Airbnb policy on redacting reviews

Bryan710
Level 1
Golden, CO

Airbnb policy on redacting reviews

We had an issue with our first review for our new listing.  Unfortunately our guest made the mistake of including our address in the review.  Honest mistake, I totally understand.  The review was fantastic and one we were excited about receiving, especially as a new host.  Our goal was to just have the address removed and the rest of the review stay intact.  After a quick Google search it was recommended to contact Airbnb support to resolve this issue vs the guest.  BAD DECISION right there.  Instead of explaining the situation and working with us and our guest Airbnb Support deleted the review entirely (without possibility of adding a modified review) and sent a message to our guest indicating that if they continue to engage in behavior like this they could lose status on or be banned from the platform.  Several issues with this: 1) Airbnb Support didn't indicate from the outset what the available options were so we could decide how to proceed, 2) treated our guest very poorly which has caused them to leave the platform (lost a potential return guest, thanks Airbnb).  I shared all of this with Airbnb Support as well.

 

Has anyone else had similar experience and if so how have you resolved?  Thanks.

4 Replies 4

@Bryan710   This must be especially frustrating for you as a new host, as those first few reviews are so crucial for launching your listing. Unfortunately, since customer service is now fully outsourced, the agents have to follow a rote protocol and aren't usually authorized to make independent, nuanced decisions. So when you reported a review that unequivocally violated the content policy, that protocol kicked in - the review was deleted, and the guest was sent an automated content-violation warning. 

 

You'd think that there would be a way for a human to manually redact the problematic part of the review. After all, they use a bot to scan reviews  and listings for anything that looks like a phone number or email address and censor it with "(Hidden by Airbnb)." But you'll find that the company puts far more trust and autonomy in its algorithms than in its workers and hosts. You weren't given any options at the outset because there actually weren't any; officially, reviews can't be modified after they're published, so once the agent identified a violation, they were required to delete the whole review. 

 

One takeaway here is that it's best to avoid contacting customer service whenever possible, as they usually just make everything worse. But it's for the best that your address isn't visible on your listing, so this is most likely case-closed as far as Airbnb is concerned. If you're still in contact with the guests, you can still invite them to bypass Airbnb and book directly with you for their next stay. Airbnb has no ownership of your future transactions with them.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom


@Anonymous wrote:

 

 

You weren't given any options at the outset because there actually weren't any; officially, reviews can't be modified after they're published, so once the agent identified a violation, they were required to delete the whole review. 

 


I wonder if this is the case. I have read posts here on the CC where hosts said they were unhappy because they wanted a review in its entirety (including the ratings) removed, but CS would only remove the section which was found to violate the content policy. Perhaps that is a thing of the past? I don't know...

@Huma0  Back when there was still in-house customer service, CS seemed much more empowered to freestyle like that when issues came up. My overall impression now is that the outsourced contractors have a much more limited range of functions they're allowed to perform, though I can't say for sure what they are, and the policies change practically every week anyway.

 

The only account I've seen so far of a review being edited rather than deleted was @Robin4 's hilarious story of a very unfortunate typo involving a guest named Coop. I think it predated the mass layoffs of CS in 2020.

Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Anonymous 

 

Ah yes, I remember Coop!

 

Years ago, CS even changed a 4* review to 5* at the guest's request (she said she had made a mistake). I can't imagine that happening now.

 

I think you are right in the limited range of functions that CS are allowed to perform. There is also the lack of training/comprehension of policy.

 

Last year a guest who was happy with her stay left me a nice review but only 3*. She didn't realise that 3* was bad and was happy to ask for the review to be removed. I was corresponding with one CS rep who told me the review and the ratings would be removed as soon as the guest contacted them.

 

At the same time, the guest was corresponding with another rep who repeatedly told her it was not possible because the two week deadline had passed. It didn't matter how many times the rep was told that the two week deadline was for WRITING a review, not having it removed. The guest would have assumed the rep was correct and not have questioned it. It did get sorted in the end, but I suspect that the rep I was speaking to had to intervene.

 

So, we have to educate ourselves to know policy better than CS because we can't rely on them to get it right. But, as you said, the policies keep changing...