Should Airbnb put the burden of providing evidence on guests who gave 1-3stars review and outrageous complains?

[Mary4579]

No they don't remove them anymore.  Any Airbnb agent can just show you all the empathy on the phone and two days later send you a message saying the reviews are complying with policy and the case is closed!  I don't know if airbnb has a team review this or just one airbnb agent does this because she/he can be easily bias.

I have a guest gave me all 5stars and one 4stars category review, yet 3 stars overall review.  Her complain was that I "tried" to charge guest late check out fee by posting a wrong check out time (11PM check out time, according to her).  I messaged her and requested extra fee at 3:30pm because i need her to check out so i can clean for the next guest check in at 4pm, and i had to come back there second time to clean her room as she didn't leave on time when I was there the first time.

Another one gave me a 2stars review saying my bed has "bugs and roaches"  THis is unbelievable out right lie as I made the bed myself with new clean sheet before she came and clean her room after she left.  I found no bugs and roaches.  all other guests said my home/rooms are super clean and tidy.  In her private message to me she shown that she was upset because i asked her to put her trash in household trash bin and strip the bed at check out to ensure the next guest will have a new set of bedding.  Unbelievable yet airbnb didn't bother to take evidence or anything and wouldn't remove this very unfair review.

Airbnb really put a lot of burden on hosts to provide evidence/receipts/pictures/official estimate/etc. when hosts request payment for damaged/missing items.  Yet they care nothing about any of these evidence when some guests behave without any logic and reasons.  I hope in the near future Airbnb will require similar burden of evidence when guests gave these outrageous reviews/complains.  We need our guests to be honest and take responsibilities for their words/complains/reviews as well.

[Huma0]

@Mary4579 

Sorry to hear about your problems.

The first guest you mentioned is maybe stupid and doesn't know what a 24 hour clock is - the listing says check in 16.00 and check out 11.00. It's not rocket science. Also, who on earth would think check out could be at 11pm?? That doesn't explain why she thought she could check in at 10pm. 

Or, she is a liar. She knew your check in/out times and just thought she could ignore them, claiming ignorance.

The second one is baffling. Did they try to get some kind of refund from you? That would explain the bug claim. It's a common scam from guests trying to get a free stay. Otherwise, I guess it is just retaliatory. The guests didn't like being told what to do, in terms of the trash.

Unfortunately, no, Airbnb no longer removes reviews that are inaccurate or an outright lie. If you read the review policy, it clearly states that they won't get involved. The only way to get a review removed is if it breaches their content policy, which these ones don't.

I wish I had better news for you. Once upon a time, you could get a review removed because the guest was lying or the review was retaliatory. That is no longer the case.

One word of advice, when a guest leaves a harmless review, do not respond in an angry or defensive manner, even if the ratings were low or the guest annoyed you (I see you did this in another case). There's no point and it only looks bad for you. The response will appear on your profile, not the guest's (and they may likely never read it anyway) for future guests to see. Only respond to negative comments and aim to write them with the audience (potential future guests, NOT the guest you are responding to) in mind.

[Colleen253]

@Mary4579 Reviews are supposed to be useful and informative. A review that complains about your (perfectly accurate) listed checkout time, because the guest misinterpreted it, would be considered irrelevant and can be removed.

It depends on how much time and effort you wish to spend trying to do it, as it would require several tries until you hit on a CS rep who understands what you’re talking about. Use chat so you can link the review policy and highlight the relevant section. 

You have one other review that is also irrelevant, the one that just says n/a. ‘n/a’ gives zero useful information.