How to respond to a retaliatory review?

[Carrie234]

Hello all, I need your valuable opinions! Last week we hosted a family that was new to Air and it turned out to be a regrettable experience! They flooded the bathroom in the suite, cleaned up the mess with our bath towels. They then bagged up the towels and threw them in the outside garbage. We werent home when they check out and I discovered this when I went to clean. They didn't respond to any of my messages so I escalated it to Air. They also didn't respond to any othe Air's messages so they reimbursed me for the extensive cleaning required. I am still waiting for a decision on the request for replacing the towels. I will post my review once a decision has been made

In the meantime, I receive the dreaded email that they left me a review. The nerve!!! I took a few days to calm down but now I am preparing my review as well as my reply to their review. I have already contacted Air about removing the review but they said it has to be posted before they can review my request to remove it. 

Here is what I came up with so far.

My review for them:

​"Proceed with extreme caution if you decide to host [GUEST NAMES] & their kids. They plugged our toilet, flooded the bathroom and cleaned up the mess with our bath towels. Then they bagged up the towels and put them in the driveway garbage bins. No mention whatsoever of any issues during their stay so we didn’t have the opportunity to help with the flooded bathroom. Zero communication about what happened (after numerous messages were sent).   We did not enjoy having to replace the towels and spend excessive amounts of time cleaning, disinfecting and odor removal. Hopefully other hosts can avoid the same problems we had with these people." There is so much more I could say but I don't want to seem like I'm going on & on. Thoughts? 

My reply to their review:

"This proved to be our most challenging hosting experience to date. [GUEST NAMES] liked their stay much less after we asked them to reimburse us for the damages they caused during their stay. They flooded our bathroom, cleaned up the mess with our bath towels then threw the towels outside in the garbage. We received zero response after numerous attempts to communicate with them. We definitely would have dropped everything to help but we were not given that opportunity. All of the other issues (cleanliness, lack of communication and additional guests at check-in) were overlooked as we wanted them to enjoy their vacation. We take pride in hosting a great stay for every guest & all of our 5-star ratings didn't come by accident."

I don't want my review taken down for any reason so I am being selective of what I say.

What do you think?

[Carrie234]

@Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 @Sarah977 @Lisa723 This is all great! Thanks for your input... I anticipate the review will begin with "Don't take a poo if you decide to stay here..." further going on and on about things like a worn out dirty dish sponge, tiny bath towels and a pathetic bath mat...

I just checked and I have 5 days to write my review. Sadly I don't think the rest of my claim will be processed by then so......... I guess I'll be writing the review soon than I prefer...

I'll update as I know more....

[Lisa723]

@Carrie234 there's no reason to wait for the claim to be processed. If you say anything about a claim, that's against Airbnb's content guidelines and they'll likely remove your response-- so, don't mention it. And by the way, the same is true of the guest's review, so if they mention it you can probably get the review removed.

[Mike1034]

@Carrie234 and @Lisa723 @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 I read the review. It is pretty bad and untrue and picky. They picked up small things and exaggerate. But it seems that the words they used may not violate the content policy laid out by Airbnb. It could be very difficult to ask Airbnb to have it removed.

Airbnb has this policy that when a review is removed, reviews from both sides will be removed. Since @Carrie234 received 1 star only, it dramatically pulls his star rating down. I wonder if we could intentially write the claim in the review to the bad guest because we really want the reviews to be removed. What do you all think about this idea? @Lisa723  @Ian-And-Anne-Marie0 @Sarah977 @Carrie234 

[Lisa723]

@Mike1034 what's your evidence that Airbnb will pull both reviews? I have not heard of that. Also, when they remove a review they do not remove the rating (stars).

[Mike1034]

@Lisa723 I had one guest who gave me a retaliatory review and she used some words which are against Content Policy. I called Airbnb and they did remove the guest's review and also removed my review. In the meantime, the 1 star rating given by her was removed as well. But I don't know if my rating to the guest was removed. It could be removed as well.

[Lisa723]

@Mike1034 that's surprising. So, if you anticipate a poor review, all you need to do is preemptively violate TOS in your own review? Crazy.

[Mike1034]

@Lisa723 I am thinking the same way as well. There are numerous crazy or stupid policies/rules made by Airbnb. Just put a few here

(1) Only first name is shown when a guest inquires your rental while in the Airbnb community we can see each person's profile.

(2) Retaliatory reviews are accepted even though it is untrue

(3) Reviews could not be edited even for mistakes such as spelling errors

(4) Overall star rating is independant from star ratings in each category. Therefore, you could get all fives in each category but a 3 star overall. It used to be fine to have all 5s in each category but 1 star overall.

(5) Lies are excluded from Content Policy in reviews. But lies are not allowed in their Terms and Service Agreement.

(6) House rules are not respected by Airbnb. How do you expect guests to respect then? One example is that guests with children still can book the listings which have rules not suitable for children. https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Adults-Only-a-complete-mess-with-bookings/m-p/1019807#M2...

....

Too many to list all of them.

BTW, if the guest does not call Airbnb for removing the review given to the guest, Airbnb will not remove the reviews. Therefore, even if a host intentionally violates the review Content Policy, the host may not have the luck to have the bad reviews and rating removed.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Mike1034 @Carrie234 @Lisa723 @Sarah977 

used some words which are against Content Policy.

Yep. The best way to deal with a guest like this or when you suspect the guest would give a retaliatory review,  is to somehow spoil the review. Good idea.

Naming the guests Full Name and where they're from would be a very bad idea and could definitely spoil a review. Guests hiding under anonymity is easy when they want to lie or make false accusations. Bringing something like that out in public when replying to a false or defamatory review could potentailly be unforgivable.

Also, WE... ANYBODY, can REPORT any review just by clicking 'Report' on the review. Scant detail is needed, but reporting every guest review like this containing untruths will give ABB notification to investigate them. Who knows, if this happens a lot there may be some adjustment of the review system. 🙂

Therefore, even if a host intentionally violates the review Content Policy, the host may not have the luck to have the bad reviews and rating removed.

Sometimes unintentional text from the host might just slip out. I sometimes produce drafts and have just managed to save first drafts from being published after getting my popy & caste mixed up. So as a help to preserve anonymity of guests - that report tool could be really useful if needed to remove something inadvertedly posted -  I'll remember that If I post something by accident and I need to report myself.

Is not a mention of ABB intervention in a resolution case a route to having a review deleted?

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Lisa723 You could wait until you use your reply?

[Cody96]

I'm looking at Carrie's reviews and I don't see the negative one.  Am I missing something?

[Sarah977]

@Cody96  Scroll down near the end of the thread on the last page. She brought it to Airbnb attention and they removed it!

[Sarah977]

@Carrie234  The only reason to wait til the 11th hour to leave a review when you are waiting for a payment resolution is if the guest has not already submitted one, which is not the case here.

Submitting your review now, then seeing the guest's review and responding to it if necessary (or asking for it to be removed if it violates policy) will get this nasty chapter of your hosting career on the road to oblivion, regardless of how the damage claim works out. No need to drag it out for another 5 days.

Plus we're anxious to see the show, not just watch the trailers 🙂

[Carrie234]

@Lisa723 I won't mention it. I was planning to say something along the lines of "GUEST liked their stay much less after we asked them to reimburse us for the damages they caused during their stay." Do you think that would be enough for Air to take down my review?

@Sarah977 I see your point. The only other reason I want to delay (even for 2 more days) is because we have some upcoming bookings and I'm worried about getting cancellations IF our upcoming guests see this review. 

Needless to say, I will most definietly be asking for the review to be removed

[Lisa723]

@Carrie234 I don't know for sure, but I'd guess probably not, since you don't mention Airbnb's involvement or the result.  FWIW, I really like @Sarah977's suggestion (with minor wording change for benefit of the squeamish) because it is direct and professional and focuses on the review, not the guest. "...liked their stay much less after..." seems kind of coy/flippant to me.

[Sarah977]

@Carrie234  I doubt that already booked guests, especially ones due to arrive in the next couple of days, are likely to go back and read your reviews again,  but of course it's not outside the realm of possibility, so I can certainly understand your reasoning.