Refrences

[Ella86]

Hi guys, hope you are having a very nice week with many bookings. I am a new host and set up my first profile on Aug 10, this year and the second my profile went online, I had three bookings for 17 days in a row. All 3 left nice reviews about the host (me), the location and the house but the 3rd family, which was not what I expected, left me a 3 star overall.

While my first 2 guests were very nice people, clean, calm and respected the rules, the 3rd family, ate whatever I had in my cabinets, broke a glass in my balcony and left its broken pieces together with at least 20 cigarette butts in my balcony and unfortunately downstairs in my neighbor's balcony who criticized me for that. They left the house untidy and dirty. With all these, they gave me a 3 star and wrote: "Generally ok."

Being a new host & having just three reviews, I called Airbnb to send them the screenshot of my balcony & asking them to delete the last review. They didn't and claimed it is against their policy. So I deleted my profile, opened a new one the same day, lost my good reviews and here I am; no reviews, no bookings. Airbnb support advised me to ask my two guests to leave a comment as a reference. I did, but I can't find them as they probably used a non-business email for their account and for now are not searching a property, so they don't check their account.

What should I do? What would you suggest?

Thank you for your time.  🙂

[Alexandra316]

@Ella86 Your guest sounds like they were awful, and it's too bad that they gave you three stars. However, I would have written a short, professional response to their review and left it at that. If you delete your profile every time you get a less-than-perfect review, you're not going to be able to build a catalogue of reviews. There is no way around this: you just have to take the good with the bad, make sure you're vetting your guests properly, and respond to less positive reviews if/when they happen.

[Ella86]

Hi Alexandra,

Thank you for your response. If I were a host with a long history, I would do what you said but being a new host, I didn’t want to go back and forth with them. Besides, those three instant bookings have probably caused me an overestimation of my property. However, now I got the lesson and am well punished for that. Never again 🙂

[Inna22]

@Ella86 Do you have a security deposit? You can seek compensation from that. Also, when you open a new account, you get a boost and that is why you got three bookings instantly. However if you delete your profile and open a new one, algorithm recognizes that and so here you are, new host, no reviews, no boost. Perhaps you should see if you can restore the original one

[Ella86]

Hi Inna,

Nice to meet you. No, I don’t have a security deposit. I won’t ask for damage as it was just a glass but leaving the balcony in that situation was not civil, and my neighbor’s critic was so embarrassing. I advise new hosts not to delete their profiles. I may be able to restore the previous one, I have to check, but if algorithms have anything to do with this, it may still get worse, so I guess I won’t do it. Thank you anyway.

[Inna22]

@Ella86 put a security deposit in your listing, even if it is $100. Then people have some responsibility 

[Ella86]

Ok!

I will 🙂

[Brad172]

Hi, I'm also a new host and have heard several times on this form about leaving a response to a guest after a review.  I don't see the review until both parties respond, after that it appears to be done on my end but guest can adjust their review and I may not.  What or where is this done or am I missing something?

[Victoria567]

Hi @Ella86

As a host try to leave a review for your guest.

If a host leaves you a review, try to answer or reply to their comment as you feel appropriate.

[Ella86]

Hi Victoria and thank you.

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