Airbnb, please stop treating hosts as criminals. Guilty before proven innocent for hosts and then innocent until proven guilty for guests? NOT COOL!

[Kimberly1300]

How is it that we as hosts come into this business relationship with Airbnb, supply ALL of their "product" and then we are the ones that have to prove that we do things correctly. Even as a Superhost for three years straight who works very hard to provide a top notch experience to every guest I live in fear that one day some nut job will report something completely false and my listing will just get shut down. How do we change this? And then don't get me started on the AI stuff, lol.

[Emilie]

Hi @Kimberly1300, 

Thank you for sharing your concerns with us here in the community! As a long-time Superhost and an obviously passionate host, I can understand this is very close to your heart.

Is there a particular challenge you're recently faced, with guests or your listing, that you could tell us more about? Perhaps some of our other hosts will be able to give you useful advice on where to go from here. 🙂

In the meantime, if you need more help, you can reach out to our customer support teams via this page: www.airbnb.com/help/contact-us/

Thanks, 

Emilie

[Joan2709]

@Kimberly1300 

Unfortunately, this can happen on any platform, but it does appear that the system is particularly broken on Airbnb. Clear cases of a guest posting a retaliatory review as a result of a damage claim and yet Airbnb will not remove the review per it's own policies. False claims by guests, although ultimately proven false, can result in a suspension that lasts around 10days. The Host is never notified their listing(s) is/are suspended. The Host cannot provide any information and cannot contact the "Specialized Safety Team" during this period until the Team contacts them. While I agree there are bad Hosts out there and Airbnb has a duty to protect guests, there are also bad guests out there as well. 

The best advise I can offer is to list on other platforms and many Hosts are moving to their own Direct Booking websites as well. This will at least allow you to continue accepting reservations should this happen to your Airbnb listings. Many Hosts also take photos and video before/after guest stays to protect themselves from false claims from guests.