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I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

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Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#531

Post by root_axis »

BubRoss wrote: post #516
amiga_500 wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found a loophole that lets me sell kids organs. The best part? I can use the new American ethics system to absolve myself of any guilt by saying "it's not illegal"! What wouldn't you do if it became legal?

Are you comparing minimizing tax liabilities to murdering children to harvest their organs?

Seems like you're missing the point. They're not comparing the morality of minimizing tax liabilities to harvesting human organs, they're using an extreme example of an obviously immoral act to demonstrate that morality isn't a function of legality.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#532

Post by paulddraper »

herodotus wrote: post #327

There is a larger problem here: there seems to be no way to hold these big internet companies to account for misrepresenting their product offerings. For example, some time ago, someone on HN reported on a plagiarized Python book for sale on Amazon. ( https://www.amazon.com/Python-Programming-Beginner-Intermedi... ). I emailed the author of the original book,(October 4) because Amazon have a form that allows authors…

"Stolen TV set at brick-and-mortar" isn't the right analogy. "Plagiarized book at brick-and mortar" is.

And the fact is that copyrights/patents/trademarks are handled differently than theft.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#533

Post by trentnix »

amiga_500 wrote: post #514
trentnix wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be other reasons Airbnb is unethical, but minimizing one's taxes legally is not unethical.

I found a loophole that lets me sell kids organs. The best part? I can use the new American ethics system to absolve myself of any guilt by saying "it's not illegal"! What wouldn't you do if it became legal?

The organs belong to those kids. They are in their possession, and they made them. I’d have to take those organs from them by force or threat of force.

Kind of like my money that the government calls a tax and takes by threat of force or, if it decides, by force.

Your analogy is terrible and is completely oblivious on who the bad guys actually are.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#534

Post by trentnix »

root_axis wrote: post #531
BubRoss wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you comparing minimizing tax liabilities to murdering children to harvest their organs?

Seems like you're missing the point. They're not comparing the morality of minimizing tax liabilities to harvesting human organs, they're using an extreme example of an obviously immoral act to demonstrate that morality isn't a function of legality.

“Obviously immoral” - the ChiComs disagree.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/organ-harvesting-china-survivo...

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#535

Post by trentnix »

neotek wrote: post #520
BubRoss wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you comparing minimizing tax liabilities to murdering children to harvest their organs?

Are you unaware of how analogies work?

That was a straw man and an association fallacy. It was not a useful or instructive analogy.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#536

Post by ben509 »

pklem wrote: post #232
astura wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA addresses why reviews are inflated and misleading: >Airbnb uses a rating system in which both the host and tenant can publicly provide feedback to one another, which both parties then use to prove their credibility in the future. Because of that, there is a built-in incentive to avoid confrontation, which helps explain why Airbnb hosts consistently receive higher ratings than hotels reviewed on TripAdvisor, accor…

I don't think this is entirely accurate. What's going on here is that Airbnb has essentially made a pass/fail review system, where 5 stars is pass and anything less is fail. Thus, short of a visit being completely terrible and the host awful, I would feel bad giving anything less than a 5 star review, since it would adversely affect the listing and the host. On one hand, this does encourage hosts (and guests I suppos…

I hate star-based review systems.

A review system should just be a series of factual questions that are aimed at determining whether a potential customer is likely to have problems, be satisfied, or enjoy their stay. And the scores should be subjective; e.g. if you're single then the questions that impact a family should be eliminated from calculating the score.

For example, down the hall, there's a dog with a persistent high-pitched bark. If I'm reviewing them, ideally, I just answer a simple question, "are there persistent noise disturbances from neighbors?" Yes.

I think the reason it's not done this way is because you'd have to put a lot of thought into maintaining the questions.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#537

Post by woah »

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #491
jzwinck wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A family member of mine had something similar happen when using booking.com. She showed up at the hotel and they had sold her booked room to someone else. It was late and a bit of a nightmare to find another place to stay. Overbooking airplanes means someone might be stuck sitting in the terminal for hours. Overbooking.com means someone might be made to drive around late at night, tired, with nowhere to sleep.

> Overbooking airplanes means someone might be stuck sitting in the terminal for hours. It also might mean you miss getting somewhere in an emergency, like visiting a loved one before surgery. And it also might mean you miss things you couldn't miss, like a job interview. One of the worst memories of my life started by missing a flight (and it wasn't my fault).

What happened?

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#538

Post by reustle »

jzwinck wrote: post #474
kitd wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a similar vein, a good friend of mine (+ all his family, about 10 in all) was kicked out of an AirBnB at the last minute because it had been double-booked on Booking.com at a higher price, and had just been rented via that site. I've come across a few such stories.

A family member of mine had something similar happen when using booking.com. She showed up at the hotel and they had sold her booked room to someone else. It was late and a bit of a nightmare to find another place to stay. Overbooking airplanes means someone might be stuck sitting in the terminal for hours. Overbooking.com means someone might be made to drive around late at night, tired, with nowhere to sleep.

> Overbooking.com means someone might be made to drive around late at night, tired, with nowhere to sleep.

I would say most of these cases, the renter wouldn't have a car. I've been stuck in cafes after booking/Airbnb scams

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#539

Post by root_axis »

trentnix wrote: post #534
root_axis wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like you're missing the point. They're not comparing the morality of minimizing tax liabilities to harvesting human organs, they're using an extreme example of an obviously immoral act to demonstrate that morality isn't a function of legality.

“Obviously immoral” - the ChiComs disagree. https://www.foxnews.com/world/organ-harvesting-china-survivo...

They don't disagree, otherwise they would openly embrace the practice instead of shrouding it in secrecy.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#540

Post by reustle »

DenisM wrote: post #508
mullingitover wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A person close to me had a driver fail to end the ride, and drove around several miles racking up charges. When she noticed this and complained to Uber, they rejected her claim. When she disputed Uber's fraudulent charge on her credit card, they blacklisted her account.

Did she just create a new account?

It's tied to your phone number and they don't support virtual numbers
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