I had a similar experience with them before, where I canceled a listing immediately after booking it, and was charged a cancellation fee anyway. I disputed it based on undisclosed terms about the fee, and they used the same confusing customer service tactics here. I gave up after a while and just never used them again, but I admit my fee issue didn’t have the same implications as the creepy camera issue involved here.
And like OOP, I am also an attorney with a very different area of legal expertise. It is shockingly common for companies to just ignore the law, tell you that you’re wrong, lie to you, whatever. The thing is, they’re banking on most people not having the skills to put up any kind of legal fight whatsoever.
I’ve had some success dealing with shitty dishonesty and illegal practices in things like medical billing or subscriptions services that wouldn’t stop billing, but only because I was mad enough to spend the ridiculous amount of time it took, and knew just enough, to complain to the right regulating agency to get them to give up (they were small amounts).
One thing a lot of people don’t realize is how ridiculously difficult it is to hold bad actors accountable for violating the law in the U.S. People will throw around “that’s illegal, they can’t do that,” but not realize that what someone can legally do and what someone can do are two very different things.
Look at this post as an example: OOP booked an airBnb that did not disclose there were cameras inside the bedroom area of the unit (it was a studio so the main area is the bedroom area) and justifiably wanted a refund and wanted airBnb to stop the person from renting out a unit with undisclosed cameras in private spaces. Whatever terms and conditions OOP signed didn’t include agreeing to things that were not ever disclosed in the listing. But instead of just handling this appropriately, airBnb decides that their hands are tied unless the renter—the person who lied about the cameras—agrees. Anyone can see that’s an absurd argument. But yet, OOP still doesn’t have any remedy and is still spending an absurd amount of time on this. And OOP is an attorney! What are regular people supposed to do?
Hopefully OOP eventually prevails in arbitration and is paid for their time. But that’s far from guaranteed because, I mean look at our supreme court. In the legal system, people in power (judges, maybe arbiters idk) have no problem abusing that power and just doing whatever they want. Despite what the law actually says and means, it’s application is still subject to the whims of the power hungry and greedy.
Point is: OOP’s experience is absurd and horrible, and sadly far from uncommon. Getting justice is not easy or fair.