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

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#191

Post by magduf » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:53 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #62

ceejayoz wrote: post #33

I wonder why AirBnB doesn't pay people Uber-style to inspect properties. $5-10 to go to an address and check that it can be accessed and matches the photos as an unannounced spot check? Send someone out on first listing, periodically, and every time a host cancels for a "maintenance issue" to verify the claim.

Verifying listings is not a hard problem, Airbnb literally just doesn't want to, it takes a "we are just a middle man, hosts are responsible for their listings" approach. This is what makes them money, I don't think an Airbnb with only verified legal listings would be very profitable.

>I don't think an Airbnb with only verified legal listings would be very profitable.

I think it absolutely could be. As I said in a post above, I've used it once, to stay at a private home (with the family living there) when I traveled to Europe last year and the hotel rates in one particular city were absurd. It was a great experience for me, though of course staying at a private home is very different from staying in a hotel, and very limiting in some ways. For people wanting to do this, "legal" hotels just don't offer that same experience, and I think such a service can certainly be profitable.

However, it's not going to be mega-profitable like Uber or any other well-known tech companies with giant IPOs and huge valuations. And this I think is the problem: greed. Why can't the owners just be happy with something that makes a tidy profit and provides a nice service to people who want a different travel experience than what you get staying in a bland hotel room?

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#192

Post by notJim » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

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…

For many people, AirBnB and hotels don't necessarily provide the same thing, so switching from one to the other is not as easy as you'd think.

When I travel, I often approach it like imagining I lived in that city. So often I'll get food and cook it and have some days where I just lounge around. This doesn't really work with most hotels which are absolutely tiny in major cities and don't have working kitchens or living rooms. Even if they do the furniture is so generic, cheap and awful that it kind of breaks me out of the experience.

There's no real alternative for the apartment-like living experience AirBnB provides, unfortunately.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#193

Post by Liquix » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

ghostly_s wrote: post #188

curiousgal wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least with Amazon, their customer service makes up for any fake goods they sell.

Amazon provides customer service?

Their live chat is fairly responsive. With regard to low quality or knockoff goods it's pretty trivial to get return shipping waived or $5-20 store credit, as long as you don't abuse the system.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#194

Post by da02 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

dboreham wrote: post #160

jancsika wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main downside for me concerning AirBnb is it takes a long time to analyze the listings to find quality accommodations. How do you corroborate the information on those properties? The clean, affordable, well-placed hotels I've stayed in had reams of reviews and news articles from various sources to confirm they were indeed clean, affordable, and well-placed. The cost of faking all those sources must be orders of…

I only stay at Airbnb's that have at least some reviews. It doesn't take too long to determine if reviews are sock-puppet-generated or genuine. You have to actually stay at the property to write a review, which means paying for the stay since Airbnb process the payment. Obviously you can create wash transactions but the transaction fees would still be significant. Another approach is to sent a question to the propert…

This sounds like great guidelines and "filters". Any bad experiences so far?

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#195

Post by moron4hire » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:56 PM UTC

harryh wrote: post #185

greggman2 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've stayed at 22 airbnb's 11 were fine. 11 had issues most with false advertising in some form or another. One listed the wrong location and if they had listed the correct location I would not have rented even though the room's interior matched. A few claimed to include onsite parking but didn't which of course is very inconvenient. The last one that did that claimed "Easy Street Parking" as AirBnb's blatant lie. I…

YC owns a tiny tiny piece of AirBnB. They definitely do not have any sort of power over the issues that you bring up.

I would say that YC has a relatively large cultural impact, given its investment size. People outside of SV barely even know who Sequoia is, let alone care about who they fund. But a lot of people know about YC and what they are doing. While financially, YC pulling funding wouldn't have a big impact, culturally it'd be a huge bomb.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#196

Post by Dirlewanger » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:57 PM UTC

dannykwells wrote: post #175

I think what Airbnb, and uber, lyft, Amazon etc. All fail to understand is the longevity ans stickiness of brand. Once you become an untrustworthy or low quality brand, it's very hard to change that. You can still do fine (see: wal mart) but you'll always be looking over your shoulder for higher quality brands that poach the most lucrative customers, and eventually, thats what will lead to your downfall (see: wal mar…

It's not that they fail to understand it, they just don't care. The C-suite in all these VC-funded companies just want to get to the exit so they get paid.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#197

Post by iamsb » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:58 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…

I really used to like Airbnb, but for the same usage - family vacations. But after couple of bad experiences, where host canceled while we were on the way, I prefer holiday homes which are professionally managed and have better contracts.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#198

Post by patejam » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #154

itake wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They are stealing from you. Would you keep going to a grocer who fraudulently billed your credit card, just cause they were cheaper? How much cheaper than a hotel was your stay after a 3 digit cleaning fee?

One screw up isn't going to keep me away, as I've had mostly good experiences with Airbnb.

Is it worth a one time screw up of $200 for my years of positive experiences? For me, yes.

If the ratio of positive to negative experiences starts going down, I'll be finding other ways to vacation.

Likewise, if a grocer messes up once, but I've been going to them for years without issue, I'm going to let it go. If it starts happening more often? I'll look for other ways to get my groceries.

(Side note: I've been booking more hotels recently. But that has to do with cost and convenience mostly, not false listings or false cleaning fees or anything else like that).

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#199

Post by awinder » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

chadlavi wrote: post #21

There are also some smaller-time scams hosts run. I was forced to pay a three-figure cleaning fee by an AirBnB in DC earlier this year because they claimed I left a stain on their couch -- which I never even sat on (also, I was by myself, so it's not as though another one of my guests did something to it). I appealed and asked for photos of the supposed stain, but they ghosted me and in the end AirBnB ruled in their…

This makes me feel so much better about just paying to make it go away (I was charged for "17 carpet spots"), thinking it wasn't worth the time or aggravation.

These places (airbnb, vrbo, its all the same stupid schtick) are emphasizing the rights of idiots to rent over the rights of renters to have a safe, enjoyable time while paying lots of money. They got the product they built.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#200

Post by CodesInChaos » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

yrro wrote: post #12

CodesInChaos wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's largely the card issues fault. They charge a fee for each chargeback and punish or increase the fees for merchants who receive many chargebacks, so merchants try to avoid chargebacks, which includes banning everybody who uses them.

If a business bans customers who charge back after being defrauded then the fault is with the business, not the card issuer. What surprises me is that the card issuers don't come down harder on businesses with this practice. I suppose Airbnb is a pretty large customer (of the card issuers) and so aren't so easy to influence, however...

You assume it's the business that committed fraud. In many cases talking to the merchant's support would resolve the issue (e.g. via a full refund) without having to escalate to an expensive chargeback.

There is also the fun technique of attacking a merchant (or charity) by sending them money from stolen credit cards, which will stick them with chargeback fees and an eventual ban by the card processor.