Guest Reviews - Booking won't remove fake reviews
Greetings everyone and thank you for taking the time to read my post, its going to be long but please do read it. I am seeking advice and help from the forum since Booking.com service doesn't seem to care, nor want to help with my issue.
I have been a host with booking for 3 almost 4 years and i believe i have learnt to offer the best possible experience for every single guest that chooses to stay at my apartments. When someone decides to visit us, i want to make them feel like home, provide them with anything they might ask and assist them with any issue that might arrise. Following that idea i have managed to receive 82 reviews in total of which: 62 reviews got 10/10, 18 reviews got 9/10, 1 review with 7/10 and finally a recent review and the reason of this post with 1/10. When you want to be the best host possible you value every single review (positive or negative) and try to improve from all the feedback they provide.
With all this in mind let's dive into the reason why i am making this post. I recently received this review:
it also included a long text(which i am not sure i am allowed to display so i'll sum it up )
They had nothing positive to say, on the negative things though they said '' that we allegedly called them 1 day before their arrival and told them that the apartment they booked was unavailable and we are gonna give them a different apartment to a neighbour area"
So after reading that review, we were really shocked, since it was literally a made up story. Nor did we ever say any of those things nor did the guests ever stayed in a different apartment than the one they booked. During their stay in our apartment, they never said anything, never complained and whatever they needed we always assisted them. We cleaned almost daily(they stayed for 7 nights) and tried to make their stay the best it could be. We tried to contact with the guest to ask them why did they do this, since it might have been a mistake but they wouldn't respond to any messages or calls. So we decided to ask Booking's help, but booking simply won't remove any reviews, even if they are completely made up and defame your business.
TLTR : guests lied about their review, gave worst possible evaluation, booking will not remove it.
What do you guys think? Should booking remove that kind of review or is it justified and should stay?
Have you ever managed to remove a fake review with the help of Booking?
Well Margarita
Reviews can be a two edge sword in my book.
And as you say 1 bad review for what ever reason can drag your business down. People do not seem to respond too much to communications from the vendor. I like to be a bit personal and ask for an approximate arrival time around 48 hours before they turn up. I get maybe 40% return and the rest never return anything. I can understand some people being "offline" whilst on holiday and others use a junk mail address for the booking and never look again after they have the confirmation note. So I am not really surprised you have not heard back from your client.
In my opinion Booking should chase the client and ask what grounds there were for such a bad review but, it seems that during and after Covid the bean counters got rid of a load of staff and they have not been replace. We now have no representation in my country on the phone help line in the local language (when ever I have called) so if you do not speak English then you have a problem. So I feel chasing bad reviews is not really going to happen if the work force has been cut to the bone.
In the past the system was good but now it appears our Partner support has sort of gone to the wall. The clients I have talked too, who say that they have tried to contact Booking but its a lottery if they get through or if anything is followed up. I had to arrange for another place for some clients due to me getting Covid recently, this was very last minute, no help from Booking in anyway and the clients could not get through to Booking and in the end waited for 10 days for a refund of my letting. It's a shame that things have gone down hill I hope it does not get worse, but that depends on the bean counters in the USA. as they own the company.
Keep banging on Bookings door there will be someone who cares.
I have literally called them, and messaged them through extranet multiple times. Staff on the call center simply tell me that, even though they understand my situation they can't remove reviews even if they are lying.
Booking do not seem to bother about bad reviews done with bad intent , since it does not damage their business but ours. I do not see it fair in my opinion. even to the fact that if they do not leave a review , you could not reply to them. Might is right and booking does whatever they like..
Its so frustrating to try your best as a host and in the end you are evaluated with 1/10 with a fake story to justify it.
I find it absurd that guests can write whatever they want without evidence and get away with it.
Some guest arrive and they are so rude, unfriendly. Reception and staff goes out of their way being friendly, helpfull with everything.
Then guest leave a review that can damage a person and leave a bitter taste for the next guest that wants to stay.
There must be a client review also that we can rate and review a guest also.
You have right! Why booking doesn't care about us??
One of my quest stay 1 night at my place and come around 23:00h I'm waithing for them and check in iy until 18:00h He just sleep not have a chance to see anything and they give me vwry bad rewiev becouse he don't seen cleaning fee. I show him and he sow that and he write that I take more money crom him.I send to booking photo of the bill and they could see that rewiev is false. IT was notvtruth that I take more money.
What booking do??? NOTHING
We get the same, guest arrive after 21:00 in evening and leave again before sunrise so what is there to do after hours. There must be a guest review also that we as guesthouse owners can review guest also and give redflags to guest.
On reviews how many times get get 10/10 on everything and booking.com give a 7-9 how does that work.
With complains they rather transfer you to another and again and again. They take money and we are left with the problems
The reviewing score has 2 seperate raitings.The first one rates different categories (Staff, Facilities, Cleanliness, Comfort, Value for money, Location) and the second, an overall raiting. Which makes no sense!
Regarding Booking's support its been awful for me. When you call them, you end up waiting an hour in the line and if you are lucky they answer and tell you that they can't help you.
It seems Booking is following "the client is king" strategy just like other large, successful companies.
This makes some of us hosts (who are the ones who provide Booking with income) feel helpless in the face of situations that are clearly unfair.
I am sorry for your bad experience and I hope Booking will consider reviewing and removing false or fraudulent reviews in the near future.
The simple fact is that Booking.com do not understand that without businesses there are no guests/customers.
There is clearly a need in the market for a company that looks after both guests and business owners. Anyone with one brain cell, and the capital behind them, who started such a company would condemn Booking.com to the trash!!
During my more than 8 year experience I understood several things about BDC. Yes they never delete fake reviews, it can be made up or Sci-Fi. They are always on guests side. Guest can write literally whatever he wants to. Don't even waste your time calling or contacting BDC. All you receive is template answer saying they are sorry. Actually they are not!
I thought I saw everything, but they don't stop to surprise! Last masterpiece is - we were blackmailed by the guest, they tried to blame us in theft and left a review saying they were robbed after we didn't pay them and I have a video with sound, where they send us a criminal who tried to extort money. So what you think? BDC refused to delete this charge from the review, demanded a proof from us that we are innocent, not from the guest who publicly charge us without any evidence, refused to watch that video and finally ---- asked for the written proof that they blackmailed us! Sorry guys, those criminals didn't leave a written confession with signatures! There is too much BDC in BDC! ))))
I have a similar issue, how do I go about escalating this with bookings.com? Please help?