Host immediately canceled reservation, assuring me that he had contacted Airbnb support—but he didn’t.
It appeared that he was running a scam, trying to get me to be the one to lose money by telling me he was going to cancel, but then not actually doing it.
The snafu took all of my money, leaving me stranded. It took hours to get the problem straightened out, by which time I had lost out on good reservations and wound up in the worst place I’ve ever seen.