Host protection of Inaccurate reviews and policy change

[Pius7]

I have experienced my very first inaccurate guest review. A 3 star rating no less which just killed my stats and progress. Without going into a long explanation, I am a professional Realor, working full time mainly on corporate short-term stays and relocations. Therefore, what I do, I do to the smallest detail, ensuring I receive 5 star reviews. Until this one came in which bottom line was an outright lie.

What outlook does a host have? is there a protocol in place to have this removed, investigated or even renegotiated with the guest at the time? 

After contacting Airbnb support I was instructed that reviews can only be removed in rare instances.

Apparently, there is no set protocol to assist the host when the host can prove the review is false.

Am I alone in this world of hosting who has experienced this type of review or is this just an isolated incident where I should just forget about it?

[Gillian19]

@Pius7 not isolated, but nothing you can do about it. Worse still is that if the guest does something wrong and you call them on it, you can almost certainly expect a 1* rating which not only lowers your stats but also leads to emails telling you to do better.

Welcome to Airbnb and their ridiculous, childish rating system.

[Pius7]

Thanks Gillian, but in this case senario my communication with the guest was pleasant through the tenure of their stay. There were no maintenance call outs and no complaints. My listings are all highlighted with professional pictures and my cleanings are meticulous due to many guests coming in for cancer treatment. You could lick the floors, thats how clean my units are. Its still unfathomable that someone would blatently lie on a review even after I left them a very postive 5 star review.

Something needs to be put in place. Without any hosts there is no Airbnb right? I beleive the hosts need more protection as we pay our share even from the people who book with us. 

[Gillian19]

@Pius7 It won't happen. We all agree it's not right. But Airbnb really don't care. there are millions of transactions every night and if they lose a few hosts there will be plenty more come along and take their place. I had a 3* rating recently because they found the walk to the station too hilly. In this day and age ther eis no excuse for not asking/checking these things out, but in Airbnb's eyes the guest is in the right 99.9% of the time.

[Kath9]

@Pius7, this has been the subject of many a thread recently and it is most likely to do with the way the Airbnb ratings work. The overall rating is based on the question 'How did your stay at Pius's place match your expectations? If they say, 'as expected', then you only get 3 stars overall. See this thread for more info: https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/viewing-guests-scores-of-other-hosts/td-p/866603/page/2. We hosts should be boycotting Airbnb until they fix this.

[Gary146]

@Pius7, Airbnb could care less about its hosts. I was recently downgraded from my Superhost status as a result of ONE review.   ONE out of 41 others that were 5* ratings. The review was false, inaccurate and misleading. In five years, no other guest has had the same concerns. After escalating the concern I was denied reinstatement of my Super Host status because the guest did not use profanity in his review, regardless if it was accurate. Their TOS regarding reviews mention they expect guests to be honest, but have no measures in place to take the appropriate action when they are not It's a shame they don't have an escalation team in place to look at the big picture and make decisions based on facts versus baseline metrics etched in stone. I'm sure Brian Chesky is totally unaware of what's going on further down the ladder.  40% of my business comes from VRBO, and their business model supports hosts 1000% better! 

So what does that tell you about AIRBNB?  They only care about the revenue channel coming in, not the one going out!