Customer Demands refund or bad review

[John5520]

I have been offering my experience for over 3 years with no complaints, I hosted 3 people, A French Lady (From Paris), and Italian Lady (From Modena) and the French Ladies Husband who was a German National, all of whom spoke good English and understood in advance that my experience was merely light entertainment. The tour started off well, but within a few moments of our starting to move on I noted that the French Lady was constantly checking her phone, I assumed she was busy with her work calls, or emails, but in-fact she was fact checking on Wikipedia all the information I was giving, not in the spirit of the experience. I continued as the Italian lady showed great interest. after only 40 minutes the French Lady said that she had forgotten that she and her husband were booked on a Punt tour of the City? Which seemed odd as I was clear about how long the tour would take and the subject matter. She left and I thought it was odd, then soon after I received a message demanding a full-refund, claiming the experience was not as advertised, and that failure to have a refund would result in a nasty review. I have had a 4.8 average all the way through my hosting experience and hundreds of positive 5 star reviews. I immediately issued a full refund. with a note asking her not to post a nasty review. She did not respond and then posted a vitriolic horrid review, closely followed by her husband. 
I understand that all I can do is post a response and try to keep it consolatory, but it was truly bizarre?

[Anonymous]

@John5520   See here:  https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/548/airbnbs-dispute-moderation-for-reviews

This policy prohibits:

• Guests threatening to use reviews or ratings in an attempt to force a host to provide refunds, additional compensation, or a reciprocal positive review.

You can try to have the review removed based on Extortion, especially if the guest's message came through Airbnb messenger.  It's generally better to report that behavior as soon as it happens, rather than issue the refund.

For what it's worth, giving allegedly false information during a tour is not considered a Travel Issue that entitles guests to a refund. Your guest was out of line to suggest that it was. But the critique does raise an interesting question about whether tour guides have an ethical responsibility to be factually accurate. While entertainment might be your primary goal, it doesn't seem too unreasonable that guests on a historical tour would expect to be educated. We assume the guide has done thorough research for their job and not just made stuff up.

I think I'd be pretty disappointed to get bad information from what was advertised as a historical tour, but amused if it was in the context of something like a "comedy tour."

[Alexandra316]

@John5520 I think you should definitely pursue the extortion angle with Airbnb if you have written proof that they were trying to exchange their money back for a better review. I would also consider writing a response in the meantime. You seem like a good-humored guy and you have obviously had many happy guests: I would keep it light and focus on that. That guest sounds like she must be a lot of fun at parties...

One of my favourite tours I've ever taken was in Munich, and the tour guide was an English actor. He was extremely hungover (or possibly hadn't gotten that far) and he brought his dog, Colin, along. It also happened to be one of the interminable religious days in Germany that take place in the spring. There were tons of people on the street and Colin got lost, so we helped find him. Some nuns were not impressed by the search and shouted at us. The guide openly admitted that he made stuff up. Will I ever forget that tour? Definitely not. Did he provide some great tips for bars and restaurants? Yep. Do I remember any historical "facts"? Er... not really. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@John5520 If I were you I would update the listing to ensure people recognise it is a lighthearted presentation of history and language rather than a historical or linguistically precise one. 

[Donald252]

So what do I do if they were complaining about the AC not working when I just had it serviced I know it's working I even put an extra unit in a window to make sure for backup we offered them a night in the hotel they did not respond I found finally found them a room in the next city which is about 13 miles when they were they didn't respond until today about 30 minutes ago from yesterday so now they're saying they want to be compensated I don't know what to do I send an AC guy there they did not answer for him to come in and that was after hours I still have a trip charge of $100 and they're threatening a bad review

[Anonymous]

@Donald252 Admittedly, your issue is a very different one from what the original post was asking about, so for advice purposes you should probably start a new thread.

For what it's worth, though, it's not standard for Airbnb hosts to supply hotel rooms for guests who claim to be unsatisfied with the accommodation. Worst case scenario, a cancellation with full refund is usually enough. Seeing as how your listing is an RV, if a guest gets a free hotel stay because they complained about the booking, it sounds like they've played you.

Threat of a bad review is pointless to make a decision on - you can throw any amount of money at the guest, do everything they ask, and they're still completely free to write a bad review. And yeah, obviously, they will. You can also write a response detailing how the guests thwarted your efforts to solve the problem they complained about.