The Airbnb Customer Care and its unfairness towards our job

[Domenico89]

As a superhost who rent 350 over 365 days a year over Airbnb tonight I feel very bad about what happened.

A very young guy at his second experience with Airbnb yesterday rented for 1 single night.

It was a last minute rental, so at first it was to me very complicated meet his requests (an anticipated check-in). I prepared my apt in time and he showed up 3 hours later. Than he started complaining about 1 hair (1 single hair) which he found (or deliberately put?) on the bed. Apart from that (even if it was an error of my cleaner I can't blame anyone and not even myself.... after all it was 1 single hair that they could have removed by their own!) he started asking for discounts, then he threatened me to leave a bad review.

He decided to leave the apartment. Airbnb support decided to fully refund him but at the same time paying what due to me (in this they were great, but they were very few money). What really disturbed me is that they allowed this guy to leave me a very bad public review. He not only left 1 star about cleanliness but he left 1 star about everything, including the check-in (I have a very effective self check.in procedure: he accessed the apt flawlessly as all my guests). They said it was his right to leave a review, and they felt his review was fair (1 star on everything for 1 single hair!).

I feel this is very unfair from Airbnb.

I feel that as a host I am between this huge amount of fees I grant Airbnb by renting my apt through their platform every single day and the guests who blackmail hosts with bad and false reviews in order to get discounts (like the guy yesterday)

I feel that in this case Airbnb shouldn't have permitted the guy to publish his review

I feel I'm giving my money to the wrong company

I feel very disappointed about all of that, especially because I try my best with each and every guest, and my work means a great image for Airbnb as well, while when it happens the case I need some help from them (it happens very rarely) they show they're incredibly guest oriented

[Emiel1]

@Domenico89 

- Asking for discounts and threatening with bad review: extorsion, if it is on the Airbnb message system you can report it.

"Airbnb support decided to fully refund him but at the same time paying what due to me (in this they were great, but they were very few money"

If there is a full refund, then there is no money for you !

The review from L. tells another story, but you can leave a comment  on it.

(although the review you left for L. already tells your story)

[Anonymous]

@Domenico89   An impartial mediator would find both of your stories credible, with no apparent violations of the content policy. If you wanted to invoke the extortion policy to get the review removed, the threat of a negative review would have to be visible in the message thread. 

Prospective guests are more than capable of viewing this review in the context of your hundreds of other reviews and deciding for themselves whether it has merit, but you could publish a public response impressing guests with how professional and gracious you can be even in the face of criticism (too often, hosts ruin this opportunity by making themselves look angry and vindictive, never a good look for hospitality).

[David7870]

On another thread there was an excellent reply for that kind of extortion review. Hopefully you haven’t left a reply yet. Here it is: 

“This is a retaliatory review. This guest _______________(fill in briefly with your side). Please see our 5 star reviews for an accurate representation of guest experience.”