Guest made a mistake with review rating - wants to change - AirBNB screws our rating. Help!

[William227]

We have a 5-star rating in a small vacation town in  Canada where 5-star ratings count.  We had a great guest leave us 5-star ratings in all of the "attribute" ratings, and left a great written review. And then she accidentally left a1-star overall review. We contacted AirBNB within 12 hours after the review was written and we were told that AirBNB would remove the review from our account because it was obviously a mistake, and to contact the guest to ask to update the rating within 48 hours. We were told by a supervisor in an email that if AirBNB removes the review, it will "not affect our rating", which is 5 stars.  The guest was horrified and is trying to work with AirBNB to update to a 5-star review. 

Now, AirBNB says that while they can remove the review, the 1-star will count in over overall rating! The guest made a mistake, admits it and wants to correct it. I keep reading in these boards that AirBNB is generally hostile towards hosts. But in this situation, it doesn't even make sense for guests because AirBNB will intentionally count into the overall rating count reviews they admit themselves are faulty. Yelp, for example, always lets users update their reviews, and suppressed reviews not deemed reliable are NOT counted in the overall rating. That is fair for all parties. What the hell, AirBNB?

Does anyone have any suggestions how to fix this? It just seems preposterous. 

(p.s.: we've only been an AirBNB host for 5 months)

[Rebecca160]

@William227 wait, they removed the review completely? As in you do not even get the 5 stars she intended? Did the written review remain, which I assume was very good? Does your guest have to completely redo the review or is it dust in the wind? I am happy that the star rating was removed, just curious about the rest of it.

[William227]

Hi Rebecca. Yes - we lost the 5-star review. But at this point, we'll take 1 less 5 star and keep our 5.0 rating than be in the bottom 10% of hosts worldwide, according to AirBNB. 

[Francine108]

oh my goodness!...i am going through this right now and was told i had to keep the mistake one star even though the guest is upset and called as well as me...they said it was programming which disallows any changes!

[Robin4]

@William227

William I am pleased that this situation has been partially rectified for you.

Unfortunately dealing with CS these days is a bit of a lucky dip....it is to be hoped when you contact them you actually get a good responsive one who knows what is possible and what is not.

There have been a number of instances reported here on the forum where a guest has been able to change a star rating after proving it was demonstrably not an accurate expresion of their wishes.

Some of us are becoming concerned that the professionalism offered by CS is slipping and this may be due to the rapid growth of the company and failure of support to keep up with adequately trained personnel!

It may be too late to do anything further here and have that review re-instated with the star rating that is appropriate but William, I would suggest in future if you have an issue it may be best to contact the company via 'Twitter'! 

Airbnb seems to have dedicated staff who monitor their Twitter feeds and users usually hear back from them within 5-10 minutes of posting an isssue.

Step 1: Log into Twitter

Step 2: Search for @Airbnbhelp and choose "Follow" them.

Step 3: Send a Direct Message (DM) explaining your issue and wait for their response.  They will ask for information such as your listing, a description of your problem and what may seem like a lot of repetetive information but always provide it over DM so it does not become public.

I have no personal experience in dealing with CS in this way William but, many users here report having better outcomes dealing with Airbnb this way!

All the best William.

Cheers.....Rob

[William227]

Thanks, Robin. Good to know about Twitter. Hopefully, we won't need to go that route in the future! As for the CS team, it seemed all over the place. This is anecdotal, but the people we spoke with on Sunday evening weren't as knowledgeable or helpful. They might staff that time differently - just a heads up. The Monday morning crew was awesome and on top of it.  

[Peter1673]

Got to agree with everyone here - Airbnb coding is just awful. We have expereinced an almost identical issue where the guest mistakenly clicked on 3 stars instead of 5. Airbnb customer service were adamant it couldnt be removed, then about 2 weeks later it miraculously disappeared!

They clearly can remove a review - it is just stored in a database somewhere and there WILL be  admins who have the power to access and correct erroneous entries - but the custmer service people are following a pre-defined script and asking for anything outside of their script is a no-no!

[Susan1028]

That we keep having this conversation for years is utter bull.

We work too hard to have our livelihoods dashed in a mistaken (or not) instant.

Air bnb is paid well for their services.  If they can't fix their platform glitches and simple human mistakes, they don't deserve our business.  Simple customer service karma.

[Aaron1]

Hello friends,

This just happened to me a few days ago, albeit 3 vs 5 star rather than 1 vs 5. But as passionate hosts i'm sure you'll all agree that even a 4 may as well be a 1.

My exchange with Airbnb support went nowhere and I just sorta accepted the lame response of "Regarding the star review, sadly it is impossible to change, even from our end. It is a static element that once posted can no longer be edited or removed. I am really sorry to inform you of this."

But after reading this thread, I've re-engaged with Support and asked for the matter to be escalated. I'm not hopeful of a different outcome, but maybe it'll help maintain the rage end eventually lead to some better coding.

Will let you know if I get any joy!

[Luca1668]

Look on Facebook for the group: Airbnb Hosts Who Got Screwed by Airbnb

I've recently got seriously screwed by Airbnb after 3 years of great reviews and stats.
Airbnb threw me under the bus for a client that lied through their teeth in their review of my experience.

It is time we hosts band together and let Airbnb notice us and acknowledge that we are the hand that feeds it.

JOIN THE GROUP!!!

[Elena1084]

I had same experience last night. Guest left overall rate 4 star review, for all 5 stars, and my score dropped from 4.92 to 4.84. How is possible? Contacted Airbnb, manager explained ...score will not reflect my overall rate !!!!!

[Stacie39]

My guest made a mistake when he submitted his overall review. There is proof in his public review (where he discusses the overall score he gave me - or thought he gave me I should say) and in a private message where he confirms that he made a mistake. How do I get help from Airbnb to resolve this obvious and documented error? I’ve spoken to 4 or so different CS specialists. They all say the same thing - nothing they can do. Nothing I can do. Help??? His mistake = a 3-star rating!!!