Airbnb Blatantly violating its own Content and Review policies

[Armaan5]

The issue is simple:

• My listing clearly states the property has queen-sized beds.
• The guest left a 2 star review claiming that the beds are full sized and not queen sized.

Guest had an issue with me because I did not left them cancel the booking after they checked in. Their group had some people bail and they figured they could get a cheaper place so we got into it and I refused to cancel since I'm not bearing cost of their friends bailing. In return they made up issues during the stay to get free $200 from airbnb support and also left me a review that quite literally lies about the listing. 

My problem in all of this is only with Airbnb support. The outsourced Morons at airbnb support are telling me that they will not remove the review since it doesn't break their policy. Airbnb's Content Policy clearly says  "listings and profiles that provide fraudulent, false, misleading, or deceptive information." So I tell them either remove the review or remove my listing altogether since one of those is 'Fraudulent, false and deceptive'. They they simply close my case without a response. 

Why is airbnb hiring 'support' people who can't pass 5th grade english and are clearly unable to communicate with US hosts. In addition, these clueless dim wits are giving guests free money for no reason. AND there is no repurcussions for them for playing with livelihood of hosts whose life may literally depend on this revenue. My listing is rendered unbookable with a 3.5 star rating as this was only my 3rd booking. So there goes thousands of dollars.

I'm collecting emails of corporate executives and board of directors and will be sending them an email highlighting how these untrained and clearly uneducated people who can't follow clearly written Airbnb policies are allowed to play with the lives of host with no channel to escalate.

I apologize for being harsh here but I have been nothing but Polite, Professional and Patient throughout the process for the past week and I am finally venting because this process has been excruciatingly frustrating for me without any result.

[Guy991 · Accepted solution]

Hello @Armaan5 ,

Sorry to hear what happened. I noticed you had another post a few days ago about this. I wish you had consulted here immediately after the guest requested to cancel, as others could have shared the potential consequences. Did you know that even if the guest cancels the stay and you approve a full refund, both the guest and host can still leave a review for each other?

Let’s focus on constructive solutions. I’m not sure that writing emails to board members will help, especially if it’s adding more stress.

I recommend reaching out to customer service again. Many hosts here have mentioned that persistence can eventually lead to a positive outcome. Personally, I wouldn’t rely on it too much, but good luck with that. I know it’s challenging, but try to remain professional and unemotional in your communication with customer service, as anything else could make things worse.

Another option to consider, but please research it thoroughly to do it correctly, is starting fresh. You could first remove the old listing, rewrite the description, come up with a new title (!!), take new photos (I can’t see your listing since you’re using your guest profile) and start with a new listing. I wouldn’t recommend changing your profile—the reviews will always stay on your profile but won’t be on the new listing. Please don’t take my advice; read through the community threads about how to do this properly, research Airbnb help articles, and maybe even contact Airbnb customer service to ensure you’re doing it right. When talking to customer service about this, there’s no need to explain the background—just stick to what needs to be done.

I don’t take chances hoping a bad review will be removed. I know not everyone here agrees with me, and this topic can bring emotional responses, but in my experience, when a guest requests a refund and to cancel the reservation, I offer a full refund—even after one night—to get them to leave as soon as possible. This reduces the risk of property damage and a bad review on my listing. I’ve had to use this approach twice, and both times it worked well. One guest even gave me a 5-star review for my cooperation and understanding 😇. 

Also, if you accept Instant Booking, it might be worth exploring other platforms, as the dynamics may work better for you there. If you don’t use Instant Booking, Airbnb is still the best option, in my opinion.

I hope something here helps spark some ideas and gets you back on track with hosting.

[Armaan5]

Thanks for the advice @Guy991. There is some really good objective advice in your comment and I appreciate your time for writing this.

I would have absolutely canceled and refunded as I knew from the outset this guest was trouble. However, this was one of the 4 busiest weekends in Austin that makes up 15% of the total revenue from the listing. Either ways, good lesson learned for next time if I ever come back to airbnb. For now, I am going to focus on mid-term rentals on furnished finder.

[Helen3]

I'm sorry you had such difficult guests .

you don't have any listings attached to your profile so not sure which review your referring to??

However ...

@Armaan5  Calling Call Centre staff morons is not helpful. Frustration around Airbnbs policies should be laid at Airbnb's door and how it trains and supports its staff.

In your situation I would have been claiming it as a retaliatory review as grounds for removal.

I fear if your  tone in your post is how you come across to CS staff in your interactions with them.   And if you're looking for people to resolve this situation then  that's not helpful. 

[Armaan5]

@Helen3 Thanks for the comment. I can promise I have only been professional and polite with the support staff. However, after a week of getting ignored by them, this is me expressing my frustration. As you mentioned, I also want to directly convey to Airbnb that their CS needs better training and escalation paths, however, there is no avenue to do so. 

I have claimed retaliatory review and showed the exact policy this review violates. However, if the support staff tells you they don't see the guest lying in the review as 'false, misleading or deceptive' , you are kind of out of options. I have unlisted the listing as I saw no point keeping a listing with 3.5 stars up.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Armaan5 I would not take @Guy991 's advice to start afresh with a new listing. It used to be good advice but Airbnb has recently started to remove listings that attempt to cover up past issues. This makes sense although they are also removing listings from new hosts who have bought a failing property that used to list on Airbnb.

Oh and please be nice to the minimum wage folks on the help desk. They are only following Airbnb policies so save your angst for Airbnb folks.

[Guy991]

Hello @Mike-And-Jane0 

This is the second time I’ve noticed you discouraging others from engaging with my contributions. I let it go the first time, but I feel it’s important to address now.

As far as I know, this is a community where everyone’s perspectives should be respected, as we all come from different backgrounds and have varied experiences.

In this case, your response wasn’t very constructive. Instead of focusing on what he shouldn’t do, it might have been more helpful to offer suggestions on what he could do.

Everyone deserves a second chance, including this host. He has learned a valuable lesson, one of which is to consult this community more often for guidance, as long as there is mutual respect.

This is an Airbnb community for everyone, and it’s important to remember that.

Thank you,

Guy 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Guy991 Surely one should point out when someone gives advice that is no longer in date. If you look back at my posts you will find me suggesting that people delete and restart their listings BUT this is no longer sensible advice due to Airbnb improving its controls.

Please do not take it personally but I will continue to correct yours or any poster's advice if I consider it to be wrong/out of date.

In the case of @Armaan5 there is actually little that he can do other than suck up the poor review. Believe me if I had a solution I would have offered it!

[Guy991]

Hello @Mike-And-Jane0 ,

Thank you for your response. I appreciate that you're focused on providing accurate, up-to-date information, and I understand the importance of correcting outdated advice when necessary.

That said, it's important that we maintain a respectful tone when doing so. If we all start using rude language with each other, it will hurt the community, and in that, I believe I’m more correct than you. While I don’t take it personally, I do think we can disagree or offer corrections without discouraging others from contributing.

The goal here is for all of us to learn and support each other. I’m sure we both want the same thing in that regard.

Best,
Guy

[Armaan5]

@Mike-And-Jane0 Your response simply attacks another contributor for their input and doesn't provide any solutions to the actual issue. I would advice you to be more mindful about engaging with fellow community hosts and staying objective in your conversations with them.

To your point - Regardless of their wage, support desk folks represent airbnb at the end of the day, and should be held accountable for any policies they fail to enforce.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Armaan5 The support staff are enforcing Airbnb's policies. Airbnb's policy is not to arbitrate whether a review is true or not. It would take far too much energy to decide the truth so, as long as you remain within the review rules lies will be allowed through.

Not sure where I attacked another contributor - Please do follow @Guy991 's advice if you want but the consequence may well be you being removed from the platform.

[Armaan5]

@Mike-And-Jane0 With that logic, a guest can say in the review that house is a 1 bed 1 bath and not 3/2 as host advertised and it's not Airbnb's job to review that? What you said and the actual Airbnb policy is infact in complete contradiction. Here is what the Review and Content policy states:

Reviews should follow our content policy

Reviews may not contain explicit, discriminatory, harmful, fraudulent, illegal or other content that violates our Content Policy.

Listing or profile pages

• Listings and profiles that provide fraudulent, false, misleading, or deceptive information
  
  

So the only question is, do you think a guest saying my house has full size bed when in reality I have queen size beds is a fradulent misrepresentation of my house? Real Question for you.. Looking forward to hearing your response. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Armaan5 the problem for Airbnb is that it is impossible for them to know who to believe. They have millions of listings and they are not going to police them to the level of visiting to see what the bed size is.

ALSO there are many definitions of bed size across the world. We used to advertise King and Super King sized beds but this was based on the UK definition so we risked antagonising any Americans that visited. To my knowledge there is no Airbnb standard for bed size so it rather comes down to the opinion of the host and guest.

[Armaan5]

@Mike-And-Jane0 Airbnb simply provides a platform for host and guests to connect so I would believe their primary responsibility should be to verify that information on their platform is accurate. There are objectively verifiable facts that can be easily confirmed e.g distance of your house from a venue is fixed and if a guest lies about how far your house is from somewhere, that can easily be checked by airbnb and corrected. In the same way, US/Canada has a standard sizing chart for beds and if a guest lies or inaccurately describes that, that can be corrected by simply asking for a receipt of the beds which would confirm their size. 

Regardless of the fact that this guest was traveling domestically, local standards are applied wherever you travel and if we stop asking airbnb to verify objective information on behalf of hosts and guests, then we are setting a very dangerous precedent.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Armaan5 I fear the already high Airbnb service fee would explode if you asked them to do this. Also determining local rules for every country would be quite challenging and take even more time. The review system keeps most things honest and your experience doesn't seem to happen very often (thankfully).