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[oldpin]

Guest arrived, said they smelled "something", contacted Airbnb and then got Airbnb to give them a full refund and left the property without staying more than 10 minutes. Now the guest has left a negative review. I visited the property and did not smell anything at all and we have no air freshners.

I contacted Airbnb and they said this does not violate their review policy. This blows my mind that they will allow a guest to leave a review without even staying in the unit.

Any experiences or suggestions as I cannot refute that they "did not check in?"

[ChrisFromTheOC]

Continue to escalate up the chain. Is there proof that they actually arrived or is this just off of what they said? Also, look in the airbnb tos... unless they changed it again, there was a rule that stated that any complaints must be addressed with the host and the host given adequate time to rectify the situation prior to airbnb triggered refunds/cancellations.

[sunshinestate]

Are you certain they arrived? This seems like a sneaky way to cancel.

[TopekaTom]

I would recommend reaching out to Airbnb again and escalating and saying what you’ve said here - guests didn’t stay and you checked and there was no smell. They may remove the review under grounds of inaccurate review (I have no prior reviews mentioning their complaint) and it was deterring future bookings. Airbnb removed it.

[ozni]

I was able to get a review removed, but I submitted evidence that their plane never took off, and also the chats where they said they couldn't make it.

I don't know how you can demonstrate that they never set foot in your place unless you hand them over a continuous video of your entire house.

[LD75]

Do you have proof they even entered the property? Two can play at the game if the guests can't prove they even went in.

[AllOrganic]

This is the most frustrating type of bad review as there is no physical evidence. I have fought Airbnb on this many many times and I never won once. I have a high success rate on getting bad reviews removed too (I managed 50+ Airbnbs at one point). They claim that because they did check in, they are allowed to leave a review, but “no need to worry, you can leave a public response to their review.”