We stayed at an Airbnb property run by a professional host over the summer. There were some issues with the property when we arrived and while they were dealt with eventually, they were not dealt with as efficiently as I would have liked. But all fine in the end, and in defence of the host I don’t think they do much of the day to day running of the properties, so it may have been that the issues were actually caused by someone else forgetting/misunderstanding, etc. Not the end of the world.
I recorded these issues accurately in my review. I rewrote it several times (the first semi negative review I’ve ever written for anything!) and then asked my partner to check it to see if he felt it was fair and accurate. He felt it was, so we published it. The host had written their review of us in the meantime, and it was positive.
This morning I was back on Airbnb looking at properties in the same area for early next year. This property came up, so out of interest I clicked on it to see if anyone else had said similar things. The host has replied to my review (I hadn’t realised this up until now) and disputed my version of events. It’s one of those really patronising “thank you for your comments but this is what actually happened” responses that you see sometimes from business owners… but that’s not what happened and I have a message chain that can prove it. It’s made me look really unreasonable.
This made me irrationally cross, and I was also worried that other Airbnb hosts might somehow be able to see this response and that it might affect my future bookings as obviously it’s made me look like a right cow. So I contacted Airbnb to check and they confirmed that while it only shows up on the listing for that property, they can’t remove or hide the host’s comment, even if I can prove they’re lying, because it’s just a response to my review.
This isn’t great, surely? They pride themselves on all of their reviews being accurate (I think hosts being able to review guests is a great idea) so if I can prove my review is accurate then surely they should be able to remove the host’s comment?
(I am aware this really isn’t important in the grand scheme of life, but it’s really
irritated me after I spent so long dithering about writing my entirely accurate review in case I was being unfair!)