Horrible guest. Bad review?

[Frances56]

Feeling anxious after our bank holiday guest and 3 other adults made a long list of complaints mostly untrue or exaggerated. Our home is lovely and cosy and personalised because it is not a cutprice boutique hotel. I refunded 20% of the cost for goodwill, Airbnb paid the second demand. I feel set up so they could have a cheap holiday initial amount £603 down to £391 - means they paid £17 a night each for the most popular nights of the year.

Want to write a review warning future hosts worried they will write scathing review in return reflecting the way they complained in the first place. Have written detailed account to Airbnb who are aware of the whole story, and how it ruins the sharing and trusting ethos of Airbnb.

[Marzena4]

@Frances56 As for Airbnb, nothing will be done concerning a potential untrue review from those guests for you - my recent experience with CS.

As for your review for them - make sure you word it 'nicely' but precisely - other hosts will find it useful (demands, discounts...)

[Frances56]

Thank you for all the comments and advice any help with how to write the review to keep the Airbnb guidelines but convey the untruth and disrespect of most of the complaints

frances

[Fred13]

The best of systems are usually dependent on individual integrity, they do not work too well when they encounter proffesional scammers, they just don't play by the same set of rules as everyone else.

 "Want to write a review warning future hosts worried they will write scathing review in return reflecting the way they complained in the first place." The two events are in parallel till they are both submitted; they do not get to see yours before writing theirs.

[Frances56]

Hi Fred, thank you for your observation. I know that they cant read my review until they post their own. But feel in limbo for the 2 weeks deadline - they have posted nothing as yet and anticipate that if I post a review they are informed, they will obviously realise it wont be a good review and will then post the bad review - I am being held hostage by the potential bad review.

Think they want to keep their record clean by not posting any review and then mine will never see the light of day and they can go ahead and treat others as they have treated me. 

I think this is a flaw in the system

Frances

[Ili1]

One bad review should not hurt you if you have previously happy guests. Also I would respond to the review something along that I am sorry they feel that way...simply respond that you will improve and fix the issue. But I will definitely write them a review, this has to stop before it gets out of hand. Best of luck! 

[Kimberly54]

Hi @Frances56, It doesn't seem to me that you're being held 'hostage' because you really don't have any leverage at all.  They will write whatever they will write. 

As to a 'flaw in the system,' I can't actually see anything better that can be done... can you?

When I had hosted (before AirBnB was even around--and only students and professors), there was such scant ability to know anything about anybody except that they were somehow in the education system.  A bit of a screen, but not much, and anytime you have people in an equation... well, it can get a little strange.

I see you're trying to do your best... try to revisit the scene in your mind--in retrospect, is there anything else you might have done differently?  Maybe not, but worthy of examination, eh? 

Sorry for this experience. 

[Elizabeth50]

I completely agree with this, Frances.  I think it is a HUGE flaw in Airbnb's way of doing things. I don't have many complaints aside from the fact that guests can choose to not review the host that they disrespected and the host's review will never show up on their profile letting future hosts know what to expect.  Airbnb needs to fix this.

[Matthew285]

@Elizabeth50, why do you say that "that guests can choose to not review the host that they disrespected and the host's review will never show up on their profile"?

If the host writes a review and the guest never write a review, the host's review appears on the guest's profile after 14 days.

If the guest does write a review, then both reviews appear as soon as both are written. But if only one side writes a review, the review will appear whether the other side writes a review or not.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2066/reviews#Basics

[Denise285]

This is always a bit of a gamble. Personally, I would write them the review they deserve otherwise the system is a complete failure. As a host, you never know what people are going to say and so your review is based on the experience YOU had whilst hosting this guest. If they write a bad review about you, you will need to respond as the review is up there forever and potential guests may be turned off if they are unsure whether the negative issues have been addressed.  Sometimes...the bad guest can still be travelling after leaving your place and may never write a review or see that you have written one and they can't respond as the 14 day period has elapsed. Or you can be sneaky and leave it to the last possible moment on the 13/14th day and write an honest bad review about them hoping that they don't see it until too late. If they don't die of embarrassment and want to continue using Airbnb they will have the last say to respond to your host review. I once had a guest call me up to say the review I left was untrue about them and she wanted it removed even though the negative review she left was apparently 'true'.  Now the tables have turned so we can also review our guests instead of it being one sided against the service provider. Personally I think its a touch of "the green eyed monster" or they are just negative people that keep negative company and always have negative things to say and this is a moment of Power for them. I had a peek and liked the look of your place, and if I was reading through all the reviews as most potential guests do, one bad one here and there just keeps it looking real and they can usually determine from your photo's and other reviews that one review was a 'one off' or the person was at fault.

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Frances56

Please write an honest, fact-based review of what happened. You have so many great reviews and IMO one bad review will have minimal impact - make sure you leave a short, fact-based and professional response to any exaggerated complaints. Especially along the lines of "Too bad the guests did not read the listing description/house rules".

I never provide discounts and usually find a way to avoid hosting those who ask because these types of people are usually CHEAP and demanding and not worth it.

[Bryana1]

Hi Frances, 

I have actually just felt with something similar with one of my recent guests.  He stayed at my place during the Holidays (a busy time for us) and complained about the balcony door on the 19th floor not locking.  He claimed that the apartment was unsafe and he was going to get robbed! No one can climb up 19 stories— that’s when I knew this man’s claim was just absurd and he was trying to stay for free.  He didn’t stop there— prior to his checkin he said that my parking fee was too expensive and he couldn’t afford to rent a car.  Then he went around my apartment and took pictures of My cabinets saying they were old and dingy, some slight corrosion on my oven range (the apartment is 2 blocks away from the ocean), and a slew of other things that had nothing wrong with them.  He demanded money back after he stayed there.  On his review he said that my pictures portray and modern, new apartment and when he stayed there it was actually old and “disgusting”.  I refunded him the cleaning fee to be nice (not the full amount he was asking for) and called Airbnb to have his review removed.  Since they discussed issues they opened a claim for in their review, Airbnb was permitted to take it down.  Unfortunately, my review was also taken down of him.  So future hosts will not be able to know that he tried to scam me and stay at my apartment for free.  The Part that bothers me the most is that he has 8 reviews... all positive.  I want other hosts to know what this guest did, but there is no way for me to write on his profile now.  Going forward, I am aware that things like his do happen, and you can handle it better if it happens again in the future.