Do reviews matter anymore?... not to the bad guest

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Lb0
Level 3
United States

Do reviews matter anymore?... not to the bad guest

We are hosts in 3 parts of the world, ME, AZ, MEX. 

 

We are super hosts.  We have 8 properties.  We have in the past touted it as a means to host good people, use our properties, and make a little money.  We have inspired  other hosts to start hosting.  However, has anyone else noticed the high influx of bad, rude, rule breaking, conning guests in their Airbnb’s?  Our percentage has been creeping up from the 5%/95% bad to good, (during 2015-2017 years), 25%/75% bad to good to now.  

 

Recently I’ve had the experience to understand this trend. 

 

Reviews don’t matter.  Bad guests can call Airbnb and have their reviews taken down and cry “policy.”  We were recently exhorted $500 refund for a good review.  Guest cried “snake” in our cabin to us, our knee jerk surprise was to issue a refund, not for a good review, but for such a bad experience.  Explicit details how they "wrangled the snake in a jar."  Wow!  Didn't see that coming.  I didn't even think to ask for a picture.  My responsibility.  Later, we find out she cried “COVID” to Airbnb just hours before with no success.  When I called her on it in the private review, she called Airbnb and had my and her review taken down crying “policy.”  Yes, lots of crying.  Squeaky wheel MO.  

 

Question:  Were we as hosts not told, once a blind review goes up, it’s in stone for eternity, of course, with the option of rebuttal?  That is the premise we have operated under, not knowing there was a rational to explain the downturn in quality of guests.

 

We spend hours writing accurate reviews as  believing  the system was fair and upright. 

 

Now, realising it is broken, we are no longer writing reviews.  In fact, we have just had all of our 200+ reviews taken down under the “authoring” clause of reviews.  A Resolution specialist in Colombia has been working for two days on the reviews extraction, per orders of his supervisor.  Airbnb left us no other choice after giving them several options, they chose to side with the guest...again.  Airbnb has to support hosts or we are very exposed to these bad guests.  Reviews use to be our armor.  Now, we have no protection and most users know this, hence their crumby behavior and actions.   We will be moving to our own system of filtering and a monetary penalty model for rules, cleanliness and communication.  Has anyone had their own success on filtering guests?  Would appreciate hearing your experience.  Maybe we can solve the problem together.  

 

Any success on alternatives?  VRBO?  FlipKey?  Lodgify?  HipCamp?

 

I suspect this post will be taken down/censored as well.  Another nail toward our pending dystopian society.  

 

LB

 

1 Best Answer
Ann72
Level 10
New York, NY

@Lb0  I've been thinking about whether we hosts are training guests to demand refunds.  Case in point - your response to her saying there was a snake in your cabin.  Why do hosts jump straight to the refund option at the slightest inconvenience?  You must know that there are no poisonous snakes in Maine, so if there had been a snake, she was in no danger.

 

In a situation like that, I would apologize profusely, reassure the guest she was in no danger, and get someone over there immediately.  It wouldn't even occur to me to offer a refund.  I've done that once in 6 years, offered a guest 3 nights refund for a 6-night stay.  He refused, saying three, even two, nights were too much.  So it was a one-night refund.  With every other inconvenience I've offered the guest a free night, either by extending their stay an extra day or to be used on a future stay.  No one has ever taken me up on it.

 

I'm sorry you've had a bad experience, but this is a situation where you gave someone an inch and they took a mile.  Your three Maine places are remote and presumably attract people who want to be way out in nature.  It might be hard to get someone over there to help out when you can't, but do you have that possibility?

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17 Replies 17
Pat271
Level 10
Greenville, SC

I’m sorry you are going through this.  One question - you said:

 

“In fact, we have just had all of our 200+ reviews taken down under the “authoring” clause of reviews.”

 

What is the “authoring” clause?

Hello Pat.

We were told by Airbnb the following:

 

“As the author of the review, Xxxxx has the right to request its removal at any time. For this reason, the review has been removed from Airbnb.“


Apparently, if you write a review, it’s your property and you can do as you please with it.  So, we had all the reviews we wrote taken down, and they did.  


Yet, another reason we reviews do not work.  

 

As the author of reviews, you have control of what reviews stay and are removed, that YOU write.  Airbnb will try to put you off, but it is your right.  Use it . 

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Lb0 why would I use my right to remove the reviews I have written? No review processes perfect but Airbnb tries its best to make theirs work. I will be leaving my reviews guests, good or bad, for future hosts to read.

Good for you.  Don’t use your right.  
However, 

Sometimes one writes a review, and then later find evidence of stolen, damaged items.  Or receive hate messages, or  received an inaccurate review that inaccurately undermines the listing.  It safeguards our authorship.  We like our right.    And occasionally use it.  

Mike-And-Jane0
Level 10
England, United Kingdom

@Lb0 Can I ask what benefit was gained by removing all your reviews? Surely it just helps bad guests book future places and hinders good guests. Wa this your intention?

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Lb0  I have a very hard time understanding your reasoning here. You are moaning about bad guests and how they don't care about getting a bad review, but the fact is that that doesn't matter- it is other hosts who read the guest reviews to help them make an informed decision as to whether or not to accept a guest.

 

So by removing all the reviews you've left for guests and saying you won't write anymore, all you've succeeded in doing is not giving other hosts a warning about these bad guests you've had so they don't get stuck with them as well.

@Lb0  Airbnb needs to review their review system (no pun intended!).  One serious loophole that needs closing, a guest who has a damage claim made against them by the host, with proper documentation provided, should NOT be allowed to submit a review.  This will stop many revenge reviews and threats of revenge reviews (ie if you charge me for this broken window, I'll give you a 1 star review!!).  I asked airbnb to look into this, many months ago, but they never replied.  Seems like a no-brainer. 

 

As for guest quality degrading as you've noted, I've not personally noticed but could understand how it could happen in the overall airbnb community, as airbnb consistently sides with guests, word gets around guests can abuse their hosts with no repercussions from airbnb. 

 

The double blind review system is also used by VRBO, I'm not sure its any better or worse than airbnb's system.  I was once advised by VRBO that if I had some conflict with a guest its best to NOT give a review at all, else they'll be prompted to probably give me a bad review in spite, (they'll guess I gave them a bad review).  

Ann72
Level 10
New York, NY

@Lb0  I've been thinking about whether we hosts are training guests to demand refunds.  Case in point - your response to her saying there was a snake in your cabin.  Why do hosts jump straight to the refund option at the slightest inconvenience?  You must know that there are no poisonous snakes in Maine, so if there had been a snake, she was in no danger.

 

In a situation like that, I would apologize profusely, reassure the guest she was in no danger, and get someone over there immediately.  It wouldn't even occur to me to offer a refund.  I've done that once in 6 years, offered a guest 3 nights refund for a 6-night stay.  He refused, saying three, even two, nights were too much.  So it was a one-night refund.  With every other inconvenience I've offered the guest a free night, either by extending their stay an extra day or to be used on a future stay.  No one has ever taken me up on it.

 

I'm sorry you've had a bad experience, but this is a situation where you gave someone an inch and they took a mile.  Your three Maine places are remote and presumably attract people who want to be way out in nature.  It might be hard to get someone over there to help out when you can't, but do you have that possibility?

@Ann72  I completely agree- this business of instantly offering guests refunds for any inconvenience or complaint or something that scared or upset them is way off the mark, as far as I'm concerned. How does getting some money back address a guest's momentary scare about seeing a snake? Is it going to mean she will now not remember that incident or not tell anyone about it? It solves nothing. It doesn't even ward off a bad review.

 

It would be like fining guests for any little thing they did that upset or irritated the host, if you were to turn the tables on that.

 

Of course there are times when a refund is warranted. If the power goes out for 36 hours, or the fridge breaks down and can't be fixed for 2 days and the guests decide to stay anyway and make the best of it, the host offering some refund seems like a professional way to handle it, but if the power goes out for 3 hours, due to circumstances outside the host's control, that's just life- it's not always perfect. An "I'm so sorry if you were inconvenienced, the power going out once in awhile during a storm seems to be the trade-off for being out here in the beautiful boonies" and maybe a "Here's a gift certificate to the great little coffee shop in town" should suffice.

 

If I gave guests refunds every time they saw a spider or a trail of ants where I live, hosting would be a losing proposition.

Well said @Ann72. In the hotel I used to work at, giving a refund was out of the question. I saw it happen once in the 5 years I worked there. We could offer a resort credit, a cheese plate, free breakfast, etc. But a monetary refund was as if to say "See how easy it was to click that button? What else can I do for you?"

Bea2137
Level 10
Las Piñas, Philippines

+1

Ross648
Level 7
New York, NY

It seems to me that the real problem is that the AirBnB review system encourages immoral guests to threaten a bad review unless they are comped for their stay.    This happened to me recently.    A couple called me and asked for a full comp AFTER CHECKOUT or they would post a negative review and give one star.  Which is exactly what they did.   AirBnB of course did nothing.   I'm glad that I didn't give in but it knocked me down to a 4.6.  

@Ross648  One thing that's abundantly clear to any host who is a regular on this forum is that giving guests refunds in the hopes of warding off a bad review doesn't work anyway.

 

Guests who get some perverse pleasure out of leaving nasty reviews and bad ratings, not because there was anything wrong with the place or the host, but simply because they are entitled, rude, nitpicky complainers or liars or got called out for breaking house rules or causing damage will tend to leave a bad review no matter what. Tiptoeing around bad guests, afraid to say anything when their behavior is totally disrespectful, in fear of getting a bad review if you don't act like a doormat is absurd. Hosts need to stop being afraid of reviews and ratings- it's not doing anyone any favors.

 

And a host refunding a guest because they threaten to leave a bad review if you don't, just hurts all hosts, as more and more guests seem to think this is now somehow an okay thing to do.