Airbnb
Questions & Answers

I found through first hand experience that airbnb does not post negative reviews. I tried to post my personal experience and it was unable to do so. The reviews I saw for our stay in Paris were all false as well as the pictures posted for the rental! I contacted airbnb to no avail. Sad to say even after the pictures I took of the deplorable condition ( water damage, mold, dirty room... etc) the false ad was still up and running.

There is nothing IN THEORY that prevents negative reviews being posted on Airbnb. Guest and host both have 14 days after a ‘completed stay’ to post a review about each other – neither of which are published until the 14 days have elapsed. The host and guest apparently don’t get to see each other’s review before they are published. This is supposedly to prevent ‘retaliation reviews’ where guest/host sees a negative public review about them and posts an equally negative and possibly untrue review in retaliation.

However, I have to agree with others that there is a suspiciously lopsided balance of reviews on the site – go and search for yourself in any location, eg Barcelona, Moscow, Sydney, London etc, with no filters applied, and try really hard to find a property with an overall ‘star rating’ (an amalgamated Airbnb score based on all reviews for that property) of 1, 2, 3 or even 4 stars out of 5. The VAST majority of overall star ratings are 5 stars out of five, a few are 4.5 stars out of 5. This just doesn’t ring true. As someone said on a TripAdvisor forum, “common sense and experience dictates that you can’t please all of the people all of the time – Airbnb ratings seem to suggest the opposite.” I agree, they do.

I don’t necessarily believe the positive reviews are fake or anything, just that it seems highly unlikely in such a huge online marketplace that there could be SO few negative reviews if the system was GENUINELY open and transparent. So I do concur with the theory that Airbnb somehow manages to block a large number of negative reviews. I don’t know whether that’s by Airbnb asserting its stated right to remove certain reviews, or because really bad properties - the kind where you turn up and immediately know you can’t stay there because they’re so awful – never get reviewed because if a guest leaves before 24 hours has elapsed it’s counted as a ‘cancellation’ and they are not allowed to post a review under Airbnb Terms and Conditions.

Anyways, it all points to the fact that you need to do your research thoroughly and be appropriately wary when considering booking with Airbnb. Read all the Airbnb terms and conditions, check the host’s cancellation policy carefully, communicate with the host personally via the ‘Contact Host’ button on the listing BEFORE you fork out any money, etc…. Generally just be a savvy consumer and don’t get too swept up in the trendy Airbnb PR message of the ‘sharing economy’. Treat Airbnb like any other rental advertisement site and apply the usual caveats and precautions. And take reviews with a healthy pinch of salt, just like you would with reviews on TripAdvisor, Amazon or any other popular ecommerce site.

I think people are naturally polite, but I would be wary if most of the reviews were not 5 stars

: Airbnb does post negative reviews. Some deserving and some not. I tend to agree that most people are nice so nice people usually post nice things, they usually could see a positive in sometimes a not so positive situation. Some people will find something wrong not matter what and those are the people who will post on this site. Like any growing company, there are growing pains and sometimes airbnb will not be able to get back with the host or the client right away, but all in all I think they are a good company and their website is good.

They do post bad reviews, I'm a host and copped one I didn't agree with. I was able to post a response to the review. But as some others have already written, this company has set up everything to maximise their benefits. They will grab their commissions and then cut you loose. Trying to solve a problem with them is a nightmare and you will end up being short changed somewhere. Use homeaway instead

I remember seeing poor reviews about a couple of places in London but that was several years ago. I use reviews and Facebook to check people out, so this worries me if it is true. I also do a name background check in the area they come from. I am going to keep an eye on this. I think it is worth going the AirBnB route if you are careful on both ends. Check people out as much as you can. Renee

They are the worst, you can ask for security get it and when home gets trashed and damaged they do everything to deny your claim. The host garranty is a scam. False sense of security in which they close cases and when you ask they keep telling you it is closed and cannot discuss. Also. Never can speak to trust and safety that always turns your claims down, alway rather deal with Home away VRBO so so so so much better

Just like everything else airbnb does at their own discretion and to their own benefit, they are at liberty to post or not post reviews using the excuse that it must be within their review "guidelines." As a former host who posted a review on airbnb below to warn others, I can tell you that often times satisfied guests do not take the time to post a POSITIVE review, however, if a host files a claim against a guest's sec. Dep. For damage/theft, etc. I can guarantee the disgruntled guest will definitely leave a retaliatory NEGATIVE review on the host. This includes guests who raved about their fabulous stay before the claim was filed! For these reasons, I do not believe in reviews.

Or in my case, the experience was so deplorable that u left before my trip was over (a. K. a. I went to a hotel). I wasn't even given the option to review because they said I left early.

Of course they don't! However, I know that once you have finished your stay you can always leave a review wheather it be positive or negative but hosts are able to delete negative reviews because they don't want the chance of other users to read it and turn away.