Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

621–630 of 632 posts

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#621

Post by robocat »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #450
robocat wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you are overly risk-averse (I'm guessing you are not a founder?). AirBnB is rewards versus risks, as the article author implies right at the end. I have used a wide variety of accommodation: AirBnB, hotels, staying with friends, short term rentals, campervans, cars, outdoors, staying with randoms I have met. They all have benefits, and they all have risks. AirBnB has given me a huge range of different…

Correct, I'm not a founder, and honestly I roll my eyes a lot about how founders on this site are treated like some sort of demigod. You didn't comment on my opinion that Airbnb is complicit in the scams. Do you not agree?

> founders on this site are treated like some sort of demigod

I certainly hope that isn't the case, and it wasn't my intention to imply that. This site was primarily begun for founders AFAIK, and I am one myself.

I just wanted to say that founders are supposed to make intelligent bets on risks.

Employees often take risks too.

Sometimes employees have less control over their risks than founders do, and sometimes they make the right bets.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#622

Post by baobabKoodaa »

astura wrote: post #133
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the opposite experience. After several bad experiences with hotels I 'm mostly using Airbnb. Fewer issues.

What sort of issues do you have at hotels that you don't have at Airbnbs?

One time a hotel - which I had fully paid for a week earlier - kept badgering us for money throughout our stay. They said that we had been given too low of a rate due to some error. The rate wasn't even low, they were just trying to scam us. Furthermore, they had our booking for 1 week and they chose not to contact us about the issue until we arrived (making it really infeasible to change hotels on such a short notice).

Another time our hotel room was smelling like a sewer and the hotel refused to fix the issue or move us to another room.

Just two examples there. Hotels are generally awful.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#623

Post by thw0rted »

paulgb wrote: post #462
longerthoughts wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any idea what hotels typically do in this situation? It's not exactly apples to apples but if you're going to make money by the same methods it seems within reason to play by similar rules.

My suggestion is in these rare cases, it should be on AirBnB to relocate you. You already paid them plenty in the booking fee, some basic assurance that you will have a room to sleep in when you arrive should be part of that. Scammers will scam, but they will at least scam a victim (AirBnB) with the resources and incentives to root out the scam. In the current system, renters are stuck with such information asymmetry…

I've used them maybe 3 times since they launched, but I always assumed that I did have this protection with AirBnB. I have had hosts ask me to avoid booking through the site and arrange payment outside the system, but I hesitated to do that because I figured the AirBnB fee paid for some "peace of mind" that I wasn't going to get shafted. If I wasn't buying that... what was the fee supposed to pay for?

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#624

Post by thw0rted »

205guy wrote: post #447
eropple wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Airbnb has functionally became where it is expected to get the latter two. When I've used Airbnb I have never expected nor cared about the "charm" or the "local resident", it's been a de-facto hotel. If there was a problem, of course I would expect Airbnb to do their job . Why wouldn't you?

I'm not defending AirBnB, because they totally enable and profit from scams as documented in the original article. But it is just the user expecting to get hotel services (rebooking and room swaps) from a non-hotel (whether genuine homestay or micro-hotel-entrepreneur). AirBnB wont play down that expectation because again they profit more from it, but from the website and concept it is clear that you are dealing with…

To be fair, I expect the major corporation to have the "resources of a hotel" and handle the rebooking/room swap. They get a big fee on every booking, right? Am I just paying tens-to-hundreds per booking for the privilege of using their search engine and (apparently worthless) rating system?

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#625

Post by thw0rted »

modelica wrote: post #233
Jd wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HotelTonight (sadly recently purchased by AirBnB) has a very robust review system and a very responsive customer support system. If you ever have a bad experience in a hotel room while booking through their app you can always contact them and they will contact hotel management and the problem will almost always very quickly be resolved. Booking.com has way more properties but does not always properly vet them. Its ea…

HotelTonight always had awful customer support. They sold me a hotel room during February fashion week in NYC. Some sort of mistake happened with either HT or the hotel, and the room was not available upon my 11pm arrival. Rather than fix the mistake, HotelTonight gave me back my $400/night or whatever it was, and left me in a city, in the winter cold, where hotel rooms were almost entirely sold out. Essentially no i…

The good news is that now there's a simple solution: if this happens in the future, you book a $200 Uber helicopter, $100-200 room at the airport, then another helicopter back in the morning, and you save ~$700. Easy! :D

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#626

Post by thw0rted »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #421
dfxm12 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the part I find most disturbing about what I see on Airbnb is ... the presence of cameras in every room. One place we stayed at had obvious cameras on the outside but then just as I’m about to go to sleep I look up at the ceiling and there’s another one in the chandelier above the bed. Yeah, it's policy that you have to disclose any cameras inside the room in the listing. It's not clear what happens when…

Cameras are problematic for AirBnB due to the tremendous scam potential. Consider these scenarios: 1) I'm a scammer. I stay in an AirBnB. Before I leave, I conceal a small camera somewhere in the room, and proceed to make a big deal out of "discovering" it. The room is refunded and the host is penalized or worse. 2) I'm a pervert. I spend the night in an AirBnB. Before I leave, I conceal a small camera somewhere in t…

I was on board with this, but doesn't more or less all of this apply to traditional hotels just as much as AirBnB? I don't make a habit of checking my hotel room for hidden perv-o-cams but how often are the housekeeping staff checking inside light fixtures, above wardrobes, etc? Guess I've got one more thing to worry about, so uh, thanks?

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#628

Post by amiga_500 »

trentnix wrote: post #533
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?

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.

And the land belongs to us all.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#629

Post by hassancf »

reustle wrote: post #540
DenisM wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did she just create a new account?

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

Actually they do. I currently use a number that was transferred to Fongo 3 years ago and have not had any issue with UBER since then.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#630

Post by ses1984 »

chippy wrote: post #338
ses1984 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the expected value of using the platform is still greater despite the known risks?

over $1000 lost is still greater value?

Expected value takes into account probability. You aren't going to lose $1000 every time you use air bnb. Probably.
Post reply on HN