Guests who start New Accounts after recieving very bad reviews

[Anthony608]

I recently was reviewing some old messages and linking to some of the guest accounts, in particular those who had stayed over a year or more ago and had caused problems in the home.  Mainly since I was curious if the problem had persisted and what I found was interesting.

90% of the really bad guests had no further reviews after mine (which had been negative).  There were two guests who no longer had accounts.  One of those had been a homeless woman staying with me nearly two years ago and I had checked her account before and had seen numerous other negative reviews about her drug use, how she had destroyed rooms, and had smoked in houses with no smoking rules.  What makes that particularly interesting is I am almost positive I received an instant booking request recently from a no-review account, established last month, that was her.   The account had knowledge of the house specific to her stay and signed under her name, which was different from the account name which appeared to be a type of handle (see had used "Princess" before under her old account, which was not her real name).

This brings up an interesting question.  Does AirBNB simply allow horrible guests with bad reviews to just start up new accounts?  Are there no safe guards to make sure a 2-3 star guest, who had caused major issues in residences, is not simply starting over with a clean account?  I wonder, with that said, how many of those other 90%, with no reviews after mine, simply started up a new account because I gave them a bad review.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Anthony608 If a guest has a different email address and a different credit card it is very hard for Airbnb to stop them opening a new account as names do not sufficiently differentiate in many cases.

[Cristina838]

What about a government issued ID. I think it is easy to verify their real name. We as hosts have to provide personal information to prove that we are who we say we are.

[Ricardo2258]

And guests generally have to provide IDs when they check in any rental. Perhaps, Airbnb should do more, legally.

[Anonymous]

@Anthony608 The majority of those badly reviewed guests probably didn't bother to start new accounts, as they were either not booking accommodation or choosing different platforms. But it's very easy to start a new account - even if you've been "banned" by Airbnb. You can even create an account with a fake name and still have Verified ID. A bad review can be a big setback to a member with a well-established reputation, but realistically anyone can have burner accounts if they want to. In other news, that lady in the dirty video is not really his Stepmom and Santa Claus was actually your parents. Sorry.

[Anthony608]

@Anonymous- The idea that people are using, as you describe it, "burner accounts" speaks volumes of how little AirBNB places on us, the host's safety. In my hosting experience, there have been about three cases where I was setting myself up for real retaliation by leaving a negative review but did so because I felt it was my obligation to post to an account that could be a danger to others.  All three were from the local area and one of them, I remember well, had actually been involved in an incident with another host where he had returned to the residence in anger about a negative review.

We as hosts can have our accounts suspended and terminated, apparently with little to no explanation, and it would be very difficult to start up again.  This not so for the guests who, with a string of bad reviews, can simply "go over the next hill", start up a new identity on AirBNB, and continue with business as usual.

[Cristina838]

I find it very disturbing to feel that your can't be sure who your guests are.

I have had guests using friends accounts with good reviews, to make reservations for them. Horrible experience for both of us.

This practice should be penalized by Airbnb or at least warn guests that their accounts could be canceled.

[Anthony608]

@Cristina838- I couldn't agree with you more.  AirBNB does have a policy *against* third party bookings but they seem to never enforce violations.  I have recently had two back-to-back cases of this.  Both were for stays of only two or three days, and we did not realize the person was not the registered guest until the end but I still mentioned it in the review.

The first case was a male guest with a generic name like John, etc who sent a message that "he was coming to town for work" or something like that.  It was later discovered that a middle aged woman had entered the house and she apparently was sick and had shown up wearing a hospital gown and had rubber tubes with her from whatever procedure she just had.  Upon checkout, she had left both the tubes and gown discarded in the room requiring deep cleaning with bio-hazard like care (I don't think she had COVID, but this still made me very angry).

Second case, just a few days ago, another generic male name, instead arrived a female guest and a small toddler.  They wound up trashing the room leaving food and trash covering our carpet requiring deep carpet cleaning.  Again, I left a negative review but other than this, both of these accounts will probably continue with business as usual.  The only solace is that other hosts can see what I wrote in the review and be on guard against these accounts.

[Brian2036]

@Anthony608 

I doubt that in actual practice Airbnb cares very much about who or what the guests are, providing that they pay in advance.

[Scott554]

Yeah, similar experience

[Katie93]

I just had a quiet and polite guest here for a 15 day stay. He didn't have any reviews when he requested to book. I pointed this out and asked that he tell me more about himself, as this is a shared home situation with me, a single female, and my dog. In the past I've asked for references, but can get a feel for the person when they give me more info.  If they don't want to deal with the hassle, they'll find another place. He told me he changed his phone number and canceled his account, and would've done things differently had he thought about it. Then he told me about himself, it all sounded good and I accepted his request.

He ended up being a little odd, but fine. We had some good conversations. He did leave messes in the kitchen of crumbs on the countertops and floor and water under the Keurig every day. 

After he left, I found a carpet of food crumbs in the bedroom and crumbs and stains everywhere he ate: on the bed, the shelves next to the bed, the desk as well as the floor. There were dried ketchup looking stains on the floor under the desk and splattered on the wall somehow! 

In retrospect I wondered if he had deleted his last account because he had bad reviews. I mean, why else would you ever delete your account as a guest?!  It's not Netflix where you're paying a monthly fee after all. When you're not traveling, you forget about it until next time. Canceling is intentional. 

I contacted Bnb about this and they said there were not any reviews below 4 stars on his "past account". After asking more questions, I find they're talking about his CURRENT account, not his past account! I was like, stop the presses, please call me. Per usual, the support person talked for 5 minutes without saying anything meaningful. I asked if guests could just delete their account when then had a bad review and get a new account. She went on to say there were many reasons guest delete their account: if their phone number or email changed, if they had a duplicate account, many reasons. Does that sound like many reasons to you? Or a good reason? No. I said if someone reinstates their account, their reviews need to be reinstated as well. She said the guest would need to request this. In other words, anyone with a new account who says they canceled their last account, run!! Now I know better. Bnb is not interested in protecting hosts, they're just interested in making more money. 

Thankfully, this guest was an ok guy. He was odd, The room was a mess, as though he had a 2 year old in there with him, but he did help me put my snow tires in the cellar. However, knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have accepted his request or any future requests when a guest says they "absentmindedly" canceled their account. 

[Joan2709]

@Katie93 

As you say, no reviews and then mentions he deleted his account? Red flag 🚩

In a home share environment, I don't think I would accept any new guests (or those that say they deleted their previous account).

I wish Airbnb would apply the same standard to guests as they do hosts. A Host can't delete their listing because they they got bad reviews and just open another one and a guest shouldn't be able to either. There are exceptions of course related to guest safety and privacy (stalker). 4stars might not be considered "bad" by Airbnb, but many hosts won't accept a booking from a guest with 4-star reviews.

[Joelle43]

Absolutely agree with you @Joan2709!!

So not only do guests get their scores rounded up where we get ours rounded down but now they can simply create a new profile if they have had bad reviews😡 Well that takes the biscuit if you ask me and is downright unfair for hosts (again)

[Joan2709]

@Joelle43 

This leads me to believe if a Host is using Instant Book, Airbnb doesn't consider a 4-star review as "bad review" and if you are using the optional settings; the guest wouldn't be blocked unless they had 3-stars or less:

[Joelle43]

@Joan2709 

Wish we had the same treatment then regarding a 4* review as a host because Airbnb definitely consider it as being under par where we are concerned.  What do we call that again?  of yes,  double standards!