Hello fello hosts! I recently went through a grueling process to remove a guests 1 star review. I'm hoping this information helps someone else because when I was going through it I couldn't find much information from the Community page.
The Review:
My guest [name removed], arrived at the house at check in. She claimed that they were there for maybe an hour, enough for her to take a shower, and the quickly left. She said that she felt unsafe because my neighbor was doing "sketchy stuff". Here's a snippet of her review:
I'd like to mention that I live DIRECTLY across the street from our Airbnb. I know my neighborhood well and I know my neighbors even better. My BLACK neighbor [name removed] frequently dog sits for me and is the kindest southern gentleman I know. I emphasized his race because I firmly believe that her "sketchy" remark later in the review has everything to do with him being black. Sure, my neighbor smokes, weed...its not my place to notify every guest of my neighbors personal lives, haha! I did not give her a refund for her same day cancellation... which led to a 1 star spite review
Contacting Support:
Over the course of 3.5 weeks I had sent dozens of messages to support, opened 4 cases, and called 6 times. I always got the same answer from the overseas help center "We will escalate this to the review department, they should message you soon." Days and weeks went by without help.
Yesterday I called again determined to talk with someone. I got a very nice gentleman and I expressed that I was done with being pushed around different departments and I wanted to be helped TODAY with a real person. So he forwarded me to a lady (based in the US) that I could easily communicate with and express my concerns. She read the first 2 sentences of the review and then deleted it right then and there, laughing the whole time... took no more than 2 minutes. I was on hold for a total of 3 hours yesterday but it was worth it. Don't give up
Summary:
The lady who helped me to review the review stated that it clearly didn't abide by the review policy. The guest can only claim something "unsafe" if it effects them inside the home. Feeling unsafe is a subjective feeling and cannot be used to write a bad review. At the end of the day she gave me a 1 star review out of anger for not returning her money. She cancelled outside of the cancellation window and thus didn't get a refund. I would have happily given her money back if it was an issue that I can control but this was clearly a women who was stereotyping my lovely neighborhood.
** [Personal information hidden for privacy reasons–in line with the Community Center Guidelines]