AirBnb and Uber changed the world with its sharing economy business model that allows resource owners to maximise the use of their resource (be it a car or a spare bedroom) should the resource be unused. These platforms have grown enormously in popularity over the last decade.
Given that these platforms wish to maximise their profitability they are designed to encourage the maximum number of transactions; however there have been a number of issues that have arisen over the years. Guests who know Airbnb’s algorithm have found a way to game the system to get free stays and refunds and they have been able to do this repeatedly without detection. I have written to AirBnb as a host but they have refused to do anything because they want to maximise their profitability to ensure that their share price keeps going up.
Weaponising the Review System on AirBnb
A small number of guests have weaponised the review system because they know how important it is for the host to not receive any negative reviews. There have been more than one occasion whereby a guest would book for a few days and on the last day say how dissatisfied they were about some small thing (which could be completely fictitious) – quite often they would choose something that you cannot take pictures of like noise or smell. Other times it might something trivial like they couldn’t get any hot water which is impossible to prove or disprove. They will then tell the host (either in person or over the phone) that they want a refund and say in no uncertain terms that if the host does not agree then they will receive a 1-star review. Most of the time the host would acquiesce to these requests because of the enormous impact a negative review would have on business.
Impossible to block guests on Airbnb
For hosts, if only there was a function where they can block guests that they want staying at their place again it would be really really useful. This blocking function should not force the host to provide a reason; a host should be able to choose who they do business with and if they don’t want a guest to return they should have the ability to do so. In any other business, you can always choose who you enter in contract with and who you do business with why is this not possible on AirBnb?
What AirBnb has not realised is that if they created this blocking feature they will be able identify the 1-3% of guests who are gaming the system and this group can be blacklisted from the platform and make the entire community much nicer for hosts and guests.
Reporting Somebody’s Profile
The only way to block somebody from staying is to report their profile which is not a feature fit for the job; it’s like using a knife as a screwdriver. Once you click on Report Profile these are the options which are completely inappropriate if somebody is gaming the system:-
Obviously none of these choices are even remotely relevant to the problem the hosts experience.
Open letter to Airbnb to petition for Change
We have been hosting for 10 years now. I would say that there are probably around 1-3% of the guests who are gaming the AirBnb system and this tiny percentage really give the platform a bad name.
How these guests game the system is they will book a stay for say 7 days and on the 5th or 6th day they will make a complaint to the host and then threaten to write a bad review if the host doesn’t offer a refund. Our policy is to always refund whenever one is requested because we just don’t want to create any aggro nor do we have the time and energy to dispute a single transaction. There is no way to report this kind of incidence to AirBnb and even if AirBnb did find a way to investigate the guest would invariably deny all allegations they blackmailed the host because everything would have been verbal with no paper trail. Most hosts would just take it on the chin effect the refund because having a bad review is so costly to business but it would leave a bitter taste in their mouths and some hosts would just sign off AirBnb because they just feel so violated.
I had one guest who stayed for 5 days and the night before the last day they asked for late check-out which we would normally grant for free if there weren’t any other guests checking in the following but unfortunately that day we had new guests checking in so we had to politely decline their request. The following day just an hour before checkout time the guests complained that the hot water wasn’t working and requested the last night’s fees be refunded. As per our normal practice we refunded the night immediately and when the house-keeping team went in they found that the hot water system had been tampered with and there was nothing wrong with the system itself.
Currently there is no function for hosts to just “block” a particular guest from rebooking; booking.com has this function; I don’t know why AirBnb doesn’t. Hosts should be able to choose who they do business without having to provide any reason. Currently the only way to do this is to click on “Report a Guest” which is a completely different feature because none of the options provided are relevant and moreover the handling process is all wrong. Through this “Block” function AirBnb will be able to identify guests who are gaming the system because you will quickly see that these same guests get blocked from all the places that they stayed at. I propose that once a guest gets blocked more than 3 times then there will be a review and more blocks from hosts would get them barred from the system altogether. This would really help AirBnb to clean up the rotten apples which I believe accounts for a very small percentage of guests and at the same time reduce the sign-off rate from hosts who get frustrated from receiving bad guests whom end up getting to stay for free effectively.