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

[Christine4243]

When you launch the suit please let me know, same issues 

[Rem2381]

Same here. Guest is lying and defaming my business. Dealing with all the dismissing that everyone mentions on this feed. Contacted a lawyer yesterday. 

[Sara-And-Rob0]

Did you get any advice you can share from the lawyer contact?  

[Sara-And-Rob0]

I have taken this approach in the last 24 hours, clearly pointing out a bold-faced lie.  I received the standard, 'We are sorry this wasn't the result you were hoping for...'  No review will ever be removed.  That is the gist of this all.  Zero review removal. 

Did you succeed?

[Mohit14]

So I'm also another of the SuperHosts affected by the review which was a total lie. As a matter of fact, we accepted guest's alteration request since he cited his daughter's medical issue, and he returns the favour by giving us a 1 star.

Contacted Airbnb and quoted their policy where they should be removing reviews where "Reviews that do not represent the author’s personal experience or that of their travel companions"

All I got in return were two standard answers that everyone of you will have got -

a) Review does not violate our policy (you can try to prove it otherwise in any way but they will behave like bots and keep repeating the same line)

b) You can respond to the guest review with your viewpoint (load of crap since you will come out looking bad whatever you reply and most guests would rather trust the one bad review over tons of positive reviews)

And lastly when you tell them that your rating has also been screwed, they have no answer but to say it will get better after you get a couple of positive reviews.

The whole conversation will continue in this loop till either you give up and hang up, or they put you on Mute and do other things till you get tired and hang up.

I don't know who will read this rant of mine, but if you do, please pass on one suggestion to whoever at airbnb can listen -

Don't allow guests who have cancelled or altered their dates to write reviews because 99% of times they will screw over hosts by either giving a bad review or holding them at ransom with threats of negative reviews in return for waiving cancellation charges.

Their customer service are simply too vain to understand that their callous attitude to this issue can result in loss of jobs and livelihoods beings destroyed!

[Dawn-and-Tom0]

I'm thinking a lawsuit (possibly class action) against Airbnb for libel might do the trick. If they publish libelous information and refuse to remove it then they are just as liable.  Yes, an attorney speaking here...

[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..

[Sara-And-Rob0]

I am another host in your boat Mohit14.  I run around in these loops all the time.  Airbnb will remove nothing now.  It is an entirely pointless exercise and the 3rd party, outsourced support can only copy and paste false sincerity messages without regard for reviews that lie and fail to inform the community they claim they are protecting.

It's like if your child breaks the neighbor's window with a ball and the child runs between your legs and then the neighbor comes over to say he saw the child throw the ball against the window, the parent just says, shhhh, it's ok, I won't do anything about your window but we understand how frustrating this must feel.

You can guess who is who in my analogy.

I am quite honestly considering leaving this platform and renting our apartments long term.  It feels that this is the direction Airbnb wants small hosts to go in.  It feels passively designed to build enough anger that hosts will leave.

We are almost there. Review removal is just one symptom, the overall guest quality has dropped significantly since COVID and guests are failing to read the most basic parts of the descriptions and house rules and simply ask questions that are already answered in the first sentence of the description.  They then experience issues during their stay and blame the host, in turn, writing negative reviews.  We check in on our guests during their stay with a quick message asking how things are and to let us know if something is not meeting their expectations so we can take action.  No one ever asks but we get those reviews that, had they clearly reached out, we could have steered the experience in a positive way.  There is no guidance for guests from Airbnb.

I have offered about 200 feedback requests in a row recommending Airbnb create a 2 minute video for all guests to watch and confirm watching explaining what is expected of guests.  Guest expectations are written in the TOS but what Airbnb guest, on this planet, reads anything in the TOS?

I am almost done with AIrbnb's lack of understanding and support, false sincerity and pursuit of shareholder satisfaction, regardless of the pain of hosts in the current environment.

[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...

[Sara-And-Rob0]

I have taken these exact arguments to each attempt to remove a review but the support bots can only copy and paste false sincerity replies.

Reading and replying to many messages in this one thread convinces me that Airbnb has no intention of listening to reason.  We hosts, are an impudent group of barking dogs that are not allowed in the building where the shareholders are counting their money.  This is not about us, in any way.  There is no humanity left in Airbnb and we are just forced to accept the scraps they allow us to keep.  We are all free to move on if we wish or, as so eloquently said in Batman, we can dance with the devil by the pale moonlight. Meaning we accept the unfairness, take our cut and move along.