Have any other hosts had a similar problem to us concerning a malicious and untrue review ?
We are lucky to have received pretty good reviews across different listing platforms for our 3 properties for more than 5 years.
We have had very few problems of any kind with guests.
Our properties are in a quiet part of the south of England, near a sandy beach and our guests are often families of all ages and generations, or couples wanting a quiet week-end.
A family rented a property recently and one of them broke the door of a large 18 month old frig/freezer. It could not be repaired.
I don't think it was intentional, I guess someone slammed the door so hard to close it and a bottle maybe fell over and caught in the hinged side of the door and it broke the door hinges and internal plastic mouldings, making repair uneconomic.
We politely informed the guest, who said it was already broken, completely untrue, no-one could leave a broken frig for new guests. Moreover, they stayed there a week and the frig would not have worked properly or safely.
We reported the "dispute" to AirBnB, submitted photographs of the damage and forwarded copies of the original bill showing when it was bought, how much it cost etc, etc.
We had to give the guest review before processing all of this, so politely stated the damage he/they had caused and that he/they denied.
He then gave our property a 1 star review for poor cleanliness, completely unjustifiably, perhaps in angry, or maybe to try and blackmail us from taking further proceedings to claim for the damage.
Some time after, and having accepted our story and account, AirBnb paid us out for the cost of a new refrigerator. We do not know what the guest paid toward this, all or nothing ?.
However, notwithstanding AirBnB being helpful at the time and apologetic on the guest's behalf ( he never was !) they will not delete the untruthful review about the property that the guest gave.
We have asked now three times and they simply refuse. We know we are losing bookings related to this as some potential guests have actually told us they have changed their mind when looking at this one and only negative review about how clean the property is.
Every other review in all categories have been 4 and usually 5 stars.
We understand that hosts cannot and should not be able to delete negative reviews, as they are hard to prove they are untrue, however, more easily and in our case, where they are part of a case of proven damage to a property that includes a guest being untruthful and denying damage, they should be deleted.
Has anyone else been in this situation and do you think AirBnB is doing it's hosts a disservice by failing to delete fraudulent reviews in such instances ?
Thanks for your thoughts.
