New Airbnb Review Removal System

[Yasar14]

Hi.

Im wondering if someone can help me overcome this new system from Airbnb which is just the worst.

 Before when a guest would leave a bad review as a form of retaliation because we would enforce the cancellation policy, we could call Airbnb and speak to an agent. They would know and understand that it goes agains Airbnb policy (it clearly mentions it on their site).

But now, you have to fill up a form, and it always get rejected. 

This guest wanted to cancel on the day of his reservation because he couldn’t fly in. We have a strict cancellation policy. And he left us a bad review. Usually an Airbnb agent would have removed this.

After submitting the review removal form, it came back rejected. I called Airbnb and the agent said, it didnt violate anything. I asked them about their policy of which it states “a guest cannot leave a review in form of retaliation for a host enforcing a policy” as well as “if a guest never arrived for the stay, they cannot leave a review”. Both of which the agent said the review is ok as its his option. 

Can someone help please? Ive copied the review below. This is a clear cut case, this should have been removed. I dont understand why Airbnb support has become so poor recently.

“I had a very negative experience with Airbnb, especially with the host. Due to force majeure, it was impossible for me to travel, and they made no effort to understand my situation. I tried to change the dates of my reservation, but they didn’t accept it and didn’t offer any solution. In the end, I didn’t get my money back. I find it completely unfair that you can’t choose other dates or at least cancel the reservation when unexpected situations arise. Customer service was terrible — no empathy and no willingness to help. I will definitely never book through Airbnb again. I recommend looking for other options where you can pay directly at the hotel or apartment and receive more humane and fair treatment.”

[The-Ridge2 · Accepted solution]

I am having the same problem. Ive just posted this and I had the same issues, before I would call airbnb and it would get removed. 

We recently encountered a guest who:

• Broke house rules by smoking on the property (cigarette butts were found).

• Left rubbish in all 7 bedrooms and bathrooms, including tissues, wrappers, and other waste.

• Scattered a full deck of cards in the living area and left excess rubbish between cinema room seats.

• Overflowed both red bins, despite being informed they were empty at check-in. We had to urgently arrange paid bin removal so the next guests had a place to dispose of waste.

• Left a full kitchen of dirty dishes and improperly stacked items in the dishwasher, most of which had to be re-washed.

After checkout, we issued a $400 additional cleaning and rubbish removal charge and here’s the critical part:
Airbnb reviewed the evidence and agreed the condition was unacceptable, even covering $200 of the charge themselves, confirming our claims were valid.

Yet, the guest left a misleading review, portraying the home as needing only minor cleaning and implying unfair treatment. We submitted a request for the review to be removed, referencing multiple clear violations of Airbnb’s Review Policy:

• Irrelevant content (eczema flare-up added post-stay with no prior mention).

• Retaliatory tone (only raised concerns after charges were applied).

• Biased and misleading descriptions of the mess and damage.

• A clear contradiction to Airbnb’s own actions (Airbnb paid part of the charge, yet allows a review to criticise us for the exact same charges).

Despite escalating the matter and highlighting that Airbnb's own support team confirmed the home was left in poor condition, they refused to remove the review.

Why this matters:
It seems guests can violate house rules (like smoking), leave a property in an unacceptable state, and then use the threat of a poor review as leverage to avoid accountability—while hosts who enforce fair charges are left exposed.

We’re sharing this with other hosts because Airbnb’s current review moderation system appears inconsistent, even when their own support actions validate a host’s concerns. If you’ve experienced something similar, let’s continue raising it.

Happy to answer any questions

[Lydia16]

When I am writing this I'm about to lost my Super Host status--a guest left me a 3 stars review staying her experience was a horror, while she did not check into the listing she booked but mistakenly staying in another room of the house during the entire stay. It is a 2b2b, and the guest booked a smaller room of the condo--while the other guest booked the larger one.

When the guest came, she choose to stay in the bigger room while ignoring the checkin instructions. Later on we had an water heater issue in the condo, and she left a 3 stars review for us. I disputed the review but got denied for many time which I feel extremely unfair, given the guest did not check into the right listing from the beginning.

[Ania-and-Greg0]

Can post your own screenshots of responses/denials in the same format as Ludo did (see below).

Ludo's post:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Support-with-your-bookings/Retaliatory-offensive-review-removal-...

I am compiling a list of systemic, deliberate violations of Airbnb’s review/content policy and Terms of Service to demonstrate that Airbnb purposely denies valid review removal requests and knowingly allowing libel, slander, vulgar language, and other unlawful content to remain publicly visible on their platform."

[Sam6090]

Hi Yasar,

I am having a similar issue that I just posted about as well. I had a guest that never checked in (her family stayed but she did not) and couldn't have a "genuine stay" because she never actually stepped foot on my property. Additionally, AirBnB doesn't allow "impersonations," so I'm not sure how representing someone else's experience isn't an impersonation. I followed their new procedure as well, and even though I have called numerous times, they keep upholding the decision; their reasoning is that because I let her family check in, the review she left is valid, which is not what the policy states. For context, I had 7 guests check out that weekend in addition to the reviewer in question (it's a multi-unit property) - 5 guests left 5-star ratings, 1 guest left a 4-star rating, and the last person didn't leave a review. The reviewer in question left a 2-star rating without even stepping foot on my property.

I would love to hear if you have a break through with your issue, and how you were able to successfully navigate the removal process. 

[Sam6090]

A little update, hoping this is helpful to someone else because I am still disputing my review. When I asked the AI Support Bot about my situation, it clearly agreed that the review violated AirBnB's policy. I have sent this screenshot to support, and they are "reviewing" again. I would encourage anyone that is having difficulty having a review removed that violates AirBnB's policy to ask the AI Support Bot about it because it will respond that it is a violation, and you can send that into AirBnB with your other evidence.