I will no longer post a bad review about a guest

[Megan160]

I had an awful guest experience and tried to settle it with the guest personally. She stayed at a reduced rate and then needed to extend her stay. We gave her an even bigger rate discount. When she left, she left the place a mess. Dirty, greasy dishes, pots and pans. All the furniture was in dissaray, both sets of blankets/quilts had spots and stains on them, there were crumbs in all the beds on the mattress pads (which had to be hand picked off), and she ruined a set of sheets.

I took 3 days to cool off before I texted her because we really went out of our way to help this guest and she took advantage of us. I told her I was unhappy about the state of the place and asked her to pay $50 to replace the sheets. Prior to this text, she had nothing but glowing reviews and thanks for me in all her texts. She did not understand why she should have to pay for her sheets because I was a woman and the damaged sheets were a result of a "woman thing" and thus I should understand. I said I shouldn't have to pay for her "woman thing".

After much internal debate, I decided to warn other hosts and gave her an appropriate but still not brutal review, even leaving out the refusal to pay for damages and passing on her lame excuse for the mess. She then gave me a bad review, lying about my place and me. Prior to this review, I had 5 star reviews. Now people think my place is noisy and I am rude. My bookings have almost stoped dead in their tracks after her review. Plus, my 3 month pre-book for Jan-March canceled right after the review. I have contacted Airbnb twice about this to no avail. I had responded to her bad review, but not in much detail because I assumed that if I could prove it was a retaliatory review, it would be removed. THIS IS NOT THE CASE! Not only will they not remove it, they won't even let me expound on my explanation to her bad review.

So frustrated! I am knee deep in the process of spending a lot of money to make my other 2 rentals Airbnb rentals and now I can't even get bookings in prime season. Airbnb penalizes us for trying to warn other hosts about bad guests.

[Susan737]

I just had a horrible experience with the guest, in fact I contacted AirBnB to shorten their stay. I was grateful for the kindness of customer service to help me get them out right away. I knew if I wrote a review most likely their retaliation review would show up. If I don’t review them they can’t review me. 
This person had no reviews prior to accepting. This was a business decision I made. This was a learning experience.

Some people are toxic, I tried to remove them from my consciousness. Why would I want to be reminded of them on a thread. 
I was happy to see that a review came through on them from another Airbnb host that showed up after he arrived here. Their review will be enough warning to future host.

I also changed my settings, I did have a auto setting discount for 28 day. I have removed that. I think it was a attracting bottom feeders looking for cheap places to stay. Business decision not worth it.

[Colleen253]

@Susan737 “I knew if I wrote a review most likely their retaliation review would show up. If I don’t review them they can’t review me.”

Your uderstanding of how reviews work is wrong.

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/13/reviews-for-stays

[Susan737]

I just followed that link that you sent and here’s what it stated. “

1. Reviews are only posted after a) both parties have completed theirs, or b) the 14-day period has ended—whichever comes first. Am I reading this wrong?

[Sarah977]

@Susan737  "If I don’t review them they can’t review me."

This is 100% incorrect. All reviews are published after 14 days regardless of whether both parties have left a review. You can't avoid a bad review by not leaving a review yourself. 

Also, reviews are blind. A guest can't see the review you left for them until the review is published and once they are published, a review cannot be submitted, so they can't retaliate to what you wrote in their review.

Now, some bad guests who are well aware they were bad guests may not leave a review unless they get a notice that you have left a review. Although they can't see the review you left, they assume it will be bad, so they leave a bad review. What many hosts do in these situations is to wait until 10 minutes before the 14 day review deadline is over, then submit their pre-written review. By the time the guest sees the notice that you have left a review, it will be too late for them to submit a review. 

However, if you get a notice that the guest has left a review before the review period is over, there is no point to waiting to submit a review yourself. Not submitting a review will not prevent the guest's review from being published.

Not leaving honest reviews for your guests is a huge disservice to other hosts. I'm sure you would have appreciated being warned about this guest, so that you could have declined their booking in the first place. Not leaving reviews for bad guests makes having a review system totally pointless. 

You are definitely not understanding the review policy you quoted. It means that reviews are published after both parties have submited theirs, or after 14 days. So if you and the guest both submit reviews 2 days after they check out, the reviews will be published then. Otherwise, any reviews submitted are published after 14 days.

[Susan737]

@Sarah977 wow I did not know this and this makes me nervous. So the 14 days start from checkout day. Maybe I should put that on my calendar. Yes I was feeling guilty about not doing a review. 
I have to say this person doesn’t seem the type to write a review. As I said there is a review on this person so future host will see that review. Yikes 

[Sarah977]

@Susan737  The 14 days start exactly from when you get the  first notification email to write a review. So if you get it at 3 pm on the 1st, the 14 days will be over at 3pm on the 15th. 

There is apparently a countdown timer next to your message stream witth the guest, that tells you how many days you have left, and on the last day, tells you how many minutes are left. I have never had a guest I had to leave a bad review for, so I haven't ever had to look for it, but other hosts here have said that is where to find it.

[Susan737]

I’m so glad today I went onto the community website. I’m going to make a point of getting on it more often.

I learned so much today. 1. I learned that I am not alone with some of my issues. 2. Learning more about the platform. 3. It’s extremely kind of people to take the time to address our issues. Thank you. 🙂 

[John5689]

I feel you r pain my friend.

I had a similar experience.

Guest arrived

15 minutes later , I got call from Airbnb saying , the guest said my place was filthy, run down etc..etc.

no photographic evidence, and she didn't look for alternative accommodation...hmmm..sounds like domestic pressure to me to get home...

I'm a superhost 90% + 5 Star rating over 1k guests,  previous and post guests gave me 5 star review.

Asked Airbnb to take down her review....no joy.

I find AIrbnb support staff aren't too bright...pay peanuts etc... 

not happy with Airbnb support...

[Michael8961]

I'm currently dealing with the same thing.  Airbnb doesn't seem to want to side with the host ever and this is extremely frustrating.  A guest left me 1 star and there's no proof of even a complaint 

[Karol22]

Best antidote to bad reviews is more great reviews. Offer a deal to upcoming guests. Surprise and delight them. Build those good reviews back and you're good to go. I'm really sorry to hear your situation. Bad reviews happen and it's never fun when they come. 

[Amber700]

I am a new Host and had a guest leave a terrible, inaccurate review because she saw “homeless people” near my property.

She contacted me and Airbnb in a panic - I cheerfully and generously refunded the entire amount and allowed her to cancel immediately (Even though I didn’t have to ; under Airbnb’s long-term stay cancellation policy I was entitled to keep the entire one-month rental amount).  

She never stayed at the property; she was on the property for less than one hour. She did not pay a dime for that reservation.  I formally objected to the review with Airbnb; they absolutely would not budge.

Airbnb allowed her review to go forward, because she came to the property and unlocked the door she had “checked in” under their rules, and so she was allowed to leave me a review.

Brought my rating down from a perfect five-star to a 3.67.

[Haotian2]

But your review is not visible to her unless published. So she based her review not on your review but only on your internal conversations? Now it's 5 years later I don't know whether the review rules changed

[Matthew1661]

I had a similar incident with similar issues with Airbnb. Customer support. The guest attempted to extort me by saying if I did not give her a full refund even though I had already given her half that she would have to say negative things about me on line. At that point, I felt I was being extorted and I would not negotiate with Terrace is basically the way I look at it. I immediately contacted Airbnb explain the situation, and this was before she even put a review out .

Keep in mind she didn’t even ask for the refund or demand it or say anything at all that there was a problem till she had been away from the property for three days. I gave her half the refund upfront because she didn’t use up all of the days that she was going to stay, but she already reserved those days in advance and paid but I went ahead and gave her half of it back   Which she acknowledged and excepted but then three days later, that’s whenever she started telling me there was issues of this, and this all over the place not one time was it told me brought to my attention to make a long story short she did a review that was just scathing And Airbnb, even though extortion is against their policy, they didn’t call that extortion even though it’s blatant to me. I even gave them the proof. And immediately after that review, my bookings went to zero I was getting steady bookings even though this was a new property, I was getting at least three a week , it went to zero. I guess I should’ve just given her the full refund, but I thought Airbnb would have my back. It doesn’t matter. If you have proof, it doesn’t matter at all with them they will not help you at all. In fact, the customer service guy said he wished he could  and he all but admitted that there was a policy that said they would do nothing they would try to make both parties agreeable, but they would do nothing to remove any reviews. I’m not happy, but it is what it is. 

[Laura2714]

How to leave a bad review for a guest.

Wait, 13 days and 23 hours.

You have 14 days to review a guest and the have 14 days to review you. After the 14 days you can not review them and they can not review you. 

Wait until the last hour of the last day to review them- and then the review function will time-out before they can give you a review.

This works for me cause it gives me a cool-off time to reflect on whether that person deserves a bad review or not. 

Usually by the time the 13th day rolls around I’ve totally forgotten about it and choose to let it go. 

But, yeah, wait two weeks to give the bad review 😀

[Rosa3226]

I have been hosting for a long time and my last guest were every host nightmare.

The husband was nice and communicate with but his wife was very unpleasant. She said everything was wrong from not knowing how to switch the lights on to.. Everything. 

I offered them an extra day on me as I thought this would change her attitude but it only made it worse. When they left the place was the worst any guest had ever left it. There was the smell of rotten meat and fish, there was crisps all over the floor, bed, table etc.. There was water on the floor, table, and kitchen counters. Stains on the bedding and my large pedestal fan was broken. I had to get extra cleaners and after cleaning the whole day we could still not get rid of the rotten fish and meat smell in the whole flat and fridge. 

I have to right a review to warn other hosts out there but not sure how to go about it as am very still upset.

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.