Unfair retaliatory review not being removed after Airbnb update

[Phil-And-Aquilla0]

Brian Chesky in his video today named 10 changes for Airbnb hosts. One was making it simpler to remove an unfair retaliatory review. So I tried to get what I considered and unfair and retaliatory review from last year, a 2 star review surrounded by a sea of 5 star reviews. . I got nowhere. I was quoted the usual spiel: "In other words, since we're a third party entity not present during the reservation to accurately determine the reality, we do not intervene in disputes regarding the niceness, fairness, or truthfulness of a review. We only remove reviews if our content and review guidelines are violated, and we cannot make any exceptions." So in other words nothing has changed. I would like to know just how it is simpler to remove unfair reviews. Sadly the support staff member was unable to answer that one for me.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Phil-And-Aquilla0 I would wait a little until the CS staff are trained. They are poor at the best of times and it will take time for new policies to trickle down to them.

On your specific case a 2 star review by itself is not enough to get it removed. What was the retaliatory element with respect to this review?

[Phil-And-Aquilla0]

@Mike-And-Jane0, Yes, I would agree about the CS staff training, though they try their best. In the early days (I have been a member since 2012) there was a lot more flexibility and a lot more common sense. Now the staff are more robotic in their responses. They're not trained to have a mind of their own but to simply toe the party line. My guest had backed into my metal garage door and caused some damage. In the guest's  review, she said that I had made out that the damage to the garage door was worse than it was and, yes, that was my initial reaction but after I had knocked most of the damage back into shape I let the matter drop and made no claim against the guest.

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Phil-And-Aquilla0 Sadly, if you had charged the guest then the review could be said to be retaliatory. As you generously didn't I fear the review may end remaining on your account.

[Tina9064]

I'm in a similar spot, only difference is I got a 1-star review after a solid year of 5-star overall reviews. In short, here's what happened. 

Recently, a guest showed up with his 6 yr old son, which exceeded my max guest limit AND in violation of my house rules that said my home is "unsuitable for 2-12 year olds." I was put on the spot, but given this was at night I let the family stay but told guest this put me in an uncomfortable situation. Guest cancelled remaining 2 nights online and the next day, wanted refund for those. I explained my no-refund policy and he got upset and repeated his request. After asking him more about why he brought his son, I realized this was a last-minute thing and offered to refund him one night. He remained upset and left. I still gave him the one night refund and since no good deed goes unpunished, now I have a 1-star review that's brought my rating down from a 4.89 to a 4.82.

Despite AirBnb's policy for guests to "not write biased or inauthentic reviews as a form of retaliation against a Host who enforces a policy or rule" this is obviously contradicted in the following response from their support team. 

"In order for a review to be removed, the contents of the review has to be in violation of our policies, after checking several times through the review which was left for you, the review did not violate our polices. We also do not remove review based off truth or fairness."

"Based on the content in the review, we could not find any content or language that goes against our policies, we understand that this may seem unfair to you and wish that there was something else that could be done however, we are not able to make exceptions or override the policies." 

So, it doesn't matter that the guest violated house rules, or that his review was untruthful, or that he admitted in his review that he violated house rules, only that his review didn't violate AirBnb policy....which is for guests to respect and follow house rules and not retaliate when a host tries to enforce them. In short, I think this is just about the most hypocritical policy ever seen from a world-wide business.

[Fred13]

Actually it is quite a positive leap for Airbnb to finally understand and begin to address that abusive behavior is not confined to just one side, but to both (host & guests). The deviation from the old the-customer-is-always-right regiment will take some time, but the change will ultimately come; a good thing, a very good thing.

[Gillian166]

@Fred13  agreed, but only if it's actually put into practice, rather than just saying they are doing it.  

Let's see if anyone comes here to report a success story. 

[KandM-Premier-Vacation0]

Agreed~! We went through our account and submitted about eight clearly retaliatory reviews. All with  messaging in the platform we asked the Airbnb support to read. All stated how much they loved the houses, how clean they were, etc. All until they damaged things and we charged for it. All wrote reviews saying it was horrible, dirty, etc. We asked Airbnb to read the messaging and remove the reviews per their new policy. These are clear cut cases. What did we get back? Standard messages both from customer support and a supervisor that they read the review and it didn't violate their review standards. This is just more of the same from Airbnb....no support for hosts. More talk and no action. So disappointing.