I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb • Hacker News Board

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#121

Post by bluedevil2k » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:52 PM UTC

I've run into a scam recently on AirBNB and several situations that ended up screwing me over. The scam was after booking a nice place in Orlando, Florida for a week through my wife's AirBNB account. The day after booking, the "owner" sent an email saying that they required a photograph of the front and back of her credit card, drivers license picture and full name. Not even a subtle scam, but that would probably fool most people. After contacting AirBNB support(which is a difficult task itself, good luck finding a form), they took 3 days to respond and responded with a "yeah, don't send them that. Sorry". Of course, the listing is still there now when I look.

I've also booked trips to Tokyo and LA recently, and in each place the reservation was accepted, payment was made, and 2 weeks before I was set to stay there, the owner canceled the stay. Why? Doesn't matter, the owner can cancel without penalty for "unforeseen circumstances". Of course the renter gets charged a massive fee for canceling including, naturally, AirBNB's fees.

My fraud alert is always on high now when using AirBNB and I think no one should put all their vacation eggs in the 1 basket with them. Too unreliable, too flaky on reservations, and too we-don't-care-about-you attitude towards the renters.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#122

Post by blueadept111 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:52 PM UTC

RaiseProfits wrote: post #98

random42 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you continue to give airbnb your business, once experiencing something like that anyways?

....what kind of behavior were you expecting? AirBnb has always had atrocious customer service.

I disagree. I've been both a host and customer for many years, and in general I've found the customer service to be good or even very good for resolving issues either as a host or as a customer.

In fact, many 'scare' articles about airbnb puzzle me, because it seem seems that the problems could have been avoided if the guest had read the reviews and/or booked with a superhost (or other host with a history of good reviews).

Having said that, I do think it's insane that the reviews are no longer listed in chronological order (or at least with the option to view them in chronological order).

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#123

Post by cogman10 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:54 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #56

bluetidepro wrote: post #20

Mentioned this in another comment, but it blows my mind that the author ends with: > "Even after a month of digging through public records, scouring the internet for clues, repeatedly calling Airbnb and confronting the man who called himself Patrick, I can’t say I’ll be leaving the platform, either. Dealing with Airbnb’s easily exploitable and occasionally crazy-making system is still just a bit cheaper than renting…

Even after a >>>month of digging through public records...Dealing with Airbnb’s easily exploitable and occasionally crazy-making system is still just a bit cheaper than renting a hotel." It's constantly amazing to see how little people value their time when it comes to stuff like this. Maybe when we're getting yearly salaries we don't compute out the hourly cost but, man, do the math once in a while.

Heh, you know, the funny part is that I'll spend just a little extra on my hotel stays (Meaning, I'm not staying at the Howard Johnson's behind Walmart, even if it is $40 a night). I've never had very few bad experiences as a result.

It costs money to run a hotel well. From the front desk to the cleaning staff. If a stay costs you $40 a night, you have to ask yourself "What are they skimping on? Are they not washing the sheets? Vacuuming? Cleaning the showers/toilets?"

Sure, there are some economies of scale at play. But by and large, it takes quite a bit of money to make sure things are well maintained. That is what often gets reflected in your hotel bill.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#124

Post by htrp » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:55 PM UTC

Scaling the community is an existential growth problem for ABNB ... unfortunately their policies haven't kept up with the problems that have been introduced

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#125

Post by sfifs » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #88

throw_m239339 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd think AirBnB would be more alarmed about the reputational and consequent business hit of this sort of thing. Maybe they will be after this article? AirBnB is/used to be cheap. People want cheap. They don't want to pay $200 a night for a hotel room when they travel to Paris, AirBnB knows that so I think they are much more concerned about the size of their inventory than the satisfaction of the guest or their r…

> These people seem truly untouchable. Without knowing details about AirBnB's corporate structure, I assume they don't have any subsidiaries or offices or employees in France. That makes it hard (but not impossible) to compel them to follow French law, or local laws in France. The easier option is to write a law that compels payment processors to disallow payments to or from a company that does XYZ, then declare AirB…

The thing is that American and European law enforcement generally play "fair". They generally won't arrest employees travelling into their jurisdictions for things that are more "civil"-like offences - notable exception being the arrest of Huawei's CFO by Canada. Since there's basically no personal risk or deterrent, there is little or no incentive to fix bad behaviors.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#126

Post by drenvuk » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:56 PM UTC

First time I stayed at an abnb with friends it was set up as home that hosted 8 people with 4 rooms... I was situated in what I would consider to be a mud room with a space heater next to the garage on thin, uncomfortable mattresses. I moved into a hotel room a couple miles away and just came over for dinner and activities.

I'd much rather plan ahead and stay in a hotel. At least then there's a corporate culture who actually cares about their brand name instead of an IPO. There's no accountability and massive amounts of low key fraud.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#127

Post by ianhawes » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #25

RandomBacon wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably AirBnB would ban the user and the user still wants to be able to use the service in the future.

I issued a chargeback to Qatar Airways/Expedia for $1700 and they tried to fight it. Bank of America told them to go to hell, and that I was getting a full refund. I can still use Qatar and Expedia. Airbnb should not be allowed to ban me for this reason.

The "ban-on-dispute" technique is popular with tech companies. Uber, AirBnB, and Steam (among others) all enforce this strategy.

With Steam, you lose your entire library when banned.

With Uber, you lose the ability to create an account tied to your phone number (i.e. you need to get a new phone number to ever have a new account).

I don't use AirBnB because it is a scam haven, so I can't comment on how their dispute process works.

FWIW, "back in the day" chargebacks used to be done in a manual way which made it harder to automate the banning process that tech companies utilize. But the likes of Stripe and other processors have made it part of their API so you can easily trace the chargeback to the transaction and determine what recourse you have.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#128

Post by Cthulhu_ » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

itake wrote: post #29

wholepointofcc wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try calling your Credit Card company and flag it as fraud. That's what I would do. That failing I'd submit a police report.

That doesn't work well b/c then Airbnb just bans you from the platform

From a consumer that's fine - you've got your scammed money back (and they do not have the evidence that the payment was valid), and creating a new account is easy enough.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#129

Post by drenvuk » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:57 PM UTC

julienchastang wrote: post #51

There have been a few threads about AirBnb lately with a lot of people reporting negative experiences so I will add my own $0.02. I have stayed in many AirBnbs. The reason is, I find it is the only way to have a tolerable family vacation is when everyone has their own sleeping quarters. When we are all piled into one (often overpriced and not so clean) hotel room, it makes for less than ideal sleep and everyone ends…

With the amount of research you may be nearly just as well off searching craigslist. I'm bitter about my experiences and won't subject myself to abnb any further.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#130

Post by foobiekr » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 3:59 PM UTC

julienchastang wrote: post #51

There have been a few threads about AirBnb lately with a lot of people reporting negative experiences so I will add my own $0.02. I have stayed in many AirBnbs. The reason is, I find it is the only way to have a tolerable family vacation is when everyone has their own sleeping quarters. When we are all piled into one (often overpriced and not so clean) hotel room, it makes for less than ideal sleep and everyone ends…

If hotels had two bathrooms we’d probably go back to hotels. But instead they have single low-privacy bathrooms.