A guest retaliated about having to pay to replace my air mattress (a crucial item I needed for future guests) after they admitted, in writing, to damaging it so badly that they removed it from the property (threw it away) while I was not home (which is technically theft). Their retaliation was to write me a negative review, where they said they looked in my (closed) drawers and cabinets(!), and then revealed my personal items that they didn’t like or agree with its presence in the home. I asked AirBnB to remove or edit this review to take out the mention of my personal items. I had a year’s worth of entirely positive reviews and was nearly qualified for AirBnB’s elite Superhost status, and this was a first-time AirBnB user obviously seeking revenge for something they did wrong, but AirBnB’s customer service repeatedly told me they agreed my situation was unfortunate and morally wrong of that guest, but they stood by their policy, which goes like this: ANYTHING in your home is open for guests’ use, viewing, and mentioning in a review, so long as they do not reveal personally identifiable financial information (ex. driver’s license number, tax ID, or bank numbers). I had previously removed that stuff from my home, but I had no idea your guests can write about pretty much anything else, even if it is out of sight and in an obviously hidden or private place that most polite humans would never dare to look or publicly admit that they did look there. I specifically confirmed with AirBnB that their policy means guests CAN write reviews about your prescription medications, health info, religious artifacts, political artifacts, or any other object which someone, somewhere might find offensive, or that you might deem too “personally identifiable” or too private to be mentioned on the Internet. I could not believe a company knowing let go of one of their best customers in exchange for allowing an evil new customer to remain. This was not even ALL of the bad things that this one guest did or that I suspect they did, but those other issues are a one-on-one guest problem, not an AirBnB problem. The above described AirBnB policy and customer service issues are the reasons why I will never use AirBnB again and encourage all others to not use them for hosting or staying!
