I also work at Airbnb and would like to follow up on what Nate just said. Our review system is actually stronger than all the aforementioned sites because it is transaction based, i.e., only people who complete the transaction through Airbnb can leave a review.
Non-transaction based review sites like Yelp, VRBO, etc., are plagued with fake reviews by owners, guests, and competitors. On sites like that, how do you know that those glowing reviews you just read weren't written by the owners, their staff, or their friends? You don't.
By tying our double-sided review system to actual transactions you can have almost complete confidence that the reviews you are reading are the result of someone staying with, or hosting, another member of our community.
We have reached out to the author of the article to articulate this, but rest assured, had he booked through Airbnb he would have been able to write the review he wanted.
In addition to that, he wouldn't have sent money blindly to someone. We would be holding it until after he checks in and reminding the owner via email of the booking to prevent exactly this kind of situation from happening. And in the rare occasions when it does, our 24/7 customer team would have stepped in and helped to find him a new place or issue a complete and fast refund.
That's exactly what is happening through the review system. I find AirBnB reviews to be much more reliable than say Amazon or other easily gamed places. You can and should shame bad hosts and bad guests. You can't see the review text until after both wrote a review so there is no fear of revenge.
This seems pretty clear. He had a bad experience but didn't leave a review for the place, and then when the review period expired, he saw that the place had left a bad review for him. Airbnb keeps both users blind to each other's reviews until the review period has expired, because otherwise people will use the threat of leaving a bad review (as retribution) in order to ensure they get reviewed well. But he did an end-run around this and posted reviews on multiple other sites, which makes airbnb's system break down.
It sounds like Airbnb just needs a way for people to respond to reviews that are left for them. I'm surprised it doesn't have that already.
Like? If I emailed a few friends around the country and asked them to help me out like that, how would Airbnb know?
I'm not saying they haven't considered it, I'm saying they can't stop it. Making the claim that a transaction based review system is inherently trustworthy seems either naive or disingenuous.
TBH I haven't used AirBNB in a long time (too many small hassles + one big bad experience), so it's hard for me to say at this point.
I do know that similar systems (Uber, at least) have had issues with leaky reviews leading to retaliation. It's hard to implement a system like that, especially when your users have safety, money, and comfort on the line.
But AirBnB reviews don't work like that. Even though you leave star rating, nobody sees it (I don't know how it looks like on the host side though, as I only used it as a tenant). Only feedback traceable to you is text you write, but you can be honest with stars. And you see compound rating on the property page, which they only show when there's enough reviews (so again, if you left your review first, they can't see what it was either).
I think the system is pretty good.
On AirBnB I don't trust them at all. I've personally seen bad reviews removed, "good" reviews edited, and pressure tactics to increase "good" reviews. And unlike Amazon, Glassdoor, Yelp, there aren't enough reviews overall that I can try to figure out which ones are real and unedited.
Well in this sense AirBnB has a much more powerful tool, the host also reviews the guest. So when we consider hosting you we don't look at the possibly bad reviews you left, we look at the reviews other hosts left on you.
I think your understanding of how the service works is spot on. There's reputation system of sorts since you can comment on people you've stayed with. If anyone ever got a single bad review, I imagine no one would ever stay there again. Airbnb themselves don't do any of the screening.
It's been a while since I used AirBNB so I'll take your word for it. The recent article in Vice suggested that the fear of retributive reviews was something a lot of people were concerned about, so I'm not sure where the disconnect is here.
"After all, Airbnb uses a rating system in which both the host
and tenant can publicly provide feedback to one another, which
both parties then use to prove their credibility in the
future.
Because of that, there is a built-in incentive to avoid
confrontation, which helps explain why Airbnb hosts
consistently receive higher ratings than hotels reviewed on
TripAdvisor, according to research out of Boston University and
the University of Southern California. If a customer has a
negative experience on Airbnb, they might be better off just
moving on instead of leaving a negative review."
Perhaps it's not retributive reviews so much as complaining during the stay. shrug
I left a bad review once also. The host had it removed. But, in their review of me, they asked why I left a bad review. In the emails received from Airbnb asking for a review, they tell me as a guest that neither party can see the other review until both are submitted. Evidently, this is a lie. Otherwise, how would the host know whether my review was good or bad?
Another issue I have found is that many of the listings on Airbnb are not by the owner, but by some person acting independently as a broker. I have found this in many different countries. This may explain why, when I tried to request a booking, it was not available. The actual property owner had already rented it to someone else. Further, once the broker/host gives the owner the rent, there is no way to get any kind of a refund if there is an issue. The owner has no affiliation with Airbnb. The 'host' no longer has the money. And, Airbnb does not want to pay the expense. So, the guest is left hanging. Maybe they, too, can submit a review that the host will have removed. It's disgusting.
If risking the use of Airbnb, be very careful when a 'host' says a property is not available, but provides a link to a different property. It may have a very different cancellation policy than the original property.
Airbnb claims in their FAQ pages they want to be authentic. But, they seem to be authentic only in the support of their bottom line, even if that requires dishonesty in other areas to achieve.
Because of the combination of different issues, I have decided Airbnb can no longer be trusted. I now prefer to book hotels or apartments through competitor sites. I encourage others to do the same.
I only stay at Airbnb's that have at least some reviews. It doesn't take too long to determine if reviews are sock-puppet-generated or genuine. You have to actually stay at the property to write a review, which means paying for the stay since Airbnb process the payment. Obviously you can create wash transactions but the transaction fees would still be significant.
Another approach is to sent a question to the property manager. Invent some pretext to ask a question. I find that people trying to scam customers on the product also have poor customer service skills. So if I don't get a prompt, cogent and polite response, I move on..
Makes me think that there's a market for a 3rd party website for reviews for AirBnB hosts (and probably guests).
But a new host might not get any guests if they don't have a review on this site, and if the guests avoid them, then no one will review them. An idea would be for a host to pay a refundable deposit, and the website could indicate them as so, "We have no reviews for this host, but they have guaranteed with $money that their listing is legitimate/accurate.". After the first review comes, they can get the deposit refunded. But aha, this doesn't protect against fake reviews by friends and accomplices of a dodgy host...
ISTR last time I used AirBnB there was some flow that really pushed you to leave a review, which obviously leads to those kinds of uninformative reviews.
from my POV one problem with these review systems, unlike hotels, if I leave a bad review the next place I try to rent will look at my review history, see I left a bad review, and refuse to rent to me.
Hotels don't seem to do that. Partly because they have 100s or 1000s of guests so one bad review means nothing whereas on AirBnB many units are individually owned so those owners have a much higher interest in things like this.
I don't know a solution though as there are issues with dishonest reviewers as well.
I do know AirBnB removed a bad review I left. The review is reposted on my blog so it's not gone but it is effectively gone.
Airbnb switched to a "double blind" review system several years go, so you only see the other person's review after you've written your own. If you don't leave a review within two weeks, the other review becomes public and you no longer have the option to leave a review. I did a search to see if there was any press about this, couldn't find much but there's a bit about it here: https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/building-for-trust-503... "The result was a 7% increase in review rates and a 2% increase in negative reviews."
One question I haven't seen to be raised often is how the reviews are "regulated" by airbnb.
I rented an apartment in a metropolitan city via airbnb last year. Both the owner and the apartment got about ~15 excellent reviews. It turned out the owner was very indeed very nice and friendly, but the apartment was far from both the description and the reviews. Our friends living in the city was astound since the price we paid should get us a much better deal than that.
It made me wonder if 1) the reviews were "regulated" or "engineered" somehow, 2) due to the two-way review system, renters were reluctant to write a bad review since they were concerned they could get retaliated by the owners giving them bad reviews in response.
Non-transaction based review sites like Yelp, VRBO, etc., are plagued with fake reviews by owners, guests, and competitors. On sites like that, how do you know that those glowing reviews you just read weren't written by the owners, their staff, or their friends? You don't.
By tying our double-sided review system to actual transactions you can have almost complete confidence that the reviews you are reading are the result of someone staying with, or hosting, another member of our community.
We have reached out to the author of the article to articulate this, but rest assured, had he booked through Airbnb he would have been able to write the review he wanted.
In addition to that, he wouldn't have sent money blindly to someone. We would be holding it until after he checks in and reminding the owner via email of the booking to prevent exactly this kind of situation from happening. And in the rare occasions when it does, our 24/7 customer team would have stepped in and helped to find him a new place or issue a complete and fast refund.
reply