What to do when a guest breaking the house rules gives an unfair reviews and potentially destroy 5 star rating?

[Bernhard6]

WARNING TO ALL HOSTS, if you ever get a guest from Airbnb who offends against the rules. I had the issue that one guest shows up as two people while booked only for one during Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany in 2018. 

Airbnb did not check the situation and tried to judge without asking me as the host.

We have a review from a guest. If this gets accepted I could lose my incredible 5.0 host review forever. (Once you get a review below 5.0 you will never get 5.0 back.)

I feel treated in a very unfair and inequitable way. Airbnb did not follow my request to remove the review function on this cancelled booking. Airbnb explains this from the point of the guest’s given review only. Contrarily, he was the one who broke the clearly stated house rules. Airbnb did not speak to me in order to give me the chance for my point of view. Airbnb simply made the decision to keep the guest's review because his review would be not against the rules.

The solution approach is completely not satisfying.

I question the value of reviews for this booking. The guest never completed the check-in and hence never used our Airbnb. He was pushy and tried to force us to accommodate a second guest, who was not registered. My track record as a superhost shows that I hosted many satisfied guests of all walks of live and that I respect the Airbnb community. It would be in the best interest of Airbnb, the guest as well as the host community to bury the hatchet and not allow reviews from this booking. What would be the value anyways, when two negative reviews are written about a never completed booking?

I think Airbnb would lose confidence in such a case. With all due respect I can conclude as a superhost that this guest is not suited for the Airbnb community and maybe should consider using traditional hotels that can accommodate his changes of plans better.

[JiLiang0]

I met very bad case manager today, and very rude, I was asking talk to the supervisor, and supervisor is very rude as well, always broken my wood, not license to my opinion, and the guest didn't read carefully my room, and stayed 2 days in my house, and the case manager just say I didn't disclose the room well, and refund all money to the guest, which I lost the $264 !

Airbnb jsut care about the guest, since, guest give Airbnb platform 15% to 20% fees, and they don't care about the hosts. since hosts they didn't own money, just 2-3% for the process of credit card fees.

[Helen-And-Mario0]

I have mentioned this to the CC everytime I called in, not sure when they will implement it. 

[Susan1028]

That’s seems like a sound idea @Helen0 and far easier to administrate for ABB.  How many times do we need to provide feedback before they create policy?

[Guilherme125]

I had the same situation. I have contacted the airbnb and gotta the same answer.  I agree with you completely, however, this is airbnb policy. What gets on my nerves is: why do we have to pay to airbnb, if they do not interfere when it is necessary.

[Ava30]

In my opinion, because Airbnb takes a higher Service Fee from the guest than they do the Host, they are generally going to favor the guest in most disputes. Because they are not taking an equal percentage of service fee from Host and Guest, they cannot, again in my opinion, be considered a neutral arbitrator for disputes and issues. If they are going to continue with this unbalanced Service Fee, I feel they should get an outside agency to arbitrate problems. I also feel it is extremely important that the people that do arbitrate these issues be of varying ages. It appears that most, if not all, of the folks on the Customer Service lines, and even their superiours, are of a certain age group, mostly early twenties to MAYBE mid 30's. There are a large group, if not a majority, of hosts that are in the over 40 group. I have noticed over and over in these postings that they feel they are not fairly represented by Customer Service. It appears, just from what I see on the postings, that the majority of guest issues are from folks in their 20's. Not all, but most. I could be mistaken. I would love to see some consice data on this. 

[Gerry-And-Rashid0]

@Bernhard6 Not nice but people understand this happens: just say - brought more people than than paid for - you are a superhost - your reviews are excellent and one poor review will shine a light on the guest, not you

[Natalie401]

Sort of off topic here I began hosting a month ago and have constantly been booked since.

First time I'm hosting and feel very uncomfortable with my guests.  They are recording my home and had an additional guest come in without my permission.  Not sure what to do here!!

[Victoria567]

Hi@Natalie

This guests behaviour is unacceptable.

In a case like this you should Phone the air bnb Phone line asap, and tell them what is happening.

A guest should not be recording in your home.

A guest should not be making you feel uncomfortable.

You should tell Air bnb you do not feel safe and want to end the booking early without financial penalty to yourself.

Leave an honest review for this guest please.

[Ingrid186]

Hi Victoria,

Where do I find the telephone number to phone Airbnb?  I don`t seen to find it anywhere.  

Thank you,

Ingrid

[Ava30]

Hi Ingrid, start here to contact Customer Support https://www.airbnb.com/help/contact_us

[Marion406]

We just had the same. 2 booked short notice, 5 arrived. I made them aware that I won‘t accept this, and have my neighbours keeping an eye. 

We got the most horrid review and a 1.0 rating. We had averaged at 4.9 over 4 years. We dropped to 4.3, lost our Super host status. No backing from airbnb at all. Shocking. 

[Ingrid186]

Good Morning,

I hope you can help me with your experience as a host.

I have right now in my house a guest, that is new in AIRBNB and rented my house for a week.  10 young people.  ( I didn`t know)

They claimed that the housekeeper stole them money from their bags.  My housekeeper has not been able to enter the house to clean because they party all night and sleep during the day, and the bedrooms are locked. 

My housekeeper has been working for the house for more than 15 years and we received guests from all over the world, families mostly.  Because this area is a family vacation destination. and never has a problem like this.

House Rules they already broke up to date: 
1.- Bringing people to the house that is not on the guest list, from the outside. 

2.- Party all night, very noisy.  I already have complains from the neighbors 

3.- The house is a mess and they have more than 15 people extra sleeping today in my house.  

All these happened the last 2 days. While I was away for two days, I just arrived today.   So, they sent me a message last night threating me that if the Money does not appear they will write a review on Tripadvisor and Airbnb and ask for a refund.  

I took photos of the 6 cars that are parked on the street outside of the house.

I`m about to ask them to leave my house.

Any recommendations before I do that?  Should I put a review on Airbnb before they do? 

Any advice on this,

Thank you,

Ingrid

[Susan1028]

@Ingrid0 

call ABB support immediately andcteport them.

im not sure about your local police support, but if theyre disturbing the peace in the US, they can be reported,evicted, and you’d have that as documentation of the nature of the problem and the number/names of people involved as proof they’ve violated you house rules and the community of trust on ABB, trip advisor, etc.

Above all, contact ABB asap so you can have it on the record there and remove them (using legal means) from your home, and be able to keep whatever rental funds/security deposits you’re entitled to based on policy and pursue damages and additional cleaning costs.

Be sure to have photos/video of everything, at least before and after, and pursue police help—there are unregistered guests (tresspassers) in your home.  if there are witnesses amongst your neighbors/your housekeeper, etc,  have them provide statements to the police/for air BnB/ trip advisor, etc., if the guests actually follow through on thier threats to retaliate—which is harassment and intimidation, also grounds for eviction in the US.  

A hotel chain would have had the police evict them and padded thier exit bill to the hilt for behavior like this.

Are they nationals or tourists?  If the latter, there’s another legal layer to this that’s unlikely to weigh in thier favor.

You do not have to allow this in your home, and if they damage it you will need all of this anyway for claims.

You also have the right to review them (please do-other hosts will thank you) and reply publicly to any negative reviews they may leave about you.

I hope they’re banned from Air BnB.  

So sorry you have to deal with such an immature, entitled, rude group.

Please let us know how things turn out.

Best of luck to you! 

[Ingrid186]

Susan,  Thank you  for your answer and advise.

I will review them with details of their stay for other hosts to see.

Have a good night.

Ingrid

[Saroj1]

Same thing happened to me yesterday. I had to cancel a reservation ater the guests checked in cause the guests were rude, arrogant and broke the house rules. This was the first airbnb booking for the guest. I issued them full refund. The guest got so upset that she started shouting bad words inside the house. She called me "fu...racist". She threatened me that she will destroy my property. She later called airbnb and told flase things about me which airbnb beleived. The guets has messaged me via airbnb saying "you are a bitch". I got an email this morrning that the guest has written a review. I spoke to airbnb but they said that they cannot remove the review cause it is not yet public. Also they said that cancelled reservation guests have the right to write revies. So unfiar. we work so hard to become superhosts but airbnb policies are not fair.