How many hosts have received bad review after filing a claim for lost? How Airbnb deal with deposit

[Alex-and-Luna0]

Hello fellow hosts,

I am wondering how many people have the same experience as us. 

We've been Airbnb hosts for 1 year, and all of our previous guests gave us 5-stars for overall. However, we got a last-minute booking on Jan 14, and the situation changes.

How we got a 1-star review after the other 135 5-star reviews

When this guest checked out on Jan 15, we asked whether everything was ok, they said the stay was great. However, when we cleaned the suite, we found damage on the shower trim plate, looks like it was hit by something. Every time we do the cleaning, we make sure to remove all the fingerprints and watermarks on it that's why we are very sure the damage was caused after they checked in. Besides, we did hear a loud noise from the guest suite bathroom during their stay. And when they checked out, they left a lot of water outside the shower room. We requested this guest to pay $80 for the shower trim kit - which is the current price on Amazon(we purchased it from Amazon at $99 with tax). He refused to pay, and even more, he sent us a very offensive message and left us a completely misleading bad review.

 We replied to the review to explain what happened. We pointed out how the review is away from the truth. We believe in the Airbnb community, the reviews should reflect the truth and objective, but Airbnb said this doesn't meet their policy and refused to remove it. So the other 135 5-star reviews can't help us stay against this 1-star review.

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Will bad review after filing a claim change the community?

We do not really care about this bad review, but our concern is about fairness between hosts and guests. We list the current steps and logic between claims and bad reviews as blew. Please correct us if we are wrong.

First, hosts should make the claim before the next guest check-in. For a fully booked listing, this means we have to claim very shortly after checkout.
Bad guests protect themselves by denying, leaving a bad review and continue to book other places on Airbnb. They spread the STRATEGY and more guests learn.
On the other hand, hosts learn that they should try to avoid making claims so that they won't be punished by a bad review.
And all these make the community getting worse for hosts. 
We reached out to several Airbnb case managers, and they said that it's very common guests leave bad reviews once they were claimed. They suggest us to submit feedback so that the policy may change in the future. However, since Airbnb doesn't announce how much feedback regarding this situation have been submitted and no timeline. We don't expect our feedback can make any change to the policy.

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How Airbnb collects the deposit?

Since we require $200 deposit on the listing for potential damage, but it didn't show up anywhere among the claim process. We tested the booking process with another account as a guest, and Airbnb's platform NEVER displayed the deposit will be charged, and DID NOT actually charge it from our account. So, what's the definition of deposit on Airbnb, and how it works? Is it just to comfort hosts so that we feel safe hosting on Airbnb?

Airbnb invites us to open our house to guests, but it turns out to us that neither our hard-earnt reviews nor our property is protected by Airbnb. 

Again, please correct us if they do charge the deposit.

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At the end of this topic, we appreciate your attention, suggestion, correction. If this is not the right place to bring up this topic, we can definitely move to Quora.

Guest Review

It’s a cold basement with makeshift DIY upgrades and warning signs of what not to do located all throughout the space. You walk through the living room and meet the family before your pointed down to the basement door.

Our Reply

We have an electric fireplace which is just at the end of the bed, a heated mattress pad on the bed, and heater in the bathroom. None of our other 135 guests complained it's cold even in the coldest weather. On the opposite, the other guest (just 3 spots before this review) mentioned they like the heated bed.

And none of the signs in the suite is a warning. They are just instructions about how to use the electronics, the light, the fireplace, the heated mattress, etc. Most of our guests found them very helpful and gave them thumbs up (refer to the review just before this one).

We've also stated very clearly on the listing page this suite is on the ground floor, and the only common space is the staircase.

[Linda108]

What part of the policy is unfair, @Alex-and-Luna0 ?  Not removing a review with an opinion, albeit wrong?  Making a claim and the process? Or, content policy?  Again, the impact of this situation, if there is one, is more related to your review of the guest and your defensive response to a negative review.  

You are a positive force in the Air BNB community because you provide quality service and good value listing.  If you let this type of guest get to you and you see the solution to be Air BNB policy change, it will wear you down.  That is my point, not as @Sean433 has reacted.  I have been doing this awhile and have a few difficult guest under my belt.  I have to talk myself down from a defensive post at times.  Many hosts use this forum to help with that process.

[Sean433]

@Alex-and-Luna0 

And her is the drawback with Linda's approach. If you had just apologized, that is fine. But I, as as host, will keep the shortest reply with little emotion and one that is truthful.

I would rather other guests read the truth. I would rather other guests who are irresponsible like that one you had read what happened and NOT book with me. This will save me from having to host irresponsible guests like him. The honest guests will read the reply and will understand what happened.

[Alex-and-Luna0]

@Sean433  I totally agree "I would rather other guests who are irresponsible like that one you had read what happened and NOT book with me." and this is why I replied with all that has happened between the guest and us. We are not that kind of hosts welcome others to do whatever in our house. We would like this review and reply to be a red light for guests like this.

[Sarah977]

@Alex-and-Luna0  The thing is that many guests barely read through the listing description, let alone will read through your lengthy response. That's why it's best to correct misleading reviews as briefly as possible. Prospective guests don't need to know "all that happened" between you and a guest. Just stating all the sources of heat you have, and the fact that the notes aren't warning, but instructions on how to use various things in the unit for the guests'  comfort would have been enough. Mentioning several times how all your other guests were warm, etc, comes across as defensive and unneccesary.

I understand your frustration, but the point of a response to an off-the-wall review like that is just to make things clear, not to defend yourself or slag the guest who gave the review, even if they deserve it.

[Alex-and-Luna0]

@Linda108 I don't know what's your purpose of distracting the subject by educating other hosts on how to reply to reviews. You can say as many SORRY as you want, but how we reply is our business as long as it follows the review&reply policy. 

We have stated very clearly in the post, and if you didn't read through, here it is:

We believe in the Airbnb community, the reviews should reflect the truth and objective.

If you disagree with what we believe, that's totally fine. We would like to know how other hosts deal with this situation instead of discussing with you what is defensive and what is not. 

[Mary996]

Yes exactly @Linda108 . We can come here to ventilate, get support and perspective and sometimes to proceed with absolute determination and drive the matter to the sticking point....!!! Thanks so much for being here Dear Linda xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

[Jasmin100]

Hi fellow Hosts: I wonder if others are having issues with non-payment of payouts. I had guests from December 24-29, 2019 and to date I have only been paid under $35.00 from a total of over $970.00. AirBnB is saying they are having system problems which is causing the delay and that it is affecting several hosts.

[Anna8386]

Thanks for bringing this up in the Community forum, because your point about hosts being adequately protected is a valid one. I've been hosting on Airbnb since 2012 and have over 600+ guest reviews (vast majority great but a few bad ones) at this point, so quite a bit of experience under my belt. 

You have up to 60 days to make a claim to a guest. Even if another guest checks in right after, it doesn't matter. As long as you 1) take photos of the damage, buy a new shower trim plate and 2) get a photo of the receipt, you can request money from that guest AFTER the review period has ended. If the guest refuses to pay, your next recourse is to send the claim to Airbnb. There's no guarantee Airbnb will pay you, though, but you can try. I think Airbnb should reimburse you for it, since 1) you made a good case for it, explaining you check the shower trim plate every time and 2) you don't have a history of claiming money from guests, I'm sure.

I agree with you that there is not enough protection of hosts. Airbnb is so happy to have us, but it seems to me they protect the guest more than us. Yours is a perfect example of that. You should have been able to charge your guest for the damage. Airbnb should remove the review, which is obviously retaliatory. I had one guest leave a retaliatory review and she never even checked in! She cancelled last minute, and I suspect it was due to a rainy weather forecast. Airbnb refused to remove her review. Retaliatory guests also leave low SCORES, which affects your cumulative score, which affects where you show up in the search ranking, which of course affects how much you get booked. This doesn't seem fair to me.

Regarding the review, years ago I would have said the polite "I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your stay," but no more. There are too many guests using Airbnb who abuse the situation and take advantage of hosts.  This has happened to me one too many times. So I no longer have patience for ridiculous reviews like this. Your guest acted like an entitled brat, and your response was appropriate to the situation. And anyone who reads your other reviews and looks at the listing and photos can see that this guest is being absurd. You stated the facts in detail, which is good, because contrary to what one host here wrote, many guests DO READ the reviews and they read the host response even MORE so. That's a known thing in the business world. 

I just read the post Tatyanna in England wrote about horrible guests she had at Christmas, who acted entitled, and I can SO RELATE.  And I loved your point about showing the guests that they can't walk all over the hosts is a valid one, because I believe it does encourage a culture of people being disrespectful, negligent, and in some cases, even purposefully trying to get a free or discounted stay. Best of luck, Alex and Luna.

[Mary996]

A truly wonderful post! Thank you so much @Anna8386 

Now I shall go and read the post to which you refer!

Hope things work out @Alex-and-Luna0 Alex-and-Luna0

May we have an up date of how you are and how things go?

xx

[Mary996]

@Tatiana in England

[Mary996]

Hi @Alex-and-Luna0 

Thanks for posting this. I think the points you raise are crucial to the community on issues of timing. 

We can delay reviewing, if to be a neg review, to the last mo - which is the morning of the 14th day -  (and as someone suggested when I first joined - block the Guest to avoid argumentative messages) but what about giving notice to Airbnb about damage caused if we have a defensive or irresponsible Guest? How can this be skillfully timed? If its 60 days that we have to submit the claim - can we leave raising the matter until after the 14 day review period but within the 60 days?

How does this fit in with giving notice of damage before the next guest arrives? Or is that something we can tread around in some way so there is a deferral until after the Review period? So happy guests who have never-the-less caused damage have to meet those costs without an opportunity to denigrate the Host, which the Guest would not otherwise have done (as happened in your case quite unfairly @Alex-and-Luna0 . Having stated that they were very happy with their stay. Until the damage was pointed out when all of a sudden they slam you. I do sympathise). xx

Are there Hosts who have successfully juggled this who can comment?