Hi Victoria,
No, I won't reply. I am upset about such things, want to forget them soon and don't want to have much to do with it. And I think that vicious guests feel well when they see a response. I suppose they feel less well when it seems as if I wouldn't care about it. I work professional with somehow crazy people and "normaly" they seek attention when they become destructive. I don't want to reward them.
Maybe my situation is much different from yours. I live alone and have a room without much sense in my flat. So I rent it. Not so much for the money. Oh, it's nice to have it, but I don't depend on that. I could have an electric model railway there as well. But I like it to have friendly people from all over the world here, just for some words sometimes. And for some extra contacts for my cat when I am at work. Many guests are cat lovers. And: A public feedback makes no sense at all. Almost no guests will ever read it, surely not if it is review nr. 58 or so. And I can't prove the facts, it'sjust words against words. Some lies I could prove to airbn with the chat documentation. But they don't care. And the main damage is the reduction of the rating average. That is not healed by a public response. airbnb wants to see an average of 4,7 at least! That's crazy because it is much better than good and good schould be good enough I think. But that's how it is. Guest think they do something good for the host when they rate 4 stars. But you know it: 4 stars as average means: So bad that it will be canceled. I don't mind much about the superhost status. I have it but I don't need it. But I mind about the cancelation below 4,7. So I have an eye on the average. And if you get 4 stars from time to time, well ment but bad already, and then receive terror ratings with 3 or 2 or even 1 star 4,7 might become a problem qickly.
As I said I don't do it only for the money, Ithink I do a lot to make it nice for the guests, both with personel effort and spending some money from time to time for better equipment. And for that I want some recognition. And the opposite upsets me like I already said. That's another point besides the average problem. It is a horror to be a victom of terror and lies without the ability of doing anything senseful against it.
I give you a fresh example. A guest wrote he would land at Berlin airport Tegel and asked for the way. I have prepared text blocks and he received the answer and believe me, it's perfect. I have made my experiences with guest arrivals when I started with airbnb and now how to do it. A little later he said he was wrong, he would land at airport Schönefeld. O.K. no problem, of course I have a good text for that airport aswell. And with that he managed to find the area. Then he has sent a foto a housedoor where he couldn't find my name, saying he has arrived. But the foto was from Nr. 14, I live Nr. 16 and of course he had that information. Well, I walked out and picked him up. I was friendly of course. But this showed that he didn't look at my fotos in the check-in instructions. About 6 fotos for the last 15 meters, pertfect like the other things. Impossible to miss my housedoor with them. But without them desorientation maybe possible. But it was all no problem for me. But for the guest it was.
He rated the check-in with 3 stars. With 3 "potentials for improvement": "unclaer instructions". A provable lie, instructions and fotos are very claer. But should be used. "hard to find". Maybe if the claer instructions and fotos are not used and even without it is easy with the signs here to distinguish between nr. 14 and nr. 16. And finally toping it all "host didn't answer". Again a provable lie, the chat documents that all his questions where answered, I can prove that there was no unanswered question and the questions in the check-in situation where all answered within 1 or two minutes!
So the guest blamed me for his own very unusual inability! I have no problems with stupidity. Nature didn't want to create only intelligent people and I work with sometimes more or less stupid people and help them, it's my job. But I do have a problem with stupidity combined with malicious attacks.
This guest rated communication with 3 stars as well. Again "host didn't answer" and "slow reaction". Both provable lies again, any court would be on my side.
There where 6 more lies in the shown as "potentials for improvement". Not arguable opinions, but complete fat lies. All of them!
The guest finally rated the last three sections with 3 and 2 stars. Without arguments any more, just out of the blue. To me it looks like as he had the preconceived decision to do a destructive review, first fed it with lies and finally did not feel like finding more more lies.
No, I don't want to do a public response. Instaed I don't want to have such people in my flat! With the airbnb rules on their side, not on my side! And that could be achieved if hosts could use a data base containing guest who are known for lies and unacceptable reviews. It would be a helpful measure of self defense as airbnb is no help and courts would help but are out of reach somehow because of costs and effort.
