My one and only experience with AirBnB was horrible. I booked a place so I could take some family and friends on a nice little vacation. Fast forward to three days before check-in. The host messages me asking me to email them a copy of my photo ID. Obviously, I told them no. 1) You should never let anyone have a copy of your photo ID (identity theft). 2) You certainly shouldn't _email_ your ID. 3) Communication outside AirBnB is against their rules. 4) A copy of your photo ID is not required, again according to AirBnB's rules.

Anyway, I told the host it would be too dangerous to comply with their request and that I would be happy to _show_ the ID in-person at check-in. They ignored me and just re-iterated their request. At this point I was already ID verified by AirBnB, so there's really no reason for the host to personally verify me except at check-in. So I contact AirBnB support.

Well the host stonewalls me and support for the 3 days leading up to check-in. AirBnB support is friendly, but their messages are often confusing and contain broken english making them difficult to understand. Their helpfulness only extends as much as to say "yes, this is against our rules, but the host won't budge."

So I had to cancel the trip last minute and break the news to my family and friends who had already made plans around this vacation. Everything was ruined.

The best AirBnB offered was to give us extra "credit" to book someplace different. Oh, great. Let me just go book another AirBnB, who might _also_ break your rules, last minute. No thanks. I was too stressed by having to deal with all this garbage to work up the energy to try and book someplace last minute. The thought that I would have to cancel the trip and disappoint my friends and family who were so excited to go ... that ate away at me the _whole_ time I was dealing with that horrible host and the limp AirBnB support.

We were lucky in that our destination was a road-trip away, rather than a flight. Imagine if we had booked flights depending on this AirBnB booking?

I don't see how anyone could entrust their trips to the whims of AirBnB given this behavior. They clearly can't enforce their own rules and don't go out of their way to help their customers.

On top of all this, I had the misfortune of visiting the AirBnB subreddit. Wow. The AirBnB host culture is rife with self-entitled control freaks who are ready to throw guests under the bus under the guise of "well this is my personal home, so you have to obey my rules." No, this is a business. We're _paying_ to stay at your _business_ property. Not your home. It stopped being your home when you offered it for sale. Of course I would always treat people's property with respect, home or not. But the attitude that they somehow are above the rules of a business because they're renting their "home" is toxic.

Other commenters frequently point out how the rating system is also completely broken. Guests won't rate their stays low, even when there are problems. Which means you can't trust the ratings. And if you can't trust the ratings, how can you choose a place to stay? And how is AirBnB Plus supposed to work if every place has 5/5?

Since my stay was cancelled, I had no way to leave a review. I have serious doubts AirBnB themselves will take any action against the host. So I can only imagine all those poor naive souls out there just emailing copies of their IDs to strangers on the internet.