Airbnb removed my negative review

752 points by luminaobscura 3 years ago | 456 comments

I recently had a bad airbnb experience. During check in the host requested a cash deposit. this wasn't explained in the listing or prior to arrival. i couldn't check in and went elsewhere. Then i posted a review* giving these details.

Airbnb removed my below review because "The review didn’t have enough relevant information to help the Airbnb community make informed booking or hosting decisions."

The rating of the place went back up after removal. The host still have "superhost" status.

Needless to say, i no longer trust airbnb reviews.

*my full review was:

I wasn't able to check in because [Host] requested 300 USD security deposit during check in. I told her - I don't have that much cash on me. - That is against AirBnB rules. - This should have been explained in airbnb listing. She can't just surprise guests with this at the last minute. She didn't listen. She said: "my house my rules", "you can't tell me how to run my business", "if you don't like it, you can cancel". I told her if i cancel, i don't get full refund so she should cancel. she said she won't cancel and me not getting refund is not her problem. I think she counts on the fact that guests typically wouldn't want to cancel in the last minute. you can see in some other reviews people had to agree to paying her this deposit. But i didn't want to cave in and called AirBnB. Thankfully, airbnb fully refunded the payment and i was able to find another accomodation in the last minute. I don't recommend this host unless you want a stressful start for your vacation.

elmerfud 3 years ago |

Airbnb removed my positive review and accused me of being in cahoots with the host to leave positive feedback.

They said they have found an existing relationship between me and the host. Mind you have no social media accounts, this was my first stay at an Airbnb, I'm from USA and this was in Medellin Colombia, I usually stay at Marriott hotels and I only went with Airbnb because the girl I traveled with suggested using it because it was cheaper.

It was awesome place, host was great, so left a fantastic review. It was taken down and I was called a liar. When I asked to speak with someone about why I'm accused of being a liar in my review customer support promised me many times I would get a call back. Never once did I receive a call back from anyone at Airbnb instead I would get an email that they had conducted a thorough review and their position still stands that I am a liar. I'm not sure what thorough means in their mind but since they asked me zero questions or confirmed no information with me directly it's impossible that they conducted any kind of thorough review.

Airbnb is a horrendous company along with all of these gig economy companies. They need to be regulated in the same manner as they're non-gig counterparts are. I can't imagine that any Airbnb executive actually stays at Airbnb places not with the kind of customer service that Airbnb offers.

spacemadness 3 years ago | |

This is why I went back to hotels. Airbnb is a scummy company and can’t seem to survive without out of control “gotcha” fees added by either itself or its hosts which now make many hotels cheaper. I also am not obligated to do work for the host with a hotel. Some of the hosts have become super entitled over the years due to Airbnbs policies. It’s a shame as using Airbnb was an excellent experience when it first began but that obviously was on borrowed time much like the rest of the gig economy.

seattle_spring 3 years ago | | |

I’ve stayed in 100+ Airbnbs and literally never have paid or been asked to pay an extra fee. I have, however, been surprised several times by hotels charging an extra “resort fee” upon arrival.

suzzer99 3 years ago | | |

The latest scam is having to pay either a $1500 deposit, or $59 "deposit insurance", which I assume the host gets some kickback on. I know I'm not going to trash the place. But I also don't like just putting $1500 out there either. A deposit that high only exists so someone can make money off the deposit insurance.

PaulHoule 3 years ago | | |

I've never had a terrible experience with AirBNB (although the week I spent working in Montreal living on top of one of the greatest party corners came close but it wasn't the fault of the host or AirBNB.)

Personally though I've come to appreciate hotels more and my experience is that you can usually find a decent hotel room for about what an AirBNB costs and I usually like going to a hotel better. (There was that one in Chinatown in NYC that the experience of finding it was somewhere between The Blade Runner and a James Bond movies, I'm not sure if that is a good review or not.)

Shorel 3 years ago | | |

It forced hotels to have more competitive prices.

Honestly, there was not much else it could do in the long term.

irjustin 3 years ago | |

To be fair, gamifcation of reviews is a very real problem.

There's no good answer to this. Anyone that allows/relies on direct consumer feedback is at risk for one of the hardest problems that exist.

Personally, I want to know people's great and real experiences, or terrible ones, who wouldn't!? But, once you tie it to money, it's over.

waboremo 3 years ago | | |

It is a problem, but it's also partially self-inflicted.

Compare reviews on Steam to reviews on Airbnb. You'll quickly notice something, Steam shows you far more information at a glance. You get to know whether someone bought the game themselves or if it was given free to them, how many hours they played before the review, how many hours they played in total, their rating, how other people feel about that review, how many other products the user has, if the review was edited, and of course review text.

Airbnb's reviews has a scoring system that was generalized, and review text, maybe a translation badge if the review was translated.

Reviews work best when you are given as much information as possible. Without it, you might as well be relying on an anonymous 5 star system.

grugagag 3 years ago | | |

It seems like Airbnb is doing the gamification and manipulating it as well. I’d rather all reviews stay, good and bad and let the consumer decide for themselves. As soon as some reviews get promoted and others hidden I stop paying attention to them

prepend 3 years ago | | |

I wish I could post the review on my own site and users could easily discover it when browsing items. That makes me develop and risk a reputation.

I don’t trust sites like Airbnb and I understand how sites have problems with review fraud.

If I posted with a unique signature then over time people could learn that mine aren’t fake.

Also would be nice to know that the Airbnb reviewer also rated a restaurant and some headphones, etc.

acdha 3 years ago | | |

> To be fair, gamifcation of reviews is a very real problem.

True but also one they’ve created for profit. They choose to ignore complaints about hosts to avoid losing their fees, they choose not to audit reviews, etc. There’s an entire industry of people who get paid to do mystery shopping to review customer experiences, which is quite effective but not free since you can’t automate it at scale.

This seems like it’s basically a VC playbook now: focus on growth numbers and assume you’ll be able to convey the shiny tech imagine until you reach market dominance, and avoid spending money visibly on “menial” jobs to support the image that you are about to be unbelievably profitable.

pcthrowaway 3 years ago | | |

> To be fair, gamifcation of reviews is a very real problem.

I wonder if "tipping" could improve things.

A new platform like airbnb could have an expected tip built in to the platform. Hosts are expected to provide good service and get a tip.

Customers are encouraged to tip at the end of their stay (with a lower base price than airbnb to account for that).

Hosts can see the average, median, max, and min tips of potential customers (along with distribution, and percentage calculations) and use that to determine whether to accept them as a guest.

Customers can see the average tip a listing received, and use that to determine if they'd want to stay there. Of course, they would sometimes leave $0 or a low number as a tip, but they'd be incentivized to also provide good tips for good service, because a low tip average would reflect poorly on them and make them less likely to be hosted.

I suspect tying things to real value for the customer and host would lead to better service and a more honest indication of host/customer quality.

But perhaps it would just lead to hosts literally bribing customers for good tips.

onos 3 years ago | | |

That’s true. Another reality is that there are bad actors on the customer side too. A single person who gets off on being awful to people can leave an unwarranted bad review and materially harm an Airbnb host’s business.

whitemandingo 3 years ago | |

Please email me at laforza@yahoo.com. I'm starting a class action lawsuit against Airbnb . I had reviews removed from my place because Airbnb claims I had a relationship with the guest, and they failed to provide evidence. We need to determine how Airbnb is obtaining it's data to access these relationships. Huge violations of data protection and illegal practices to act based on unsubstantiated evidence.

oliwarner 3 years ago | |

> have no social media accounts, this was my first stay at an Airbnb

See what happens if you ask a bank for a loan with no credit history.

Of course these are only tangentially alike, but public history is an important way to distinguish organic reviews from AstroTurf.

mynameisvlad 3 years ago | | |

Since when is a social media account required to do online business?

You also don't need a social account to login, so how would Airbnb even know that user named "John Smith" on Twitter is you?

waihtis 3 years ago | | |

You're not wrong. However, if a company uses my presense (or lack of) on social media as a way to make judgements I will not give them a penny of business.

atleta 3 years ago | | |

They mentioned not having social media accounts to show that AirBnB couldn't have any information about them or them being related to the host. (OTOH, their namesake may have a social media account and that may be linked to the host. In theory.)

mort96 3 years ago | | |

That doesn't explain the "We have detected a relationship" thing.

dmix 3 years ago | |

I'm confused, you think AirBnB should pay random people as employees to let them host short-term stays in their house? And this will help make AirBnB's moderation of reviews more honest?

blairbeckwith 3 years ago | | |

I think based on context it's clear they mean "regulated like hotels".

jiveturkey 3 years ago | | |

the idea of a secret shopper is common. i suspect abnb already does this. obviously they get extremely limited coverage if they do so

kingboss 3 years ago | |

shhhh... you are on pg's forum. 'Member when he was shilling for this new billion dollar unicorn that was airbnb and how it would revolutionize the hotel industry? Pepperidge Farm remembers....

cycrutchfield 3 years ago | |

Why do you care so intensely about this?

Edit: I should have expanded on my post a bit. It's quite obvious that the review was flagged by some ML model, most likely not because the reviewer is a liar but probably because the host has a high prior for shenanigans. Combined with the lack of social signals for the reviewer, I could see why an ML model might be overzealous. But back to my original question: nobody is being called a liar, why take it so personally?

adesanmi 3 years ago | | |

Because a huge amount of value in AirBnB is its reviews.

That’s how you’re supposed to know where is worth staying and where isn’t.

If those can’t be trusted, then it’s an inferior B&B platform with doctored reviews that you can’t trust.

My advice to those reading this is just to get a hotel unless there is no alternative.

AirBnB was fine for a bit when it was cheaper than alternatives, but, in my experience, it’s now as expensive (if not more) as the hotels they’re trying to replace.

There’s usually a massively inferior experience when compared to Hotels the majority of the time. At least, that’s been my experience.

maxbond 3 years ago | | |

Why don't you? Our economy is becoming increasingly intermediated and employees are increasingly losing their rights (and access to basic services like healthcare) by being mislabeled as contractors. There's a myriad of issues with affordability in the housing market and AirBnB exacerbates them.

yifanl 3 years ago | | |

I imagine being indirectly or directly called a liar/fraudster by a giant multinational is personally upsetting to the parent poster.

berkes 3 years ago | | |

For me, reviews are a primary parameter when selecting a "thing" from "a platform". So when I experience that the platform is manipulating the reviews, I not only feel manipulated (maybe all previous times I overpayed, missed opportunities etc?) but I feel that what we all do know: we are there only to make that platform a nice revenue; it doesn't care about giving it's users the best value, it only cares about it's bottom-lines, which apparently don't align with my needs.

prettyStandard 3 years ago | | |

Because we can't trust the systems we need to live our lives.

chollida1 3 years ago |

There is an old joke, how do you know that someone is a vegan or does crossfit? You'll know because they'll make sure you know minutes after meeting them.

In 2008-2011 on HN if someone worked at facebook you knew because they mentioned it so often.

Now you never hear anyone saying they work for Facebook because of all the negative externalities that Facebook and Instagram have had on the world that no one wants to be associated with them.

AirBnB is now in a similar situation.

When tehy first came out you would get lots of positive feedback from people about their service.

now that they allow whole home rentals and people are getting squeezed for living space and rising rents partially due to AirBnb taking those rentals off the market people have a far different opinion of the company.

Couple that with hosts are squeezing people with 100's of dollars in cleaning and other fees that dwarf the nightly rental costs.

Its hard to think of another company outside of Facebook that has blown all their good will so quickly and so completely.

You never hear someone claim to work at AirBnB anymore due to what the company has done to help ruin housing and rental markets.

Charitably I guess you could say that every company falls victim to the saying "You Either Die A Hero Or Live Long Enough To See Yourself Become The Villain."

imtyler 3 years ago |

My nextdoor neighbor sold their house last year and now it's an Airbnb. Despite the fact that I live in a house in a normal residential neighborhood, I'm now forced to live next to a hotel. And I have no say in the matter. Super frustrating.

I've read people talking about how Airbnb screwed the host or the guest. But few people talk about how it screws the neighbors.

medellin 3 years ago |

Airbnb most recently has continued to ignore requests to remove houses that violate the building’s HOA where i live.

People have been turned away when they show up by security as it’s not allowed but the people just try to sneak them in. When reporting this to airbnb they refuse to do anything. I’m getting fairly sick of the laissez faire stances these companies are taking. It’s not just that we don’t want airbnb its that people in this area regularly rent airbnb with false names and rob the apartment and the ones next to it once in the building. Airbnb could care less about our safety though.

It would be nice if the companies could stop hiding behind stupid corporate policies and actually care about people.

Edit: to make things more sad when the building was sold as it’s brand new it was sold as no airbnbs and family only. Several couples moved in because they have been previously robbed in other buildings in the city and in nearby ones all from Airbnb rentals with false names.

_gabe_ 3 years ago |

I had something similar happen on Amazon. I bought a pair of winter gloves then got a letter a week later in the mail offering me $30 (twice what I paid) if I left a 5 star reviews. The letter even left a message at the bottom saying not to post a review with a picture of the letter! That annoyed me, so of course I posted a review with a picture of the letter, then Amazon rejected the review since it didn't review the product.

I'm never trusting online reviews anymore. Especially when the companies pull BS like this.

Edit: I just revisited the original email that I got from Amazon. They rejected my review because I left feedback about the seller, so I went to their seller feedback portal and left a message and never got a response. I still feel like this is a dark practice though, a review highlighting the fact the seller is farming 5 star reviews should still be posted, even though it's about the seller and not the product.

raincom 3 years ago |

Any platform that extracts money from X has the incentive to get rid of any negative reviews about X. Reviewers are not the revenue source. That's why AirBnB, Yelp, Glassdoor, etc will get rid of bad reviews for the right price.

Read all bad stuff about AirBnB on reddit, you see where airbnb is heading. People should stop using that platform, whenever you find an alternative.

sam_lowry_ 3 years ago |

Heh... I recently made a Booking.com review that started with...

"Reviews were stunning, the location was great, the price was reasonable".

Then, I went on explaining that I landed in front of a closed door, the host was not reachable, Booking.com support was not helpful, so I just drove on through the night and over mountains until I reached home 11 hours later.

After I made the review, Booking.com only kept the first sentence.

Since then, I try ordering directly from hosts or hotel chains.

digianarchist 3 years ago | |

I had this before when staying in Toronto. We booked an apartment that was walking distance from the downtown nightlife and when we turned up the host wouldn't come to the lobby to let us in. He stopped answering his phone and when the concierge called he told him to tell us to go away.

Booking.com gave us a refund after a 2 hour call and offered us $20. They removed our negative review because "you didn't stay at the property and were refunded".

I am strictly hotels only after the shenanigans from AirBnB and Booking.com.

dazc 3 years ago | |

Bookingdotcom is a great place to find all the available options on one page, that's all.

aliljet 3 years ago |

Airbnb seems to primarily be interested in protecting hosts instead of guests. It's probably much more structural than people realize. I'd really love to know from someone that's deep inside Airbnb why they could allow the service to become such a poor experience for guests(1)? Is it because there's not enough host supply in the system?

(1) https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.airbnb.com (1.3/5)

brookst 3 years ago | |

I’ve used Airbnb a few times a year for many years. My anecdotal and speculative belief is that their tools and site hugely favor hosts, but if you have a good history they will make anything right for a guest, and probably just eat the cost themselves to keep both host and guest happy.

For instance, I had a week long stay booked in a “waterfront, two bedroom” in London. I needed the two bedrooms to set up an office that wouldn’t disturb my partner. Arrived at the place, and it was a one bedroom, not waterfront but the building’s communal deck had a water view.

Host was obnoxious about it. Airbnb support couldn’t find me a suitable Airbnb and booked me a two bedroom suite at a VERY nice hotel, worth much much more than I had paid for the rental. I am pretty sure they ate the host’s payout too as the place didn’t re-appear as available.

LegitShady 3 years ago | | |

the hosts entire enterprise was based on fraud and airbnb facilitated it for money

some_other_time 3 years ago |

I left a bad review once also. The host had it removed. But, in their review of me, they asked why I left a bad review. In the emails received from Airbnb asking for a review, they tell me as a guest that neither party can see the other review until both are submitted. Evidently, this is a lie. Otherwise, how would the host know whether my review was good or bad?

Another issue I have found is that many of the listings on Airbnb are not by the owner, but by some person acting independently as a broker. I have found this in many different countries. This may explain why, when I tried to request a booking, it was not available. The actual property owner had already rented it to someone else. Further, once the broker/host gives the owner the rent, there is no way to get any kind of a refund if there is an issue. The owner has no affiliation with Airbnb. The 'host' no longer has the money. And, Airbnb does not want to pay the expense. So, the guest is left hanging. Maybe they, too, can submit a review that the host will have removed. It's disgusting.

If risking the use of Airbnb, be very careful when a 'host' says a property is not available, but provides a link to a different property. It may have a very different cancellation policy than the original property.

Airbnb claims in their FAQ pages they want to be authentic. But, they seem to be authentic only in the support of their bottom line, even if that requires dishonesty in other areas to achieve.

Because of the combination of different issues, I have decided Airbnb can no longer be trusted. I now prefer to book hotels or apartments through competitor sites. I encourage others to do the same.

maxbond 3 years ago | |

> Evidently, this is a lie. Otherwise, how would the host know whether my review was good or bad?

I'm fully open to this possibility, we shouldn't take them at their word, but it may also have been a half truth (they couldn't see your review but they could see their average go down).

pseudobry 3 years ago |

We recently had a maddening experience with Airbnb. We booked a long-term rental (~3 months) while our home got worked on, costing $10k+ USD (so Airbnb made a couple thousand bucks?). During our stay, we paid for our OWN cleaners to clean the house every other week and made of a video walkthrough of the house demonstrating its cleanliness. All went well until after we checked out.

The host had been living outside the US for the last couple years, and hadn't seen their house in person for a very long time. They happened to come back after we checked out, and decided to blame all the Wear and Tear from the last couple years on us. Wear and Tear is not something hosts are supposed to be able to charge damage fees for, but they rung us up for a massive damages fee (thousands of USD). We refuted the charge with Airbnb, providing our video evidence which directly countered each of the host's claims.

Airbnb didn't care and made us pay. Even though we've used Airbnb many times, I guess the host was still worth more to Airbnb than us as guests. We left a review describing the experience, and the host countered with their negative review of us. The cherry on top is that we forgot to logout of all our video streaming services from their TV, and the host's last last petty move was to delete all our user profiles from all our services.

double0jimb0 3 years ago | |

If you paid by credit card, sounds like prime opportunity for a chargeback. The credit card company WILL stand on your side.

bambax 3 years ago | |

Can Airbnb make you pay anything after the fact? What if you simply refuse? Surely they would need to sue?

rcpt 3 years ago |

At least you got the money back.

I had an experience where, after arriving in town, the host denied me entry because they thought my negative COVID test result was faked.

That was bad. But what was completely insane was that Airbnb refused to refund my money. They only offered me $200 back on a $500 charge. Ridiculous.

I'm in the process of arbitration right now. Here's the guide: https://fairshake.com/airbnb/arbitrating-with-airbnb/

awb 3 years ago |

I think they might have a policy that you can’t review a place that you didn’t stay at.

That policy falls short in instances like this where a guest cannot or will not check in due to issues with the host.

You might also try calling AirBnB again and see if you can convince them to put the review back up.

BTW, $300 cash deposit is absurd. AirBnB already has a security deposit mechanism that the host could use.

luminaobscura 3 years ago | |

They actually requested a review after cancelling this stay due to cash deposit issue. Whole thing is bizarre.

chasil 3 years ago | | |

If you actually want to maintain a long-term account, then be (very) careful with both reviews and activity.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17523056

georgyo 3 years ago |

I had a similar experience recently. After the booking was confirmed the host sent us a website to fill out and asked for our credit card number for a deposit.

This sent off a lot of red flags as AirBnB specifically says not to compile with this.

Calling AirBnB was useless. They confirmed that we should not pay the deposit, but it was up the the host to cancel our booking since it was less than 24hours away. AirBnB says as long as the booking is active then we have a right to be there. I share AirBnB's response with the host and they said they would call the cops if we showed up.

Two more calls to AirBnB, including one the morning of the booking and they still needed the host to cancel the booking. And since I "requested" the cancellation the host wasn't charged for cancelling my booking the same day.

After using AirBnB off and on for several years, this left a very sour taste.

troysk 3 years ago |

I had booked an airbnb in Shanghai. On reaching the destination the host said we had to get police verification. She took us to the police station where the police said we cannot stay with her as she doesn't have the required permits. We were in a country where we didn't know the language and airbnb declined to help us as they didn't have any people on ground or provide alternate accommodation. We got the refund but he spend way more to get alternate accommodation.

I was not allowed to even post a review.

anikom15 3 years ago | |

While it sucks AirBnB didn’t do anything to help you, I think anyone who goes to a foreign language, third-world country has a responsibility to research relevant laws and have some kind of backup plan when something like this happens.

Tip for the future: buy a good guidebook (or several). They have listings of hotels with price estimates, whether BnB is a good idea or not, and what the legal requirements are how to handle them when things go wrong.

troysk 3 years ago | | |

We did that, not our first rodeo. It was a new system being used in Shanghai, good luck finding credible realtime information about China. The host should have let us know. The tip is obvious to anyone who travels overseas.

synu 3 years ago |

AirBnB somehow swung from consistently being better than hotels to always worse. Now I am just back to getting hotels, which is fine I guess, but it was nice while it lasted. I was a big AirBnB booster so it was disappointing to see this journey.

throwawaybnb123 3 years ago |

AirBnB service has become awful. We checked in at a place with smoke alarms going off non-stop and a full-blown roach infestation (all dead roaches, but we counted about 10-15 in the kitchen cabinets). Only started uncovering roaches after I tried to disconnect the alarms and a few dried up roaches fell out of the smoke alarm casing. I'm from the city and have lived in apartments with roaches. Not a germaphobe but I know a full-blown infestation when I see one. Needless to say we were pretty pissed. It was like 1AM so we ended up getting a cab to a hotel nearby.

Easy refund right? I had videos AND pictures of the whole thing (multiple kitchen cabinets, about 5-10 roaches on their backs each. smallish 1/2cm german roaches). Submitted it to AirBnB. What happened after was a complete shitshow that I never want to go through again and is the reason I will never use this service.

* Automated customer service kept closing our case because we were traveling and did not respond immediately to their questions in 12-24 hours (got basic questions like CAN YOU PLEASE DESCRIBE THE ISSUE? despite having submitted 10 images of ROACHES). Each time your case closes you get a different representative so we had to re-iterate the same story.

* AirBnB passed responsibility of refunding off to the host, who was playing dumb with us and was basically non-responsive for a week and pretended like nothing was off. They (host) later admitted to the airbnb rep that they did pay for regular pest control services.

* AirBnB told us we were not eligible for a refund because there were not obvious signs that it was a health hazard (such as bed bugs). What? This was extremely puzzling.So if you can't find proof of bed bugs you're SOL?

* Unrelated to the pests, but the host charged us an additional $100 as part of our stay for cleaning fee despite the fact that we left immediately and the only things that were out of place were the kitchen cabinets opened containing dozens of roach carcasses. Try making sense of that.

All in all after some pretty heated exchanges with the reps at airbnb and threats to publish the images online to expose the host they relented and gave me my refund. Will never go through this again with them.

philliphaydon 3 years ago |

I booked a place for 30 days, the listing said 100% refundable. So I did it. 2 or 3 weeks before needing it my plans changed and I had to cancel. Airbnb told me that its longer than 28 days so the cancellation policy is up to the host who decided it was non-refundable. This was never relayed in any way during the booking process, not mentioned in the confirmation emails, nothing.

I ended up being able to negotiate a partial refund, but I still lost around $800.

The same place was listed on agoda.com which is fully refundable up to 24 hours prior to checkin and I've always had good experience with agoda support.

I'll never, NEVER, use airbnb again. It's a scam company.

vertis 3 years ago |

I'm part of the problem not part of the solution and I know it. I spend almost all of my time in AirBnBs and other short term accommodation and I will rarely if ever leave a negative review.

This is for several reasons. Firstly I stay in the places much longer than the average guest, so notice flaws more than someone that is there for a whirlwind visit. Some things are taste based as well.

But also because I understand that often it's a small business and by leaving negative reviews I'm fucking with someones livelihood (this varies from place to place and I'm far more likely to leave a review if it's company owned).

In the few times I have left negative reviews they have to be horrendously bad. Bad to the point that I can't stay (as the OP was).

Given how much I stay in AirBnBs I've also learned to read between the lines. Often you can tell more about the place by what is consistently not mentioned. If people consistently rave about everything it's a good sign. If people give half hearted positive reviews (one nice thing only maybe), that's probably a sign that you're going to want to give a negative review and bite your tongue.

nicce 3 years ago | |

> But also because I understand that often it's a small business and by leaving negative reviews I'm fucking with someones livelihood (this varies from place to place and I'm far more likely to leave a review if it's company owned).

There used to be a time, when people used AirBnB to get some extra money when they did not need their apartment. Not to earn their living. That was one good reason why AirBnB was successful in the beginning.

Now people are making business with the help of AirBnB. And it has brought nothing good. The price of living increases for locals and they can’t own their home. Those small businesses which can afford multiple apartments so that part can be in AirBnB 24/7, do not have problems on making the living. They just want to get richer by doing nothing.

At least here in north Europe, you need hundreds of thousands of investments in euros before you can make your living, and assuming you have loans. If you don’t have, then your living does not depend on it.

mbesto 3 years ago |

> i couldn't check in and went elsewhere.

> But i didn't want to cave in and called AirBnB. Thankfully, airbnb fully refunded the payment and i was able to find another accomodation in the last minute. I don't recommend this host unless you want a stressful start for your vacation.

I'm pretty sure your review got removed because you didn't actually check in. I'm actually surprised the system even let you write a review given the circumstances you've outlined.

mmastrac 3 years ago |

My partner was in the same boat with a near slumlord experience in toronto. The pictures on the listing showed a basic but clean place. In person, there was a hole in one of the doors, a floor that was literally disintegrating, a kitchen sink that pulled out of the countertop when you tried to use it, etc.

Her negative review was removed after a complaint by the host, and then the host proceeded to libel her in the review they made with false statements. It took a battle and sending loads of pictures to AirBNB to get them to remove the false review of her and restore the negative review of the place.

Needless to say, I lost of a lot of trust in AirBNB that day. The "air cover" guarantee isn't worth the paper it's printed on. We've gone from 50:50 hotels:airbnb to hotels only, outside of extremely specific cases.

yamtaddle 3 years ago | |

I've had good luck with AirBnB, but did have one similar experience, and there's no chance the place genuinely had reviews as good as were on the site (it was damn near a perfect rating). It was gross, plainly violating fire code (basement-of-a-house "apartment" without a single smoke detector anywhere in it), cluttered with the owner's (?) extra junk, tons of half-finished DIY work everywhere (exposed wires sticking out of open switch boxes and empty ceiling light boxes!), actual no-bullshit graffiti on the ceiling(!?). It looked like a friggin' trap house.

But it had damn near a five-star rating and the reviews were like "great place for my family!" et c. Something shady was going on, both with the host and with AirBnB, to make that happen, I'd say. It was shockingly bad.

Traubenfuchs 3 years ago |

It feels like in the last few years all the beloved, life changing formerly-unicorn-startup offerings came crashing down. They are a mashup of dark patterns, unattractive price hikes, user hostile behavior, lies and trash content. Additionally, the early "mutual trust"/"assume good faith"/"organic"/"non professional"/"human" sentiments disappeared, everything is hyperoptimized by greedy capitalists and uncaring AI. This fits the current era of tech layoffs, Russian war madness and high inflation.

Uber, AirBnB, Netflix, Facebook come to mind.

orangepurple 3 years ago | |

There's something uniquely American about taking a brutal cold blooded business, putting a fake friendly facade on it, and holding that facade up for so long

bookofjoe 3 years ago | | |

Perfectly put

throw_m239339 3 years ago | |

Uber and AirBnB were always shady, both services were heavily subsidized by VC money in order to acquire customers. Now that these corporations went public, they stopped with the charade and are aiming at making as much profit as the business they claimed they "disrupted".

fallingknife 3 years ago | | |

Airbnb lets me rent a whole apartment for a couple weeks. Couldn't do that before. And Uber is so much better than the cabs it replaced that there can't really be any comparison. It's not just about price relative to competition.

John23832 3 years ago | |

While Netflix has their own issues, I don't think I'd put them in the same grouping as [0]Uber, [1]Airbnb, and [2]FB/Meta.

Content that some people dislike is way different than [0]driving taxis out of business, [1]contributing to housing crunch, and [3]driving civil wars/genocide.

Root_Denied 3 years ago | | |

Netflix also had a lot of the content that drew people to their service pulled from the platform by content owners wanting to spin up their own streaming services (with mixed results). It's not like they intentionally dropped that content to save money, the licensing agreement ended and wasn't renewed by the IP owner.

VieEnCode 3 years ago | |

Is it wrong of me to think that at the root of all of this is the VC funding model?

lancesells 3 years ago |

From their Privacy Policy:

> If you link, connect, or login to the Airbnb Platform with a third party service (e.g. Google, Facebook, WeChat), you direct the service to send us information such as your registration, friends list, and profile information as controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings at that service.

> For Members in the United States, to the extent permitted by applicable laws, we may obtain, for example, reports of criminal records, sex offender registrations, and other information about you and/or your background

> To the extent permitted by applicable law, we may receive additional information about you, such as references, demographic data, or information to help detect fraud and safety issues from third party service providers and/or partners, and combine it with information we have about you. For example, we may receive background check results or fraud warnings from identity verification service providers for use in our fraud prevention and risk assessment efforts. We may receive information about you and your activities on and off the Airbnb Platform, or about your experiences and interactions from our partners. We may receive health information, including but not limited to, health information related to contagious diseases.

- Friends list - "Other information about you and your background" - References - Information about you on and off the Platform - Experiences from our partners - Receive health information, including but not limited to,contagious diseases.

bradly 3 years ago |

As someone whose main income source is from short term rentals, Vrbo provides a much better experience for both hosts and guests. Being able to easily call and talk to a helpful human at Vrbo and have them actually solve a problem is really refreshing.

ryandrake 3 years ago | |

I spent three months talking to the "helpful" humans at VRBO's tech support, trying to get a refund from a stay that didn't happen due to weather. The host was great and issued the refund immediately, but VRBO wouldn't pass along the funds back to me. They kept alternating between pointing their fingers at the host and pointing their fingers at Expedia (who was involved in the transaction for reasons I still don't understand). When out of options, I took to trashing them all over social media and review sites, and then all of a sudden I got contacted by a part of their customer support org who seem to be able to do things. Finally, out of nowhere the refund quietly showed up on my credit card statement.

Awful experience, and I've sworn them off ever since. Very stereotypical "friendly but can't do anything" human customer support.

bradly 3 years ago | | |

That's extremely frustrating. As a host I would very upset if Vrbo held my guest's funds after a refund.

jnet 3 years ago | |

Vrbo did not provide me with a better experience. I rented a place last Christmas which looked nice going by the pictures in the listing. But when we got there it turned out to be a complete dump. It was so bad we didn’t stay and went straight to a hotel. Of course I contacted both the host and VRBO. The host never responded and the Vrbo representatives just shrugged their shoulders and said it was up to me to work it out with the host. Needless to say that will be the last time I use vrbo, Airbnb or any service like it.

cultofmetatron 3 years ago | |

vrbo is also waay more expensive. just looking at barcelona, I can get a place for around $1600+ month minimum. airbnb has places around 1200 and even less if you're willing to stay in a private room.

anomaloustho 3 years ago |

My guess is this exploits an AirBnB loophole that allows a host to remove a review if the guest never stays.

Small technicality, but the review asks you to rate how clean the place is, what condition it’s in, etcetera — you probably wouldn’t have been able to rate those honestly having not stayed.

Some of this rides a thin line in the sense that you made it far enough through the booking to have technically left a review, but wouldn’t have been able to if you had the dispute earlier. In other cases (ones I’ve personally experienced), I’ve had hosts who were jerks and I canceled before ever getting close to the check in time. In that case, you can’t leave a review on AirBnB or Turo. The only punishment to the host is lost revenue and lost opportunity.

At the very least you know the host lost revenue for this. It can be difficult to get a new booking in such short notice.

martingoodson 3 years ago |

I hate the fact that hosts are allowed to cancel at the last minute, completely spoiling your holiday. You can't leave a review to warn other users.

It's open to abuse. We've been screwed over by hosts who cancel at the last minute (eg they couldn't find anywhere else to stay). There's literally nothing you can do.

bambax 3 years ago |

I mostly had positive experiences with Airbnb until I didn't.

I stayed at a horrible place offered by a so-called "superhost". It had super thin walls and a bathroom where the shower flowed into the main room. It was hot with no real window and no way for the air to flow (it was built out of an old garage).

I left a critical review saying all those things.

The host was able to get it removed because the review contained comments about "things the owner couldn't change". This is apparently a well-known trick that hosts share on dedicated forums.

I have learned from that experience that Airbnb reviews can't be trusted and that the "superhost" badge doesn't mean anything (other than the fact that said host is an expert at navigating Airbnb's bureaucracy).

shuaib 3 years ago |

My last experience with AirBNB, it's customer support, and eventually an insurance claim, all went quite horrible. Made me realise how stark a difference there is on the spectrum of customer support by businesses. On one side we have companies like Amazon (with their customer obsession) that would go an extra mile to support their customers, and then on the opposite we have AirBnb like companies.

I would be switching to Booking.com for now and not going to use AirBnb anymore. But from what I am reading here, seems like they aren't that good with their customer care as well?

zxcvbn4038 3 years ago |

Calling Airbnb was the right thing to do, I’d probably go the same route here - ask them what is needed to make the feedback acceptable, point out that the host doesn’t disclose the need for a cash deposit in the house rules and you want to warn people. That itself is worthy of discussion - anything not disclosed in house rules tends to get disregarded by Airbnb, and they generally don’t want money changing hands directly because they don’t get their 18%. Otherwise everyone would be listing their properties for $1 and requiring a cash tip on arrival. ;)

Airbnb is expected this year to make changes so prices are more transparent and this plays into that. Things have been trending towards the car rental model where you can rent a car for $1 a day but by the time you add in all the fees it’s closer to $200/day but you don’t find that out until the very last stage of the checkout. Airlines used to do the same thing then ~6 years ago they were forced to disclose everything up front.

I’m planning to list a place on Airbnb soon, am going to bake all the fees into the base price except for unauthorized guests, pets, and smoking - which are only there as a deterrent.

puntofisso 3 years ago |

I had a very similar experience with TripAdvisor and a hotel in Vietnam, which claimed my review was false. The really crazy part of this was that my review was positive, 4/5 stars. But they wanted 5 stars and "befriended" me on Instagram to ensure I did that. Even with all this proved and screenshotted, TripAdvisor didn't do much until I went public on social media (thread: https://twitter.com/puntofisso/status/955726203662536704) and some highly visible users piled in.

I can't trust any reviews after this. The major issue is that the review system is flawed. One odd bad review should not affect the overall standing of a business, so even assuming a review was flawed they should leave it on; if they don't, it means that the whole review framework is wrong somehow because statistically gives power where it shouldn't.

LegitShady 3 years ago |

Now you know for sure you can't trust AirBNB to make ethical decisions on reviews, so you know for sure you can't use AirBNB without opening yourself to these problems. That something was against their rules but the operator is still a "super host" is further evidence any AirBNB designated statuss is worthless.

So take your money elsewhere.

mgkimsal 3 years ago | |

I wish more people would. Without sharing more public stories like this, there's nothing more some of us can do. My wife used abnb twice: once OK/meh experience, one horrible/abusive. Never again. But that was... 8 years ago. How can I 'take my money elsewhere' when... I'm not giving it to them anyway? I already did "take my money elsewhere" 8 years ago. And I know others who have too, but we're small individual voices that can't be heard over the advertising (and... negative review deletions) of the last decade.

10 years ago (or more) the "hey, we're getting a neat little off-the-beaten path house experience for a great deal!"... probably was a selling point. Today, abnb/vrbo/etc is just a corporatized juggernaut.

fallingknife 3 years ago | | |

What more do you want to do? You don't like it so you don't use it. Sounds like problem solved.

LegitShady 3 years ago | | |

tell people about it, like OP did.

The more people who know the fewer potential victims AirBNB and their hosts have.

orangepurple 3 years ago | |

> So take your money elsewhere.

The abuse will continue until prospective victims wisen up. There is A LOT of momentum in Airbnb.

fooker 3 years ago |

I keep getting surprised about how good Airbnb's marketing is.

It has convinced a whole generation of travelers to look for Airbnbs before hotels.

Nowadays, whenever I manage to convince my friends to stay at hotels, they are always taken aback by the concept of cheap hotels and how hassle free the whole experience is.

How did Airbnb accomplish this feat?

yamtaddle 3 years ago | |

That kind of service (AirBnB or otherwise) has a few things going for it:

1) "whole place" rentals are really nice if you're traveling with kids. Like, really nice.

2) It used to often be cheaper to get an apartment or entire house through AirBnB to get any but a bottom-tier hotel (granted, much less true now)

3) It gives you a lot more location flexibility. Ordinary neighborhoods or apartment buildings like a local, maybe walkable to a bunch of cool stuff that's not walkable from where the hotels are in the city, or rural housing sometimes in places where there's not a hotel for many miles.

4) For any kind of getaway where you expect to mostly hang out at/around your accommodations, hotels are so awful I wouldn't consider them an option, short of maybe resorts. Meanwhile you can get a nice AirBnB house on a lake go kayaking right out your backdoor and hang out reading by a wood-burning fireplace and all that. That kind of "the accommodations are the attraction" thing isn't really what hotels are for (again, except, maybe, resorts—but even that's not really the same thing). Granted AirBnB didn't invent this and isn't the only way to get it, but it's one sort of thing for which AirBnB is an option and hotels really aren't.

5) AirBnBs may no longer consistently beat basic hotel rooms on price, but they're still often much cheaper and available in more areas than equivalent apartment-style hotel rooms with kitchenettes and multiple connected rooms and such—these are often limited to long-term hotels, largely near airports and aimed at business travelers, and big expensive suites in fancy hotels in the city center.

fooker 3 years ago | | |

Right, if I understand this correctly Airbnb makes sense if you are doing a multi day trip with a large-ish group and want to spend a bunch of your time in/around the property.

What surprises me is that people are conditioned to look for an Airbnb for all travel accommodation, not just the appropriate niches.

fullsend 3 years ago |

Hosts were originally people with spare bedrooms or extra buildings. Now they are “professionals” who consider themselves grindset “investors”. They will squeeze every dollar they can out, and as a result the quality has collapsed while fees and bad experiences have gone up.

raydiatian 3 years ago |

I had the same experience with VRBO. My "hosts" decided to come home at midnight and fuck loudly in the room next to me while I was trying to sleep, so I left. VRBO first told me I couldn't get my money back, but that I could leave a negative review if I was unsatisfied. The host denied everything, even though it was pretty obviously coming from inside the house, I even had to walk right past the window where they were moaning and boning, it's like okay, yep. It's not like it's illegal to fuck while you have guests in your home or something, it's just low class. Fucking Los Angeles.

Then when I left the review, I get a message a day later that VRBO took down the message. Cool, last time I ever use your service.

geoduck14 3 years ago | |

That's odd. Last night I saw a VRBO commercial saying all of their listing were "rent the while house"

mgkimsal 3 years ago | | |

I've seen those ads too, and it seems like it's a fairly recent thing? Maybe it was optional before, but now is standard?

klntsky 3 years ago | |

Did they do it in the property you rented? If not, what's your problem exactly?

inanutshellus 3 years ago | | |

VRBO's shtick -- unlike airbnb -- is that you're not sharing with anyone. Not even the owner. It's their differentiator.

raydiatian 3 years ago | | |

> it's just low class.

The “property” I rented was just some of the space of the original house, like 30% of it. There was a door from “my area” to the living room on the other side that was nailed or caulked shut, and the walls were paper thin. They were right next door and I could hear every word of foreplay. It was fucking gross.

dazc 3 years ago | | |

Since he said they were the 'hosts' I assumed so.

kmoser 3 years ago | |

You missed the opportunity to video and monetize it on OnlyFans.

eagleinparadise 3 years ago |

I work in commercial real estate, mostly in the apartment industry. I'm about as YIMBY as they come. AirBnBs and short term rentals are terrible for housing costs. STRs incrementally take supply of housing off the market where the owner can received the same or more income by renting at 1/2 or 1/3 the occupancy of a long-term tenant. Some people have mentioned housing was "pre-screwed" or zoning is the issue, but this actually is a big contributing factor to higher costs.

With STRs, an investor can pay a significant amount more than a 2nd home investor, whom that 2nd home investor could pay more than a homeowner.

STRs can be a great investment for someone, but it comes at the expense of housing costs in the area.

I love staying in cool AirBnBs, but it's the reality.

Fortunately, AirBnB launched a new product where they revenue-share with apartment landlords where tenants can Airbnb their apartments out. This is a much less distorting to the market, and even can be good for the housing market if the financial community can rely on this extra income.

If more buildings can pencil (due to high construction costs) because there's now a 10% increase in revenue from Airbnb apartment STRs, and lenders/investors are comfortable with this, then that's a good thing.

33955985 3 years ago |

I have found that leaving review is generally not worth the effort, nor is reading them. When the system that hosts the reviews is owned by a party that benefits from it, the incentives are skewed so badly that that entire system itself is suspect.

KieranMac 3 years ago |

Same thing just happened to me. Had a two-week stay in Costa Rica at a place that advertised itself as a serene and tranquil spot with wildlife. Instead, it was non-stop construction 11 hours a day, 6 days a week. The host knew about it before we arrived. Only found out about it after we got there. Pretty much every appliance in the house broke while we were there. The host was also rude and condescending throughout the process.

We gave a two-star review, and it never appeared on the site. Host is still a super host.

IronWolve 3 years ago |

Censoring to protect the income stream.

nailer 3 years ago |

Same here. Used to be a superhost so I know the rules. I had a period of 24 hours where there was a burglar alarm going off in the apartment and there just couldn’t stop it. Obviously it was very difficult to sleep during the period. I was very careful to say only what happened and not offer any personal opinions.

AirBnB removed the review and would not say what guideline it’s broken so I couldn’t amend the review.

garof 3 years ago |

Is there any site that hosts reviews of properties outside of airbnb?

Maybe even something that verifies the trustworthiness of these reviews?

I haven’t checked but it might be against some rules, but if there is a link to it, it seems possible to have reviews/comments on the contents at that link. I guess Airbnb would be mad about this if it was counter to their interest, so there might be some liability for hosting.

greggman3 3 years ago |

They removed all of mine as well. Stayed around 24 places, half had issues, 3-4 were bad issues and left a bad review. AirBnb removed them

Giorgi 3 years ago |

This is because there was no written and/or other type of proof, as far as Airbnb is concerned its your word against hers, she could just say something among the lines "guest wanted to cancel and invented scenario where I asked about deposit". Thus it got removed.

When it comes to dealing with Airbnb it's all about what can be provided as a proof.

amf12 3 years ago |

Airbnb reviews suck. I once had a terrible experience with an issue. I worked with Airbnb to check out early. The host left me a terrible review which was false. Airbnb knows this because the facts were on their support chat with pictures, but Airbnb did not remove the review.

I stopped leaving reviews after that and have been avoiding Airbnb.

nprateem 3 years ago |

Airbnb lost my trust too. I booked a place that ended up being over a noisy bar and they wouldn't refund me. It was impossible to sleep but wasn't mentioned anywhere on the listing which somehow had a top rating. I had to go to a hotel.

I don't even think to use them any more.

rootusrootus 3 years ago |

The last two times I rented an AirBNB, the actual experience was dramatically worse than the glowing reviews. Now I don't trust the reviews, and I don't use AirBNB any more. I went back to hotels, and I'm happy with that decision.

_xnmw 3 years ago |

Yup, and their AirCover “insurance” is useless. I had an injury claim denied for no reason.

jefftk 3 years ago | |

Literally no reason, or a reason you didn't find satisfactory?

rishabhd 3 years ago |

At this point, AirBnB is too much of a trouble for a weary traveler. No worries of following arcane house rules, doing the dishes and praying to a non existent customer support. Better to stay in a hotel and call it a day.

alex_potemkin 3 years ago |

Airbnb did nothing when my host violated the rules, asked for additional compensation (out of any agreement) and been caught with that. It’s just the worst, but not a unique negative experience with this platform.

the__alchemist 3 years ago |

This is standard for any online review system. Restaurants, travel experiences, AirBnb, products online etc.

As someone else pointed out, there are exceptions to this, like Steam reviews, but it's a good default assumption.

m00dy 3 years ago |

Because, it is not your review. What happens is that you are asking Airbnb’s permission to post a comment and they give you the right to send comment. Blockchain fixes this.

yellow_lead 3 years ago | |

Is this satire?

mozman 3 years ago |

I recently stayed at an Airbnb that had non functioning internet. I mentioned this in my review but it was mysteriously edited out in 24 hours.

nerdchum 3 years ago |

Guests can work around bad reviews by simply creating a duplicate listing with different photos.

One scammy place I stayed had 3 listing for the same place.

diogenescynic 3 years ago |

This isn't just an AirBNB problem--lots of other companies like Amazon, Google, Expedia, Booking.com, and others do the same thing.

Balgair 3 years ago |

Time to go back to CouchSurfing?

https://www.couchsurfing.com/

seattle_spring 3 years ago | |

Sure, if you'd rather sleep in a patchouli-drenched living room in an Anarchist House instead of a beach house with a private rooftop deck.

Balgair 3 years ago | | |

Having done this exact thing via CouchSurfing, I can attest that it's a much more fun experience when you're young, if not a comfortable one.

antb123 3 years ago |

In france they often add sheets for 30 euros per bed.

Airbnb doesn't treat the hosts great either... They auto set new listings to auto approve...

sizzle 3 years ago |

Post the link to the Airbnb posting if it doesn’t break HN rules. They need to stop this behavior from spreading to other hosts.

finifno 3 years ago |

This is why hotels exist, so you don't have to deal with random scammers who decided to rent out their house.

dlqx 3 years ago |

So what? Do you really wonder about that? Come on, don't trust reviews.

europeanguy 3 years ago |

Name and shame.

totallyunknown 3 years ago |

This wasn't in Amsterdam?

neilv 3 years ago |

This post has more hardcore libertarian comments than usual.

PERSON: Then, in the morning, we woke to find huge rats scurrying around the bedroom.

LIBERTARIAN: The contract was for a place to sleep, and here you admit receiving that.

PERSON: And it turned out the owner was running a meth lab in the garage.

LIBERTARIAN: What business is it of yours, how the owner uses their property.

PERSON: When we told the owner we were leaving and would be complaining to Airbnb, they brandished a firearm.

LIBERTARIAN: Your stay was over, and you were trespassing. Castle doctrine.

seattle_spring 3 years ago | |

I don't see any comments remotely like what you're claiming. Libertarian, meet strawman.

lnxg33k1 3 years ago |

I closed everything related to AirBnB 3 years ago, when I booked a room from a Karen who would complain that I would invade her personal space, by passing through the living room, which was the only way to access the entrance door, apparently I was supposed to go in and out less often, like I forced her to rent the room publicly or I was like a unpaying guest.

AirBnB then in its infinite wisdom did nothing to help, they are just a platform that gets your money, without any assistance, solution or due diligence, they just get paid but whenever you need something you are on your own, they can put you in touch with any mentally challenged person, and still they would get no responsibility for that. In general it's just this new economy of disruptors that sucks, just pay with no reliability, hope it will be over soon before it spreads too much to segments that still invest in being reliable, before they understand that apparently it's just a cost and people doesn't mind