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

[Anita325]

Good News! 
I got a ‘supervisor’ who apparently understood the policy very well.

at first he said no…no reason to remove the review.

I pointed out there’s been a party, guest was fined and it was retaliatory. 
Supervisor was like, “Oh, please give me a moment.” Comes back and removes the review. POOF!

He asked if there were any other issues.

I said, “Why yes there is. Please see another reservation cancelled and retaliatory review from June.” 
He looks it up and POOF! 

Another Supervisor, when I told him support wasn’t trained and often not even aware of this policy, yesterday sent me a link to give feedback to the policy team. He says they make the policies AND the training. He says he believes everyone is trained to handle retaliatory reviews but I can forward my experiences and suggestions to them.

I’ll be working on that this weekend.

I hope some of you will call about your retaliatory reviews now and see if you have better luck. I did still have to escalate to a supervisor to get it removed.

[Don-And-Emily0]

@Anita325  Congratulations. I wish you could put me in touch with this person. We have all 5 star reviews except for one 2 star from a person who hosted a party in our home. 

Do you mind posting the link they were referring to? I will try again to have this removed. 

thank you.

[Anita325]

Hi Don,

I would but the link they send you in your email upon request. Not a link always available like on the website. 

I really hope you're able to get the retaliatory review removed. 

[Mary4706]

I had a traveling nurse here for a month. She was rude to me and to my dogs. Ended up tearing the cover of my expensive chaise lounge. Air BnB paid to have it replaced, but left her “Its best if I don’t leave a review” review. The floks that came after her left sn amazing review, but it never posted to my listing.  I know they wrote it because it posted in Furnished Finder, and they emailed me a copy. Im trying to get Air BnB to post it, but they have a “14 day review policy… “ should have gone up when my guests submitted it. My reply to their review is there… hmmm

[Sarah977]

@Mary4706  There is no response from you on your review page that is missing the review itself.  Where are you seeing this? 

And what makes you think that just because their review appeared on Furnished Finder that they properly submitted an Airbnb review? Those things are not connected. 

And why on earth did you leave a dishonest review for the nurse? She was rude and caused damages and you mention nothing about this to warn other hosts?

Please leave honest reviews- to do otherwise makes a mockery of the review process and is a disservice to other hosts. 

[Anita325]

Sarah - be kinder.

I do leave honest, detailed specific responses to bad reviews that aren’t accurate. 
once a guy said all kinds of stuff about my cabin.

but he was uncooperative and refused to follow my instructions to help the situation. The day after my maintenance guy arrive to a house full of gas and the stove gas was turned all the way up. I shared that info and everything about this guy in my response.

suddenly I had more business than usual and people were so nice and determined to leave me good reviews! 
it’s good to be honest and it actually does feel better to put it out there…at least for me it does. 🙂

[Sarah977]

@Anita325  I wasn't replying to you- I tagged another poster. 

I'm sorry you find it necessary to chastize my response- it isn't unkind, it's just not sugar coated. 

We all have different communication styles. 

[Anita325]

Sarah I didn't chastize your response, it's just not sugar coated.

[Dave52]

@Anita325  In public, airbnb says it does not allow parties.  In reality, airbnb doesn't care, they leave it up to the host. 

When things go too far, as at a recent house party in Sunnyvale, CA where there was a shooting, airbnb comes out and makes big flowery statements about being against gun violence and sues the guest to make a big PR splash.   

But as you say, there are some simple things airbnb could do to be proactive rather than reactive. 

One thing: do NOT allow retaliatory reviews.  Some guests have bad intentions and know they can hold a bad review over the head of a host, they've learned the threat of a bad review works.  A bad review can in fact damage a listing.  So the guest has a party violating the house rules, the host tries to stop it, the guest threatens a bad review.  The host must make a choice.  And airbnb does nothing to support the community.

[Anita325]

Dave,

100% my experience.

See my recent post….I just got 2 party reviews removed. Not sure if I just got lucky but I hope you’ll read my post on it and maybe try again if you have the stomach for it. 

once in communication with a partier I video my conversations. If they threaten a bad review …that supposed to be fraud and removable. 

[John2406]

Hi @Anita325 

Please don't shoot me down in flames because my comment isn't anything to do with your concern(s), but like it or not, the world is nowhere near being "postpandemic" although many are acting that way!

[Sarah977]

@John2406  I don't think she meant that the pandemic is over, but that since the pandemic started and Airbnb slashed their support staff and now seem to have only robotic, clueless third-party CS reps, the customer service is next to useless. 

Hosts also refer to "post-pandemic guests", just meaning that the guests they've gotten since people got out of lockdown and were desperate to get out of their own four walls have been a different breed than the guests they used to get. 

[Robbie54]

@Sarah977 I haven't been on for months and I see nothing has changed re Airbnb "support". Luckily I haven't needed them for anything as my guests have, as a whole, been super. But reading some of the comments on here makes me wonder how Airbnb are continuing to operate how they have been these past couple of years. What a s#@%show. 

[Anita325]

Exactly!

[Ryan2352]

Their support staff are outsourced and off-shored.  I've found (and read many a time here) that they get little to no training and do not know ABB's policies.  You may want to see if you can speak with a US based representative.