What to do if a guest gives a false review?

[Mike896]

hello, I'm sure this topic has been talked about to death, but I'll still give it a shot. 

I had a guest stay in my house that was very unfriendly and unpleasant.  He complained a lot. I attended to all of his complaints and requests in a timely manner.  His biggest complaint was about the cleanliness of the fridge, which I attended to as soon as I could.  Yet, his review was extremely harsh and false.  he gave me 1 or 2 stars for ALL categories.  I was expecting a non-5 star for cleanliness (maybe) and the rest would be 5-stars.  But I just don't understand giving me 1 or stars for the rest, like check-in, location, and communication.  The check-in process is completely simple and he didn't complain about that.  I responded to all of his messages immediately, and the location is...the location.  To me, this looks like a review meant to hurt my business on purpose.  even giving me 1 star for cleanliness is an extreme and false criticism. 

I called Airbnb about it, and of course, they won't help me.  I know some of you might say "don't worry about 1 bad review".  I would normally agree, but Airbnb screwed up my listings (some glitch) and I had to remake all of my listings and ALL of my reviews, mostly 5-stars, were deleted.  So, this review will carry some weight. 

what can I do??

why can't Airbnb remove false reviews?

If I stayed at your place and gave 1-stars for everything when it should be 5-stars, wouldn't you be upset?

[Emiel1]

@Mike896 

"I had to remake all of my listings and ALL of my reviews, mostly 5-stars, were deleted."

I see on your profile you have 375 reviews and 7 listings, so it seems not all is deleted !

A bad review is not nice, but a bad comment makes it even more worse.

You complain about somebody who is complaining.

Airbnb will not remove the review, as it does not violate ther content policy.

So let it go.... it is your only option !

[Brian2036]

@Mike896  

I’m afraid that @Emiel1 is correct.

 You cannot do anything about this vindictive person except try to avoid hosting him and others of his ilk again.

He might be a competitor trying to damage your excellent record, or just a chronic whiner.

A very small minority of guests come with the intent to find something to complain about and they will certainly find it or invent something if they have to.

Try not to let it bother you. If you do, they win.

[Sarah977]

@Mike896  You've obviously been hosting awhile and dealt with hundreds of guests, so I should think you would know by now that guests who have one complaint and demand after another can never be pleased and the more you try to accommodate them, the more they complain. There's no sense catering to them, because it doesn't lead to a good review, anyway.

With guests like that, it's better to say "It seems evident that you aren't pleased here, so I would suggest you look for another place that suits you better and cancel the remainder of your stay here."

However, you seem to acknowledge that the fridge did need cleaning and I see that all of your listings fall down on the cleaniness rating. When things appear grubby to guests, it can color their whole impression of the place, so I would suggest you pay more attention to thorough cleaning. If you have multiple guests using the kitchen, and other spaces, it's your responsibilty not to let the common areas and appliances go without daily attention.

Less than clean won't just drag down the cleanliness rating, it will influence the overall rating that appears on your listings, as well, even though it's a separate rating and not an average of the individual ratings. 

[Mike896]

I agree with your first paragraph and I probably should have offered a refund if he found a different place. 

but I think you may have glossed over the point of this thread.  The point I'm making is that the guest gave 1 or 2 stars for all categories, when only 1 category fell short of his expectations.  To me, this constitutes a  false review and it should be removed.  It just bothers me that airbnb doesn't care about host's concerns and "the guest is always right".   The review system is flawed and needs to be re-evaluated.  

[Sarah977]

@Mike896  You won't get any argument from me or any other host about Airbnb's flawed review system. Unfortunately, thousands of hosts have been telling them this for years, and there is obviously no will to change it. 

Unless you can find some way in which a review violates their review policy, lies and revenge ratings are considered to be "a refection of the guest's experience".