast Asia) on the other hand Booking.com and Agoda has their own local team which i can call here and their email customer service is very good.
All three times I visited Asian countries I used Agoda, and really liked them! Easy to use and lots of selection! Yes, I tend to agree, I think Airbnb is going downhill in many ways. Maybe they have reached their peak, as you say. Not sure why!
I used agoda to book hotels and guest inns in Kyoto, Seoul and Tokyo. My good friend is in Saigon so maybe I will come your way soon to visit her. We can keep in touch with private message! Look for the little green notification!
Let me break it down on Airbnb and hotel/apartment platform guests.
- Expectation : Airbnb come with an expectation of friendly and helpful host and sometime they don’t even read all the listing detail but decide to make a booking and end up disappointed on the other hand Hotel guest come with least expectation (majority of them even me) and hotel/apartment owner can stand firm if they are asking for too much (their review won’t impact booking much). This is why hosting on Airbnb can be pressure specially when you meet a group of jerk , you even need proof if they are smoking in your unit to cancel reservation.
- Interaction: Airbnb guests expect host to be ready at all time but Hotel guest don’t really do so. they expect service but if there no reception for 24 hours (what else they can do?).
- Payment : Airbnb guests felt secure with their payment and they can request refund even with very tiny problem. Hotel guests has no expectation of received the refund so if they find out a slightly unclean corner they will just tell hotel or let it passed.
Generally Airbnb is a good platform to build our own reputation but the hotel platform is very good at doing their business , they balance out between guest and host. I only use Airbnb to travel twice with my family ( i use a lot with friend who aren’t picky as i don’t want host to feel uncomfortable). Family is really difficult to pleased as a whole while traveling with Airbnb. But they won’t be picky when they slept at the hotel.
Very insightful! Totally true! Thank you for this.
@konacoconutz , i also would like to know which one you prefer Hotel or Airbnb when traveling?. i still prefer Hotel which is classic and below my expectation. As i said above this is usually my insight on guests and me who is traveling , i felt like it much safer in a hotel environment than Airbnb , hotel can meet all guests expectation from very young child to elder that why i choose hotel when traveling , i use to stay at an Airbnb with my group of friends and it turn out to be a nightmare because of different expectation , the group was 6 but there is only 2 beds and 2 floor mattress. The other men who should be sleep on the mattress don’t want to because he think that we share the same price but why he should sleep on the mattress ( this guy is too picky). I can only travel with Airbnb with someone i knew that won’t be picky. Another thing is argument , i was once traveling with two couples , they turn their back at each other. Staying at Airbnb must be another nightmare as they won’t sleep in the same room. Thanks god , i did right as i choose Hotel. Now , i have my favorite Airbnb at Malaysia and favorite hotel in Vietnam. They were great. Let me know when you visit those countries and i will make sure to introduce them to you. Most of the time i can read through traveler who is coming. Trust me not?. Their review of the listing is connected to their purpose of traveling. Most of the time solo traveler is the best traveler , as they come , explore , sleep and go back. Those traveler are my favorite guests.
I wouldn’t hope on airbnb to helping hosts with anything, even if they know that review is bogus and you can clearly prove it, they will still stick to their guns and will not help you at any cost possible! We should demand more from them, because so far support is garbage
Sadly it’s a rite of passage to get at least one guest like this, we think we had all had one. I had one who got lost, naturally it was my fault, even though I messaged him 3 times to ask if he needed any help with directions, asked him which way he was coming and just call if he needed help.
He had a rotten holiday in Ireland and I got the full force of it. It was booking.com. He must of jumped off the plane in France and got himself to the nearest Wifi spot to review us. I was still in my PJ’s. I made jokes about every comment he made, I wrote it in french and english. Some people are just unhappy and direct blame to anyone but themselves.
You will get the free speech line from Airbnb about reviews but sit and think about your reply to him . I would throw in words like invalidated my insurance as they cooked when I specifically do not provide cooking facilities. Felt cheated and forced to take him in while you were in bed and he was not due for another 9 hours.
I would send him a message requesting an extra’s days pay for that arrival time.
True , i was disappointed with their action toward my unreleased payment. As a host , we need to pay bill to keep hosting. I remember i did solved the problem by myself without knowing if the problem can be solved or not , trust me not?. The problem last for 2 months until it was solved and i did all of them without instruction from Air. I did removed all of my payout preference and set it back again (wait for them to be ready and pray hopefully it is work). Good , polite and friendly guests from Airbnb keep me going , if for their customer service and bad guests i might have already given up.
From my experience , Booking.com has the worst host/guest message system ever. But their GPS team seem to be so good , i message to them that their location is wrong on the map and the next day i received a call from the team from Tokyo to correct my location. Seriously , those people are ridiculous why blame someone else for the experience that you have?. I was regret not to request part of the deposit , he also knew that what he did was wrong that why he gave me a last minute review. Air need to do better with their review system. I notice many guests in this new year start to give their star rating without any thought , how can you rate someone 2 stars in communication when you don’t speak English , don’t message them and with one call they allowed to check in 9 hours before check-in time?. And the location which always received 4-5 stars , he also threw 2 stars , come on! , it is in the center and if you want to sleep at the mountain please book a place at the mountain. You cook at the non-cooking home without cooking facilities and telling me the listing is inaccurate with 2 stars rating?. Well done.
I wanted to share my story as well, I am new to airbnb, to be honest I tried another similar websites, but there is simply no bookings 
My guest violated literally all my rules, left bad review (unjustified), demanded extra services that I provided and to all this damaged my bedding. Since I was new, I asked airbnb first how to submit a claim, it took them 2 days to reply, then I submitted complaint immediately, guest rejected it and then Alison who also calls herself Alice rejected my host protection on basis that I submitted it too late (guest checked out on 18 March, complaint was submitted 21 March), first airbnb claimed that it was more than 14 days, that’s why they don’t give me host protection, then they claimed that another guests have already checked in and that’s why they will not apply host protection for me. The thing is, that old guest in question have checked out around 11 and new guest checked in at 11:30 same day, I gave them early check in because it was possible, so, according to airbnb, I should have made all the photos, bought new items and submitted host protection request in the 30 minutes time, otherwise it doesn’t qualify, what do they have in their brains? Anyway I am now posting this story to all the travel websites and will be contacting local press about that. The worse is that I already had exactly same situations (with Alison - Alice again btw) I contacted press, they were about to run the article and submitted complaint to American Better Business Bureau and then airbnb started begging me to withdraw everything because they will pay me back plus additional compensation, is it worth it? Naturally it’s a matter of principle and I will do the same again, but overall my personal opinion about those people is extremely bad
For your personal information, you should always submit complaints against them to California Better Business Bureau, it goes directly to headquarters and airbnb is afraid of this organization, it doesn’t matter that you are not in US, as long as company is 
Many thanks @airbnb_punisher for your information , i never knew about that. I will keep that in mind. I thought that my problem was the worst but i guess your is a nightmare and it is your first experience. I used to depend on Airbnb when i first start but as i am a hotelier i also looking out for Agoda and Booking , Home Away. It take time to receive booking from those platform but bear in mind that they have no host protection at the moment. Their apartment and home rental business is new compare to Airbnb. However mine is an empty studio apartment with essential facilities so i felt secure to list on those platform with high deposit. And if your home is unique you gonna have a hard time listing it with them because of description is very limited. But to me those platform earn me more payment then Airbnb specially high reason because let be honest most people use Air because they expect it to be much cheaper from hotel.
Plus there is no profile system on those platform yet (not sure about Homeaway ) so you cannot read any review from guests. Basically you rent space out like a hotel does , welcome all sort of guests and let them review you after their stay but you cannot review them as guests. People don’t usually review on those platform unless they have really good or very bad experience. You can read through them easily during their stay and follow up asking for review if they have good stay.
Vegan, it’s true! I prefer hotels! Love the service and know they are in the business so know their stuff. Also, less expensive than Airbnb and fewer unknowns.
You know, I honestly think this is pointless. The BBB doesn’t really have teeth to do anything. It’s a waste of time to report them. Airbnb is a 31 billion dollar corporation. You agreed to their TOS when you joined. As far as your not getting your damage claim paid, you needed to know to do it quickly. You used to have only 48 hours, now, I think they have extended it.
But whatever it is, do it quickly. I’ve always had my damage claims paid. You don’t really have a leg to stand on if you don’t follow their rules.
I can’t tell if you want to dump them or continue but you should be careful…because if you make these kinds of reports or encourage members here to do it, they will dump YOU.