Guest blaming me for him being sick in a review

[Ádám21]

Need some advice on what to do as Airbnb customer service fails to address my issue with a review.

In this December I finally managed to list my second apartment on the platform, and I have received only 5 star reviews in the beginning, reservations were started to come in slowly but steadily.

All was good until one rainy night in December, I allowed a guest to book my flat, which seemingly was a huge mistake. The guy was smoking and drinking in the apartment the whole night, arrived around midnight and left in the morning. Me and my wife, we were not happy about the situation when we saw the apartment the next day, but we let it go.

After a week a two star review comes in from this guest, stating that the guy was freezing in my condo and because of that he is now sick, and I am responsible for that. Needless to say that the heating is working properly and he did not say anything about this problem during his stay.

Since this review I have ZERO new reservations and all I get from the Airbnb CS team is that the review cannot be removed, but they of course understand my problem with it. Whenever I explain them that blaming me or my business for someone's sickness might not be a relevant feedback about my condo, they just don't care  

At this point, I do not see what should I do, the thing I learnt from this is to never accept late night reservations and not to expect Airbnb customer service team to take their hosts' issues seriously.

What should I do? Delete my listing and start all over? At this point I am getting tired of the whole situation as Airbnb does not treat me as a business partner, while me and my guests pay serious service fees to their platform.

[Shelley388]

Hi @Ádám21,

I'm sorry this has happened to you. I was in a similar situation a few years back (during Covid when things were really tough for us STR hosts). I tried to get a retaliatory review removed without success and it took some time to get bookings coming through for that unit again(even though I was Superhost for 7 years at the time with a 5 star rating and I have a few listings).

Out of the blue I tried again (after 2 years) to get the booking removed and voila. They removed it! If you have any  messages between you and the guest that can show this was in some way retaliatory then keep fighting it. Or if you reached out to let the guest know he had violated house rules..then the bad review came in, you may have a case.

Check out Airbnb's review policy and see if there is anything in there you can use:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2673

I suggest responding to the review. Simply state the facts in a professional manner so guests that reading his bad review on your unit will be able to see your side of the story. I think this helps to show future guests that you are a professional host. I often search for only the bad reviews if I am booking a place to see what the problem was and how the host responded.

Unfortunately you will encounter bad guests but sadly Airbnb penalizes great hosts with tanking your listing with one bad review.

Best of luck!

[Ádám21]

Hello @Shelley388 , 

I greatly appreciate your support and your helpful response!

I'm a bit tired of fighting about it, I feel that the Support team wants to interpret the rules in a way that they don't have to deal with the facts I'm trying to point out. Many times they want to contact me by phone, I guess so they don't have a problem with the logs of their written response.

I have not received a new booking since then, it is a new listing so the rating is now low. The review is clearly not relevant and not necessarily related to my service, but now neither I nor Airbnb have any revenue from it.

I am now looking at my options on the other platforms. Basically I look at airbnb as a service, I find the attitude of their support team to the whole issue very strange, as if they don't understand that it's basically a B2B relationship with the hosts.

[Zheng49]

Just curious, what's the temperature in your condo? 

It IS possible that the temperature was cold for your guest. Also for the future, it would be a good idea to check up on the guest during their stay as well. 

[Ádám21]

Thanks for the advice @Zheng49 ,

During the winter months it is fixed at 25 C / 77 F. Guests can adjust this if necessary.

I contact guests as soon as they arrive to check on them and ask if they are happy or if there is anything I can do for them. In this case, the guy did not respond to my messages after he received the access codes.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Ádám21 Airbnb have got cute with those who delete and relist a listing in order to remove a bad review. You risk suspension/expulsion if you do this. Have you considered a response to his review?