Help! 0 and 5 star reviews only?

[J-R23]

Hi all,

Yesterday I attempted to book/reserve a property, only to see a message pop up stating the following: "We have implemented restrictions that prevent guests from making reservations of entire homes when a pattern of factors suggest that the booking may present higher safety risks (such as parties)."

This means I can only reserve hotels or private rooms.

I reached out to Airbnb to see what this was (figuring it was an error), only to be told that the majority of my reviews as a guest have been 0 stars. In fact, I only have 0 star and 5 star reviews as a guest, nothing in between. The Airbnb CSR informed me that due to the 0 star reviews, I'm unable to book properties. 

In all our stays (I always stay with my wife and two children), we always make sure we follow host roles to the T, keep the property immaculate, adhere to quiet hours, have no guests, etc., and have always received positive feedback both in the exterior/public facing comments, as well as in DMs before and after the stays. My most recent stays have  DM'd me after our stay inviting us back and offered codes/discounts - but the CSR informed me that I received a 0 star rating from these hosts (and the majority of others).

CSR noted the discrepancy between the public review language and the ratings and let me know she'd escalate it for investigation. 

Any ideas on this? 

Thank you!

I've got to imagine it's an error, 

[Anonymous]

@J-R23   This must be a weird glitch, because there's no such thing as a zero-star review. The lowest you can get is 1. And as you noted, the text of all 10 of your reviews was uniformly positive.

Unfortunately, the customer service operation is outsourced, and its reps have no capacity to communicate directly with anyone who can actually fix this problem. So you can expect an inconveniently long wait before this gets properly addressed. Unless there's an Airbnb home that you have your heart set on, and the host is willing to block the dates for you, I'd just go ahead and book something on a different platform.

Airbnb doesn't deserve your business when it's being such a piece of crap.

[J-R23]

Thanks @Anonymous 

I just received a message from the CSR, simply stating that I'm locked from reserving homes, and providing me a link to the party and events policy.

We've never, ever hosted a party or event at any of the properties we've stayed at, and only once in our history of reservations have we had someone visit. For the visit, my wife had her brother, sister-in-law, and two children visit a property we were staying at for a few hours to eat an early dinner - which did not put our occupancy over limit and we made sure there were no noise issues.

Sadly it's feeling like Airbnb won't research any of this, and my account that I've worked so hard on for years to be as good as possible is now dead in the water. 

[Anonymous]

@J-R23  Were all of your additional visitors either registered in the booking or explicitly approved by the host? 

[J-R23]

@Anonymous  I contacted several hosts that I'd stayed with, including the home I had the guests at. They all shared screenshots of their ratings and my ratings, showing the five star reviews. One host even called Airbnb proactively! 

I called Airbnb again, and the new CSR was very helpful. She was able to determine that although my reviews are in the system (e.g. when the CSR would go to a stay I had, she could see the review they put in), they're not realizing/footing to my overall rating. 

From what we can tell, I don't actually have any 0 star reviews, instead, I have 8 reviews that aren't syncing with my overall review total. The CSR let me know that it is a "glitch" (her words), and that she's going to forward the cast to their "technical team" who should be able to correct it.

Wish me luck. I will say that if this taught me anything it's that there are some fantastic hosts out there - I'm thankful to the hosts I've stayed with who'd come out and support someone who's stayed at their property! 

[J-R23]

Well, just received an update from Airbnb that basically simply says that they can't change anything due to "policy". 

This is incredibly frustrating, is there any way to escalate or speak to someone outside of the chat CSR reps in the app or via the generic phone number they have? I've tried to ask the CSRs to escalate, but they've just redirected me.

[Gordon0]

If you really want to give Airbnb your business, tweet a short, succinct message, @J-R23 to their Twitter account. Nobody likes their dirty washing in the publics' view.  

[Huma0]

@Quincy @Sybe @Jenny 

This is just nuts and another example of how frustrating it can be dealing with Airbnb CS. It's like they have almost been trained to try to drive good guests and hosts away! If they can't fix a glitch that they have already stated exists, they just tell the user that it's 'policy' and close the case??

Is there anything you can do to help escalate @J-R23 's case?

[Mikki0]

@J-R23  The policy is regarding rentals of entire homes around holiday weekends. It has been put in place to prevent "party homes" and affects those that book last minute for less than 3 days, those that are under 25, and those with less than stellar ratings. 

As a host, it has affected me when people try to book my place around a holiday. Sometimes booking longer resolves the issue, or booking further in advance. 

https://news.airbnb.com/airbnb-announces-anti-party-crackdown-for-summer-holidays/

[J-R23]

Thanks all, again, for the help and support here. Thanks for that info @Mikki0 ! It turns out that my restriction isn't the timing, that it's possibly ratings (more on that below), and is possibly account verification.

I had another long (hour+) session with Airbnb customer service today. It's incredibly difficult to get any actual information from the CSRs, they seem to go in circles w/o actually saying anything. After much discussion, I was able to get the following info about the "possible" two areas they said need correcting. The CSR was adamant that she wasn't sure if these were the reasons, but it was the only ones that she felt could apply. She shared that she can't see exactly why my account was put on hold.

1. Reviews - they did look at a couple of reviews again, and noted that the Hosts did leave 5 stars in certain areas but not in others. When I asked for details about these certain areas, the CSR said the blank areas were Accuracy, Check-In, Value, and the overall star fields on the two reviews I had them look into. 

Do hosts typically rate Accuracy, Check-in, and Value of guests? 

She then said that the ratings actually weren't an issue, but couldn't send me any actual hard data (e.g. an email, screenshot, etc.) to validate it. 

2. Identify verification - although on my end it appears my identity is verified, they let me know that my name didn't match my payment information. I updated that, however the CSR then said I had to upload my license in order to get "full verification". 

I'd prefer not to have to upload my license into Airbnb, but she made it sound as if that was the only option to get my account "unlocked". She kept using what sounded like "airlock", but I'm assuming she meant "unlock", unless airlock is a term used for restricted accounts.

She let me know she's escalating it (again) to the "Safety Team", and said that only they can provide more information - but she wouldn't actually provide me with any way to contact or speak to them. She informed me that they'll contact me. Apparently I'm yet again in a waiting game.

Is there anyone I can actually talk to who can help me walk through this and get some clear answers vs. me waiting for another random message via Airbnb?

[Mark-And-Wendy3]

You absolutely need a license to rent  my place. I need to know who is there and that they have permanent home address.  That protects owners from a squatter who refuses to leave 

[J-R23]

Annnnndddd I was just messaged by the CSR stating that they can't even escalate my issue, as noted below,

"I tried to escalate this issue to our dedicated team but was only informed that due to security and safety measures, our system detected that a booking request for this particular location, or travel date would not be able to push through. We highly recommend that you search for a hotel or other listings to book or you may prefer a private room instead of an entire apartment which may have more chances for a booking to be confirmed.

We have put some procedures in place that block certain reservations for your safety and we’re not able to make exemptions for those. As part of Airbnb’s efforts to respond to recent incidents, we have implemented rules on booking patterns associated with prior risks. We are not able to support this particular booking."

Unsure if they mean JUST that home I tried to book when I first saw the block, or if they mean every home I'd like to book in the future. Either way, still no solve on my issues.

@Gordon0 I took your advice and just sent out a tweet, thank you!