I've successfully marketed everything from Presidential candidates to celebrities to corporations for 40 plus years. Been a Superhost since day one for 3 years with 1300 guests in 3 units. In July we were featured in Florida Weekly magazine as one of the top 3 most unusual and best STR properties in the entire state of Florida-GREAT free publicity for the air bnb brand. And i'm sounding the alarm right now. Two recent guests, both with zero feedback, one trying to use social media published methods to get a free stay and another who was a lawsuit waiting to happen, allowed to post false and damaging review with the AI review robot letting them stand. The review system is broken, damaging good hosts reputations, costing everyone money and it's even outright dangerous. It MUST be changed by Air BnB NOW or long term damage to the band will be inflicted-see how below.
The REAL issue is that Air BnB uses AI bots who do not enforce policy and this damages hosts ratings and leads to lower rankings on the search page and less bookings even though frequently the host has done nothing wrong. So there are REAL ramifications to these false reviews which , under the old system, would have likely been removed. And it takes 5 good review to offset a single negative review. Guests can leave outright dangerous and slanderous attacks on hosts and they are left up . That is NOT something to just suck up. I am currently about to file arbitration over a review left by a guest whose reservation was cancelled BY AIR BNB STAFF who agreed with us her text messages were extremely offensive. Our staff saw them and refused to work if she was allowed to stay and we felt she would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. This first time air bnb user even erased some of her messages when we told her we were cancelling. Hours prior to her arrival she messaged she wanted NO male staff and NO male guests on the property the one day of her stay because she did not want a man or men looking at her. Lawsuit from a crazy in the making. We had a guest in another cabin with her boyfriend. The new air BnB guest's clear violation of air bnb policy and for the good of our other guests we brought the issues and messages to Air bnb staff who did an administrative cancellation with no penalty to us and we even refunded her money. She never set foot on property, was fully refunded and air bnb still allowed her to leave a one star review. This itself is a violation as review rules stipulate guests who do not visit the property can not leave a review. We appealed and were instantly denied . 3 years-1300 guests-superhost since day one-great publicity generator for AIr bnb and not a single cancellation ever. And Air bnb lets a new guest with zero ratings damage a long term credible partner by violating their own rules. We all have a track record and only to air bnb review bots and this terrible new system does all your hard work mean absolutely zero vs a guest with no rating history. It DOES impact your business and it CAN impact your life.
What air bnb does not seem to realize is that scammers and liars and fakes who want to stay for free creating these false reviews will cause long term damage to ALL HOSTS. Air bnb thinks they are building a more credible brand allowing all these fake negative reviews. They're not, they are destroying their own brand day by day-by a thousand small cuts. Here's why. As they start popping up all over hosts pages guess what happens. Air bnb business goes down for everyone as the good guests will begin to believe all these fake reviews. Credibility and dependability for the platform itself is damaged as it will become way to dangerous for guests to risk staying at any property. The air bnb brand becomes perceived as being "unfit" and "unsafe" and "not dependable". A NEW FAIR HUMAN BASED system that ENFORCES EXISTING REGULATIONS and takes into account the history of both parties must be made immediately to build a stronger community with better financial results for everyone. After all, it's only your reputation.
