Inaccurate and extortion review issues? Anyone else?

[Eric9467]

Hi everyone,

I’d really appreciate some perspective on a recent situation. A guest had to leave my property a few days early due to a personal emergency. They let me know after already checking out and kindly asked if I could offer any refund if the remaining nights could be rebooked.

I responded with understanding, adjusted the calendar right away, and told them I’d be happy to issue a refund if any of the unused nights rebooked. Unfortunately, no bookings came in for those dates, and I let them know that as gently as I could.

A short time later, the guest left a 3-star review with low categories throughout, with review only saying:

"If you ever get into a medical emergency and have to shorten your stay, don’t expect to get any help or consideration from this host."

I was pretty disheartened. It feels like they were frustrated and chose to take it out publicly, despite my efforts to help and stay aligned with Airbnb’s policies.

I flagged the review with Airbnb, but it hasn’t been removed. Based on the Review Policy, I thought this would qualify as retaliatory or misleading since:

• It ignores the actual help I tried to provide

• It was posted after I couldn't fulfill their refund hopes, seemingly to extort and apply pressure

• It gives the impression I was uncooperative when I wasn’t

Am I misunderstanding something here? I know we all get tough reviews sometimes, but I do my best to be kind, communicative, and fair. I genuinely wanted to help, but I also couldn’t refund nights that weren’t rebooked when cancelled so last minute. As you know the rentals have not been booking great lately.

If anyone has handled a similar case or knows how to get Airbnb to give something like this a closer look, I’d be grateful to hear how you approached it.

Thanks so much for your time.

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

@Eric9467 

All you can do is write a public reply to the review; which you did. You could try to get the review removed as retaliatory, but many Hosts haven't had good success with that. 

I think maybe a partial refund of the cleaning fee might have helped, but you still might have gotten a 3star review. 

[Eric9467]

@Joan2709 Thanks for your insight. I agree that sometimes there is no perfect solution, especially when a guest decides to change the narrative after things do not go their way.

What makes this particularly disheartening is that the guest clearly said everything was great the morning after check-in. Despite that, they later marked down cleanliness in the review, only after I explained that I could not offer a refund for nights that were not rebooked. That does not feel like honest feedback. It feels like a reaction to not receiving something outside of policy.

As hosts, it is frustrating to feel like the only way to protect your rating is by issuing payments even when you are already acting fairly and with empathy. I truly believe Airbnb should provide better tools for handling these situations, especially when there is written proof that contradicts the review.

Thank you again for the support. It helps to know others have dealt with this and that we are not alone.