Fear of leaving a bad review

Ellie-and-Scott1
Level 2
Long Beach, CA

Fear of leaving a bad review

We just had guests check out and we’re afraid of getting a bad review. She booked for one person and in my initial questions let slip that there may be three people. Our place has one bed and a sofabed but I don’t leave bedding out for the sofabed unless there are more than two people. I told her (and it says in the listing) that there is a $25 fee for each person over two, per night. She then said there would probably be only two. They checked in late but clearly three people were staying there, we saw them coming and going. I sent her a note asking if there were three people and she wouldn’t respond. They stayed two nights and the morning they were to check out I received a message from her that they were disgusted, had video and were leaving. We went back to our guest house immediately as we keep it impeccable and couldn’t figure out what could possibly be the problem. She said the place was crawling with ants. We went inside and there were about ten sugar ants where they had left a bunch of food and donuts out on the counter. She was going on and on that she was disgusted and wanted to be compensated. We have only been doing Airbnb for ten months and have a 4.93 rating. We were terrified that she was going to give us a bad review so we refunded them a nights stay. No extra charge for the extra person staying there and to add insult to injury they left our place filthy. The toilet was backed up, there were grease smears on the furniture, dings in the wall from their luggage and bits of marijuana and ashes in the living area. I would love to be able to warn other hosts about these people as they are clearly scamming the system and horrible guests. But, I don’t want to leave any review because then they will be prompted to leave one and I’m worried they are going to give us a low rating. We spray the perimeter of the guest house regularly for any bugs and we clean it to the baseboards every time someone checks out. It’s immaculate. I could leave a warning review for other hosts that they break house rules (not paying for extra guest) and left our place filthy at the two week cut off time but they had some people come over during their stay that looked pretty rough (drug dealers?)  We don’t want retaliation on our house either.  It’s just frustrating that we were taken advantage of and clearly scammed via bullying... they know a bad review can cost us thousands in lost bookings. What if there was an Airbnb bad guest database that we could search before accepting bookings that is separate from the Airbnb guest profile? The review system isn’t working if we are being held hostage by these awful “guests”.  Do any of you still leave bad reviews or do you just not leave one if you don’t have anything nice to say and hope that the guest doesn’t  either? 

28 Replies 28
Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Ellie-and-Scott1  Hindsight is a wonderful thing- had this happened to me, I would not have asked if 3 people were staying there, as you clearly saw them coming and going. I'd have said "Hi XX, you booked for 2 people, and said when questioned about this that there would "probably" be only 2. However we clearly can see that there are actually 3 people staying, so we will be sending you an alteration to the booking promptly to pay for the extra guest. Should this not be agreeable to you, you are welcome to cancel the rest of the reservation and find alternative accomodation."

And I would never refund a guest because of their own shenanigans, refunds are appropriate if something about the place isn't in working order, thereby inconveniencing the guests, not in order to supposedly ward off a bad review.

I doubt if there would be physical retaliation simply for a bad review- drug dealers have more profitable things to do with their time than vandalize your home on the request of a disgruntled friend or acquaintance. But of course your personal safety is paramount and only you can judge the risks of that.

I would just leave a brief review at the 11th hour, like "House rules broken, place left in a very dirty state, not recommended" with appropriate star ratings. 

If she does post a review, it will be an obvious outlier among your many good reviews, and you can always leave a response to whatever she writes. "Yes, of course there would be ants attracted to all the sugary food we found left out uncovered on the greasy countertop."

@Sarah977 This strange notion has taken hold here that if the host just waits until day 14 to submit their review, they might avoid the guest being prompted to write one. But Airbnb auto-emails the guest at least 3 times with prompts to write a review, one way or other. So that's two weeks of waiting on pins and needles for no good reason.

 

If there are no unresolved payment or damage disputes, I think the best time to post a review is the day you feel you've regained your cool and you're ready to write a concise, honest account of the issues that would be pertinent for other hosts. And in anticipation of a retaliation review, also have ready a response statement addressed to prospective guests, in the tone and manner that shows your style of hospitality.

@Anonymous  Yes, for sure the guests get prompts to write a review, just like hosts do. But I think some guests, especially those who have reason to think the host might review them poorly, might ignore those prompts, hoping the host won't leave a review (the same as host waiting until last minute), and only snap into action when they get the notice that the host has left a review. Even good guests might ignore the prompts, thinking, Oh, I'll do it later, then they forget, but once they see host has left review, they are immediately curious to see it, so they write one. 

I write reviews within a few days of guests leaving, while they are fresh in my mind, but I've never had a guest who I feared would leave some awful review. And I find that if the guest hasn't already left a review, after I submit mine, they tend to leave one themselves within  a few hours.

@Sarah977  Hosts are naturally invested in their reviews and ratings, since their hard work and livelihood are involved. But guests who break rules, trash apartments, and disrespect their hosts obviously don't give a flying frog about whether you review them. I can't relate to these people personally, but I just don't see them giving it enough thought to deliberately run out the clock. If they want to write a revenge review, they're gonna do it. And if they just want to move on to the next victim and forget about it, they'll do that. 

 

Far too much time is wasted trying to game the motives of terrible people. And the worst thing is that the hosts who hold off on writing their guest reviews often chicken out or forget to post in time, and the guest winds up getting away with everything and becoming an even worse problem for the next host.

 

It does our community a big disservice when people reward despicable behavior purely out of fear of some unkind words on the internet. #fightthefear

@Anonymous  For sure I'd think the truly vindictive types would rush to leave a review, but I don't have any personal experience with that. And I stopped trying to figure out the motives of others, be they nasty or nice people, a long time ago 🙂

A lot of people it seems, both hosts and guests, are way too emotionally invested in this review nonsense. It's just business. 

Denise691
Level 2
Bilgola Plateau, Australia

I didn't know you could tell if a guest has left a review. How do you know when they've left a review if you haven't left one?

 

One disadvantage to a host waiting until day 13.5 to leave a review of a bad guest is that the guest then is afforded all that time to book and wreak havoc at other listings without those hosts having the benefit of the bad review on which to base a decline.

I can understand new hosts with no or very few reviews waiting to review in hopes that the guest won't, but established hosts with a string of great reviews have little to worry about, as a brief, professional response to an obviously outlier review should make things clear to prospective guests, even if the string of great reviews hasn't convinced them. And has others have said, do you really want a guest who'd give credence to one crap review out of 50 good ones?

Thanks for posting this.  I just had a guest leave who booked for one person and then invited someone else to stay with him in the suite.  There is damage to the bed frame and it looked like they had been burning something (we have a no flame policy in our space).  The guest left the room really dirty, had moved the furniture, didn't flush the toilet at all during the week and looked like he had peed in the bathtub.  The furniture was rearranged - not that that is a huge deal, but I would have expected them to put it back.

 

The bed frame is not new but clearly damaged like they had tied things to the bed with scrapes and scuffs on three sides and knocked the corner off the bed leg.  I took pictures of the damage and am not sure how to fix it before the next guest checks in.

 

I realize there are cultural norms with guests coming from different parts of the world, but do you let Airbnb know when something like this happens?  I would not recommend the guest at all - he was a challenging communicator and not clean. 

 

Do I just give him a review that reflects that he didn't treat our home respectfully?

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Pauline443  What you are describing doesn't seem to me like anything to do with cultural norms. I've never heard of any cultures where peeing in the bathtub is normal behavior, nor is causing damage to the furnishings or ignoring your no-flame policy, or any other house rule. Sounds like there was a bit of sexual kink involved in the bed damage- maybe attaching handcuffs or chains, who knows.

There are some guests new to the platform who are unaware that they aren't allowed to just have someone else come stay over. I had a guest like that- she was very sweet and sprung her boyfriend on me the morning after she arrived (they didn't arrive together). It was quite obvious that she wasn't trying to get away with something- she openly introduced him to me and simply assumed that if she rented a place, she could share it with someone else if she wished. As she was otherwise a good guest, and her boyfriend was also very nice, and they were both squishing into the single bed, I just charged her a bit more for utilities and let her know that I wouldn't give her a bad review for it, but that she should always book for the correct number of people in the future.(In my case, I actually only host solo guests, so she really should have booked a place suitable for two)

I would send this guest a bill for damages. He will likely decline to pay, then you can escalate to Airbnb resolution center. They should be made aware that he isn't a suitable guest. 

Leave your review of him til the 11th hour, unless he reviews first. If he doesn't leave a review up to then, hopefully he won't have time to leave a retaliatory review because of the damage claim.

.

 

Denise691
Level 2
Bilgola Plateau, Australia

How you do you know when a guest leaves a review when you haven't left one yet?

Helen350
Level 10
Whitehaven, United Kingdom

@Denise691 Check your dashboard. There will be a notification that the guest left a review. I think you get a regular email too.. (haven't had one lately cos we were in lockdown!)

Denise691
Level 2
Bilgola Plateau, Australia

I can't find anything there, but I got a message from Airbnb saying 'Immy is waiting for your review'. I can't remember ever getting a message quite like that, although it might be because I usually do my reviews for guests immediately, but it made me think she has written a review for me.

I'm fearful of leaving a bad review for this guest but I want to and I should.

When she first booked she seemed lovely - 2 nights for her and her mum - she booked the night before so all last minute decision.

To cut a long story short she didn't arrive the first night (I was waiting in my home all day and finally got the message she wasn't coming at 9.30 pm). She said she wasn't worried about the money.

I have since discovered she used our home for a photoshoot - she's a minor celebrity in her twenties who is famous for being someone's girlfriend and posting skimpily clad photos of herself on her social media - think fake pouting lips, sticking out fake boobs and few clothes. When one of my son's friends sent him a photo of her sitting with a g-string on our dining table (who would do that? disgusting) I knew my growing concerns about her were right. There were other photos in our home and videos posted on her Instagram account.

Takeout was ordered for a lot of people and left on our kitchen bench. Nothing was washed. We also discovered two beds (one was in the 3rd bedroom and had not been made up for her and her 'mum') were wet. The duvets and mattress were both so wet (luckily it seemed to be water only!!) we had to clean the mattress covers and put the mattresses out in the sun to dry.

She lied to me repeatedly. I asked her to take the photos off social media. She hasn't. I've met people like her before and I know she has no limits on her behaviour and she could write anything in a review. Now I'm wondering if she has already written one, while I am thinking how to approach this.

I know I have to write one to warn other hosts but I just don't know what to write at this point in time.

I have 5 stars and we really go above and beyond to make our guest comfortable and now I believe she's probably about to destroy that. Seems so unfair.

 

@Denise691  Sit down and write down the facts of what this guests did, then condense it so it is as brief and concise as possible. Left you waiting for her arrival for hours, only bothering to notify you she wouldn't make it for the first night at 9:30 PM, had more people in the unit than booked for, left a mess behind, did a commercial photoshoot without your permission, duvets and mattresses were found thoroughly soaked with what thankfully appeared to be water, as if someone had put a hose on them, definitely not recommended as a guest.

What are you fearful of, writing an honest review?

If you aren't sure whether she has left a review or not, wait until day 13 and a half to submit yours. That way if she hasn't, she may run out of time when she sees you've posted one. But I suspect she's left a review- a social media "star" wouldn't waste any opportunity to give her opinion on anything online.

Pat347
Level 4
Edmonton, Canada

I think it's kind of not fair that host cannot warning others hosts or giving a real statement as its transparent and open for guest to see and that comment will come back and hurt us all. I really think Airbnb should step up and have the option of "private note for host(s)" only so we could be more aware of what might have happened.

 

Or at least, the public comment is transparent, but stars for guest is not or some hints that other hosts can see that something is not right.