Fellow Hosts,
I urgently need your advice and support. I'm dealing with a nightmare guest who left a scathing review filled with lies and fabrications, and Airbnb is refusing to remove it, despite clear violations of their own content policy.
Here's a summary of the situation:
The guest booked my property for 8 people but only 4 showed up, likely because some of her group bailed. Instead of communicating this change, she attempted to cancel the reservation after check-in, aiming to shift the cost of her friends' absence onto me. To justify this cancellation, she fabricated and exaggerated issues, such as misrepresenting the distance to a local venue and falsely claiming the property was not as described. AirBnB ended up refunding her 10% of the stay without any justification + gave her $200 compensation. On top of that the 2 star review she left renders my new airbnb useless. This was only the third stay by a guest in the property, the past two being 5 stars.
In the review, the guest claims several false claims that airbnb support has completely ignored as being an opinion but more specifically that the property has full-sized beds instead of queen-sized beds that is demonstrably false and misleading. This is not an opinion; it is a factual inaccuracy that violates Airbnb's Content Policy, which explicitly prohibits "listings and profiles that provide fraudulent, false, misleading, or deceptive information."
Has anyone else experienced similar issues with Airbnb refusing to remove false reviews? What steps did you take? Any advice on how to escalate this further or challenge Airbnb's decision?
I appreciate any guidance and support from the community. Thank you!