Dealing with a Retaliatory Review After Enforcing House Rules and Policies

[Emre136]

A Recent Experience with Enforcing House Rules and Airbnb’s Inaction on a Retaliatory Review

I'd like to share a recent experience where enforcing clearly communicated and agreed-upon house rules resulted in an unfair, retaliatory review — and Airbnb's refusal to uphold their own policies by removing it.

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1. Reservation Details & House Rules
Dates: April 26–29, 2025
Rate: Single occupancy only

At the time of booking, the guest agreed to house rules stating that no additional guests are permitted beyond the reservation. The listing is for a private bedroom in a shared house, with a maximum of 6 people across all rooms and a strict one-person limit for this room.

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2. Arrival & Policy Violation
I approved an early check-in at 10:41 AM on April 26.
Doorbell footage showed two people entering the property.
At 10:44 AM, I messaged the guest to remind them the reservation was for one person only, citing both the house capacity and shared living arrangement, and reiterated that no additional guests are allowed.

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3. Guest’s Admission & Threat
The guest admitted they “always book for one person because it’s cheaper” at other Airbnbs.
When I asked them to comply with the rules, they became argumentative, refused to make changes, and explicitly threatened to leave a 1-star review if their guest wasn’t allowed to stay.

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4. Escalation & Cancellation
During a follow-up in-person conversation, the guest’s partner became verbally abusive.
I reported the situation to Airbnb Host Support, who confirmed it was a clear violation of booking policies and agreed it was appropriate to ask the guest to leave.
The reservation was canceled at 12:22 PM, and although the guest attempted to open a full refund case, it was closed in my favor.

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5. The Retaliatory Review
Despite never occupying the space, the guest posted a 1-star review as they had threatened.
Airbnb’s policy explicitly prohibits reviews that are biased or retaliatory, including those posted in response to rule enforcement.

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6. Airbnb’s Refusal to Act
I submitted two removal requests using the appropriate form. Both were automatically rejected within 3 minutes, with no plausible time for human review.
When I contacted Airbnb Support, they acknowledged the review appeared retaliatory — yet claimed they could not remove it because the dispute had already been reviewed and denied.

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7. My Hosting Record
I’ve been a Superhost for 2.5 years with 7 listings and 340 reviews — over 330 of them are 5 stars, the remainder 4 stars.
This was my first experience with a dishonest guest who tried to abuse the platform. I genuinely feel let down by Airbnb, especially as a long-standing, reliable host.

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This situation raises a critical question:
Can guests now use the threat of bad reviews to bypass rules — knowing Airbnb won’t intervene, even when retaliation is clear?

Has anyone had successfully escalating a similar retaliatory review?
Any tips or avenues beyond the standard dispute process?

[Elegant-Homes-Retreat0]

Hi @Emre136, thank you for sharing this — and I’m really sorry you had to go through such a frustrating and unfair experience. It’s deeply disappointing when a guest openly violates house rules and then follows through with a retaliatory review, especially after threatening to do so.

You did everything right:
✅ Clear communication
✅ Enforcing house rules
✅ Documentation via messages and footage
✅ Escalating to Airbnb and acting professionally throughout

Unfortunately, many hosts have found themselves in similar situations, where obvious retaliatory reviews are not removed despite Airbnb's stated policies. The automated system seems to reject requests too quickly, often without proper human review, and that’s where many of us hit a wall.

Here are a few suggestions that may help:
Escalate on social media (e.g. Twitter/X or LinkedIn): Calmly tagging Airbnb with your case number and a short summary often prompts a more thorough internal review.

Ask to have your case reassigned: Politely request a supervisor or senior support rep, explaining that the initial review appeared to be handled automatically or without full context.

Keep all communications professional and fact-based: You’ve already done this extremely well — just keep it consistent if you're continuing to follow up.

Your question is valid — and troubling: Can guests weaponize reviews knowing enforcement is weak? Many experienced hosts are asking the same. Airbnb needs to better protect hosts from abuse like this, especially when evidence is so clear.

You’re not alone, and your hosting record speaks volumes. Keep pushing calmly and clearly — sometimes persistence does pay off. Wishing you strength, and thank you again for sharing your experience with the community.

[Cave0]

@Emre136  It's difficult, I had a situation recently where the Guest indicated that they would not be arriving until after the latest check-in time which is clearly indicated in the listing and the House Rules.

Trying to do the right thing I called Airbnb and they suggested they'd cancel the reservation since the Guest would clearly be breaking the House Rules arriving after latest check-in.  I agreed to allow a refund and was assured, in writing, that the Guest wouldn't be allowed to leave a review or any review would be removed.

However, the Guest was, in fact, allowed to leave a review, 1 star naturally, even though they were given a full refund for their failure to ensure that the listing was suitable for their needs.

What followed was a point blank refusal by Airbnb to remove the review and several days of messaging and telephone calls.

Well, after several days of protracted messaging and telephone conversations, Airbnb eventually agreed to remove the review which they had originally assured me wouldn't be posted or would be removed it it were posted.

Given that the reservation was cancelled before it began, that is, it was cancelled prior to the earliest check-in time on the day of the reservation it's hard to see how the Guest was allowed to leave a review in the first place.

Of course, what it equally concerning is the complete lack of teamwork within Airbnb, the "Support Ambassadors" seemingly can't talk to other departments, there's a point blank refusal to allow Hosts to talk to anyone other than the frontline staff and therefore everything seems to have to go through multiple layers of bureaucracy and multiple individuals with the answer coming back down the same route.

Depending upon who you speak with, the willingness and ability to assist varies alarmingly as do the answers to questions, consisten

It's also disturbing to see that either Airbnb has very poor policies or no policies at all in certain areas.  Below is a selection of responses given over the marathon of conversations, some of these directly contradicting others:

“If they did not arrive in the property we can request for the removal of it. We just need to make sure that we have a proof, sometimes even though the Guest should not be able to leave a review there were some instances wherein they received an invitation to leave a review.”

“As per that, it is the decision provided by the department and as per the review will not be removed.
I do understand that it will not be acceptable, and I respect your thoughts over it, and also I am aware that you are Super Host which we do value but as per the review policy of Airbnb, the review is relevant.”

“After careful consideration, we determined that the original outcome should be upheld. We understand that this might not be what you’d hoped for, but we came to this outcome because as it doesn't violate our Content Guideline policy since it's just relevant to their experience. Therefore, we are unable to remove the review. I hope you understand that my decision was centered around some of Airbnb´s founding principles: trust and transparency.”

“I checked everything here and since there's no check-in that happened on this reservation your Guest should not have left a review on this reservation.”

“I would like to inform you that the review left by your guest D for the reservation HM5KXXXXXX has been removed for not following our policies, and it will no longer be visible on your listing or public profile.”

From the perspective of a Host who is attempting to do the right thing by the Guest, even when that costs the Host a considerable sum in lost revenue, it's most disconcerting to find that undertakings given by Airbnb in writing are simply brushed aside at a later date.  If the Host made claims or statements in their listing which weren't followed through I suspect Airbnb would be  merciless yet Airbnb is happy to simply renege on its word.

I guess in future the only course of action is to apply the listing details and House Rules rigidly and next time around, leave the Guest to resolve tings for themselves, at least I'll get paid which will make the possibility of a bad review more tolerable. 

In this particular situation, the fact that the Guest chose to arrive after the latest check-in time as stated on the listing and in the House Rules, it was not considered a "revenge review" as a result of the Host enforcing a policy or rule, despite what the Airbnb review policy states.

A lesson to be learned I guess, it's probably symptomatic of the shift towards competing with other platforms,, which are aimed at hotel customers, and away from the original Airbnb type of customer coupled with a call centre operation where box ticking and cost efficiencies outweigh good service delivery by knowledgeable staff able to use common sense.

All I can say is always, always, always make sure that you ask for any discussion by phone to be confirmed in a message by the Airbnb support staff and preferably try to avoid conversations by phone.  It's clearly far more quick and convenient for Airbnb to call than message but there's no evidence to fall back on if everything is handled exclusively by phone.  And, be persistent, it's amazing how the help and attitude varies from one person to another, so if you don't get help first time around, message again, eventually you'll find someone who isn't a slave to "the process" and who's willing to provide a common sense approach to helping, even if the result isn't what you want at the end of the day, at least they try.

[Emre136]

Update:

After speaking to 16+ ambassadors across 3 days, I finally connected with an ambassador not located in an Indian call center.

After listening to situation, actually taking notes, taking a look at the evidence, he said he would follow up with he’s colleagues and supervisor to find out the best cause of action to effectively get the review removed.

Now I had heard this from all previous 16 India based ambassadors, who then got back to me with an automated response on chat closing the case.

But this time, the next morning, I got a phone call from the ambassador letting me know the review has been removed and the rating updated according.