Lack of support for hosts in face of malicious guests

[Christine584]

Currently waiting over 2 weeks for a malicious review and personal messages to be dealt with as a result of a slovenly and rude guest. This is currently harming our ability to rent the property and despite electronically reporting the review and messages when they were posted by the guest.  Now after three subsequent phone calls, still this issue has not been elevated to the level where someone in Airbnb can make a decision.  Poor support for hosts, allows guests to go free outside the security deposit recovery period.  Will Airbnb pay teh damage caused to the property?  Not good enough. 

[Gary160]

I really empathize with you.   I used to rely heavily on Air BnB's review of guests to convince my wife and others that we should/could host AirBnB guests. The reviewed helped us get enthusiastic about them.  Now we can almost never find reviews on guests and I'm having to tell my wive to take it on faith that the folks will be great, with very few ( if any) details about them on Air BnB's web site.   I am very happy that they are heavily pitching "instant booking"  for hosts who just don't care who shows up at their door.  But I want to know who I am sharing my house with.  I don't care what their race or sexual preference is, but I want to see that their last 3 or 4 hosts gave them good reviews, and dropped a few hits to help me prepare for them   

  I too called Air BnB and spoke with a rep who hardly knew what I was talking about.

I think I am going to start calling Air BnB before accepting ANY guest to try to get more information..

[Martha98]

Great idea to call Air bnb to get information about potential guests.  Have you tried it yet?  I too would like to be able to check past reviews on guests and am finding little or no available information on the site.  I could understand this is the potential guest recently joined Airbnbbut I am sontemplating a present guest who has been a member since 2013 and I can't find anything on her.  Am sure most hosts would feel much more comfortable in knowing who they are allowing to use their property.

Martha (High Falls, N.Y.)

[Mario279]

I completly agree with "poor support to the host".

This is uneceptable, AirBnb is making money on host and guest and both should be treated equal.

I have a case of malicious review (all scores 1). Guest  were saying all si great but when they got home they gave me all 1?????

Overall score they gave me 4???

What is that?

Score 1 shoudl be if you had rats on your table, or description was beach house and they came to mountain cottage...

Where is the standard of these scores. Where are some rules to protect the hosts from bad people.

There are always going to be bad people, and malicious reviews but there has to be some control measures to prevent guests just click and giving scores 1 and 2.

Maybe they dont like you for the color of skin, or sexual orientation, or nationality.. doesn't matter really!

Also, guest needs to contact the host and tell if there is some issues and give the chance to rectify or something, not just say all is great and then score 1.

AirBnb haven't done nothing, and the customer support can do nothing about this, only management can I guess.

This is ridiculous!

[Ken124]

I know the situation that you are in and airbnb did nothing for us.

I have never had a bad review. EVER and this young girl has said that I am racist and all sorts of things. 

This has got to stop and Airbnb are not getting involved at all. 

[Ken124]

I know the situation that you are in and airbnb did nothing for us.

I have never had a bad review. EVER and this young girl has said that I am racist and all sorts of things. 

This has got to stop and Airbnb are not getting involved at all. 

 Shocking

[Paula327]

I am new to Hosting  & my 1st guest had agreed to my rules & fees prior to booking. Then after arrival began to ignore or negotiate the extra fees.  Reported us to Air B & B, stating we were demanding cash & changing the rules. She had separate conversations with my Manager & tried to say he gave her a lesser price or that he would allow only one cleaning during their 34-day stay.  She ended up making all kinds of trouble. Didn't realize until talking with a Repres. from Air B & b that they don't even get the deposit for your property. That they will go after a claim for it after the fact? How dumb is that? Then stated that I wouldn't get paid till after my guest checks out & I have a few reviews. To prove I'm legit. WOW! Where was that fine print!! UnReal. I would have never listed my Place under such ridiculous circumstance. We are assuming all the risks & receiving no Protection whatsoever.                                                                      She also never listed the trip for her co-workers as a business trip & claimed to be @ my place when she is not. Only some of the company's employees are staying. When I mentioned this Air B & B said that I could be in trouble as well as her for not booking it correctly as a Business trip?? WoW again! They are spouse to be working on a solution to get her to pay. But she keeps stating that she isn't going to!   They claim they can cancel her & make the employees have to leave & that I can still get paid for the full reservation?  Then the employees are on the street & we will be targeted for multiple reviews of Anger & rage from these guests.                      I agree that Air B & B needs to change their policies & gear them more favorable for the hosts who are ultimately taking 100% of the risk here.   Overwhelmed in Brainerd, Mn.  

[Ever5]

I went through this. The guest behaved well, never complained or made it known there were any issues. I also tell my guests to let me know if anything isn't right and to let me know of anything they need. Not a word from this guest. Then after he left he wrote a bad review and lied. Airbnb won't do anything about guests lying and affecting your booking, they don't care. I read advice not to leave them bad reviews or seem petty by trying to make them look bad. Since I now see that Airbnb defends bad behavior and cares more about the guest and not the host who they can't make money without I decided to not review until I see their review. And that I will be honest if they were bad guests. Bad guests should not be given a green light and using this service. I'm going through this forum to see what I can do about this very subject. 

[Ken124]

I have just had the same thing happen to me with a guest who must be the most pompous young girl i have ever met. 

SHe didnt tell us that her boyfriend was going to be staying with her but that was not a problem.

When the cleaner went into the apartment the first week after they had been there she whats apped me telling me how disgusing the flat was looking.

I said just leave it and put on the clean linen etc

The cleaner took photos of the bedding  and the blood and the vomit on the linen took us a few wahses and bleaching before they looked good again. She has totally lied about everything in her review about me. I also have all the whats app information and pictures to prove that she is disgusting and a liar . In fact I take complete exception to what she has said about me and my cleaner as this is complete rubbish. She called me a racist and I treat my "black cleaner so badly"

In fact this is such a lie that when i told my cleaner she was in shock. I get whats apps from my cleaner telling me that she is so happy and grateful for her job (which is so well paid in comparison to other cleaners and they all beg to come and work for me. I wish for airbnb to speak to my cleaner personally and they will hear the truth. As it so happens my cleaner is a coloured lady and she was the one who sent me the pictures as she was disgusted at how this guests behavior was towards her and me.

I would be very worried because she told me in a whats app and i have proof of this that she will simply change her status as she has done this before. She has lied about everything about me and i want to take this slander further. Yes she paid for the blood and vomit on the mattress but it took us a lot of washing to get the duvet cover and the mattress protector and sheet before it was clean again.

She was upset because i told her that this is no way to live. This girl is a shocker and wouldnt let her back in the country if you asked me. I have all the whats app to back me up. How come i have never had bad things said about me in all my reviews of all the apartments that I hire out????? She is the type that gives Americans a bad name . I have had quite a few americans and they have been amazing. This was a nightmare for me and now she has wrritten a review tha I am racist which seems to have affected my bookings . Please check this girl out, her name is Claire and she told me that her father is something in the UN and she will speak to him etc and she studied at Yale University et etc.

She says that she came to south afica to assist the refugees in this country.

Please please help

[Sarah977]

Never exchange messages via text or whatsapp or twitter with a guest, especially a problem one. All messaging should be done through airbnb messaging, so that there is a record on their platform of the interaction between you and your guests. The only time I exchange texts or phone calls with guests is when they first arrive in town and they arrived by bus. I pick them up at the bus stop, which is 8 minutes from my house. Or if a guest has been at my place for a few days and I see that they are really good people, I might call them when they have gone into town to the beach for the day to say that I am coming into town for something, would they like a ride back to the house?

But anything contentious or possibly so, should go through airbnb messaging.

[Sonya6]

Why does Air B n B allow these guest to continue to be guests on the site. Why? Because Air B n B do not give a beep about their hosts. They have no liabilty nothing out on the line. Just a web site which they could close tomorrow.