I booked a place for one night in a rural location. I used Instant Booking and after booking, I got the address. The address just has the name of the town, with no street name or number. I messaged the host at 2 PM to ask him the exact address and confirm it's really in that location. I chose to send him a message because his profile says "replies in one hour", but after 6 hours, I called him (8 PM). He said his place was somewhere else (70 km away from the location shown on the map. The name of the village given after the booking does not match the place where he says the apartment really is). He said he was sorry and I asked him to cancel my booking. He said he would cancel it. However, he did not cancel it that evening. So I called the next morning (the day of check-in) at 8 AM. He said he would cancel it "this morning". But he did not. So at 12:30 I contacted Airbnb to report that I could not check-in. I got an automatic Airbnb message saying they tried to contact the host and was not possible. I contacted the host again at 2 PM and asked why he had not cancel it and he said he "was at work and could not access Internet" and that last night he was in his "hometown, out of office". At 3:30 PM, he messaged me and said that he could not cancel it any more as it was after the check-in time (3 PM) and Airbnb did not let him cancel it. As a host, I have never had to cancel so I have no idea if all this is true or not. I was left with no option but to cancel the booking from my end, of course I got a full refund because it´s not my fault, but it is hard to believe for me that the host will not get penalised for this (will he?) after all the trouble it has caused me. He is offering a fake listing. I even have him recorded explaining how his listing is located somewhere else. I am very worried that this will happen to someone else in the future.
