Who to contact about removal of a review

[Mei2]

My husband and I run a 2 bedroom cottage and have recently been posted an out of character review by a guest which contains misstatements.  We have prepared a summary report about this and wish to send it to Airbnb for consideration.  Who should we contact?

[Aesha0]

@Mei2 

I'm sorry that you have had this experience. My first question is did you go and respond to the review?  That is going to be your best line of defense. I have encountered a similar situation and I know it is frustrating. In my situation the guest never showed up for check in and was mad that they could not check in at 4am in the morning. Their review was full of fabrications and I had proof but Airbnb would not remove the review. Unless the review is using foul languauge or has a discrminatory or threatening undertone, it is my understanding that Airbnb wil not remove the review as it is the guests opinion. As frustrating as I I know it is, it happens and I would really focus my energy on a response to their review. It is pretty obvious to others if you have other great reviews and just one bad one in which you have responded to, that the review is most likely not accurate. You can actually look up the review policy so you are familiar with it. If I have time, I will post it for you. Good luck with eveything and don't let this bother you too much. Stay focused on the positive! 

Aesha 

Superhost 

Dallas, TX 

[David126]

The Reef Cottage is a nice house in a great location and has many amenities for guests. For nature lovers, there is much to see in the immediate area (though birds and neighbors are loud and active at all hours so light sleepers may find this difficult). Unfortunately, despite the many positives this house has, we ended up leaving a day early because our communication and interactions with the owner, Mei, were so unpleasant, and at times insulting, that we no longer felt welcome. Behind an exterior of pleasantry, we encountered a rigid, very particular, and compulsive person. One of her compulsions is a detailed and highly unusual cleaning and pest management regime: a key feature of which requires guests to store their raw food wastes and rubbish in the refrigerator and freezer next to their food. We did our best to adopt this bizarre and unsanitary system. She tries to justify this as essential in the Wet Tropics, yet we have never seen or heard of such practice. We, ourselves, live in the tropics and have rented multiple houses in the tropics and never seen refrigerated rubbish stored with food. The house is advertised for kids (and we were thankful for touches such as children’s movies and books and a small activity table), yet we were admonished for moving delicate and fragile display items in order to protect the house during our stay. We cleaned daily to meet her expectations. We were scolded inaccurately for ‘not supervising our child adequately’, and sent multiple messages while out during the day letting us know the replacement cost for any items not returned in original condition. In the night, our very young son accidentally broke a lamp when trying to turn it on in the darkness. We were happy to replace the lamp, of course, but what ensued was a terrible chain of communication. She claimed the lamps were “vintage”, but they were not (the label has a manufacture date of 2007 in China), and it became worse from there. Every 5 days, the house is serviced, but we realized she uses this opportunity to conduct inspections. She also required a full, in-person inspection on check-out (to which she acknowledged everything was in order because we cared for her home as if it were our own). We have rented many, many AirBnBs all over the world with wonderful experiences, and have never encountered such unfriendly treatment. Ultimately, she doesn’t trust her guests and this led to feeling extremely unwelcome – possibly the worst outcome a guest can expect on a vacation.

Long replies on both reviews.

[Mei2]

Hello David,

You've posted the guest review which we were hit with.  We agree with you that it is very, very long.  Reducing the allowable word length in reviews was a suggestion we sent to Airbnb.

Shane & Mei

[Mei2]

Hi Aesha,

Thanks very much for your advice. We've very much gone through the whole process to research Airbnb's policy and understand their practice.  We've even gone as far as provide feedback on their policy - the review policy for personal experience is flawed allowing both honest and dishonest comments to be published. We suggested that guidelines be provided to ensure succinct writing and also shorter word length.  So far, all Airbnb has done is send us 5-star host tips.  Mei has spoken with a customer service representative of Airbnb who confirmed their stand.  We were extremely busy for the month of July and up to the middle of August with near continuous booking throughout, and that was when we had time to look at this problem.  In the meantime, we had responded to this review but in trying to keep our response succinct we did not point out the fabrications.  When we found the time, we prepared a submission with an analysis of the stay and the content of the review, but unfortunately, learnt that there is no avenue to do so.  After the 14 day grace period, nothing can be changed.  It is extremely frustrating to say the least as we've suffered an on-line personal attack, incidents reported out of context and misstatements designed to discredit the host, the house rules and the living environment.  As egs. around us, we do not have bird or human life that is active and loud all hours.  The lamp was purchased in a vintage shop.  What they described as a compulsion is our house rule taken out of context disrespectfully and incorrectly described as the special bins were not even mentioned.  Our manner of dealing with them was extremely cautious as we were worried about what they woudl do to the house.  The damages could have been a lot worse if we had been rude. They said they've been to many, many Airbnb homes yet they only had 3 reviews before visiting us.  We can go on and on as we prepared a 6 page submission but that is not going to be of any use now.  The Community should be aware that Airbnb allows free speech in the review process, each party is allowed one say and whatever spills forth about their personal experience as long as they don't infringe on the policy stated no-go areas.  We wholly agree with you that all we can do is move on and focus on the positive although that is difficult now with the lengthy amount of untruth that that's published.

Thanks for spending time with us,

Mei and Shane

[Dee9]

Are you new to airbnb? Because reviews are permanent. they wil never remove a review unless it has foul language or is racist, etc.

Its not like facebook. You cant decide which comments to keep and which to delete. Sorry

[Mei2]

Thank you Diane for your time.  We have had 18 positive reviews and this is the only one that's so devastatingly bitter.  We put it down to experience.