@Joan2709 @Emily159
Yes, this IS scary. This particular case may be comparatively minor in consequence (having to suffer the punishment of a nonexistent issue imaginarily committed by the host)...
...but what if AI decides to randomly delist a host because somebody used the word "microwave" in a message? Obviously, CS cannot/will not do anything about it.
I consider myself lucky. Sure, we've had a precious few guests make false claims and get refunds, and of course, despite providing overwhelming evidence proving the guest was fraudulent, CS usually does nothing... But I have "won" on a few occasions, the most successful tactic so far has been sensing it coming ... and alerting AirBnb CS in advance that this guest is acting strangely and may attempt a fraudulent claim of some sort. In one case, they did precisely that, but I had already provided Airbnb a verifiable, evidence-based heads-up that they were deliberately setting it up. And ultimately, they lost.
Nowadays I can generally avoid these fraudulent claims by vetting guests and keeping track of everything... We have smart home technology which keeps records of everything like power and water usage, room temperatures.. etc., so if the guest claims they were out of power for 2 days or there was no water, or the air conditioning didn't work, I can easily prove that it's patently false. That doesn't mean I'll avoid a refund, but it does give me a fighting chance.
But when I read stuff like this, it makes me wonder when I'll be randomly delisted and all future bookings cancelled ... for something that never happened.
In this case, apparently even the guest doesn't know anything about it. Have you asked Airbnb if they've asked the guest about it?
Lastly, while other platforms can be equally as brain-dead when it comes to host support, what they don't do is recklessly intervene.
It occurs to me that these "interventions" must ultimately be somewhat costly to Airbnb (both monetarily and in degraded market perception), so perhaps it would be in Airbnb's interest to just ignore hosts and guests like the other platforms do - and get rid of these silly "interventions" altogether (including the illusory "AirCover").
While far from the ideal solution, it would make Airbnb a "safer" platform for hosts, at no expense to Airbnb. In fact, they'd likely save money.
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