Who else is tired of how Airbnb treats hosts as opposed to guests?

[Chadia5]

Hi,

I’m fairly new to hosting on Airbnb but I was a guest for a long time before I started hosting. So I know how Airbnb works, and it’s a shame that I’m here so upset at Airbnb without having hosted for even a full year.

I became a superhost only after about 3 months of hosting, thanks to the 30-something great reviews. We really did put in a lot of work in creating our guest bedrooms. Despite this, we still got two bad ratings, which is to be expected. What’s maddening, however, is both guests left wonderful public and private reviews, but went forth and gave us low ratings, one for bathroom cleanliness (a 4 star) and one for communication (a 2 star). Now at face value, this seems fine. But it is my opinion that context matters. So I’ll explain: When the first guest was staying with us, she was on her period (I know this because she left our bedsheets stained with blood and because of the bloody pads and tampons I later found in the trash). One day, she messaged me to tell me that the toilet was clogged and that it was gross. We immediately fixed it and apologized. I then messaged her to let her know that the problem was fixed and reminded her not to flush any tampons or pads. She responded later and said that she understood. Our toilet had never been clogged before that day and hasn’t since then. A weird coincidence!

Now, the second guest was here for a week. A very busy week for us, and we even had to leave town for the weekend. While she was here, she was gone during the day like us and would come back late at night like us. I never got a chance to meet her because we never ran into each other. She however messaged me twice, once to tell me about how comfy the bed was and once to ask me to close the bedroom door for her when she was away. Each time I responded nicely. So I figured that if she needed anything else, she would reach out. So imagine my surprise when she rated us with a 2 for communication saying that she never met us even though I was in my room, and that she thought it was weird. Am I crazy to think that a guest giving you a 2 for an unmet expectation they set but never communicated is wrong? And isn’t it sneaky of guests to leave a nice public review paired with a bad rating so you can’t respond to the review without looking crazy since you will be addressing something the public can’t  see?

Anyway, on both occasions I contacted Airbnb support, first via messaging, second via phone call. The response was the same each time. Reviews can’t be removed and guests should be able to express how they feel. But my question remains: what about hosts? I know a host complaining about a review makes them look like they can’t take negative feedback. But what about when the host has grounds to want to dispute a review? In the content policy section, there’s a line that say that “Reviews that do not represent the author’s personal experience or that of their travel companions“ violate Airbnb policy and will be removed. When I pointed that out to the customer support person, claiming that I had proof of communication with the second guest, and that therefore, her claim about my lack of communication was unfounded, she responded that the quoted rule only applies to third party booking and not to us regular hosts. But that is not mentioned anywhere in the policy. It seems to me that there is reason after reason as to why hosts should take any ratings and reviews and just shut up. But that’s neither a fair way to approach this, nor is it helpful. Personally, as a host, I hate that I’m doing business through a company that will minimize and patronize my concerns and those of so many hosts; as it looks like a lot of hosts have had similar issues.

So I’m writing this to ask other hosts to ask for a better review system from Airbnb. One that is fair to both guests and hosts. I get that guests are valuable because of their money, but there are no guests without hosts. So if this doesn’t change and hosts keep getting treated this way (not being listened to and not seeing any changes from Airbnb), then we should get on with our lives and see what happens with Airbnb!

-A Host Tired of Arguing (I can’t even imagine how hosts who go through this regularly deal with it!)

[Sarah977 · Accepted solution]

@Chadia5  If you had done a search for "reviews" and any other related words, you will find that there are pages and pages of posts about the absurdity, unfairness and just plain insanity of the review system (Guests who cancel day of check-in and haven't even stepped foot on the property are allowed to leave a review???).

Do you honestly think hosts haven't been begging, demanding, pleading, submitting feedback, for a review system that makes sense? For years? It falls on deaf ears.

Here's one 80 page long thread: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Airbnb-Updates/Making-reviews-more-fair-for-hosts/m-p/958608#M23...

I suggest you spend some time each day on or few days on this forum- the support and advice from other hosts is great and you can learn a lot about how to cope with a less-than user-friendly system, reviews, bad guests, etc. 

You are most definitely not alone.

[Chadia5]

Sarah,

I have been reading some of those and that’s why I’m shocked that nothing has been done this whole time. I think hosts need some type of union so we can boycott this type of treatment when Airbnb refuses to listen. Personally, if this keeps happening, I’ll stop hosting using Airbnb. The money isn’t worth all this trouble if there’s no fairness.

[Helen3]

Unions are for people who work for a company. We don't work for Airbnb - it is just one of a number of platforms that we use to promote our STR business.

If Airbnb isn't working for you @Chadia5  you can indeed boycott it by using other platforms and taking direct booking.

Personally having researched advertising platforms Airbnb works best for me and my business but definitely do have a look at relevant platforms for your area and type of accommodation and see if there are some that work better for you.

[Beverly21]

I'M ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THIS COMMUNITY CHAT BOARD EXISTED -

   THEN I FOUND OUT THAT HOSTS ARE DISPOSABLE AND AIRBNB WILL DO NOTHING!!!!

FEEL FREE TO READ MY POST IN THE "reviews" section.  

IMO Airbnb SUCKS for Hosts.

Beverly G

[Patricia2165]

I got screwed for the final time just recently.....now going over completely to VRBO......they know how to treat hosts fairly!  I'm tired of AIRBNBs bull**bleep**!

[Huma0]

@Chadia5 

“Reviews that do not represent the author’s personal experience or that of their travel companions“

Yes, you are right. This is badly worded. It does actually refer to third party bookings, but that's really not clear at all.

In terms of a review not accurately representing the author's experience, Airbnb actually do not give a hoot. It is clearly stated in the review policy that they will not mediate in matters of accuracy, so you're wasting your time there. Apparently, the only way to get a review removed is if it violates the content policy OR if the author of the review themselves asks for it to be removed.

I had a similar experience to you RE the communication. I had a couple come to stay for two or three days. I gave them a thorough house tour on check in. They didn't speak any English and had to bring their daughter to translate. They marked me down on check in because it wasn't done in French. Another French guest had marked me down on communication because I didn't speak good enough French. So, I changed my profile description to say that I only speak "broken, school girl French" and nip that expectation in the bud.

This couple also marked me down on communication because they said they didn't see me for the rest of the stay (I had already told them to let me know if there was anything they needed). Well, they didn't see me because they were out all the time! They were actually exploring towns outside of London and just using my place as a base, so they left at the crack of dawn and came back quite late at night. I was home most of the time, so they could have easily popped into the kitchen to say hi when they returned (as most guests do), but instead, they went straight to their rooms. What was I supposed to do? Should I have camped outside their bedroom door all evening in the hope that I might see them? Weird.

They marked me down for cleanliness, saying something like, "When we host guests [meaning friends/family because they weren't hosts], we clean up any little messes, i.e. cat vomit, straight away."

Well, actually, so do I, but if the guest gets up at the crack of dawn before I am awake, how am I supposed to clean it up before they see it? Should I also stay up all night monitoring the house in case a cat coughs up a fur ball? That was literally the only complaint they had about cleanliness, i.e. that on one occasion, I did not clean up a fur ball immediately. I'm sorry, but I'm not a sleepwalker and I don't know how I can change that.

These guests seem to completely ignore the fact that hosts, not just guests, might need to sleep at night.

I am afraid there is just no pleasing some folks. 

[Pamela834]

I'm just about done with Airbnb. I have on more set of guests this week and that's it. It's not just the site, but the guests as well. Entitled doesn't cover it. Sorry you heard me talking in my own house. I know they wanted to leave early as their trip was cut short, so complained about noise, got a 500 refund. Nothing is done to guests that don't respect house rules, leave a mess, and one guest who literally stole from us. 8 years and I am done.