Airbnb removed my negative review • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#101

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

adql wrote: post #85

imtyler wrote: post #26

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.

How's that different that having a neighbour in hot love with his lawnmover at 6AM ?

You can potentially come to a solution/agreement with a single neighbor. Less so if you’ve got a brand new neighbor every 2-3 days.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#102

Post by HarryHirsch » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #72

imtyler wrote: post #26

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.

I’m genuinely interested to hear what are the specific harms you have suffered due to this.

Airbnb greatly contributed to the housing shortage in Vermont.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#103

Post by duxup » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

alphabettsy wrote: post #71

imtyler wrote: post #26

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.

Why would or should you have a say in what the property owner next door does? What does having a say look like?

Cities and etc have zoning laws because it does matter what kind of activity happens next door.

I lived in a town house association where the unit’s being rented were the source of noise, trash, crime, etc.

People renting often don’t care as much for the neighborhood/ locals and they can move on at will. And you'd be surprised how much random citizen land lords are terrible at just being land lords.

After the numbers of rentals were reduced (and background checks required) the neighborhood improved greatly. It was like turning off a light switch on noise, litter, crime, etc...

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#104

Post by thefounder » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

prettyStandard wrote: post #68

cycrutchfield wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bei…

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

You can always book a hotel. AirBNB will not and cannot provide you a 100% care free experience because some guests are indeed liars and there are all sorts of scams both on the guest and host side. It's a kind of ebay. It's always a hit or miss.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#105

Post by quadrifoliate » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

admax88qqq wrote: post #64

mynameisvlad wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Don't exaggerate. There is a difference between doing online business and leaving an optional review. OP was still able to use Airbnb, they just removed one positive review possibly because they have no online history making it hard to distinguish them from a bot or puppet.

> they have no online history making it hard to distinguish them from a bot or puppet

Huh? Airbnb has the entire transaction history that matters – proving that this specific user paid a specific amount of money for staying in a specific place for a specific amount of time.

Thinking that you need to prove "online history" (how would you even track this?) as well is absurd.

My theory on this is the same as usual – Airbnb outsources or understaffs their customer service department as usual; some stressed out agent closed the case without even looking at it. Making some noise and opening a separate case will probably work if you're bothered enough.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#106

Post by miguelazo » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #72

imtyler wrote: post #26

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.

I’m genuinely interested to hear what are the specific harms you have suffered due to this.

Gee, how about having a parade of random people showing up at all hours of the day/night just to start? The erosion of community. Further commodification of housing so that only the rich and upper middle class can buy a house in any city?

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#107

Post by murermader » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

_gabe_ wrote: post #42

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 th…

Next time use this simple strategy: Leave a 5 star review, collect the 30$, then change it to a 1 star review.

Ideally Amazon would do something against this, but I think they just don‘t care.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#108

Post by bradly » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #84

bradly wrote: post #18

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.

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 un…

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

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#109

Post by philliphaydon » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:09 PM UTC

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.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#110

Post by ajhurliman » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

wantsanagent wrote: post #46

medellin wrote: post #9

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…

Frankly I'll back AirBnB over an HOA any day. HOAs are a societal cancer.

I think there's a point to be made about single family dwellings, but it's hard to imagine how a 50 condo building would operate without one. Who takes care of the pool? Or fixes the elevator?

The governance is definitely poorly structured, though. In my (limited) experience I've seen a board that gets elected and then proceeds to abuse their power to advance their own financial positions.

I think there should be a 3rd party company that competes for the management contract and annual contracts are awarded based off democratic vote from all the owners.