Guest Had Airbnb Delete Negative Review

Stephanie636
Level 10
McKinleyville, CA

Guest Had Airbnb Delete Negative Review

I had a difficult guest who broke the house rules, showed up with more guests than she paid for, and left a mess. I left a review accordingly, specifically stating that I did NOT recommend her to future hosts. She called Airbnb claiming my honest, objective review was “unwanted contact” so they removed it citing harassment (?!). I’m utterly stunned. So much for integrity, Airbnb! If hosts can’t forewarn other hosts about bad guests, what’s the point of reviews?! Feeling abused and unspportd as a host, I’m compelled to delete my listing altogether. This is shameful.

207 Replies 207
Mary996
Level 10
Swansea, United Kingdom

Fantastic Letti.

Well done and thank you for being here. You are a treasure.

Actually Letti... have you considered being a Host employee? I'd like to suggest to abb that they consider appointing Hosts working from home to timescales as much or as limited as we'd like ... to respond to other Hosts ...instead of their appalling agents who currently can't do a decent job. What do you think? Not that we'd like to lose you from here but a strategy for improving the service from abb is desperately needed.

 

Mary996
Level 10
Swansea, United Kingdom

Ooooh I'd love to hear that too! But it seems the Host in this story won out in the end! xx

Mallika7
Level 2
Ithaca, NY

The same thing happened to me.  The guest came with extra guests that had not been approved.  She had booked for four, and I had confirmed with her the number.  She came with 7 guests. I let her know the were not approved, and she said, "well, seven people are coming anyway." She then caused a lot of damage and expenses for me, due to the 7 guests.

 

I pursued a request for extra guests fees, since she had brought unapproved guests, and my listing contains a fee for additional guests.  It was a long, drawn-out process, badly handled and mismanaged by AirBnb, to say the least, with each customer support person giving a different version of the policy.

 

In the end, one case manager asked her to pay half of the expense (I had already compromised down from what my listing fees indicated was the extra guest fee).  She said she would, but only if I took down the review I had posted, that said many positive things, but I also said that she brought extra guests.  I declined to remove the review, because it accurately reflected my experience.  However, after I declined, she then asked AirBnb to remove her positive review of me.  They deleted it.

 

They claim they have a policy against extortion, but they do not.  She wrote a review before seeing mine.  Once she saw my review, she offered to pay for damages only if I were to remove my review.  When I did not remove my review, she removed hers. 

 

This undermines the whole transparency of the AirBnb review process.  The community is based on honesty and transparency in reviews.  When someone is allowed to engage in "tit-for-tat" behavior, it means that I am pressured to not post an honest review on the guest.  In this case, I did not cave, but it was because I believe other hosts have the right to know that this person was rude, entitled, and never once even apologized when I messaged her individually to let her know that it was not okay that she brought 7 guests.  The system has no credibility, since they allow guests to seek revenge by removing their own review, and this is against their own publicly stated policy.

Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Mallika7  What a terrible story. It's just unbelievable the lengths Airbnb goes to to appease horrible guests. If a guest had the audacity to say to me "Well, 7 are coming anyway", my response would be,  "Well, they may be coming, but they won't be staying here, so you'd better let them know that they'll need to find alternative accomodation. They won't be allowed on the property and if they try to, they'll be trespassing and I won't think twice about calling the police."

Nicole1440
Level 1
Midway, FL

This very thing just happened to me and AirBnB did not support me at all. I am so tired of being bullied by these type of guests. 

Christopher971
Level 1
Guadalajara, MX

Airbnb heavily favors guests. 

Candice136
Level 2
Tiger, GA

Fenced in yard

Didn’t mean to post. Sorry.

Frances41
Level 2
Nokomis, FL

it seems that Airbnb should have list of bad guests names available only to hosts as a second way to background guests so we have an way to check if they are  scammers or con artists I had a couple her this week end and they stayed one night out of the 3 day booking and the second day at night 9:00 they came in from their dinner date with friends  here in town and claimed a medical emergency and had to leave they spent the whole day here with my son who lives with me playing musical instruments as my son plays guiter and they were also music fans and brought drums and flutes with them to attend the Drum circles here in fl. and they jammed out all day, and there seemed to be no problem ,  I contacted them to see if there was anything I could do being a concerned human and a host,  she then called me on the phone and told me she had felt uncomfortable with my son being here,   WHAT! you fixed him a sandwich and you and your husband spent the whole day playing music and joking around all day..... we think  their friends they met later that evening offered them a place to stay for Free, so they needed an excuse so they used Medical emergency the night they left, and the next day my son,. was the next excuse, so they lied,  she demanded I give her back the 2 nights and my 10.00 cleaning fee or she would not give me a satisfactory review in reality I should have kept the second nights fee as they did stay till 900 pm . but I am not a person of confrontation and just refunded and hope I never see them again and hope that they do not pull this crap on others we need to have a way to post these bad apples for other hosts.

 

@Frances41 

 

That's an infuriating story, Francis. Probably a one off event. I hope you never have to deal with those kind of people again.

 

And I hope that they did not get to leave a negative review with you.

 

We've got to read the rules of reviewing so that you can let other host read between the lines: AirBnB often removes stuff that they deem unacceptable, almost always on the guests side. It is unconscionable.

 

Don't let them bring you down.

 

 

Frances41
Level 2
Nokomis, FL

thank you  today would have be the  check out, so I guess they have 14 days to post a review if they even bother when I post mine it will be the 14th day  and I will leave  a NO COMMENTS in the text as a warning that that they were unacceptable  because after reading some of the hosts  posts,  I see that guests have the right over the host to pull down  our reviews if they do not like them  so My (NO COMMENT) will be my NEGATIVE VIEW

@Frances41   Your pessimism is understandable but I hope you will reconsider not publishing an honest review.  As part of the host community it is so helpful for other hosts to have the benefit of your experience.  As long as you do not violate Air BNB Content Policy, it is pretty sure that your review will remain.  I have left several negative reviews, most of which had to do with lack of guest suitability for the private room type of accommodation.

@Frances41

Did you ever think that maybe you were gifted with this bad guest because the last 4 hosts that hosted this person also choose not to leave a review?

This last Christmas I had the opportunity to decline a guest based on a hosts previous not-so-great review. I couldn't have sung higher praises for that host. The other host who accepted his request was not so lucky and now he has two bad reviews on his profile. Had he just been a guest with zero reviews I would have never known.