Airbnb wrongly holding us responsible for damages

AIRBNB IS HOLDING US RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGES THAT WE ABSOLUTELY DID NOT CAUSE, AND WE ARE BEING FORCED TO PAY R4000 FOR THIS! After staying in an apartment in Cape Town, my girlfriend and I were rated 5-star guests by the host. We handed the keys over to a sizeable cleaning team and checked out. 5 days later, the host came up with photos of damages to a few things in the apartment, one of which was already there when we checked in, while we were not aware of the others and could absolutely not have caused them considering how careful and respectful we were and always are as guests.

Now, since the host has simply provided photos of damages without any way of proving that those damages were caused by us, Airbnb is relying on those photos to hold us responsible. Whilst we have provided convincing points of argument, we have been informed by Airbnb that the only evidence they accept to exclude guests from being responsible for damages is photos, taken 24 hours prior to check-out, of existing damages. Our problems are: 1) Why would we go around the entire apartment taking photos of pre-existing damage that we assumed was known about, and 2) how could we possibly have known to take photos of such specific parts of the apartment that were not damaged before we left, to prove that we did not cause the damages of this furniture? This is a ridiculous expectation and certainly wasn’t made clear to us as users of the platform.

Airbnb is being unfairly biased to the host, looking purely at photos instead of reason, and has completely let us down. We feel hurt by this – especially considering that if we did cause damages, we absolutely would have informed the host. Anybody who knows us would confirm this. Now, we may never use the platform again as we could clearly, at any time, be forced to pay for damages that we did not cause, based on a few photos provided by the host that in no way prove that we are responsible for them. Airbnb, are you prepared to help us or are you rather going to accept the risk of damage to your reputation and lose 2 regular users of the platform?