Airbnb Unethical actions in regards reviews policies

Adriana1881
Level 2
Charlotte, NC

Airbnb Unethical actions in regards reviews policies

 I will focus on Airbnb unethical acts when they unequivocally promised a guest that they will delete any review, if I leave any on his account. In one of my messages exchange with the guest he stated "I spoke with Airbnb and they told me that if you leave me a review they will delete it."  Note that in any moment I had told the guest that I will leave him a bad rebiew and we never discussed reviews, he assumed since he knew he did certain things during his stay that were not allowed and he was trying to protect himself in advance since his account rating was already low to 4.5.

 

However by promising this in advance Airbnb initiated this guest retaliatory review. Let me explain, whenever there is a situation with a host/guest where the guest is at fault the guest usually avoids leaving a review or initiate the review in hopes that I will also avoid leaving a review, and yes usually I don't leave bad reviews and instead block the guest. That has worked for me, but on this case this guest who knew perfectly that he was at fault in this conflict and feared a review contacted Airbnb and got them to promise them that they will delete any review. Whiting minutes after the "leave a review" option was made  available I was notified that the guest had left me a review. His urgency for leaving a review was clear, he knew Airbnb will delete him my review. I then proceed to review him with out detailing the bad experience as I knew Airbnb had already promised this, and I wrote "An ok guest" with a low rating. As expected he wrote me a bad review with unauthentic information. Had Airbnb not gave him this promise he would have not initiated a review as he knew what he had done. Had Airbnb not promise this to him and him sharing this in advance with me I would have been free to write him a review with my honest experience. 

 

Coincidentally after I wrote him the review "An ok Guest" I go to his profile  and my review is no were to be found on his account. Airbnb had deleted this automatically even when I didn't violate their review policies. I contacted Airbnb about his review containing false information in a retaliatory manner, they declined with their automatic replay. One or two of the agents stated "We don't find a violation on his review, we can't delete based on things that aren't easy to prove. When I address then why my review was deleted from his account if I said nothing? how does that violate this policies you are describing? I explained him that Airbnb had promised this guest to delete my review in advance, and thats why he also left me this retaliatory review. The agent said "no thats not possible let me investigate this" after 8 hrs the agent gets back to me and tells me my review was posted on the guest profile, but to my surprise Airbnb omitted my ratings as the guest keep showing the same ratings as before my review. I addressed this with the agent and he did not know how to answer that and closed my chat. 

 

I found this act by Airbnb to be  extremely unethical and against their own and our policies,  it is most likely that this guest would have never wrote a retaliatory review since his account was already presenting low rating had Airbnb not promise this in advance. They left reposted my review on his account but removed my rating to help him out from further dropping his rating. Airbnb ignored the facts and their own acts and kept replying to me with automatic messages with out investigating or acknowledging their own violation and accountability of their acts. 

4 Replies 4
Mike-And-Jane0
Top Contributor
England, United Kingdom

@Adriana1881 I lost all sympathy when you wrote that you 'don't leave bad reviews and instead block the guest'. This may work for you but if all hosts took this selfish approach then we would have no warning about bad guests.

This post is not intended to gain sympathy, If you wonder why I don't leave many of this kind of reviews before judging with out knowing my other previous experience you can go read my reply to Ana below but my post also clearly explained how Airbnb promise and protects guest advance and delete reviews. 

Ana2038
Level 10
Santa Ana, CA

@Adriana1881 , always, always, always leave a review on all of your past guest(s). We host(s) rely on other host to leave honest reviews on their past guest(s). This helps other host(s) to determine whether to accept a booking/reservation.  By not leaving a review and simply checking the box will not host again, you protect yourself but leave other host(s) to deal with your past guest(s) unacceptable behavior…etc. Not fair.

 

 

Hello Ana thanks for your input. As you read Airbnb had already agree with the guest to delete my review if I detailed anything about the situation. Even when trying to do a low rating they blocked the ratings on his account. I think is self explanatory on what to expect. The Host should be upset at Airbnb.

 

99% of the time I write guest a review and in 3 years I had to write few bad reviews to alert any future host and let me explain why I changed my view on this by sharing what Airbnb did to one of those past bad  reviews I left:

 

There was a guest who rented  a room in my shared home, who was naked, only underwear, no blanket on and door wide open so that me and family can see him. I approached him and told him he need it to close the door, this man was on his 40s. When I wrote a review about my uncomfortable experience by this guest manners and disrespect knowing a family live in this house, Airbnb deleted my review from his account.

 

I asked Airbnb why they had done that as it was a very important thing to know for future host and they could not give a good answer. This was something I was deeply concerned that I felt responsible to share, not like any other non sense bad reviews that aren't even helpful, but if Airbnb can delete this easily as per guest request why then Im wasting time doing this? I block them. If any host is upset at this, they should be upset at the company who does this type of things. 

 

Several months later I went back to check  this individual account to see if anyone else had review him the same way and to my surprise his account was gone. My though is that because Airbnb deleted my review  another incident happened to other host and then they decided to take action.

 

My take is Airbnb is no so serious about this and instead of focusing on writing bad things on a review that might end up being deleted I have learn how to protect myself.