When guests lie and Review Guidelines

[Dan132]

I've been a host for about a year now and love Airbnb. I really like being a guest but hosting is another matter. I've had some strange reviews from guests who didn't respect the guidelines of the house and clearly didn't read the profile. They didn't have the experience they wanted to left reviews with outright lies in them. 

The last review was the worst I've gotten. I contacted customer service and they said that the review didn't violate the review guidelines so they would not remove it. I asked if lying was acceptable and they avoided the question....repeatedly! I asked how far within the guidelines a guest could lie and, again, the avoided the question. I gave a hypothetical scenario....a guest claims there is no Airbnb at all and had to pitch a tent! Again, customer service refused to answer the question. 

I can understand why they don't want to mediate reviews, but when someone leaves a review that's totally inaccurate and downright false I find it troubling that Airbnb is not more supportive. Again, I can understand why they don't want to get involved or hear from hosts who can take honest constructive feedback....if your place is a mess then it needs to be cleaned, etc. 

In the recent survey they sent out I addressed this issue. As of today, I am really distressed to find such a large loophole in their review policy. For example, I have two brand new air conditioners in the house that have worked fine for everyone, but the last guest claims they "did nothing." We had record hot temps, he had done a long-distance six hour bicycle ride in that heat, and he was clearly not doing well after the ride. I also checked in with him to see if everything was okay, which is my routine, and he said nothing about the house not being cool enough....frustrating because I have a third unit in my studio that I could have provided.

I wonder if Airbnb is addressing this issue. A lot of hosts find this frustrating! I've invested a lot into this space and more improvements are forthcoming, and yesterday I pulled my business permit as the county is now requiring it. It's frustrating to think we have no recourse to guests who lie!

Dan

[Francesco816]

can't undertake a class action, you accepted that in the terms. they envisaged dat! 🙂

[Zivka1]

Can we do that

[Francesco816]

same here, exactly the same sequence of answers, it nust be a pre determined scheme for their call center ops, even if i always communicated by app messaging. they tried to call a few times but never picked up, i love to keep written trail of their bul**bleep**.

my only advice, when a fishy guest leaves, DONT review him/ her, so ypu dont prompt the {bad} review twice but they only get the default pushy message from airbnb. a st00pid c0w recently spoiled my long standing 5 stars by leaving a 3* overall experience, while she left 5* for everything else. still its the 3* that sticks, and it still burns..

[Peta7 · Accepted solution]

As of recent the platform agents only consider the Content policy and no other long standing policy or guideline is taken into account to have a bogus review removed.

We have also been advised that only the review may be removed in extreme cases but that the more damaging star ratings will anyhow stick to a profile?

After foiling a recent guest's attempt to Blackmail and Extort from us by denying him a FREE sleepover visitor resulted in us recieving the promissed bogus review with all its intended damages and as always requested to have the provable lies removed, obviously this did not happen as the guest did not transgress the Content Policy that clearly advise on how to make a bogus review stick.

We were refered to the Terms of Service we entered into but could not find this doc on the platform, however we did find a copy of this legally binding document with the help of Google and find the following extraction on reviews facinating:

10. Ratings and Reviews

10.1 Within a certain timeframe after completing a booking, Guests and Hosts can leave a public review (“Review”) and submit a star rating (“Rating”) about each other. Ratings or Reviews reflect the opinions of individual Members and do not reflect the opinion of Airbnb. Ratings and Reviews are not verified by Airbnb for accuracy and may be incorrect or misleading.

10.2 Ratings and Reviews by Guests and Hosts must be accurate and may not contain any offensive or defamatory language. Ratings and Reviews are subject to Section 5 and must comply with Airbnb’s Content Policy and Extortion Policy.

So now we find ourselves completely confused, perhaps someone could enlighten us on "Reviews are not verified by Airbnb for accuracy and may be incorrect or misleading." We ask ourselves... 'So why do we then get penalized and our listings suspended, what for?'

Then in (10.2) we read: "Ratings and Reviews by Guests and Hosts must be accurate......" will this then equate in a breach of contract entered by Platform and Host for allowing provable lies to be posted on the platform? And are we now to believe that the Review and the Star rating systems are 2 different entities always believed to be part and parcell off the Review?

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Peta7 Yeah, I was picking up on that myself: the "doublespeak" in these guidelines. On the one hand, they are clearly saying that reviews "must be accurate," but just prior to that, they say that reviews "are not verified by Airbnb for accuracy and may be incorrect or misleading." That's REALLY confusing.

Again, we are new to all of this, having just started hosting two weeks ago. So, this has been a huge learning curve for us. I hope that you were able to resolve this somehow and, more to the point, I hope that Airbnb clarifies its policies so that hosts can better know what to expect and what their rights are. 

[Ginger-And-Ryan0]

The contract says you have NO RIGHTS. And that is accurate. Complain and you will be booted from the platform. So suck it up and live with the abuse and lies from

guests.,

[Tanya528]

100% agree on all points! Excellent digging of the contradicting regs...

[Huck0]

Same thing here.  In our case, the review is actually generally positive but they dinged us a star on the accuracy of the listing then went on to say "There were two flights of stairs and no elevator. I did notice it in the listing but not until after I booked. My dad has mobility issues so I ended up having to rent additional space. Maybe it should be more prominent in the listing."  So the listing was indeed accurate and had the information they were interested in...but maybe it wasn't where they expected to find it.  Of course, Airbnb has said they won't/can't change the star rating even though it violates 10.2 in the terms and services that ratings must be accurate.

This particular story has more to it and is very well documented in the airbnb messages between the guest and me.  They booked the stay more than 6 months out and their first questions before booking were if we had a garage or storage space for them to store stuff in.  I quickly responded saying we did not have anything like that but there were several no contract storage unit facilities nearby.  I asked if they had any other questions about the space.  They did not and ended up booking.  Fast forward 6 months, about 2 weeks before their arrival, and I get a message from the guest that says "I just saw that there is 2 flights of stairs to get to the unit. Is there no elevator or other handicap access? My parents are planning to visit during the first week but my dad can't climb stairs very well."   I again responded right away clarifying that there was no elevator.  This (a) proves that the listing was accurate as she knew the answer to her own question and (b) indicates that she was planning on having more guests come to the space than she had originally booked for!  I didn't say anything as the space can handle the extra guests and I was to be an accommodating host when I can. 

My guess is that when she made the booking she wasn't even thinking about accessibility because her parents weren't going to visit....it wasn't until much later that this became an issue for her and then I have to take the blame for not including the lack of elevator in my listing title (or wherever she wanted the information to be).

This may seem like a minor quibble for a single star (I think I deserve 5 and she gave me 4) but I strive to be the Super Host that Airbnb calls me and the fact that I get dinged a star erroneously has me a bit miffed!  I see that you can now be very specific about adding accessibility features to your listing...not sure when the feature was added but even if it was added before my guest booked the accessibility features are all "not present" by default.

[Huck0]

When I pushed Airbnb on the violation of section 10.2 in the TOS they responded "the way we view it the guest sent this rating and review accurately".  What?  This makes no sense to me.

[Diana108]

Airbnb reps and case managers are not paid to make sense any more than guests are required to tell the truth. Don't waste your breath or your energy. Remember: it is a crazy system designed to make airbnb money.....that's all. You win some and you lose some - but trying to understand insanity can drive YOU crazy! I tried for MONTHS to get different "case managers" to understand that they had the wrong reviews on a listing I started in 2019 (and nobody had stayed yet) and the listing where the reviews were supposed to be showed "Nothing Yet" under Reviews. Although the reviews were dated 2016 - 2018, airbnb didn't care...........they just kept saying the reviews were with the correct listing.

[Mark3059]

I get 4 stars all the time, usually with no reason in their review.  And 5 stars in every area except "overall".  Ridiculous.  I recently had a guest that said she used to Airbnb her house but it became so stressful that she quit and sold the house.  I'm starting to understand why.

[Diana108]

Airbnb doesn't care if Guests LIE in their Reviews...........it's that simple. I asked today and was told, "No we don't care if they lie; Lying is not against our Content Policy/Rules." Plain and simple. So have at it with your own Guest reviews and READ reviews they have left for others. I closed my B&B early this season because I don't want to deal with the BS from guests AND airbnb.

[Diana108]

Oh, and don't bother to check in with the guests more than once to see if everything is okay and if they need anything. They will LIE to your face and stab you in the back with a horrid review and low rating. If they are liars, why would they do anything like telling the truth to your face?? That's not how Liars play the game!!

[Rich-and-Yan0]

@Dan132 Oh, that's just terrible. It sounds like you did everything you could to be a great host, but you ended up with a guest who was going to find a reason to complain no matter what.

I don't really know what to say, as we are completely new to hosting and are just figuring all of this out as we go. However, Farah had a good point when she said that you have to keep all of your correspondence within the Airbnb email platform, to safeguard yourself. I've heard of cases where hosts have given out their WhatsApp and then corresponded with guests, and then when a problem arose later, Airbnb wouldn't recognise the complaints because there was no evidence of it within the system.

So, I think that is a golden piece of advice. It may not help, and they may still not back you in the end. But at least you'll have a bit of peace of mind in knowing that you did work within the system to do the right thing.

Hope you finally get some resolution for this. Good luck!

[Jessica3282]

I am a new host, have documented messages via airbnb to guest and customer service, AND airbnb STILL allowed lies to be in the review by guests. I also have video proof and pictures, to which airbnb has done 0 to help with. So documenting via airbnb is NOT a full proof help nor a help or support as airbnb claim it is.