Maybe I'm naive but isn't this something Amazon, for example, should be doing? Why aren't they concerned about the integrity of their community?
This site has a very low bar for showing false positives. It can mark majority reviews as fake without consequences. If Amazon does something similar it will be like YouTube de-monetizing videos all over again.
Because consumers aren't imposing sufficient costs on them for not being concerned to change that attitude. Amazon is interested in making money as efficiently as possible, period.
For example, "great place if you're a dog lover" = gang of intimidating street dogs on your doorstep. "Great eco-friendly washing machine" = one of those vibrating buckets. "Great place if you're a morning people" = loud train or church bells at 4am, or just next to a loud highway.
I've lived in some dumpy places in my life without issue so I'm not just some picky tourist expecting a Four Seasons experience in someone's guest house. But the reviews/ratings are pretty useless and Airbnb really has no reason to fix them.
There's a downside - you get reviewed yourself, as a guest. My wife had an OK experience with airbnb, then a shitty one. airbnb did nothing helpful, and the host threatened my wife with a negative review if she left one. The fact that we had documented evidence of things like
* a completely broken shower
* missing curtains in the living area, exposing your entire room to an office block across the street, with no way to walk between bathroom and bedroom without being seen by office workers day and night
* broken television
* moldy refrigerator
* and - as trivial as it sounds - 1 hanger in a closet for someone who booked a 10 day stay
airbnb hung her out to dry, no refund, no partial refund. "it must have been acceptable because you stayed". There was no guarantee of getting any refund during that time, and we were already out over $2k for just the accommodations. Horrible horrible experience, and I will not be giving them our business again any time soon.
Again, the host threatened to leave a "negative guest" review. Given that my wife would only have that one review (despite a previous airbnb stay), this has more of a damaging effect on her ability to use the service in the future than it does on the host with dozens of "fabulous/great place!" crap reviews. She declined to leave a negative review out of some odd fear, against my suggestion, but what's done is done. The airbnb team makes it pretty clear how they resolve issues, and it was not even close to being fair, from my perspective.
Of course, looking at things "objectively", yes, my wife could have come in and broken the shower, added mold to the refrigerator, broken the television and stolen the curtains just to try to wrangle a few bucks from the host. There is always that to consider, I suppose.
Some countries and cities don't have curtains. A TV service and hangers don't qualify as a valid reason to get $2k refunded, or even half of that.
We'd already been told that we'd get a negative review if she left anything, as we'd already tried to go through the 'dispute' process with airbnb.
Claiming a working TV and showing pictures of the main living area with curtains, then having neither is, at very least, deceptive. A broken shower (with video proof) apparently isn't enough to justify any dispute at all, because it was "fixed" on the 4th day. I would think, would be an admission that there was an actual problem that needed attention, and some sort of adjustment would be appreciated/welcomed.
Hangers - totally minor, but having emailed the 'hosts' earlier, they'd indicated this would be something provided, and it wasn't. I don't know how many things need to be a) promised in writing or in photos then b) not delivered before some notion of "goodwill gesture" becomes appropriate (10% off future airbnb booking? 10% refund/adjustment for poor service?) Apparently we were not even close to the threshold, and if that doesn't qualify, I have no good reason to consider airbnb for future travel needs.
If possible and necessary, deny the charge on your card.
I've been on both sides and seen all sort of claims. Disputes are always messy, AirBnb seem to read them and try to deliberate.
I have had to trash an established account with 16 great profile reviews because an agent acting for a host left a vindictive review for me.
Creating a new account takes a few minutes and I found no downside to getting places without any review history.
AirBnB isn't Facebook, people don't think it's funny that you don't have an established account.
Conversely, it doesn't work the other way around as I would be wary of booking a place with zero reviews and, I expect, most other people think the same?
Oddly though, the only place I have stayed with zero reviews (limited number of options at the time) turned out to be the best place so far?
If AirBnB would allow you to see the “review rate” of a property that would be telling. “14% of the guests of this property left a review” would mean a lot compared to “72% of the guests of this property left a review”.
On a related note, I was talking with an airbnb host yesterday who had just hosted some fairly messy guests that may or may not have broken something. He decided that not leaving a review was the best course of action. It seems that revealing the review rate could work both ways (for hosts and guests).
The place wasn't bad (by AirBnB standards) and I was surprised by this.
Would't that put us right back in the same situation? Guests and hosts will now worry about keeping their review rates above some threshold, and feel the pressure to write some kind of review. The original pressure to not leave negative reviews still exists.
I mean, I don't know if there's a solution to this. I remember a long time ago, when I bought and sold on eBay, that I rarely gave negative feedback. Just to avoid the retaliatory feedback from the other party.
What about the simple: "Would you recommend this to a friend?" And then a _short_ reason. I mean is "too much morning sun" a bad review? Nope! What it is, it is. Some people will love it. Some won't. Some won't care either way.
The point being in hiding the truth ABB is essentially inviting people to book stays that they are not going to enjoy.
The advantage of leaving a "bad"review is obvious: You might save someone from a shite experience. And if this were the stay'er community standard, that someone could be you.
Yes, inadequate light isolation in a place rented for sleeping is a significant negative feature.
Very true. I have found the places with a lot of good reviews (compared to similar nearby) tend to be the ones that allow short stays and have a high number of bed spaces despite being a one bedroom apartment.
From my own experience, you don't notice much bad stuff in a couple of days the way you do after a week or longer. Especially if among a group of friends.
A similar place that doesn't allow instant booking and only accepts long stays may be a more discerning host but get far fewer reviews in return.
That said, the lack of true clarity and transparency feels risky (to the brand). That is, if the reviews are "fake" no one - not even the property owners - can trust them. On one hand you're saying ppl leave positive reviews to bump up their reputation. On the other hand, if everyone knows the reviews are bullshit, the owners aren't going to truth them either.
Are they still reviews if they have no real truth/value?
Amazon has virtually no competition, ergo is not incentivized whatsoever to be concerned with the integrity of their community. Further, Amazon will charge you for return shipping so, again, they couldn't care less if a positively reviewed product actually sucks. Now that I think about it, the whole system is pretty brilliant because they're double dipping: charging the customer for returns but charging the vendor for warehouse space. It's the definition of a win-win.
Ten-to-one a company like Amazon buys them in a year or three. Assuming that they don't pivot to the 'extortion' business model instead.
Imagine you are appointed the new CEO of Amazon.com. Please define "enough money," even a loose ballpark estimate.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/on-amazon-pooled-merchandise-op...
Relevant paragraphs if you can't get past the paywall:
"As more third-party sellers have signed up to offer products through Amazon and use its order-fulfillment services, the Seattle-based giant has allowed many to pool their inventory with supposedly identical items supplied by other sellers—in essence commingling products from third-party merchants with those supplied directly to Amazon by the brands themselves.
In other words, a product ordered from a third-party seller may not have originated from that particular seller. If the bar code matches, any one that is on the shelf will do."
"FBA vendors appear to have control [...] But I still don't think the amazon customer can see if an fba vendor allows commingling"