Airbnb's translation and decision about review policy, and a security concern

[Tomoyuki7]

Hi.

I always appreciate the community's effort to improve stays and experiences for both hosts and guests. After a few years as a host, I can finally contribute to the community. I'll carefully avoid any violation of Airbnb's policies and obscure details to protect gust privacy.


A guest left my first one star review. My review score was 4.88. The number of reviews is 190. The guest stayed for several weeks. We talked (I'm always available in person at the property) and he never complained. Here is his claim:


* His asset is damaged during the stay.

* The facilities are basic

* Very dirty.


in 25 words without providing any other information, such as how his asset was damaged, how and what was very dirty. Without them, the review doesn't provide useful information for other possible guests, which is the purpose of the reviews.


This possibly leads to:


* Guests can claim that money is stolen during the stay without elaborating, leave one star review, and the guest isn't held accountable for the claim.


My main claim is, the review is irrelevant because the guest doesn't explain how his "asset" (I'm trying not to be specific here to protect his privacy) was damaged. How this kind of claim is relevant with your property or the stay, if a smartphone stops working? If a fire burnt his asset, it's my responsibility. If a laptop is broken because leaking water floods the room it's my fault. However, he never mentioned anything that might cause the event because it's not my fault. If his claim is true, he should have reported to me and Airbnb. He didn't.


Airbnb's policies states that reviews must be relevant. Their decision was "part of the review (the claim his asset was broken) is not relevant but that is not enough to conclude the review violates the policy (huh?).


Second point. I asked for support and an Airbnb staff called me. It was immediately clear that the staff was calling in a noisy environment because someone around the staff was talking loudly. I would not say which language it was to avoid giving bias to readers. But from his strong accent and my limited knowledge about the language, I can reasonably guess which country he was calling from.


I could hear the conversation behind and so could the bystander, quite possibly, his family members. The conversation was sensitive but the staff didn't take appropriate measures to protect sensitive information.


Outsourcing support operations to a country where English is commonly spoken is fine as long as sensible security controls are implemented. Apparently, Airbnb failed to do so.


It is a well-known fact that Airbnb is a major customer of cloud sourcing providers. Fine. However, I have a strong concern about how Airbnb handles sensitive information. You would not appreciate it if your sensitive information is passed to random person working from home without security controls. The incident highlights a big, potential issue in their physical security controls. The senior manager who took over the case didn't address my concerns at all.


Lastly, my suggestion. Airbnb should implement a rating system for reviews. Amazon is a leading company in this regard and booking com has ratings of reviews. At the moment, a single word "bad" is considered as a relevant review, which hardly gives useful information to possible guests.


Thanks for reading a long post. I believe that this is a common interest of the community and Airbnb's decision and its justification should be shared with the community for the sake of transparency and fairness.


Best regards,

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Tomoyuki7 You can try but I don't thing Airbnb will remove the review (copied below)

My laptop was tampered with within the first few days of my stay. Book elsewhere if you have electronics. Also, very dirty and basic.

Response from Tomoyuki

December 2024

Thanks for the review. Your claim, your laptop was tempered within the first few days, lacks a proof. You didn't report the issue, the damage to your assets, to neither me nor Airbnb. You didn't mentioned the issue while the four weeks stay. You had many chances to do so as I was always available in person. You told me your online interview went bad because of the malfunctioning laptop, and I helped to fix it. Our facilities are simple and basic but we are transparent about it by providing many pictures. Very dirty is subjective when you don't provide proof. This review will go through the official process for retaliatory reviews.

[Tomoyuki7]

No, I'm not asking for removal.

I am more interested in how Airbnb justify its decision.

Please remove the quoted review from your post. I carefully avoid identifying the guest. Make sure you follow the guideline and the policy.

[Shelley159]

Hi @Tomoyuki7 

The reviews are publicly available - you don't need to worry as you have not made any new information available.

It seems like most hosts are usually unsuccessful in getting reviews removed, unless the review blatantly violates policy (which I don't think this one does). Some hosts try multiple times to get a review removed.

In your case I think it's great that guests have already reviewed you since - those reviews are good and they come up first. As more reviews come in, the bad one will get buried under the newer reviews. Your star rating took a hit, but because you have so many reviews it fortunately did not have a huge impact. Most reasonable guests will be able to see a clear pattern: a host with many positive reviews and one review that looks out of place. It's unfortunate that it happened, but after almost 200 stays, sooner or later bad things are going to happen. You have many happy guests - I hope you can put the bad one behind you and focus on the next bookings!

[Tomoyuki7]

I'm not worried about bad reviews.

I know Airbnb have rejected requests from many hosts. The point is, even if the possibility is slim, we should share how Airbnb justifies their decisions.

As many pointed out, the so-called policies are deliberately vague. The policy in question doesn't provide any examples. It says the review must be "relevant". In my case, the first guy admitted that part of the review violates the policy. But it's not enough for them to act. This is what "Airbnb is about the community" means.

Also, they claim that they handle sensitive information in a appropriate manner, but, clearly, they don't.

Hosts should share their experience with Airbnb support. Unfortunately, we cannot rate them. Airbnb can do so by ranking.

So, let's keep sharing experiences with them. They won't act anytime soon but it doesn't stop us to request fair and transparent treatments.

Thanks for your comments.

[Frances3408]

@Tomoyuki7. You have received feedback on the review so I wont address here.

If you want to broaden the discussion of Airbnb and customer support privacy issues, suggest you repost some of that in Host Circle to gain more traction. I personally insist on only contacting and responding to Airbnb via messages for that, and other reasons.