Did they? I missed that (maybe getting my threads crossed 
). If they did that in writing at least our host doesn’t have to worry about a bad review from the guest because that would cause it to be removed for certain.
Has my vote. “Jefferson” them! Short. Straight to the point. Pick your own version if you want but I like the short, sweet & searing. I would not host anyone with a review like this!
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Thanks! I know the “full truth” is more than this. But, the GOAL is to screw the guest so they can’t get booked anywhere and to WARN HOSTS. The full story is not needed and I would not want the guest to have ANY chance to get the review removed. Just the facts, Jack. That’s it.
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Fortunately, we have never had to post one of these and hope that remains true forever.
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Yes, keep it short and don’t mention money, do mention damage and false reporting, and 1 star for everything with no on hosting again. Have it drafted to cut and paste about 3 mins before the time deadline, which you can see on the review page when you go there. It will be exactly 14 days from the time they sent the first review message.
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This is good news! Don’t get too excited yet. Usually, a guest gives a bad review soon after check-out. So do NOT POKE THE BEAR. Sit tight!
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Yes. So, check your AIRBNB INBOX and notifications. Reviews are double-blind. Air does notify the other party when one is submitted. When a Guest submits a review you get an email that looks like this:
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So, keep ur fingers crossed, write up (or borrow one of ours) and have it ready. On day 14, there will actually be a count-down timer with hours/minutes to review guest. So, submit it 3-5 min before the deadline, hit 1 stars for all, and NO for “would you host again”. Don’t be late. By the time they get notified it will be too late for them to submit one.
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The extra important part is then to slowly lean back with a big smile of contentment, and go “muah-hah-ha-ha …”.
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Thx for this - I’ve got everything lined up and now we just wait!
When you dispute the review make sure that you have read the Airbnb policy about disputing reviews and use the wordings of the part of the policy they violate. If the first representative reject your dispute, Call again and again until they remove it.
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Please don’t listen to anyone that tells you to reject guests based upon the above. I have literally hosted 100s of guests with the above criteria and all but 2 of them have been fabulous. The consequence you are experiencing currently has nothing to do with Instant booking/ no reviews. Its really an individual/situational thing.
Write a factual, honest review based on the info at hand. It’s all you can do to warn other hosts for the future. Reviews should never be based upon anything but your objective, first hand experience. If they post anything irrelevant or slanderous, then seek to have it removed. Unfortunately, anything else is fair game. Good luck to you!
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There is absolutely nothing wrong with hosting new guests with no reviews as an instant book. You will see that many of us have hosted a combined 1000s of guests without incident. You yourself can set such a parameter but it doesn’t in itself guarantee only good guests.
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I have no experience with IB, I’ve never used it, and I can understand the wisdom of requiring prior reviews in order to IB.
But this attitude some hosts have of never accepting any guest with no reviews is just bizarre to me. How is a guest ever supposed to get their first review if no one will accept them? Are other hosts supposed to take a chance on them but not you?
How would new hosts ever get their business off the ground if no guest ever booked a place with no reviews?
I’ve had several guests who had no reviews, and they were all great guests.
There’s this nifty thing called communication. It enables you to ask questions, get a sense of who you’re dealing with, and educate new guests who may not be clear on how it all works and what is expected.
And two of my no review guests had had Airbnb stays before. In one case, their hosts hadn’t bothered to leave a review, in the other, she had always travelled wiith her husband before, under his account.
And the third, who showed an account that was 3 years old, but had no reviews, had joined to make a trip, but ended up not being able to get away. He left his room the most immaculate of any of my guests, who have pretty much all been quite clean and tidy. You couldn’t even tell anyone had stayed in there for 4 days, but for the used towels hung up neatly. He even made the bed, perfectly.
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I have never seen the timer countdown?! Hmm! I will look out for that!
Oh and I forgot about the other newbie guest. When he arrived, he said he’d never had an Airbnb stay before, and told me he didn’t want to do anything wrong, so to please tell him any rules I had, or anything else he should know- did I want him to be in by a certain time at night? That was so sweet.
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So I’ve read enough about people saying new hosts are targets for these kinds of scams. So I have to admit, while I’m new - I’m a bit leery of guests with brand new accounts and no reviews. I have only my listing history to go by, but I can say my only questionable bookings were people with no reviews. One was a person who booked an entire house that sleeps 8+ for just 1 person - then upon Airbnb intervening - they updated their listing with a more accurate guest list. The second was the source of this post.
In both cases - we had communication with the guests. For my scammer - they actually had really promising interactions / communications that didn’t lead us to suspect anything… only to pull this stunt.
So long story short - will I always block people with no reviews on Airbnb - probably not. But for now - being new, and while reducing the risk of a bad engagement matters more because of not having as many reviews… I don’t want to go through the stress & anxiety of this again - not while we are establishing our little reputation.
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Get the Airreview plugin for your browser - it’s a game changer
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We host quite a few “new to Air” guests. They have always been fine.
I totally get that. It’s wise to be quite cautious until you have some experience. But also realize that this booking wasn’t simply a result of the guest having no reviews- it was an instant book and you hadn’t set the requirement for prior reviews and recommendations. As I said, it makes absolute sense for a host who allows IB bookings to require reviews for that. You don’t get to see the guest’s reviews or communicate with them before the booking is confirmed, so it’s essential that you have some layers of protection.
Do be aware, though, that guests who don’t meet your IB requirements can send you Booking Requests. If you decline every booking request from guests with no reviews, Airbnb will threaten to suspend your listing. So you still have to be able to vet guests well and recognize red flags, although I know that some bad guests can manage to say all the right things to breach your moat.
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It’s mainly about Instant Booking for the new accounts with no reviews.
I just want to say a HUGE thank you all for your advice regarding this incident. Especially about the countdown timer on the reviews ( I was unaware ) and the advice not to " POKE THE BEAR" prematurely. I waited until 2 minutes left and submitted my review - trimmed down drastically based on the samples you sent. Short and searing but absolutely honest and provable with the photo evidence sent to Airbnb customer support should anyone challenge it. I also left out all the extortion bit or the result of the dispute ending in our favor.
They didn’t leave us a review so at the end of the day - this ended well all things considered. And yes I did watch the timer count down from 30 seconds to 8 seconds to 1 second to DONE - and I let out a little maniacal muahahah 
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We have hosted many guests with no reviews and they have all been fine. Watch out for “brand new Air accounts” and “local guests”.
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In over 2 years, the only guests we would not want again had 5 star reviews.
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New hosts do get targeted, as they are labeled that way. But, it does not take long for your listing to no longer be labeled as “new host” and all is well.