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I’m sorry, maybe I didn’t understand your post completely - why would he have to contact customer service?
As for the direct contact, I think he was definitely trying to contact me directly in order to stay with me at some point in the future, but I don’t see that as a problem. Several guests who came to me through Air became my regulars and we arrange everything directly. No problems so far. They always pay 30% of the total amount in advance and a security deposit, though.
@Maggieroni You don’t even have to block the dates to prevent them from booking. I have IB. So, if they book and I find that I am not comfortable with that particular guest (which is very rare to be honest) I don’t hesitate. I call Airbnb support and ask them to cancel on my behalf without penalties. They do.
I am aware of this, we’ve been hosts since 2010. I am not and never will be on IB. If I had not helped him he probably would not have figured out how to book. What I wanted to avoid was declining him as this affects a host’s metrics when you have too many declines. In any case, every red flag was flying to tell me what a difficult guest he would be. Never again as this guest ended up being continual high maintenance and broke several house rules as he never bothered to read them.