AirBNB allowed a guest to remove her positive review of our listing in retaliation for the honest, factual review of her stay.

[Michelle3168]

AirBNB notified me this morning that a guest who left a positive review of her stay with us 21 days ago  is now requesting AirBNB to remove our review of her stay, even though the review we left was factual and honest. AirBNB also allowed her to withdraw her (good) review of our flat, once she saw that our review was not positive (but was factual). 

I thought AirBNB's ToS prohibited retaliatory actions by guests and hosts in exchange for leaving good reviews. When I reviewed this guest, I was unemotional, factual, detailed and specific and reviewed only the things which were well documented in AirBNB's service app. We had no idea whether this guest, who asked us to cancel our other guest's booked stays (!!) to accommodate her request for an extension among other things, would leave us a positive or negative review. But AirBNB says multiple times that hosts should leave honest, fair feedback, and that's what I provided. 

AirBNB says that once both reviews are published, they are uneditable. I'm no rocket scientist, but if I submit work to my publisher and delete sentences, chapters, paragraphs--that's an edited submission. Once this guest's review was published, we received an email saying: 

"Now that you’ve both written reviews, we’ve posted them to your Airbnb profiles. While X’s feedback can’t be changed or removed, you can write a response that will appear directly below it."

I am extremely disappointed that AirBNB is allowing this retaliatory reaction by a guest. Her review of her stay was accurate "Bright, clean flat in good location. We appreciated the little touches like tea, biscuits, soap etc. Thank you [host names]," and she even left us private feedback to thank us for hosting her. This is clear, retaliatory action for leaving an honest review--not to mention that this guest asked us to violate AirBNB's ToS by requesting that we cancel other guest's stays to accommodate her request for an extension. 

Has anyone else been through this experience? If guests can withdraw positive reviews after seeing that hosts left them negative reviews, what is the point of this review system at all? 

[Anonymous]

@Michelle3168   As the author of the content you publish on the platform, you always have the right to withdraw it. This is required by law in several of the countries where Airbnb operates, and they're not going to change it.

I'm sure when the guest saw your negative review, she would have preferred to change her 5 stars to 1 star and write something nasty, but the policy protected you from that. It's unfortunate for a new listing to lose a review when it only has a few others, but its absence can't possibly do your business any harm.

[Michelle3168]

I appreciate your response, but I wish I had known this at the outset. I believed that when AirBNB stated reviews could not be changed *or* removed, that meant they could not be changed or reviewed without caveat, by anyone. The fact that guests can remove their own positive reviews in retaliation for receiving a negative one is important information for new hosts to know, so that we can appropriately weigh the risks  before we post an "honest, fair, accurate," review (to benefit other hosts and prevent them from encountering the same issues), that it may cause a guest to retaliate in this way. 

[Anonymous]

@Michelle3168  You also have the right to retract a positive review of a guest, if (for example) something comes to light after it's published that means you can no longer stand behind it. There's no reason here to not write honest, fair, and accurate reviews. The fact is, you still have a 5.0 rating with all-positive reviews despite having had a negative experience with a guest. And future hosts will still have the benefit of your honesty to make an informed decision about this guest in the future. That's a win for everyone.

[Michelle3168]

Thanks again for the response and the information; I genuinely appreciate all of your feedback. Now that I have a better sense of how things work, as the author of the content I've posted in this forum post, I would like to be able to delete it, but I don't see a delete or edit option. Any advice about where the delete button is, so that I can withdraw the content I published as its author? Thanks again for all of your help. 

[Anonymous]

@Michelle3168  You can direct your request to one of the forum's Admin staff such as @Jenny . And there's a brief window of time where you can edit a post by tapping the drop-down menu at the top of the entry and selecting "Edit."

[Michelle3168]

Thanks again, Andrew, much appreciated. 

[Quincy]

Post removed as requested by OP