Peculiar AirBnB policy about revenge reviews evaluation…

[Don-And-Emily0]

We are new to AirBnB and had a nice streak of excellent guests until we rented to a very young man without reviews.

He turned our home into a frat party house! He brought in extra guests (we caught him on camera) and huge amounts of alcohol, smoked behind the house, damaged our new jacuzzi, broke a door screen and then stole robes and towels…etc 

At the end of his stay he said he really liked the house and would like to return, however, after we confronted him about the stolen items he got angry and left a lengthy malicious 2 star review full of lies.

We have asked AirBnB customer service 5 times to please remove his review to no avail, and each time they come back with the SAME cookie cutter reply: “his review does not violate the AirBnB review guide lines”

What we don’t understand is the narrow-minded  AirBnB policy of ONLY looking at how a Guest WRITES rather than how a guest BEHAVES  in our homes.

We have an excellent 5 star track record with our guests and as you all know, a lot of effort goes into that. We work really hard and strived to offer a top notch product to our guests and to AirBnB. 

This particular guest has contributed NOTHING to the AirBnB community and yet his revenge review is allowed to stand.

The obvious question is: why is AirBnB not looking at the entire picture with some perspective, taking into consideration both parties’ track record, and they only make a call on whether somebody writes within their set guidelines??

Are we to believe that guests can break the house rules and vandalize our property but if they “write pretty” they are off the hook and there are no consequences for their behavior?!

We feel we brought value to the AirBnB experience, but someone who has done nothing is allowed to negatively impact our ability to rent our property going forward. How does that help us or anybody in case?

Airbnb needs to review this policy and do better. As hosts, we don’t feel supported or appreciated in this “partnership”. We have one more (return) guest and after that we will take down our listing unfortunately. 

Thank you for reading.

[Don-And-Emily0]

Hi @Colleen253  

Thanks for your note. We are new to AirBnB but have been in the Realestate business for 30 years, renting our properties through agencies. 

The  difference with AirBnB is that most transactions are automated and common sense is lost. 

Like you said most people are lovely. Some came as guests and left as friends, but this excellent track record is lost on @AirBnB  

They really need to finesse their policies to take the history into consideration and not just look at how somebody “writes a review”

[Sarah977]

@Don-And-Emily0  Never heard of a hidden review nor have I ever seen anywhere that a host could ask for it to be hidden. The rep just spouted off whatever popped into his/her head in the moment. It's a fabrication.

But since they claim you asked for it to be hidden, I would insist that it be unhidden.

Like Lisa, I have doubt that the review left for you has anything to do with not getting bookings. You haven't been hosting all that long so may not have had a chance to see patterns in booking.

For instance, I have rarely gotten a booking from May- Oct. It is just too hot and humid here at that time of year and tourism is basically dead. The tourists who do come want a pool and AC, neither of which I have.

Then in many places the times after holidays can be quite dead. Like after Xmas/New Years, Easter, and Sept, after summer holidays. People have had their vacations and are back in work/school mode.

Although you don't have a lot of reviews yet, that review is so obviously an outlier that I should think most prospective guests would dismiss it. I certainly would if I were a guest.

But if you ever get a bad revenge review again, try to make your response brief. All that's really needed is something along the lines of "This is a revenge review bearing no resemblance to real events, left due to this guest being asked to ____". Please refer to our other reviews for an accurate picture of what to expect when booking with us."

As is, the guest's review is a long rant, and your response, while not ranty, sounds defensive and is far too lengthy. This calls more attention to the review than necessary. And future guests don't care about the details of some previous guest's bad behavior.  A brief, factual response makes the ranter look crazy.

[BenkaandKeith0]

No, we did not @Don-And-Emily0 But yes, we've seems all in this conversation been burnt, and taken advantage of by the company who cares so **bleep** much about equality and inflated care of everybody. Except hosts. We are no longer needed as we were when they were growing their business, so in last couple of years using and abusing the host is a norm of this platform. Congratulation on moving on and providing service for more honest travel platforms. Airbnb such to the extend no one could have imagined just several years ago. Speaking from experience and wishing you better luck on VRBO, they do have a quite decent clientele and recently greatly improving platform and way better customer support then Airbnb.

[Don-And-Emily0]

@Sarah977 @@Mike-and-Jane0 

please see my new response

[Angelica-Y-Jorge0]

@Don-And-Emily0 I can see you relisted your property. If you look under

Airbnb's policy for parties: https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/2704/party-and-events-policy

If you can prove there was a party Airbnb will remove the review as stated: "Guests who are reported for throwing a disruptive party or violating our rules on gatherings of more than 16 people are subject to suspension or removal from Airbnb’s platform. In some cases, guest reviews left after such parties may be removed."

Hope this helps

[Don-And-Emily0]

@Angelica-Y-Jorge  

Hi Jorge, we re-listed at the request of a family who has stayed with us before and loves the house. They are returning for a second stay in 6 months. 

The only proof we have, are photos of the insane amount of empty alcohol bottles left behind in our yard. This happened during winter time so the party was inside the house. Our closest neighbor is a mile away, so nobody heard the music or the party noise.

Thank you for taking the time to post the Party Rules. Maybe I’ll give AirBnB another call…

kind regards,

[Holly142]

I'm very interested in the outcome of this, please update as you know something. This is so frustrating for hosts.

[Don-And-Emily0]

Hi Holly - I will update the thread if there are any changes, but as I said before I have made 5 attempts to take down this horrible review and all  AirBnB is saying: we can’t review the case, we can only verify that his review is within the guidelines.

It is beyond frustrating and it shows lack of common sense. Nobody is winning in this scenario. Not us because our rentals stoped, and not Airbnb because if we don’t rent they don’t get paid.

It’s really fascinating that they would protect a person who added nothing (on the contrary) and chose to not offer their support to us who have worked so hard on this property to make it great.  It defies logic really. 

[Dave52]

@Don-And-Emily0  Hopefully airbnb's new policy as Jorge noted will help you get this revenge review taken down.  Hopefully you kept communication with the guest within the airbnb portal so you have backup for CS, always a good idea.  It will be nice to know the outcome of your case.

Some of you may have read about the recent balcony collapse at a Malibu beach house.  Dozens were injured some critically.  It was a STR with a 6 person max capacity, yet 30 or more people were there for an unauthorized birthday party and 25 on the balcony taking selfies when it went down!  Don't know if it was an airbnb but parties must be on their radar more than ever.

[Don-And-Emily0]

@Dave52 

We just filed yet another complained and used Jorge’s suggestion. 6 hours ago they said they are reviewing it and will call us back.

I will update the thread if @Airbnb comes to their senses and does the right thing and removes this vindictive review from a party throwing guests.

I just saw  this subject is trending at number 3 and almost 450 hosts looked at it so far in less than 24 hours

Guess we are not the only hosts  dealing with this problem. 

Please do the right thing @Airbnb - a lot of eyes are watching!

 @Brian.Chesky @Catherine.Powell

Thanks for taking the time to write. We appreciated it!

[Dave52]

@Don-And-Emily0   Good luck and hope it works out.  Seems like a "no brainer".

-Airbnb wants to ban parties, hosts want to help. 

-Airbnb should help hosts help airbnb!

[Don-And-Emily0]

@Brian-Chesky @Catherine-Powell

[James2566]

This happened to us twice recently. You approach the guest about a damage, they WILL leave you a bad review and AirBnb will NOT remome it. Only once did AirBnb remove it, because the guest threatened a bad review IF we charged him for a damage. That's a form of extortion so they removed it. It's demoralizing and damaging but they won't look at the full picture. It's best not to charge guests for anything and to make it all the cost of doing business with AirBnb. Otherwise, get ready for nasty reviews. 

[Don-And-Emily0]

Hi @James2566  - Thank you for your note. 

We have come to the same conclusion as well. It is so demoralizing. Sorry you had 2 bad experiences.

It’s unfortunate that @Airbnb  does not support us better. It is not easy to maintain a high quality property. We drive 2 hours each way to check on the house before every guest arrives. We have reinvested half the profits back in the house, even our children work on it… all these efforts are lost on AirBnB

Sorry to say They are not a good partner. This is why we are leaving at the end of the month, but before we do we are going to write the CEO.

Thanks for writing in. We appreciate all the comments

[Elaine701]

@James2566 

True. But as I mentioned in another thread... 

Since you're very likely to lose in any confrontation with a guests, no matter how bad they were or how much evidence you have to prove it... 

Better to not even bring it up with the guest, until at least after they write their review, because without confrontation, it's likely to be far more honest on their part. 

You can always write the absolute truth about the guest in your review. And you should, so other hosts know what they're getting.

But don't expect them to pay anything for trashing your place or breaking house rules or having an illegal party. As far as they're concerned, it never happened. You made the whole thing up 🙄