I just left this in the "feeback" tool of Airbnb but thought I'd post it here as well to see if it gains any traction, because it's a bad design in the platform and ends up potentially hurting any user:
I'm a superhost in Caifornia with 14 months on the platform. Recently I have started renting my whole house instead of the individual bedrooms. Both of my recent reservations left significant damage to my property, causing me to use the request for funds and the resolutions center. The first guest is denying responsibility despite the clear evidence I have in photo and video, and we have now gone to the "involve Airbnb" stage.
Despite this, the review process is still open to them. It occurs to me that I'm in quite a vulnerable position, because guests who don't want to pay up for the damage they caused could leave me a bad review and hurt my business, which I have worked extremely hard to build. A host shouldn't be put in the situation where the guest has a hammer to hold over their head if the host asks for reimbursement to the significant damage caused by the guest, and the guest doesn't want to pay.
And here's the real problem: guests who book a whole house often come in a big group, but only one member of the group has an Airbnb profile involved. If some other person in the group damages something when no one else is looking, they are likely to not say anything, because they want to avoid the embarrassment, especially in groups of young people who are coming to party, or when there are little kids involved who don't want to get in trouble with their parents/elders. A kid is more likely to just hide something in a closet and hope it goes unnoticed so they don't get in trouble. Therefore, the individual with the Airbnb profile, who made the reservation, now has to respond to the request for money, even though they ACTUALLY have no knowledge of the damage themselves, because it was someone else in the group who caused it, and they didn't personally notice it before they checked out.
Then the host is in a situation where the individual guest who made the reservation feels attacked and accused of something they didn't do, even though the host has photo evidence that the damage occurred. In that scenario, the guest is likely to leave a bad review, and the offending individual in the group, who did not make the reservation, has literally NO incentive to admit the damage except for their potential concern for their relationship with the individual who made the reservation. Even still, they're more likely to stay quiet, since in a big group it will never come to light who caused the damage, and the situation is so amorphous and removed anyway, especially if people have traveled a long way. That puts a host who has incurred significant damage to their property, but doesn't want a bad review, in a really crappy position.
My recommendation is that you suspend the review process for both parties entirely until the resolution request process has been completed. If the guest pays it within 72 hours, the issue is settled amicably and the review option opens back up for both parties immediately. But if it comes to the "Involve Airbnb" stage, then after the resolution process is completed, Airbnb's neutral team should make a judgment on whether or not either party should be allowed to leave a review. You will end up with a more honest reflection of hosts and guests on the platform that way, instead of letting personal feelings and revenge dictate hosts' or guests' public image on the platform. And that's the goal, right?
Also, let's face it: it's hosts who have everything to lose in a situation like that, not guests. Guests are barely impacted by bad reviews at all, considering that most hosts allow instant book, and even in the very rare event that a guest gets kicked off the platform, they can always just have someone else with an account make future reservations for them. But a host could have their business significantly damaged by even a couple of unwarranted bad reviews, and that ends up costing Airbnb money too, since, after all, it's the hosts who are Airbnb's cash cow and provide all the services from which income Airbnb collects its fees.
