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An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

ternaus.blog

11–20 of 67 posts

Re: An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

#11
post #8

It’s unfortunate, and Airbnb makes enough in service fee that they should be faster to help on these cases. Once I was in SF and my Airbnb cancelled on me right at check-in time. I was tired, had luggages, I just went to the hilton and checked-in. It was really hard and I had to argue but Airbnb ended up reimbursing me. Still, I’m scared about the next time I’ll run in troubles with Airbnb. I find it more and more ex…

>Still, I’m scared about the next time I’ll run in troubles with Airbnb.

I've had good experiences with https://vrbo.com

But as with anything else, YMMV.

Re: An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

#12
post #7

While I lived in Amsterdam I could have made LOTS of money from AirBnB, and again where I live now close to the mountains. However, I offer a room on CouchSurfing and to friends-of-friends in sporting activities I do..... for ZERO. Nada. Zip. Why should only those with deep pockets pay insane prices? An amazing stream of people from all walks of life have passed through my home able to enjoy things on a shoestring bu…

that is really cool. I feel like that in and of itself would be a great app, with some sort of vetting / bg check / social proof baked in of course.

Re: An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

#15

Had terrible experience with AirBnB support. I had to reach out to them on Twitter and eventually someone got back to me! You would expect their site to have a clear link to support. Good luck with that.

Yeah, nowadays it seems like twitter is the most reliable way to get in touch with support for medium/big companies. Especially if you publicly shame them...

Re: An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

#16
post #7

While I lived in Amsterdam I could have made LOTS of money from AirBnB, and again where I live now close to the mountains. However, I offer a room on CouchSurfing and to friends-of-friends in sporting activities I do..... for ZERO. Nada. Zip. Why should only those with deep pockets pay insane prices? An amazing stream of people from all walks of life have passed through my home able to enjoy things on a shoestring bu…

that is really cool. I feel like that in and of itself would be a great app, with some sort of vetting / bg check / social proof baked in of course.

Well, it exists! It's called CouchSurfing. See https://www.couchsurfing.com/.

Re: An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

#17
post #7

While I lived in Amsterdam I could have made LOTS of money from AirBnB, and again where I live now close to the mountains. However, I offer a room on CouchSurfing and to friends-of-friends in sporting activities I do..... for ZERO. Nada. Zip. Why should only those with deep pockets pay insane prices? An amazing stream of people from all walks of life have passed through my home able to enjoy things on a shoestring bu…

that is really cool. I feel like that in and of itself would be a great app, with some sort of vetting / bg check / social proof baked in of course.

[deleted]

Re: An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

#18
Sorry for your experience. Interesting post, chilling thoughts at the end:

>When I sit in front of the computer in San Francisco, the only thing that comes to my mind is to build a Face Recognition system and check the burglar’s face in it. Something similar to Clearview. Machine Learning is my expertise; creating such a system is straightforward but will take some time. Tempting. Thinking about it.

The thought my peers are pushing for extended surveillance/identification tooling is terrifying.

Re: An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

#19
post #3

AirBnB used to be great, but I ended up deleting my account. It's my own anecdata and I'm sure others still have great experiences, but I got three places in a row that were being operated as something like short-term tenement housing with everything at the bare minimum quality and cleanliness. Charging hundred euro cleaning fees and then leaving a bad review that there were dirty dishes left in the sink, which appar…

I’ve rented several whole apartments in various places in Europe, and have never been disappointed. I do also take a good look at the photos and set my price above absolute rock-bottom. I’ve never left or received a bad review.

I’ve also only rented places that were meant for rentals and never the homes of non-professionals. Maybe that’s the difference?

Re: An Airbnb Thanksgiving Burglary

#20
post #3

AirBnB used to be great, but I ended up deleting my account. It's my own anecdata and I'm sure others still have great experiences, but I got three places in a row that were being operated as something like short-term tenement housing with everything at the bare minimum quality and cleanliness. Charging hundred euro cleaning fees and then leaving a bad review that there were dirty dishes left in the sink, which appar…

I don't understand how this could happen in places that have good reviews. I only consider places with a minimum of 10 reviews and avg score > 4 stars. Never had a bad experience.
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