Airbnb not allowing a review

[Helene429]

I am sure the vast majority of hosts are concerned about their customers experience and bend over backwards to ensure that all issues or problems are amicably resolved.  Unfortunately that was not our last experience with our last host, @Cabins of Helen Georgia.  Moreover, we have discovered that it is not only the host that I think has failed to provide a safe and clean site but Airbnb which has not allowed us to leave feedback so that other potential customers can make an informed decision.

I am writing to express my disappointment with our recent Airbnb experience in hopes that someone in the community might have some ideas about how to fix this problem.  We have gone through what I assume to be the regular channels and last traded emails with Kim, a senior manager.  Our dispute concerns the cleanliness and more importantly the safety of one of the reservation sites. We contacted the host to express our concerns and ended up leaving a night early rather than staying and place our health at risk.  We left a review indicating that our final review would be held until we had a chance to resolve our concerns with the host.  The host took 2 weeks to give us their solution which we found unacceptable.  The host acknowledged that the property had a distinct smokey smell.  My CPAP machine reeked of the same smell even when we moved to another hotel.  

We chose to take the high road and not leave critical feedback without giving the host a chance to respond to our concerns.  Now it seems we can not leave any feedback.  I think this is a terrible “bug” in the system.  My understanding is that Airbnb has a basic belief in transparency and allowing consumers to have access to customer reviews in order to make the best decisions regarding their travel plans.   Our case has been closed and we have not been allowed to place our review.  

I hope you can help me understand why this is or direct me to the proper person who can help me with this matter.

[Emiel1]

@Helene429 

This is the community and not Airbnb itself.

"We left a review indicating that our final review would be held until we had a chance to resolve our concerns with the host."

There is no option to leave a "temporary review", a written review is a final one.So there is no "bug" in the system either.

[Colleen253]

@Helene429  To help you understand, I would advise you read up on how reviews work here 

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/13/how-do-reviews-work-for-stays

Airbnb won't allow anyone to leave a review after the window has closed, so there is nothing that can be done about it now, I'm afraid. But at least you will know going forward how the process works. Best of luck! 

[Sarah977]

Both hosts and guests have 14 days to leave  review. It's pointless for you to waste your time trying to get Airbnb to let you still leave a review- there aren't any exceptions ever made to this review deadline.

Nor is there any reason to wait to see how a situation resolves itself after you leave to write your review. The review is meant to be a review of your stay and how you experienced it. Whatever happens after you leave may be pertinent to the feeling you end up with about the host and the place, but it's immaterial to the review. 

If you found the place not properly cleaned, or with safety hazards, you should have left a review stating that (along with anything positive you might have to say about the place), regardless of any response you might get from the host after you left. The host can correct those things for the future, and both hosts and guests have an opportunity to leave a response to the review they got, so if the host has dealt with issues that were pointed out to them, they can leave a response which makes it clear that those things have been addressed, for the benefit of future guests.

Think about it the other way around. Let's say I have a guest in my home who is personable, behaves respectfully while in residence, and leaves their space clean. I would leave them a good review, because that was my experience of them during their time here. If for some reason they send me some rude message 2 weeks after they leave, I still wouldn't have any reason to regret the review I left for them, because as a guest, they were fine, and that is what I'm reviewing, for the benefit of other hosts, I'm not reviewing them as an entire person with any quirks or nastiness that it wasn't evident during their stay.

I'm not sure what it was you were waiting to be resolved- you had a bad experience, which it would seem the host wasn't able to address satisfactorily at the time, and you left. Was this about trying to get a refund?

@Helene429

[Helene429]

We left a review stating our final review was pending discussion with the host.  We have heard different things about the policy.  One is the 48 hour rule.  Someone on here mentioned 14 days.  We spoke with the host promptly outlining our concerns/complaints.  We went through the Airbnb site for all our communications.  Once it was clear that our concerns were not going to be addressed we asked to be able to complete our review.  I think this policy is flawed and works against transparency and the customer.  I would think that most hosts who are concerned about giving their customer the best experience possible would agree.  I know it's done deal and complaining about it won't change anything.  As a host ourselves it just aggravates me that people get away with such crap.  For what its worth, I emailed the CEO of Airbnb.  HaHa.  Keep dreaming.  Appreciate your feedback. 

[Colleen253]

@Helene429 "We have heard different things about the policy.  One is the 48 hour rule.  Someone on here mentioned 14 days".  

Did you read the link I provided? It explains how reviews work. No need to guess. As a guest, and apparently a host as well, you should be reading the help pages on Airbnb to become familiar with how things work. There is nothing flawed with the review policy. It's quite simple, straightforward and fair. 

[Sarah977]

"We have heard different things about the policy.  One is the 48 hour rule.  Someone on here mentioned 14 days."

I don't know what 48 hour rule you are referring to. You do have an opportunity to edit your review as long as the other party hasn't submitted a review yet, that may be 48 hours you have in which to do that, I'm not sure. But there has always been 14 days to leave a review, no more, since I started hosting 4 years ago. 

If hosts and guests simply had unlimited time to leave reviews, or to edit them after they were published, that would result in a horrible review system, even worse than it already is. If I experienced a guest to be a good one, but then they left me a critical review, and I could then change my review of them, that wouldn't be honest, would it? That would just be childish- "Oh, I did like you, but now I don't, so I'm going to say you were a terrible guest".

@Helene429 

[Sarah977]

" We spoke with the host promptly outlining our concerns/complaints.  We went through the Airbnb site for all our communications.  Once it was clear that our concerns were not going to be addressed we asked to be able to complete our review. "

You still haven't been at all clear what you were waiting for or how you expected your concerns to be addressed considering that you had left the listing after one night. You had complaints about the place and you left. I assume you were refunded for the nights you didn't stay? What else is there to address?

In any case, just because you thought you should be allowed to leave a review after the 14 days were up doesn't mean that it is a bad review policy. @Helene429 

[Helen3]

Why do you think you Airbnb would allow guests to change their review dependant on the outcome of discussions with hosts post their stay regarding potential concerns . @Helene429 

If Airbnb allowed this; it would open hosts to being blackmailed by guests who could threaten to change their review to a negative one if for example a host pursues a claim against them for damages.

Airbnb make it clear in the messages they leave for both hosts and guests that you have 14 days to leave your review and that it can only be changed in the first 48  hours of leaving the review IF the other party haven't left theirs.

[Helene429]

As a guest I would wait to leave a review to see if the host made a reasonable attempt to resolve a problem. For one, since the smoke smell in the unit was overwhelming & unsafe for our lungs, we had to leave a day early. I think a refund for that would be appropriate & show good faith in the process. In addition, had the host assured us that they would address the problems for future guests I would have been satisfied. But in response to our concerns 1) our host did not address all of them & 2) made excuses for them. The fact that their responses indicated that they found their unit satisfactory to rent to other guests was disheartening. This experience with Airbnb has left us significantly disappointed. We are unlikely to rent an AirBnB property in the future & we will certainly never return to the units in Helen GA. Had a satisfactory resolution to this problem been achieved we may have felt that Airbnb was worthy of our business. Obviously that was not of concern to either Airbnb or the host from Helen GA. 

[Helen3]

So why didn't you wait until you knew how the issue was likely to be resolved BEFORE leaving a review, if that's what you wanted to achieve @Helene429 

If you were looking for a full refund it would have been better for you to follow the process laid down by Airbnb in your booking confirmation which was to contact the host and Airbnb within 24 hours of arrival IF the listing was not as described. Then if the host in this case was not able to resolve the situation by arranging for a special clean to get rid of the smoke smell, you could have cancelled penalty free.

What you can't do is choose to stay for the duration and then want a refund for your stay.

Why by the way are you not using your guest profile here rather than another anonymous one?

[Helene429]

All of these explanations make sense. I now realize we should have left our review within the 14 day window (although we didn’t know there was a 14 day window! Now we do.) We we’re very dissatisfied with our accommodation. We own vacation rental property & we would never allow our property to rent in the condition we found our cabin. We had to leave a day early b/c we couldn’t handle the smoke smell. Had one of our guests had such a negative experience & left a day early we certainly would have refunded their last night stay. It has en a disappointing & frustrating experience. I think we’ll likely stick with hotels in the future.