Your listing will be removed Oct 26

[Howard103]

Dear Community

We've been hosting for nine years. We have a beach house on top of the water in Western Puerto Rico. This listing is six years old, has 425 reviews, and a cumulative rating of 4.65. I recently received a 1-star rating because the electricity was down. The electricity grid in Puerto Rico is notoriously unstable. I also received a 3-star review for a false a/c connector being loose after Hurricane Ernesto, which was resolved instantly after they checked out.  We are very passionate AirBNB hosts.  We have hundreds of 5-star reviews for every low-rated review. Our house next door is also a guest favorite, with a 4.9 rating and 113 reviews. Over every 1-star review, we have hundreds of 5-star reviews. And we just invested in a new generator for the house. I think it's unfair to focus on a few recent data points vs the total body of 6 years' worth of work. This listing for the last 365 days has 4.7 stars, meaning mostly  5-star reviews. I hope someone here or the powers at be at Airbnb can show us some compassion and empathy and help with the situation. 

[Howard103]

Would this review be considered racially biased or discriminatory?

[Howard103]

Or retaliatory? 

[Howard103]

Does Gabriella's review mention anything about checking in, accuracy, cleanliness, dirty, dust, or needing maintenance, which Airbnb flags me for?   This is clearly a retaliatory 1-star review because I'm a "foreigner," and I wouldn't give her more than a single-night refund when the electricity was out for a couple of hours. I am the one who gets a low star rating for inconsiderate communication. 

[Howard103]

Airbnb's Reviews Policy

 For example, guests should not write biased or inauthentic reviews as a form of retaliation against a Host who enforces a policy or rule.

Should this review be removed as "This foreigner is one of the problems Puerto Rico has?"

As a "foreigner", I am clearly being blamed for all the ills of Puerto Rico. If this is not malicious, racial and ethnic bias, discrimination, and retaliation, then what is?

[Howard103]

It has not been lost upon me, the guest directly before Gabriella: Ricardo, on July 22-26, gave us a 5-star review, and so did Rafael right after Gabriella from July 28-29. 5 + 1 + 5 = 12 / 3 = 4 stars. 

Airbnb gives a guest five stars to rate a host, while the host gets punished for three-star reviews. A one-star review is always retaliatory. How many 5-star reviews does a host need to average a 1-star review?   

Airbnb implies that hosts should always: "bend the knee" to guests.

Guest " I want a full refund,"  Host " no " = 1 star review 

[Howard103]

[Howard103]

[Howard103]

Yes, two bad reviews out of 427 will get your 6-year-old listing removed. For this cleanliness issue from July 30th to August 2, the guest didn't even bother to write a review, and there was no communication during the stay. 




So, I appeal to the collective AIRBNB community to ask the question, "Is this fair?" Am I in the bottom 1% of all Airbnb listings? 

[Howard103]

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[Zheng49]

Very unfortunate to hear. Have you looked into other platforms such as booking.com and VRBO? 

As far as I know, they are not as strict as Airbnb. 

[Zheng49]

Thank you for sharing.

Please keep us updated on the status of this matter.

I wish I could help more but it does seem like you racked up 3+ listing issues in a row.

It’s a new feature that was added in the last year or so that if you rack up multiple listing issues then your listing will be suspended/removed. 

It doesn’t really care about how many reviews you have or how many years the listing has been up, which is really unfortunate. I do feel like long time hosts such as yourself deserve another chance in this situation.

[Howard103]

@Zheng49 When did this 3-star policy start, and where is it documented? I was never alerted to the new process. Listing issues are quickly resolved with refunds. Now i know, but it's to late. 

[Zheng49]

I don't think it was documented. The most likely time it was released is during the Summer 2023 release.

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-Circle/How-to-survive-airbnbs-new-listing-removal-policy/m-...

[Howard103 · Accepted solution]

Removal to Reactivation in one day. Hallejuh. so much drama for nothing  

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