POLICY NOT BEING FOLLOWED - party guests leave retaliatory reviews and airbnb won't take them down despite their policy

[Anita325]

AIRBNB has a policy to remove retaliatory reviews from verified parties. They have failed to honor that policy now on three occassions: verified party, false retaliatory review, no amount of calls or escalating within Airbnb Support has helped.

I did have a support person finally confide that they consider reviews like this....

1. "First...is there any fraud on the review? If we don't see that then we close the case.
2. We're told not to consider reviews unless we see fraud."

So the policy is, at a minimum, not being enforced. 

I even copy and pasted the policy from their website to the support staff, none of them recognized it.

When will airbnb start caring about it's hosts?

Prepandemic I found considerate support persons, postpandemic I have only found literally scripted responses. 

Will somebody over there please do something?

Anita

[Stephanie1933]

@Anita325 so sorry! This is happening far too often. CS need to sort it out!

[Anita325]

Thank you!

here’s the latest…..

a support person sent me a link to give Airbnb ‘policy’ people feedback.

so I did…. long and little tangy but…..Here it is….

“There have been parties at my listings.
I have followed the rules, contacted AirBnb and had support in levying fines and cancelling the booking.

When the guest left a retaliatory review I could not after many hours and repeated calls get anyone to follow your own policy of removing a retaliatory review after a party.

I finally posted on the community board and all of a sudden, poof!, they are removed.

My feedback is that the majority of your support, in my experience, are not aware of the ‘retaliatory partner’s review’ policy to remove it or are not trained properly.

I had one support staff confide that they are trained to ONLY consider obvious fraud for review removal and to end discussion and close the case if no fraud is apparent.

Soo that’s the beginning. It gets better.

On two occasions when I was transferred to the “Safety” department regarding a party they actually delisted my property because I had a front door camera.
The second occasion it was delisted and all future reservations cancelled without any explaination at all! This was another party where Airbnb helped me to collect the party and noise violation fine. The cancelled guests all save one reached put and either rebooked or came directly to avoid Airbnb interference.

The safety team in my experience is retaliatory to me more than helpful in some cases when I reach out about parties.

These issues have cost me countless…ok I would estimate about 5-6 hours… of time trying to repair damage and get appropriate support.

Please improve your training g and customer support for hosts regarding parties. Give us a ‘party retaliation’ link and flag so support can recognize it right away without reviewing a whole case. In all cases they reject my request to remove the review and are completely unaware the guest had a party even when Airbnb themselves cancelled the booking. I have to wait on hold for the support to review the case and them often to discuss it further. Maybe if you add a button for all reservations “had a party” which the first support person identifies, that’ll save your support and we hosts a lot of time when it comes to that same reservation issues after the fact….not just retaliatory reviews but damage and fees for violations.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Anita325 Some very strange reviews on your account. One where the guest complained and you said it was all lies due to the fact he had 5 additional guests and partied yet your review of him was glowing. I am sorry but if honest reviews of guests are not left then poor guests will just continue to use the platform and affect other hosts.

[Anita325]

Not sure why this is an issue for you and is not related to the topic that I posted. That said, for your information I did one time accidentally post a good review for the wrong guest which I was sure to never repeat that mistake.

[Don-And-Emily0]

We had the same thing happen to us. The abb csr only looks at whether a guest writes within the review guide lines and nothing else. I don’t think airbnb is serious about removing revenge reviews at all. It’s just talk. 

Since our bad experience, we learned to ask potential guests a lot of questions and have learned that the ones who are dishonest are very bad at communicating because they’re trying to hide something... So that’s an easy NO for us.

So the best defense is to ask a lot of questions to prevent party people from renting you home. 

best of luck in the future 

[Susan1188]

Absolutely agree, you can really detect the problem people by the ones who don't want to engage with you or answer any questions.  First thing to put in house rules: must answer host messages or reservation will be cancelled (by customer support).

[John2406]

Mmm, thank you @Susan1188, that's a good suggestion, especially in view of a recent situation with a non-verbal Guest!

[Robbie54]

How long do you give guests to reply to your messages @Susan1188 ? In my experience some do not turn on the notifications, a pain I know, so i tend to message them to their phone number. Also aren't hosts penalised if they cancel reservations? I'm not sure your rule is the way forward for most.

[Anita325]

What Susan is saying if I may….if you can’t get a guest to communicate about a broken rule then Airbnb will cancel the booking for you without penalty. I have had this experience.

[Anita325]

Don I saw some of your earlier posts on this topic.

Glad to hear you’ve found a way.

we have instant booking as I have 4 very active listings.

what has helped is house rules that include hefty party fines and, when in doubt, we ask them to confirm they’ve read all the rules including quiet hours and no parties.

But they still come through….less often of course but even some with a good track record have spoiled their record for a party. Nothing surprises me anymore.

I did just finally get a couple of bad reviews removed … and I’m concluding g that it’s more likely for a Superhost and seasoned ‘been around’ kinda host to get that sort of response.

also it happened after I opened a chat on the topic here.

 I just don’t want anyone to think that if a party befalls our house that it’s out fault - we should have done more prevention.

couple weeks ago I had guys in from out of state for a soccer tournament. “Just play and rest” they said. And I’ve hosted a lot of tournament players in the past. Out of nowhere this one, even when confirmed in person in advance when they arrived “no party” and were genuine…they just changed their mind to the tune of 26 people. 
Ugh

Thank you

[Laura2592]

@Anita325happened to me, too. Not a bad forward facing review but low category scores in everything. The guest was caught throwing a party and ABB contacted her before I could but then ended up saying that I needed to prove her activities with images from my Ring doorbell even though the guest admitted she had many people over capacity/what she booked for. So they confronted the guest, the guest admitted they were having a bachelorette party and then ABB asked me to provide proof. LOL.

Of course this guest knew I would not leave a great review so she retaliated. There really should be some blanket policy about retaliation when a guest is caught dead to rights. But there is not.

[Anita325]

I always send the ring proof of party. Best way is screenshots taken while you play the video that shows the count peeps. I used to send vids….takes forever.

[Anita325]

If this happened in the last year I would send the vid in and get it removed. See my new post….they just removed 2 retaliatory reviews! POOF!

[Quincy]

Hi there @Anita325, I've passed this on to the team earlier today, and was informed that they've been in touch with you. Would you mind checking whether you've received any messages?