Airbnb's Criteria Ambiguity and a Long History

[Diana3081]

I would like to point out a serious flaw in Airbnb, both in the process of deciding on claims and in obtaining evidence of what is being complained about.

I had a guest who spent two nights at my Airbnb. On the day of check-in, he sent a message asking if he could check in early. We replied that we would send a message when the house was ready, but that in principle we would be able to deliver the house a few hours earlier than expected. A short time later, the guest entered the house while the cleaning team was still working.

During the stay, everything went smoothly, and the guest did not communicate with us.

Two days after check-out, we received a complaint from Airbnb (which we had one hour to justify) indicating that the guest had complained about the water in the hot tub, which was extremely dirty and unusable. We responded immediately with cleaning and maintenance records and water level measurements, along with photos to prove the condition of the water - this was easily refuted.

We, on our side, after checking out, noticed that the guest had caused a lot of damage to our property, leaving our sofa with cigarette burns (although smoking is not allowed in the house), several stains and even cracked a wooden coffee table. The process is still ongoing, with Airbnb asking for a long list of documents, photos, etc.

Again, two days later, we received another claim, this time much more ambiguous and clearly difficult to justify on either side - the complaint was about a bad smell in the room.

"This contact is to inform you that your guest has reported an odor problem in the sleeping area.

I understand that the guest has communicated with you through the message thread, and I hope to help both parties find a solution here.

The guest has provided valid documents that meet the "AirCover" guest protection for this situation. As a neutral third party who is not present, Airbnb will make fair decisions based on the documents and communication information provided by the guest and the landlord. Regarding this situation reported by the guest, do you have any documents to provide for our review?"

So, there was no previous communication about this, and we presented the cleaning records, including invoices for payments to the cleaning company, for something so ambiguous, how can we refute it? We clearly begin to realize that this guest is aware of all the possible schemes that are possible to do on Airbnb in order to have a free stay!

As we expected, this was Airbnb's response:

"After carefully reviewing the issues reported by the guest, we found that the issues reported by the guest were related to hygiene, inaccurate description of the property, or check-in issues, and therefore fall within the scope of our rebooking and refund policies. We have decided to cancel the guest's reservation and ask the guest to follow the check-out process specified in the property description or otherwise specified by you.

You can find more information in the Help Center:

airbnb.com/help/article/2868

We wanted to let you know before canceling the reservation so that you know what to do next. According to the relevant policy, we will issue a partial refund to the guest, as follows:

- 30% of the room fee for the affected nights will be refunded as a host adjustment

- Refund of cleaning fees"

There are two issues here, the resolution of the complaint lists several things "we found that the issues reported by the guest were related to hygiene, inaccurate description of the property, or check-in issues" when we were only asked to justify one and secondly, how does Airbnb take the guest's side without having any proof to the detriment of the approvals presented by the host?

But this is going to get even worse, the guest, not satisfied with having had a practically free stay, submits a one-star review, inventing and describing all the worst things they can imagine, even mentioning in the review the amount we were asking for in the damages they had caused.

As soon as we saw this review, we submitted a request to remove the review due to retaliation. The review was removed 30 minutes later (we have the email to prove it). The email also states that the guest will not be able to submit any more reviews.

So far so good, but 5 days later, when the next guest submits their review, the review that had been removed appears again. Clearly a problem on Airbnb's side.

We immediately contacted customer support and were assisted by the Operator 1 (Support in Portuguese), who, after analyzing with the supervisor, confirmed that it had been a technical problem on Airbnb's side but that the only way to solve the problem would be to submit a new request to remove the review, explaining everything that had happened, and that the review would never appear again. - All of this can be clearly proven by the phone calls that were all recorded.

Two hours after the request, we received an email saying that the review would not be removed, as it complies with the review policies. So we have several problems here:

- double standards, what was against the review policies 5 days ago, is no longer the case

- despite the whole mess being a technical issue on Airbnb's part, it was completely ignored

- Customer support clearly doesn't seem to have any idea of ​​the problems or how to solve them, instructing customers to do a certain thing that they already knew wouldn't work.

We contacted support again, and once again we had to explain the whole story, because support says they don't have access to tickets/issues handled by other operators - but what a great excuse for not solving problems and being confronted with what they tell customers.

This time we were attended to by Operator 2 (Portuguese Support). As expected, Kevin came with a completely different story to what Operator 1 told us, he now said that the guest had made a claim because her review had been removed and that the review had been reinstated. But then a few hours earlier Guilherme confirmed that it was a technical failure but Kevin said that the review had been reset. I can confirm that until the next guest's review was posted, the review was removed.

During the long conversation with Operator 2, he mentioned several times that he couldn't have access to my conversation with Operator 1, and that he couldn't confirm what he said - We're back to the double standards and excuses on the part of support saying that they don't have access to what their colleagues do or say - it's just strange!

And that was it, this beautiful story that I had to share. It is extremely sad and disappointing, we give our all for our accommodations, we have an excellent rating (always 5 stars, we have the logo of the accommodation preferred by guests and superhost) and none of this has been questioned by Airbnb, and they accept anything that a random guest says, as a way of having a free stay and tarnishing the good image we have of our business.

The lesson has been learned, it is not possible to count on Airbnb to defend the hosts, they are only here to make money at their expense, when it is necessary to defend them, they do not want to know and find any excuse to harm them.

I hope that this long outburst finds someone honest and serious on this side who can help us and put the truth on the table, because despite everything we continue to believe that the truth will prevail.

Thank you.

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

@Diana30

Sadly, this is the situation that Airbnb has created. This is due to turning over Retailiatory Reviews to AI bots instead of a human. Guests will almost ALWAYS leave a negative review (including false claims) after the Host files to recover damages from the guest.

I would continue to pursue the Review Removal until they remove it (you have what you need, but will need to continue to escalate until they abide by their statements that they will remove.) It's obvious the guest kept trying different things as retaliation for your damages claims and to get a refund. Also, guests are required to notify Airbnb (and the Host) of any issues and have 72hrs to contact Airbnb regarding any  issues; sounds like this guest didn't do that. This is to prevent exactly what this guest was doing. I would add this to the list of reasons why the review should be removed.

Guests Are Required to Notify Airbnb Within 72hrs of an Issue

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2993

Your Host may be able to quickly fix the issue, or they may be willing to give you a partial refund to make up for the inconvenience. If your Host can’t resolve the cleanliness issue, let Airbnb know within 72 hours of discovering the issue. It may be covered under Airbnb's Rebooking and Refund Policy—you may be able to receive a full or partial refund, or get help finding a similar place to stay, depending on availability at comparable pricing.

For future reference, filing a resolution claim and preventing retailatory reviews is all about timing:

Timing of Your Reviews & Aircover Claims

Handling these scenarios is all about timing of your Air Cover claim and your review of the guest. 3 important dates to remember:

- 14 days to write/submit a review (Host & Guest)
- 14 days to file the Aircover claim
- 30 days to submit any addl proof if asked (video/photos/receipts/copy of police report if applicable)

I suggest Hosts not let on to a guest they will be filing an Aircover claim until the guest writes their review, or the 14day window is about to close. I suggest they wait for the guest involved to post their review first. Gather all your proof (video/photos/receipts/Police Report, etc.). Do not post your Host review and file your claim until the guest posts their review. If the guest doesn't post a review, wait unit just before the 14day cutoff and post your honest review first and file your claim immediately after posting the review. Give yourself enough time to enter the information on Airbnb just before the cutoff. If Airbnb asks for more information on your Aircover claim, you have 30days to provide it, so don't miss that deadline either. Be factual and non-emotional in your review and don't give any reason for Airbnb to remove your honest review, or make claims you can't prove. Undoubtedly the guest will try to get Airbnb to remove your honest review of them. Just say the guest broke several important House Rules and caused damages that required extra cleaning and were asked to cover the extra cleaning costs.

If the guest writes their review, then no need to wait until the 14-day deadline. Post your honest review, file the Airbnb claim and some Hosts also message the guest AFTER the 14day window has expired that damages were discovered after their stay and can they shed some light on that? Guests cannot change their review once theirs and yours are posted...they only thing they can do is ask Airbnb to remove their review. This usually prevents "revenge" reviews from guests.

Reviews
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/13

Host Damage Protection
https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/279

[Diana3081]

Thank you @Joan2709 for your message, very help full.

Do you know how I can escalte the issue, by the customer support chat or phone call does not look to work, they always tell me the same thing, there is a email or other way to do that ?

[Joan2709]

@Diana3081 

No way to email. Most Hosts find they get better, more knowledgeable CS reps when contacting Airbnb after normal business hours (after 7pm Pacific Time USA). Not sure how that works in your time zone. Have all your proof (screen shots) links to Airbnb Help articles that explain their own policies and how this guest violated them, etc.

Do let us know how this goes...

[Joan2709]

@Diana3081 

This guest appears to also be a Host? - has a 4.73 rating which does speak well of her. It also tells me she probably knows how to work the system, especially since she never contacted you during the stay to report all the "issues". 

If she did't meet the 72hr rule of contacting Airbnb I would definitely bring that up as she should not be entitled to a refund in that case. 

[Diana3081]

@Joan2709 Thanks to your tip, we managed to have the complaint removed, and the amount that had been withheld from us was refunded.

We are still fighting to have the review removed. The information we were given was that the guest made a request for the review to be reinstated, and they decided to reinstated it - double standards

They say that the review does not go against the review policies.

The email we received when the review was removed clearly stated the following: "We have already notified [guest] about the change and the inability to republish the review or write a new one. If we receive information that leads us to reverse our decision, we will notify you." - Another flaw in the process, we were not notified that the review was reinstated.

Any other tips we can use here to help the process?

Once again, thank you very much for your help.

[Joan2709]

@Diana3081 

It's obvious since this is a Host she knows the system and how to get around it. It's obvious she wasn't aware you had proof the hot tub was clean, as that was her first attempt to get the refund. Just curious, did all this start after you sent your claim for damages after she checked out. BTW, what type of review did you give her and what where your star ratings for her in the different categories? You did leave a public reply to her review so at least other guests can see that.

No other ideas about getting the review removed other than what I already offered. She did break a House Rule by checking in early without permission, so I would use that, but doubtful they will remove the review for that, but you can try.

Sadly, this is a hard-learned lesson and chalk this up to experience and use the procedure already mentioned above when you need to file a resolution claim for damages in the future.

[Diana3081]

Exactly all of this started after the damage report was submited.

She gave 1 star to everything, in the communication section, she even mention "Making up lies to blackmail tenants", while no messages were exchanged with us during her stay. 

Yes I have replied to her review explaining what she have done. 

True, it's a hard lesson which we will have to overcome over time. 

Thank you!

[Joan2709]

**meant to say does NOT speak well of her.