Airbnb Reinstating Retaliatory Reviews After Removing Them

Airbnb Reinstating Retaliatory Reviews After Removing Them

Investor · Member since 2024 · 3 posts · 0 votes

We had a guess try to extort us for a free stay at our Airbnb. They effectively said they would leave a bad review if we didn't fully refund their stay. When we didn't offer them money back and they left a bad review.

We have received confirmation from Airbnb support multiple times that the review violates their policy because it is clear retaliation, and gotten the review taken down, but the review keeps getting reinstated and we have to request it be taken down again. Each time, we have to start from scratch with the support agents, making them verbatim read our messages with the guest, previous conversations with Airbnb support staff, and then Airbnb's review policy.

What can cause a review to get reinstated like this? I finally got an agent to tell me that the guest has to be notified when their review gets removed. Does this mean the guest is immediately calling to get it reinstated when they get the notification, or is someone in Airbnb support throwing this over the fence to another department that does not know what they're doing and reversing the decision?

Based on how our conversations with support, any contact with them is completely starting from scratch with as limited context as possible. Support agents start by just looking at the review and do not look at any of our messages with the guest or previous support communications.

Has anyone else dealt with this? How do we hold Airbnb accountable here and end this cycle? Is there any escalation options we can pull?

0Reply
40 views

4 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Real Estate Agent · Woodland Park, CO · Member since 2019 · 76 posts · 39 votes
    2y

    I would keep calling airbnb over and over until you get someone who can close the loop and fully remove the review. It depends on who you talk to unfortunately and the level in which they care so keep dialing and talking to people there until you get one who cares.

    Sorry you're dealing with this. We've had this happen and it took several people until finally the review was removed.

    ~ Lindsey

  • Investor · Member since 2024 · 3 posts · 0 votes
    2y

    Good to know! So have you had them get reinstated like this before? Does that mean they are in some kind of archived state but still easily accessible versus fully removed? If so, I am curious what it takes on their end to fully remove something instead of whatever they keep doing to us. Would someone actively be reinstating it or is there a multi step removal process and we are not actually getting through the entire process because we are only talking to the folks involved in the first step(s).

    Are there any keywords you can mention to the support staff to try to get someone more helpful or do you just keep calling until someone knows what they are doing? And is there any way to verify it has actually been done properly if and when we get there? We keep having agents tell us it will not come back only to see a follow up notification about the reinstatement a few days later.

  • Sarita ScherpereelBusiness Member
    Real Estate Agent · Chicago, IL · Member since 2018 · 659 posts · 376 votes
    2y

    I have had another odd issues with airbnb reviews showing up positive on my side but not on the consumer side. As long as you stay attentive to the emails and keep bugging you they will fix it. 

  • Investor · Member since 2024 · 3 posts · 0 votes
    2y

    What do you mean by positive on one side but not on the consumer side? Does the wording or rating change or something?

Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.