Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Airbnb removed my negative review

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

431–440 of 473 posts

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#431

Post by tw98521358 »

progval wrote: post #311
edmundsauto wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there anything currently in place that prevents the 5% off situation? Seems like nobody is able to solve that one. Or wants to tackle it. Airbnb is incentivized to have higher scores because lower ratings might not push people to other properties - it might discourage them from booking all together. They need them to not be totally worthless, but score inflation is definitively in their best interest.

I left a negative review on a product on Amazon whose seller was doing this (but much higher than 5%). Amazon deleted the review.

[flagged]

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#432

Post by tw98521358 »

prepend wrote: post #267
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.

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 hea…

Someone should just scrape airb&b reviews as they post and never take them down. Internet archive of air B&B of sorts

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#433

Post by dragonwriter »

tekknik wrote: post #429
dragonwriter wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You will have removed the incentive for those that want to provide better service however. The incentive to provide better service for individual employees should be provided by their employer. The incentive for the employer to provide better service to customers is competition with other service providers the client might choose. Which is how it works in all the jobs that aren’t within the weird and arbitrary boun…

So then how do you make people care enough to do a good job if there is no monetary incentive? Should the employer cover this? That’ll will still end with the same, increased prices. Also this has been tried before, and was widely considered a failure. People don’t like surprise fees, inflated prices, etc. They don’t mind tipping as it gives them some control back. My job also “tips” me. Every year if my manager like…

> So then how do you make people care enough to do a good job if there is no monetary incentive? Should the employer cover this? That’ll will still end with the same, increased prices.

Increased prices are what it should be, just as it is in every business outside of tipping culture. Tipping culture is not the same thing as increased prices.

> Also this has been tried before, and was widely considered a failure.

It works just fine in much of the world. It even works fine in the US where foe some things normally covered by tipping culture, a flat fee in lieu of gratuity is applied in certain circunstances (e.g., restaurants do this with largw parties quite often.) It works just fine in places with tipping culture in all the customer service jobs that are arbitrarily outside of its coverage.

> My job also “tips” me. Every year if my manager likes my work from the previous year then I get more RSUs. If they don’t like my work, then I don’t get RSUs (and maybe fired). Tipping is everywhere.

Incentive pay from your empkoyer is not a culture of tips from your employer’s customers.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#434

Post by tw98521358 »

Arainach wrote: post #214
jtc331 wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing it to a commercial hotel isn’t really accurate. It’s more like a bed and breakfast. Size of the property matters a lot.

In every city there are multiple hosts who buy/rent out entire apartment complexes and turn them into AirBnBs. That's a hotel, not a bed and breakfast.

Yeah but at that point it’s just plain old tax fraud.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#435

Post by tw98521358 »

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.

It costs about 200$ to get my house cleaned so it seems like a pretty standard cost especially for a larger place.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#436

Post by tw98521358 »

rwalle wrote: post #396
streetdumpling wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Only makes sense if the host is actually paying professional cleaning service, or doing it themselves at the level provided at those services, after each stay. And I am very sure that's not the case 99% of the time based on my own experience. I'd be thankful if the kitchen counter is clean and there is no trash. That's actually not a low bar.

All the vrbos we have been at were professionally cleaned. Maybe the low end is more scammy

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#437

Post by zbrozek »

tekknik wrote: post #413
zbrozek wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's creating liquidity, just not the kind you value. It's liquidity of short term housing rather than long term housing.

Ok, then more accurately it’s moving liquidity. The next question is which is more valuable to society?

The United States is short O(10M) housing units[0], primarily due to anti-construction policies. Airbnb has O(100k) listings[1] in the US. Banning short-term rentals is a 1% solution. That's a policy distraction, not a useful lever to pull.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/us-housing...

[1] https://www.stratosjets.com/blog/airbnb-statistics/

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#438

Post by puntofisso »

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.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#439

Post by lobocinza »

nextos wrote: post #373
omgomgomgomg wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was inclined to say "speak for yourself", but then that would have been rude and your username indicates we are living half way across the planet. Things are different on this side of earth, rest assured. I have paid extra every single time. Further, there is always things like "parking available", but then either its not free of charge or always busy or its....public parkings. Same with internet access. Available,…

I have also found some Airbnb ads to be inaccurate. Online descriptions and reviews should be more regulated. Google, for instance, keeps removing legitimate reviews from myself and others regarding a builder that rented / sold houses with horrible snagging problems, e.g. bursting pipes and leaky roofs.

I have a similar experience with Google removing negative legitimate reviews while not removing fake positive review from the owners itself + family & friends.

Re: Airbnb removed my negative review

#440

Post by lobocinza »

jacurtis wrote: post #378
Shorel wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is sort of a funny argument. I promise that AirBNB prices have no impact or influence on hotel prices. It is generally the opposite, AirBnB rates are often influenced by the prices of surrounding hotels. The number of travelers staying at an Airbnb versus a hotel is under 1%. This is clear by looking at overall inventory available. Even a decent market _might_ have 100 AirBnB listings, that same market will have…

That depends on the place. Where I live the near touristic destinations have poor tourism infrastructure so AirBnB and similar is thriving there.
Post reply on HN