Terrible guest experience and negative review

[Gary1164]

I received a bad review after a terrible experience with a guest. 

It was a hosts worse nightmare.

The house was trashed a huge party.

I was fortunate there was not more damage.

Airbnb paid for everything so that was great.
But I can’t believe this person was not banned from Airbnb and even worse she left a negative review.

This review triggers Airbnb warnings that I need to work on things. It has been a super stressing experience.

I have asked 3 times for the review to be removed with no success. Below is my latest reply to AirBnB

Hi Ian.

Thank you for your reply. The problem is you are looking at the review in isolation of the events.

Gemma booked for two people, at least 8 to 10 people stayed. When confronted about this she lied. So I have been defrauded by her. Every bed was used. All the linen was used.

Gemma had a huge party at my house. Police had to come as well as an ambulance. There was drug abuse and drunkenness. I spoke to the policeman and he confirmed this.
There was a lot of damage caused by Gemma’s guests and Airbnb compensated me $2600.

Gemma over stayed 1 hour and 40 minutes after check out time that’s why the house keeper walked in without knocking. She thought no one was in the house at that time.

The house was a total mess there was food all over the carpet and empty bottles and cans. Rubbish was pushed into the cushions of the couches would you believe!

When confronted with all of this Gemma lied and said only two people stayed at my house.

She became annoyed and angry and left.

She left the bad review in retaliation of my claim for damages.

How can a guest like that not be banned from Airbnb?

How can a guest like that leave a damaging review?

Look at my other reviews and compare.

It is causing me a lot of stress to see her review after experiencing what was essentially a home invasion.

And not having your support is making it worse.

Thank you for reading this.

Regards
Gary

Ps I am thinking about going to the media about my experience

[Bhumika]

Hi @Gary1164 ,

I am so sorry to hear about your guest experience and from your post it is clear that you are stressed about this whole situation.

Although I am sharing this incident again with the Support teams, I also wanted to drop the review policy for you: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/2673.

I hope someone from the team reaches out to you again regarding this matter.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Bhumika The link that would actually help @Gary1164 is the one below. It gives four examples of what might cause a review to be retaliatory and Gary scores 4 out of 4. Quite why this bit of marketing is not in the actual review policy is beyond me but hopefully Gary can use this to get the review removed.

https://www.airbnb.co.uk/resources/hosting-homes/a/a-simpler-way-to-dispute-retaliatory-reviews-552

[Bhumika]

Hi @Mike-And-Jane0 ,

Thank you for sharing it! 

[Lorna170]

@Gary1164 @Bhumika 

I would like to know how it is possible to see a GUEST review that references the host review -- AREN'T THE REVIEWS UNSHARED UNTIL POSTED?  

IF guests can see MY review of them PRIOR to writing their own review, then by god, I am going to STOP reviewing altogether and probably leave this platform.

It's bad enough that a guest can trash your home.  Now they can see your review of them and respond with a point by point  retaliatory review.   It's supposed to be a BLIND review and not a back and forth crapshow.

We have NO WAY TO BE HONEST AND TRUTHFUL about horrible guests, warn other hosts and protect our property and reputations. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Lorna170 where are you seeing this?

[Lorna170]

@Mike-And-Jane0   When I went to @Gary1164 profile and looked at his reviews.  It appears that the rotten guest was able to read his review of them and respond to the points he made about them being less than good guests.  

AirBnB continues to make changes that concern me as a host.  IF I am wrong, and this guest did not see his review prior to writing their own nasty review, I stand corrected, but it certainly looks like they saw his review and responded to it.

[Gary1164]

I don’t think she read my review before she wrote hers.

She wrote her review after she was confronted about having a party and extra guests staying in the house.

[Gary1164 · Accepted solution]

Air BnB have removed her review.

I had to be persistent but I got the review removed.

It is as if they view the review is an isolated issue from the guests behaviour. 

Overall AirBnB were helpful and I’m happy with the platform.

Except for having all my listings suspended because of a ‘safety issue’ , that was terrible! They were very slow to remove the suspension and very poor in communicating.

As a result of this I have listed all my properties with Booking.com, VBRO etc, so I am not so vulnerable and rely on one platform.

I have received some excellent bookings from these platforms.

I thank you for all your comments 

[Bhumika]

Hi @Gary1164 , Thank you for coming back and updating us! Really glad to know it is resolved.

[Michelle1588]

Hi Gary,

I'm happy to hear it! I was just about to tell you to keep trying. It depends on the person you get on the phone which is an awful hit or miss kind of thing. I had many reviews removed. You gotta know what to say. I recommend reading the review policy for your location. Find out what is "not allowed," and if someone leaves a retaliatory review ever again be sure to build your argument "with" reasoning that is in line with Airbnb's violation policy. That is the "tip." You cannot lose that way. Enjoy! 

[Sara8246]

Hi Gary - I'm experiencing a very similar issue. Guest overstayed, misrepresented number of guests staying and caused significant damage to my property. Guest actually admitted to causing damage to my home in her retaliatory review. During Guest's stay, she told me how much she loved my property and asked to extend her stay. Airbnb still won't remove it and sends ambiguous/seemingly auto-response denials. How did you get them to finally remove? I lodged a complaint with BBB and I'm considering small claims court because, since the biased review, my calendar is more available than it has ever been. I wrote an analysis on Airbnb policy in relation to my scenario and I can't find any reason why they would leave the review on my listing. 

[Gary1164]

Hi Sara,

I think it was luck.

I finally got a person who looked at the whole scenario not just the review.

Your listing is excellent by the way 

Regards

Gary 

[Bhumika]

Hi @Lorna170 ,

Sorry for the late reply!

It is pretty much the same and there have been no changes to the review process i.e. reviews are only posted after both Hosts and Guests have submitted their reviews, or The 14-day period has ended—whichever comes first.

I wanted to share this article as well: Reviews for stays.

It seems like Gary has clarified below why the guest was able to write a review that connected with their review.

[Gary1164]

Thanks 🙏🏾