Post by High Priestess on Feb 11, 2016 5:58:37 GMT
Sathish shared Feb 9 2016
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-207095
False and malicious reviews
Hi I've recently had a guest who was my first ever terrible guest, and who had written a totally false and malicious review. This is also our first ever bad review by any of our past guests.
We had been very generous and allowed her a late check out of 6pm and at 5.58pm, she sent us a a text asking "will it be an issue for her and her friends to leave at 9/10pm"? My reply was firm but polite, stating that we had expected her to leave at 6pm and in my next text, I even offered to meet her at 7.30pm, delaying my own dinner appointment. She ignored all that and only came back at 9-ish to pack and leave, causing great inconvenience to us.
Now she has left a public review accusing me of various untruths, including sending her "abusive and threathening" texts.
Both our reviews were published but my review of her was subsequently taken down by AirBnB while hers of mine is still online. How is this censorship possible? I had honestly described how she was as a guest and what she had done. And she had been totally untruthful.
Any thoughts? I have complained to AirBnB but have only received cursory replies with references to their policies and not received any real answers.
Aj
Perhaps try and call CS ( not email) and speak to a senior staff. Explain to them the situation and make sure all your messages with the guests are sent to Airbnb ( hopefully this was all on Airbnb messaging system or screen shot them).
If nothing happens, you just have to suck it in and hope all the good reviews to come, gets this one buried down. Also learn from it, at times bad reviews or needy/unhappy guests teaches us to be prepared for future guests with similar character triads. Think about what you need to do to avoid such situations and add up some house rules to protect yourself.
You can also respond to the review or you might just want to leave that response as it's written in Russian?. On the other hand, you might want to respond to it and clear out any doubts for any future Russian speaking citizens heading your way. Hope that helps.
Sathish
I have spoken to CS and they tried to be sympathetic but haven't done much else to resolve this. I did respond to her review but my fat finger hit reply halfway through so that half reply has been posted. And I didn't get an opportunity to address her accusations fully.
I have now, as a result of this guest, implemented a strict 11am check out instead of a flexible policy which is more in line with my generous and giving nature. I hate to lay down rules but this awful experience with this guest has forced me to do so.
helga
Your guest clearly wanted to profit and a checkout in the night means the place cannot be rented. In such cases, you could send a booking amendment to add a day. Take pictures and do everything on the message thread, with a short remainder when they are late and when they are out. That establishes proof and you can claim that via the resolution center even if she does not accept the booking amendment.
- I don't allow late checkouts, but only luggage storage of closed luggage which is handed out at the door, no opening of any bag. -
You can set a fee for late checkout but put a limit like 2 pm, to be able to rent the night after it.
- did you keep the text exchanges as proof? Take pictures and try again with airbnb.
- can you still leave a public reply? Or get airbnb to extend that possibility? Just add a short cool note: we allow flexible check-in and check-out, after agreement, within the booked hours. The booking ended at 11am (or whatever). We exceptionally extended your stay to 6 pm and you checked out at 9:30, causing us grave problems and the need to place the incoming guest elsewhere for their first night.
Sathish
Thanks for your comment and it's really helpful! There was not any issue with the incoming guests as there were none but we didn't have anyone to meet them at 10pm for the late departure and handover of the house. I have all records of all email and text message exchanges but AirBnB doesn't seem to be interested in them, and has allowed her malicious and untruthful review to be made public whilst my review of her is censored.
Sathish
Also I have plenty of amazing reviews for other properties but this is a new property and her review appears 2nd on the list. And her obviously very prejudicial and unfairly biased star rating has also totally messed up my overall star rating.
helga
Sathish, I saw your nice reviews. Even this guest wrote that it is a nice place. For the stars, there is not much you can do, that will happen from time to time, with issues but also without any issue at all. But don't take it too much to heart. Her review is very long, it's folded to a few lines if there are several reviews and people don"t always click to read every word. It starts with compliments, so it's not too bad.
What you can do also, write in the description or in other remarks, how flexible checkins and -outs are handled. People read that first and the reviews later or they check after reading the review, so that makes the review look foolish.
Sathish
Thank you very much but it bothers me that she is allowed to get away with posting stuff like I had been abusive to her, and that the electricity had been turned off and everything. All of this are total lies. We had bent over backwards to make her and her friends very welcome but to be subject to such untruths after she went psycho? It's mad. And AirBnB censored my review of her but is doing nothing about this false review of hers.
Sathish
I am very surprised that AirBnB is using this "freedom of speech" catch all phrase to allow any reviews at all, no matter how untruthful and not even bothered to review all the evidence and facts. This is highly disappointing.
helga
The person deciding does not have the facts, she has two different statements. The more calm and businesslike you stay, the more chances that she takes yours for the truth. - After all, what could she do? Mind reading? When you send proof, sum it up shortly, like: "as visible in the screenshot of the text exchange, picture xy.jpg, I refused politely. Pic xz.jpg Mrs X insisted / did not answer to my statement" or whatever you have. Very short. Only facts. People are lazy and if it seems complicated, they will not check but just refuse.
helga
Sathish, I had laughed about the electricity and took it for a good idea, as I would definitely do that (gradually), at least when I'm really mad. ;-))
The rules change all the time. At the moment, they are;
Reviews
Genuine reviews are the cornerstone of our community. We prohibit:
Reviews that do not represent users’ personal experience.
Reviews unrelated to the actual reservation (ex: political, religious, or social commentary).
Content that endorses or promotes illegal or harmful activity or violence, or is profane, vulgar, obscene, defamatory, threatening, or discriminatory.
Content that violates another person or entity’s rights, including intellectual property rights and privacy rights (ex: publishing another person’s full name, address or other identifying information without permission).
Content that is proven to be used as extortion.
Content that refers to an Airbnb investigation.
- So you can only claim that the part about her having permission to stay is a lie and the part about the electricity. Add proof of the text exchange, stipulate that you consider the review as Slander and it does harm your business. Also the part about you menacing her would be a criminal offense if it were true, if she has no proof of that, you insist that they take that part down. You however have proof of the contrary. - Stay calm, businesslike, insist about the business damage, insist about the proof and don't give up. Some people get a review taken down after insisting a lot. I only heard once that the stars were taken down too - but you can always try. Ask for a manager, contact them by mail, chat or on twitter. Insist on your good reviews etc.
Sathish
Thank you very much Helga! I will certainly persist!
Sathish
This is the response I would have posted if not for my fat fingers. I hope AirBnB will still allow me to post this response to her review.
This is Tai and I am the owner of Skylight House. I am responding to this review as this guest had made some very untruthful allegations against myself personally, which are totally made up by her, and untrue.
This guest had in all communications, both written and verbal, expressed the desire, and in some cases, need, to leave the house in time to catch the last bus or train from Galle to Colombo, and had been advised to therefore leave at around 6pm. On the date of departure, she had acknowledged this in a text message reply at around 1.30pm but later at around 6pm, sent Sathish a text message saying she and her friends would be departing at 9/10pm instead. In our ensuing text message conversation, of which all records have been kept, we had not once been "abusive, threathening or swearing". We tried to call each other to speak but our conversation was very limited due to her dying battery leading to constant interruptions. It is totally untrue that we had in any way been rude to her at all. On the contrary, she was loud and demanding, and very combative when we managed to speak, and she wouldn't let me get even a word in. The bulk of the ensuing communication was therefore by text messaging, none of which was rude. I had even tried to accommodate her request for a later than 6pm departure by politely asking that she and her friends get ready to leave at 7.30pm as that was the latest I could meet them. This was ignored.
Sathish
She had stated her reasons for having to leave late was her driver from Colombo being delayed to pick her up. But this was a total fabrication and lie. There was never any driver. She and her friends never went to Colombo. At 10pm, she engaged two local tuk tuks from close by, the same tuk tuks we engaged for all of our other guests at the house. They had asked to be taken to Mirissa. The delayed driver was a total fiction.
Sathish
On the matter of the electricity, this guest herself had the house keys and only they can let themselves in. None of the lights had been turned on because they hadn't turned them on themselves. This is not a fully staffed hotel or villa and they were aware of this from arrival when all the light switches were shown to them. We would never ever turn the electricity off on our guests, and we have a rule of not going into the house without the guests present.
Sathish
It was terribly unfortunate that our hospitality and generosity was abused to this extent, and tragic and sad that this guest felt the need to continue to be dishonest and totally untruthful, malicious and spiteful to leave such a potentially damaging review. We have never had any guest so terrible as her, nor ever had any reviews as bad as this, and all of our other excellent reviews, return guests and new guests by word of mouth recommendation bear testimony to the extent we go to make all of our guests feel very welcome, and to have a very special experience at all our houses.
helga
Calm down, that happens. If you wrote so much for a late check out, no wonder, your review got deleted. Consider it a favour to you. Nobody crosschecking reviews would have booked with you. 3 lines and a booking amendment to get paid is the best way to react. And I mean 3 lines, not four. It's nothing personal, some guests want to profit and they lie. That's life. Charge them next time and ignore the rest.
Dura
Sathish sorry to hear about the awful guests. I would be mad too if guests leave untruthful review on my listing and very hurt. Can You try talk again with CS but this time go through twitter airbnb help. Tell them roughly the problem. They will dm You and send someone thru email to look into your situation. I had some other problems before and response was really good and positive.
Sathish
Hi Dura,
AirBnB is on the case now but basically they are saying they can't do anything at all as they won't censor free speech. But yet they deleted my review of her, effectively censoring my speech!
And they haven't gotten back to me on how I can reply to her review to give a full picture of what happened, and to address her accusations properly.
Michele Yap
This is terrible. Let us know the outcome.
Sathish
Hi Michele,
Yes this is indeed terrible and a real waste of time having to deal with all this. The takeaway from this is never to be too hospitable, set clear check in and out times, and never give in to demanding and persistent guests. I hope AirBnB will at least allow me to address her accusations properly.
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-207095
False and malicious reviews
Hi I've recently had a guest who was my first ever terrible guest, and who had written a totally false and malicious review. This is also our first ever bad review by any of our past guests.
We had been very generous and allowed her a late check out of 6pm and at 5.58pm, she sent us a a text asking "will it be an issue for her and her friends to leave at 9/10pm"? My reply was firm but polite, stating that we had expected her to leave at 6pm and in my next text, I even offered to meet her at 7.30pm, delaying my own dinner appointment. She ignored all that and only came back at 9-ish to pack and leave, causing great inconvenience to us.
Now she has left a public review accusing me of various untruths, including sending her "abusive and threathening" texts.
Both our reviews were published but my review of her was subsequently taken down by AirBnB while hers of mine is still online. How is this censorship possible? I had honestly described how she was as a guest and what she had done. And she had been totally untruthful.
Any thoughts? I have complained to AirBnB but have only received cursory replies with references to their policies and not received any real answers.
Aj
Perhaps try and call CS ( not email) and speak to a senior staff. Explain to them the situation and make sure all your messages with the guests are sent to Airbnb ( hopefully this was all on Airbnb messaging system or screen shot them).
If nothing happens, you just have to suck it in and hope all the good reviews to come, gets this one buried down. Also learn from it, at times bad reviews or needy/unhappy guests teaches us to be prepared for future guests with similar character triads. Think about what you need to do to avoid such situations and add up some house rules to protect yourself.
You can also respond to the review or you might just want to leave that response as it's written in Russian?. On the other hand, you might want to respond to it and clear out any doubts for any future Russian speaking citizens heading your way. Hope that helps.
Sathish
I have spoken to CS and they tried to be sympathetic but haven't done much else to resolve this. I did respond to her review but my fat finger hit reply halfway through so that half reply has been posted. And I didn't get an opportunity to address her accusations fully.
I have now, as a result of this guest, implemented a strict 11am check out instead of a flexible policy which is more in line with my generous and giving nature. I hate to lay down rules but this awful experience with this guest has forced me to do so.
helga
Your guest clearly wanted to profit and a checkout in the night means the place cannot be rented. In such cases, you could send a booking amendment to add a day. Take pictures and do everything on the message thread, with a short remainder when they are late and when they are out. That establishes proof and you can claim that via the resolution center even if she does not accept the booking amendment.
- I don't allow late checkouts, but only luggage storage of closed luggage which is handed out at the door, no opening of any bag. -
You can set a fee for late checkout but put a limit like 2 pm, to be able to rent the night after it.
- did you keep the text exchanges as proof? Take pictures and try again with airbnb.
- can you still leave a public reply? Or get airbnb to extend that possibility? Just add a short cool note: we allow flexible check-in and check-out, after agreement, within the booked hours. The booking ended at 11am (or whatever). We exceptionally extended your stay to 6 pm and you checked out at 9:30, causing us grave problems and the need to place the incoming guest elsewhere for their first night.
Sathish
Thanks for your comment and it's really helpful! There was not any issue with the incoming guests as there were none but we didn't have anyone to meet them at 10pm for the late departure and handover of the house. I have all records of all email and text message exchanges but AirBnB doesn't seem to be interested in them, and has allowed her malicious and untruthful review to be made public whilst my review of her is censored.
Sathish
Also I have plenty of amazing reviews for other properties but this is a new property and her review appears 2nd on the list. And her obviously very prejudicial and unfairly biased star rating has also totally messed up my overall star rating.
helga
Sathish, I saw your nice reviews. Even this guest wrote that it is a nice place. For the stars, there is not much you can do, that will happen from time to time, with issues but also without any issue at all. But don't take it too much to heart. Her review is very long, it's folded to a few lines if there are several reviews and people don"t always click to read every word. It starts with compliments, so it's not too bad.
What you can do also, write in the description or in other remarks, how flexible checkins and -outs are handled. People read that first and the reviews later or they check after reading the review, so that makes the review look foolish.
Sathish
Thank you very much but it bothers me that she is allowed to get away with posting stuff like I had been abusive to her, and that the electricity had been turned off and everything. All of this are total lies. We had bent over backwards to make her and her friends very welcome but to be subject to such untruths after she went psycho? It's mad. And AirBnB censored my review of her but is doing nothing about this false review of hers.
Sathish
I am very surprised that AirBnB is using this "freedom of speech" catch all phrase to allow any reviews at all, no matter how untruthful and not even bothered to review all the evidence and facts. This is highly disappointing.
helga
The person deciding does not have the facts, she has two different statements. The more calm and businesslike you stay, the more chances that she takes yours for the truth. - After all, what could she do? Mind reading? When you send proof, sum it up shortly, like: "as visible in the screenshot of the text exchange, picture xy.jpg, I refused politely. Pic xz.jpg Mrs X insisted / did not answer to my statement" or whatever you have. Very short. Only facts. People are lazy and if it seems complicated, they will not check but just refuse.
helga
Sathish, I had laughed about the electricity and took it for a good idea, as I would definitely do that (gradually), at least when I'm really mad. ;-))
The rules change all the time. At the moment, they are;
Reviews
Genuine reviews are the cornerstone of our community. We prohibit:
Reviews that do not represent users’ personal experience.
Reviews unrelated to the actual reservation (ex: political, religious, or social commentary).
Content that endorses or promotes illegal or harmful activity or violence, or is profane, vulgar, obscene, defamatory, threatening, or discriminatory.
Content that violates another person or entity’s rights, including intellectual property rights and privacy rights (ex: publishing another person’s full name, address or other identifying information without permission).
Content that is proven to be used as extortion.
Content that refers to an Airbnb investigation.
- So you can only claim that the part about her having permission to stay is a lie and the part about the electricity. Add proof of the text exchange, stipulate that you consider the review as Slander and it does harm your business. Also the part about you menacing her would be a criminal offense if it were true, if she has no proof of that, you insist that they take that part down. You however have proof of the contrary. - Stay calm, businesslike, insist about the business damage, insist about the proof and don't give up. Some people get a review taken down after insisting a lot. I only heard once that the stars were taken down too - but you can always try. Ask for a manager, contact them by mail, chat or on twitter. Insist on your good reviews etc.
Sathish
Thank you very much Helga! I will certainly persist!
Sathish
This is the response I would have posted if not for my fat fingers. I hope AirBnB will still allow me to post this response to her review.
This is Tai and I am the owner of Skylight House. I am responding to this review as this guest had made some very untruthful allegations against myself personally, which are totally made up by her, and untrue.
This guest had in all communications, both written and verbal, expressed the desire, and in some cases, need, to leave the house in time to catch the last bus or train from Galle to Colombo, and had been advised to therefore leave at around 6pm. On the date of departure, she had acknowledged this in a text message reply at around 1.30pm but later at around 6pm, sent Sathish a text message saying she and her friends would be departing at 9/10pm instead. In our ensuing text message conversation, of which all records have been kept, we had not once been "abusive, threathening or swearing". We tried to call each other to speak but our conversation was very limited due to her dying battery leading to constant interruptions. It is totally untrue that we had in any way been rude to her at all. On the contrary, she was loud and demanding, and very combative when we managed to speak, and she wouldn't let me get even a word in. The bulk of the ensuing communication was therefore by text messaging, none of which was rude. I had even tried to accommodate her request for a later than 6pm departure by politely asking that she and her friends get ready to leave at 7.30pm as that was the latest I could meet them. This was ignored.
Sathish
She had stated her reasons for having to leave late was her driver from Colombo being delayed to pick her up. But this was a total fabrication and lie. There was never any driver. She and her friends never went to Colombo. At 10pm, she engaged two local tuk tuks from close by, the same tuk tuks we engaged for all of our other guests at the house. They had asked to be taken to Mirissa. The delayed driver was a total fiction.
Sathish
On the matter of the electricity, this guest herself had the house keys and only they can let themselves in. None of the lights had been turned on because they hadn't turned them on themselves. This is not a fully staffed hotel or villa and they were aware of this from arrival when all the light switches were shown to them. We would never ever turn the electricity off on our guests, and we have a rule of not going into the house without the guests present.
Sathish
It was terribly unfortunate that our hospitality and generosity was abused to this extent, and tragic and sad that this guest felt the need to continue to be dishonest and totally untruthful, malicious and spiteful to leave such a potentially damaging review. We have never had any guest so terrible as her, nor ever had any reviews as bad as this, and all of our other excellent reviews, return guests and new guests by word of mouth recommendation bear testimony to the extent we go to make all of our guests feel very welcome, and to have a very special experience at all our houses.
helga
Calm down, that happens. If you wrote so much for a late check out, no wonder, your review got deleted. Consider it a favour to you. Nobody crosschecking reviews would have booked with you. 3 lines and a booking amendment to get paid is the best way to react. And I mean 3 lines, not four. It's nothing personal, some guests want to profit and they lie. That's life. Charge them next time and ignore the rest.
Dura
Sathish sorry to hear about the awful guests. I would be mad too if guests leave untruthful review on my listing and very hurt. Can You try talk again with CS but this time go through twitter airbnb help. Tell them roughly the problem. They will dm You and send someone thru email to look into your situation. I had some other problems before and response was really good and positive.
Sathish
Hi Dura,
AirBnB is on the case now but basically they are saying they can't do anything at all as they won't censor free speech. But yet they deleted my review of her, effectively censoring my speech!
And they haven't gotten back to me on how I can reply to her review to give a full picture of what happened, and to address her accusations properly.
Michele Yap
This is terrible. Let us know the outcome.
Sathish
Hi Michele,
Yes this is indeed terrible and a real waste of time having to deal with all this. The takeaway from this is never to be too hospitable, set clear check in and out times, and never give in to demanding and persistent guests. I hope AirBnB will at least allow me to address her accusations properly.
