Paul was very communicative and friendly in the beginning. On the ad on Airbnb it mentions "Entire place" and advertises that you will have the "entire place to yourself". It was not stipulated anywhere that it was a seperate entrance at the back of his private residence. This should be mentioned in the "About" section on Paul's ad on Airbnb . The first pictures of the place was of his personal residence and not of the seperate entrance where we would be staying. This was very misleading.
We booked the place on Airbnb at 14h00, checkin was between 15h00 and 17h00. We arrived at the Airbnb at 16:01pm when I messaged Paul saying we are outside. The reservation was canceled at 16:13pm on Airbnb. Before we checked in. The refund should come from the the host not Airbnb.
My partner and I saw the place and within all of the 8mins of been there we decided to cancel the reservation immediately before we even brought any of our belongings onto the property. When we told him our reasoning for canceling the reservation, he was very understanding and told me to cancel it from my side. When I did that he declined my refund request on Airbnb. I contacted Airbnb and they told me that they would contact him (the host) and require about the issue. Airbnb then notified me that the he was unreachable. When I asked Airbnb who has the funds and if it was paid over to the host yet, Airbnb advised me that Paul (the host) had the funds and the refund (excluding Airbnb's service fee) should have been refunded to me by Paul himself not Airbnb. So the refund request I asked him for should not have been declined. Very disappointed and really astonishing as we weren't even at the Airbnb for more than 8mins and the host refused refund after canceling on the spot.
We had no faults or issues with the host himself and we were very respectful. We merely just asked for a refund and Paul declined same on Airbnb. He knew that we were going to cancel the reservation, as we spoke to him directly outside his personal residence when we canceled on the spot, before we officially checked in. It would have been a entirely different story if we brought our bags inside, settled ourselves in the Airbnb and then after 1hour of being in the place decided that we wanted to cancel. This was not the case. Paul was very responsive, warm and friendly when we booked and paid for the reservation, but definitely not when we requested our refund as we did not utilize the place at all.