A guest brought more than 12 unauthorized visitors, left a retaliatory review which Airbnb denied the removal twice causing me great stress and mental struggle. New host here

[Fany1149]

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 I've been hosting for four months now and I've been getting only 5 star reviews which I deserve since my rental place is in new and excellent condition and keeping it clean and neat has been my top priority since day one besides hospitality. All this effort and then this particular guest leaves a retaliatory review because she was reported to Airbnb after violating several house rules and Airbnb policies. She brought more than 12 unauthorized visitors whom two of them talked to me and my husband about having scheduled appointments with this guest at my property.  This guest never asked for my permission and she never disclosed her intention of providing some type of services at my property. Her reason for staying since the beginning was to visit Boston and surroundings but clearly she was not transparent about it. I submitted all the proof from my surveillance cameras outdoors which recorded all these visitors or clients entering my property and by the way this is a house with two floor levels and the first level is rental and my family lives upstairs, so all these strangers entering my property premises created a safety concern. On top of that, this guest made false allegations in her review. Still, after calling and contacting Airbnb support several times their system has failed to remove this retaliatory review. 

As a result this has caused great stress and I as someone who has OCD and anxiety , these unexpected events had contributed to the sudden worsening of symptoms of these conditions. 

[Guy991]

Hello @Fany1149 ,

I couldn’t find the guest review, so am I right to assume it was luckily removed?

Please let us know what you did to make this happen. Airbnb doesn’t remove reviews easily, and we could all learn a lot from your experience.

I am sure that one day I will also have a guest who brings this sort of situation.

[Fany1149 · Accepted solution]

Thank you for your reply. 

At the time I posted this , the review was still in my profile and my request for removal was denied. However about two hours ago I was contacted by one of the senior supervisors from Airbnb saying that they did a further investigation and received all the evidence I submitted and based on the surveillance videos, screenshots and conversations I had with the guest they could clearly see that this guest violated my house rules which are disclosed in my listing and her review goes agains the review policy.

Airbnb did not explain why my requests were initially denied but I'm thankful that they did removed the retaliatory review today. I did called Airbnb support several times and I also expressed how this events affected me and that I felt I was being treated unfairly by the initial decision of not removing the review.

I did also expressed my sincere intention of formally disputing their decision and the possibility of filing for arbitration since I had all the evidence with me, proving that this guest brought more than 12 unauthorized visitors. I trusted Airbnb would protect me as a host from bad guests which unfortunately they do exist but I'm happy this ended up being resolved without the need of filing for arbitration 👍👍

[Joelle43]

Hello @Fany1149 

I am so happy to hear that this retaliatory review was removed and your reply gives us much needed hope as the forum is full of hosts going though the same anguish and frustration as you.

Any retaliatory or unfair reviews are now being handled by AI with disastrous results.  Within minutes hosts receive the first denial despite evidence proving their case, they appeal and receive the second and final refusal and very rarely with such a good outcome.

So, very encouraging to see that a human had a look at your case and many of us are trying to alert Airbnb that solely relying on AI is a disaster for both hosts and guests.  Great outcome Fany😊

But yes I can see how you must be left shaken after such an experience.

All the best
Joëlle