Airbnb removed my negative review • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#351

Post by raincom » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:05 PM UTC

itake wrote: post #25

raincom wrote: post #2

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.

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.

https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2014/09/ninth-circuit-...

Even though whatever Yelp does is not illegal, it engages in unethical practices: "[R]emoving positive reviews wasn’t extortion because Yelp didn’t have to publish those reviews at all. Third, publishing or showcasing negative reviews wasn’t extortion because Yelp has the legal right “to post and sequence the reviews.” Finally, the plaintiffs claimed Yelp wrote bogus reviews to punish non-advertisers, but the plaintiffs didn’t provide adequate evidence that Yelp wrote those negative reviews instead of someone else. For example, even if a business couldn’t find records matching the reviewer’s details, that doesn’t mean Yelp falsified that review (compare the Yelp v. Hadeed case, which in a different legal context gave more benefit of the doubt to an aggrieved business with similar claims)."

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#352

Post by admax88qqq » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

mynameisvlad wrote: post #67

admax88qqq wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not the same person, and the question still applies. If you're so pedantic, then, > Since when is a social media account required to leave reviews? It's just as absurd when written this way. But, please, show me the exact place where Airbnb (or any other big company) says that a social media presence is required to leave a review. I'm waiting.

Show me where Airbnb promises to accept every review? I'm waiting.

Edit: furthermore spam prevention takes all sorts of random signals in to account. Having no online presence other than a single stay in Airbnb certainly looks suspicious.

Nobody writes their spam detection algorithm as policy.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#353

Post by Giorgi » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:06 PM UTC

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.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#354

Post by admax88qqq » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:07 PM UTC

mhuffman wrote: post #310

admax88qqq wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Implying that a "bot" or "puppet" is paying to stay at AirBnB's just so they can write salty reviews?

In the case I commented on they left a positive review. I'm sure many hosts will accept the Airbnb fees once to boost their rating. Especially if they're starting out, early reviews carry more weight.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#355

Post by sizzle » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:08 PM UTC

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.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#356

Post by seattle_spring » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

HarryHirsch wrote: post #332

seattle_spring wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there some unbiased literature you can share that demonstrates this conclusively?

Long-term rentals getting converted to short-term rentals in a constrained, inelastic market drives up prices, prices are set at the margin. You don't publications for that, that's just a basic fact.

If it’s a basic fact then surely there is literature that backs it up?

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#357

Post by admax88qqq » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

haliskerbas wrote: post #175

admax88qqq wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Weird part about this is that, at least when I onboarded, Airbnb made me do ID verification to make sure I wasn’t a bot or a puppet. After that, they’ve already made the fees on the stay. Most people won’t be losing 20% or whatever to farm good reviews. Why would the final and optional review step be the part where they decide to verify if the stranger staying in someone else’s house is a real person.

It sounds like they suspected you're in cahoots with the host. They don't need to verify that you are in cahoots or not for booking, if a host wants to put themselves then whatever, but if the review looks supisiocus they'll delete it.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#358

Post by Balgair » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:14 PM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #290

Balgair wrote: post #199

Time to go back to CouchSurfing? https://www.couchsurfing.com/

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.

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.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#359

Post by caskstrength » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #100

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…

Is there a big tech company that people brag about working at anymore?

I regularly see "disclaimer: I work in Google" in comments here. Also, "Why I left Google" is still (surprisingly) a somewhat popular genre.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#360

Post by mijamo » Mon, Jan 02, 2023, 9:26 PM UTC

mhuffman wrote: post #310

admax88qqq wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Implying that a "bot" or "puppet" is paying to stay at AirBnB's just so they can write salty reviews?

Yes this is exactly what they do, and what happens with many Amazon items as well, and for Booking.com

It is not really a big cost because you only really need to pay the platform fee (you control both sides of the transaction do the only real cost is the middleman).

Reviews are super important and it is hard to get booking when you have 0 reviews so it is not surprising that some hosts would spend some dollars for 3-4 fake positive reviews to kickstart their property (many people will bounce off the ad without at least a couple positive reviews, so it changes your business radically)