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Airbnb and security camera disclosure

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Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#171

Post by philip1209 »

munchbunny wrote: post #164
philip1209 wrote: post #120

I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendliness. - Host listing quality has gone consistently downhill. Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. - Airbnb support response times are horribly slow. They hide their ph…

It's almost as if AirBnB's hosts and guests are bearing the externalities that should be priced into the transaction on both sides... For hosts, property damage, etc. is a matter of when, not if, and for those things you get insurance. But as far as I know that's not a standard thing for hosts. Pricing in hidden hosting costs would make hosting look less profitable up front, then AirBnB's market would shrink. For gue…

As a short-term tenant who isn't eligible for property insurance, there is no way for me insure against losses. I spent considerable time trying to get a policy after our burglary, and it wasn't possible. In my opinion, providing this insurance should be handled by the marketplace.

The problem is that Airbnb stays are similar to airline flight delays - the cost of a problem can result in many times more costs than just the cost of the flight.

The EU has very strict laws - if you booked a flight in good faith, then the airline is responsible for getting you to your destination, paying for your needs (food/housing) until that happens, and pay cash compensation of up to 600 euros.

In my opinion, the government should provide the same type of legislation for short-term stays. If you make a booking, the platform should at least be responsible for housing you for the duration of your stay.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#172

Post by JadeNB »

smacktoward wrote: post #161
rchaud wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say they 'just work', but rather that what we see is the steady state they've arrived at, warts and all. The startup industry has this obsessive focus on looking at the steady state and thinking they can fix all the warts, without really looking into why they formed in the first place.

SV has a Chesterton's Fence problem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Chesterton%27s_fence

What is SV?

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#173

Post by dawnerd »

iooi wrote: post #163

Ok, people suck. Not much we can do about that. For all you know, the host is archiving footage and could use it for whatever nefarious purposes later on. What really isn't okay here is Airbnb's response. Indoor cameras should be explicitly against their policies and finding one in an apartment should immediately terminate all the listings by that host. This is where some regulation actually makes sense, and it might…

They'd end up having to remove like most of the listings in Orlando then. It's pretty difficult to find a nice house that doesn't have cameras. I've opted to just stay in apartment hotel suites instead - ends up being way cheaper anyways.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#174

Post by gwbas1c »

> I looked at the home guide again, and it did say that there were cameras “at the entrance,” which these cameras clearly were not. I contacted AirBnB about it, and long story short they said the single photo above was proper disclosure of both cameras.

> A lot of other weird stuff happened during this trip stemming from this -- AirBnB told my host we asked about the cameras, he sent someone to snoop on us, he left us a bad review, etc. My favorite has to be when my host discovered that I had unplugged the cameras, he wrote:

This is why I prefer established hotels and Yelp. It's much easier to deal with professional management instead of someone trying to make a quick buck on the side.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#176

Post by rickyc091 »

philip1209 wrote: post #120

I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendliness. - Host listing quality has gone consistently downhill. Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. - Airbnb support response times are horribly slow. They hide their ph…

I'll add to this as well. I've had two incidents over the past year.

1. I rented a place and was told that I could check-in whenever. When I got there, the key wasn't available and I wasn't able to contact the host. I was essentially just standing around for three hours waiting for Airbnb to respond. Apparently, you can contact them, but it's extremely difficult to call them if you're international unless you want to pay for roaming, which I doubt they would compensate you for, so I had to wait for case managers to reply to my email.

After fiddling around with my phone for a while, I managed to install Skype, sign up for some credits, and call them. It was resolved within an hour after that, but the non-savvy tech user would probably have a lot more trouble.

2. The second incident was when I went to an Airbnb and the electricity wasn't working, the roads were closed off for 3 blocks to the apartment due to construction. I paid for a week's stay, but I immediately left since this wasn't disclosed in the listing.

By the evening, I was fed up with the problems, so I left to another Airbnb. I contacted Airbnb, again through email support, since that was all they offer and they told me I could not get a refund since I was past their 24-hour cancellation policy. After going through numerous emails and case managers, I never received my money back based off of a technicality. Their response was that I should have contacted them immediately... but they don't make it easy to contact them.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#177

Post by siruncledrew »

philip1209 wrote: post #120

I've lived in Airbnbs full-time for about 18 months while traveling, and Airbnb has lost my trust repeatedly in terms of reliability, safety, and user-friendliness. - Host listing quality has gone consistently downhill. Now, it's many slumlords just trying to make a quick buck rather than support the original community idea or provide a great stay. - Airbnb support response times are horribly slow. They hide their ph…

This summarizes why we can't have nice things. As Airbnb scales, the problems scale too. Unless they started seeing serious financial implications putting the investor dollars at risk, Airbnb basically has no choice but to scale to 'sustain the machine' and stay competitive (monopolistic) in the shared-lodging marketplace.

Airbnb sounds good in theory - like when the founders described how they came up with the idea after they started making side money letting travelers crash at their pad and jovially cooking breakfast with their guests. There's other people out there that could share their homes with nice strangers and enjoy these fun bonding experiences with guests too, right?

However, this theory goes out the window once the platform is opened up to the world for all kinds of good, bad, and in-between actors to use.

Now we have guests/hosts stealing from each other, scamming each other, pulling nefarious acts, and destroying the housing markets of various communities. And Airbnb throws up their hands from the sidelines and apathetically wonders "What could we do? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#178

Post by rickyc091 »

sedatk wrote: post #144
fyfy18 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would have called Airbnb as soon as I found there was an issue and made them book me in somewhere else. You are paying a service fee to them for a reason.

“called” as if AirBnb has any means of phone access.

I second this. It's not easy to call Airbnb if you're international. Even if you end up finding the number and reaching them, you're placed on hold waiting for a representative.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#179

Post by deogeo »

dev_dull wrote: post #155

Regardless of the AirB&B fine print, I think this would likely run afoul to local and state laws against unauthorized wiretapping. I would be interested in seeing it play out in court, because that's a pretty serious crime in some states. I doubt the owner of this unit is fully aware of their liability.

It makes me worried how few people noted this, how quick they are to rely on corporations instead of the law to punish bad behavior.

Re: Airbnb and security camera disclosure

#180

Post by standardUser »

matz1 wrote: post #31

I just assume that there will be camera constantly recording when I stay in airbnb, or anywhere really. They way I never have to worry about whether it exist or not. As recording technology becoming more and more advance, it's less and less reasonable to expect privacy. I rather adapt my life to fit this new culture.

I'm no privacy nut, but I'd rather not have too many strangers making videos of my sexual activity.

What would you do, hide under the covers? Make the room as dark as possible? Or just let people record your sexual activity and simply not worry about any videos that may be floating around out there?

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