The host retaliated because we had the audacity to tell her that the place was unclean when we checked in. She claimed 2000$ of fabricated damage and as you Airbnb sided with the host initially.
It's only because I lost 3 hours of my time with support and took a thousands of screenshot from our Messages that I got them to drop that charge.
I also issued a Chargeback with my credit card for the dirty place.
But yeah, this is done for me as well. I had 20+ stays but I will never , absolutely never use them again. My time is worth something and this Airbnb destroyed our holiday and took way too much of my time to handle.
She went full damage on us as a revenge. Trying to charge us 2000$ for fabricated damage. Airbnb Support tried to stand on her side asking us if we "had proof we didn't do it". I was on holiday. I didn't think about taking every single object in high definition picture.
We had to spend 3+ hours on the phone and by message to have Airbnb "drop" that 2000$ charge.
Never again. Not worth the time. Airbnb is great when it goes well. But you have too many bad hosts that ruin it for everyone. And when it goes bad it goes really bad.
But that promise was broken for me when Commaleta played back the video of her front door camera and counted that we had 10 people walk in her door, not eight. She proceeded to accuse us of throwing a party, when we absolutely did not, and tried to charge us $1000 extra dollars.
At that point, I decided that Airbnb’s hosts were too much of a wildcard in most travel situations.
By the way, the story above is from 10 years ago and I will never forget her name for the rest of my life…she turned what should’ve been a relaxing, beautiful week into a miserable arbitration process. It’s hard for ABNB to succeed long term when one experience like that can ruin everything.