Our experience is that Airbnb’s appeal system is very weak, non transparent and incentives abuse by hosts.
My family stayed in house in Les Houches, France managed by Mana Homes. It cost us around €5k for a week. The management company claimed we did €500 damage to dining chairs, Persian rug and fridge door shelf. We have pictures and video of everything of when we left.
The pictures made it crystal clear that the damage to the chairs and rug were wear and tear. The fridge shelf was damaged when we arrived so we took it off not to damage it any further. The Managment company also said that all items were less than a year old, which they clearly weren’t. The fridge, for example, was same year as the house (c2007).
Airbnb’ reason for not deciding in our favour was on that they had “reasons to believe”. But they didn’t actually give a reason other than a generic paragraphs on how they do market research etc.
Does anyone have any advice how to raise the dispute further, including legal avenues?
It’s not the money but the principle that matters here. The system only allows one appeal and then they take the money out of our account. Airbnb also stops you from removing your credit card if there is any ongoing matter. So we couldn’t just leave Airbnb either. We’ll do it after when we can. But still working out how to handle the dispute mechanism. This sort of result incentivises unscrupulous hosts to game the system to get more money. The host here (Mana Homes - management company) waited for after the 2 week feedback limit had passed before making the claim.
