BEWARE: There is a glitch in the airbnb system: When guests cancel, they can still write reviews!

[Angela-And-Brandon0]

I'm having a hard time getting Airbnb support to understand this scenario:  I've had two guests cancel due to wildfires in Oregon, they both cancelled on 9/8. One was to check in on 9/13 and one was to check in on 9/14. Some how they are able to write reviews on us, which this should NEVER happen! The reason Airbnb is stating is because they cancelled on their check in date (9/13 & 9/14 respectively), but this is NOT true. It appears that the date I pushed a refund through for them, 9/13 and 9/14 is getting associated to their reservation as their "cancellation" date, which is incorrect and I have the emails stating their cancellation to prove it! Airbnb support refuses to dig into this, but cancelled guests should not be able to leave reviews as they may not agree with our cancellation policy, etc and rate us when they shouldn't be able to affect our ratings.

To add to this, I thought it was weird that when I pushed a refund through, I THEN received a cancellation text message saying that cancelled. Clearly the airbnb system is associating the date of when their cancellation text is sent to the guests cancellation and NOT the actual date they cancelled which I have the emails for.

It's very frustrating that airbnb is not taking this seriously and helping us to fix their system. It causes hour of time spent trying to get them to help us, or remove reviews that are not relevent.

[Emiel1]

@Angela-And-Brandon0 

Are the reviews published already ?

[Angela-And-Brandon0]

Yes, they were.

[Linda108]

Apparently neither have reviewed you right?  I agree the system is wrong and the CS support is misinformed.  This is all part of the disarray of Air BNB currently, so I would wait to see if there is a published review and take steps to have it removed.  Did you also get prompted to review?  Whatever you do to get it removed due to a technical glitch, just be patient because we all know it is a long haul to get things corrected for the most part.  Good luck!

[Angela-And-Brandon0]

Yes, I've already asked for one of them to be removed. The other one still has another several days to complete theirs. I didn't realize what was happening with the first one and left a review myself, which prompted her review to be posted. 

[Kelly149]

@Angela-And-Brandon0 I'm not sure exactly what you're saying, but if a guest ACTUALLY cancelled on the 8th then what is there for you to "push" on the 13th & 14th?? A reservation is cancelled or it isn't, unless I'm missing something

[Angela-And-Brandon0]

I know, it's confusing. So we have a strict cancellation policy in place, but due to the wildfires in Oregon (which we were not near, but did have some air quality issues due to smoke blowing our direction), I offered to either 1) refund their entire stay if I could rebook their nights or 2) refund 50% if I couldn't as the wildfires were no fault of either of ours. The guests both cancelled on 9/8, then I waited to see if we got rebookings. We didn't, so I refunded them both on 9/14, 50%. When I pushed the refund through I received text messages from airbnb stating the guests had cancelled (which was weird I thought! As I had already had the email from them on 9/8 stating they had cancelled). I didn't think much of it, until I was able to review both of them and they were able to review us. Of course one was mad because they didn't get 100% refund. I asked airbnb why they could review us and they said they both cancelled the day of their trip, which was not true! It seems the guests cancellation dates were set to 9/14 (it even showed 9/14 next to their name under my cancelled reservations) but they both cancelled on 9/8 (I have the emails to prove it). So there is a glitch in the airbnb system. But any way customer support said they were able to review because either trip had started or they cancelled same day. Which was incorrect. I've sent them all of my screen prints, but I doubt they will fix it so I wanted others to be aware.

[Emilia42]

@Angela-And-Brandon0 Can you post a screenshot of the cancelation that took place on September 8th? (blackout personal info)

[Angela-And-Brandon0]

@Emilia42 here are the screen shots. The first two are the emails we received from airbnb, the third is the text I got right after refunding each of the guests. I thought it was weird I received these texts after refunding them (I was like "I know, I know, they already cancelled" lol) but I didn't realize the date of these texts would then become their cancellation date which then allows them to post reviews (cs said since "they cancelled" on their or after their check in date, they are allowed to leave a review. Which they didn't cancel on or after, they cancelled 5-6 days ahead of time. Just something else that airbnb doesn't seem to want to fix, which then takes us days to resolve 😞