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Airbnb removed my negative review

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Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#341

Post by rograndom »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #181
chollida1 wrote: post #15

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…

I've seen all the comments about cleaning fees but didn't really believe it until I was looking for a place to spend March break; it's completely ridiculous! How is it that they aren't capped as a % of nightly cost? This is like the outrageous shipping costs of old eBay.

We had a place booked on Airbnb near the end of the summer. Had a deposit paid, and the overall price was a bit steep, but needed to stay in the city at that time. Three weeks out we get an email with the "house rules" including disclosing that the owner would actually be staying in the house and would need to go through the main bedroom to enter and exit the property.

We were contemplating what to do with this information as the listing is under "entire place" when a few days later we got an email from Airbnb saying that there was a price adjustment of +$395 for cleaning PER DAY. We had it booked for 5 days so we needed to pay an additional $~2000. That was more than double the original cost. Thankfully we were able to cancel and get our deposit back with just the automated cancellation, but we did get a nasty message from the host that we we reported back to Airbnb.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#342

Post by bambax »

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).

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#343

Post by itake »

mayankkaizen wrote: post #56
itake wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, Yelp has not and does not remove negative reviews for the sake of improving a business's score, but they will remove "spam" reviews (like if a celebrity dies at a hospital and their fans leave bad reviews). There certainly have been minor incidents where certain employees have behaved against policy. Unlike Airbnb, if users lose trust in their reviews, Yelp loses their entire business. source: I am ex-yelper.

I've read 100s of comments from variety of sources over the years that Yelp is in the business of extortion. It extort money from restaurants by threatening to remove positive reviews and other such tactics. Yelp is worse than AirBNB.

Those sources seem like hiersay. A recent story I heard was by Loius Rossmann [0] claimed that he found the family member of a Yelp sales rep left a bad review after he turned down a yelp offer.

That just doesn't make sense to me? Like Yelp is telling their sells reps to ask their family to give bad reviews for businesses that don't buy ads?

There might be an argument for Yelp to adjust incentivizes for their sales people to discourage that behavior, but AFAIK they are acting on their own and not because Yelp said to do that.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQAAauJlPq0

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#344

Post by streetdumpling »

MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #330
streetdumpling wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because an Airbnb listing is cleaned every time a new guest checks in, it doesn't matter whether you stay for one night only or 10 nights. It's a fixed cost to the host.

Then make it a % of a 1 night stay. A $150 cleaning fee is nonsense. It used to be 20-30.

How much cleaning fee depends on the local market price of cleaning. Depending on how big the place is, $150 is possible. In SF e.g. you can't find a cleaner with $20-30. Hotels pay less on cleaner labor because it's more efficient (cleaners are probably full time employees cleaning all rooms every day anyway). And why it would be % of night rate? Cleaning fee is flat for one cleaning service.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#345

Post by itake »

raincom wrote: post #133
itake wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK, Yelp has not and does not remove negative reviews for the sake of improving a business's score, but they will remove "spam" reviews (like if a celebrity dies at a hospital and their fans leave bad reviews). There certainly have been minor incidents where certain employees have behaved against policy. Unlike Airbnb, if users lose trust in their reviews, Yelp loses their entire business. source: I am ex-yelper.

Here is an example: One Yelp employee had his friend write a negative review for the business that said 'no' to Yelp extortion/tax. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQAAauJlPq0

Yeah, this is a perfect example of why Yelp is not instigating this.

Do you really think Yelp is asking their employees leverage their friend's network to leave negative reviews or do you think this sales guy is at risk of losing his job for not converting enough and so he on his own asks a friend to help him keep his job?

If Yelp wanted to extort businesses, they wouldn't need employees to ask their friends. They could just adjust the search ranking to down rank businesses that don't want to pay.

This video doesn't pass the smell test.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#346

Post by omgomgomgomg »

suzzer99 wrote: post #304
spacemadness wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

They, speaking of the hosts, do not make anythong from deposits, I am working in finance, rest assured the reason is a different, much more nefarious one.

They want to charge you for potential damages, done by you or not, as well as wear and tear.

Never, ever put a deposit for them, not even by credit card.

And if you pay for the stay, always , always use a credit card, not a debit card. That way, you can pull the chargeback trigger on them.

A chargeback is their worst nightmare, trust me, it can have so many implications and hurt airbnb so badly if they are subject to chargebacks.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#347

Post by pcthrowaway »

irjustin wrote: post #208
elmerfud wrote: post #8

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 usi…

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.

> 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.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#348

Post by bambax »

pseudobry wrote: post #240

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…

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

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#349

Post by omgomgomgomg »

Shorel wrote: post #316
spacemadness wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It forced hotels to have more competitive prices. Honestly, there was not much else it could do in the long term.

It did not.

Booking.com did that.

I do however always choose an apartment for corporate trips, but always via booking.com.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#350

Post by irjustin »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #347
irjustin wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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 poten…

Personally I hate tipping. Long term it just makes everyone frustrated. Socially, it used to be 10% now the bare minimum is 15% if give 18% people then people start becoming happy.

Now I'm forced to expect my price to be 15-20% more expensive than the list...

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