11–20 of 237 posts
I guess I am in the minority, but I have never understood this business. You would have to pay me to stay in someone else's house vs a hotel.
That being said while I have never had an AirBnB nightmare. I have had some lulz. If I were female I would hesitate to use one if I were traveling alone.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article mentions a RAPE at knife point, not a robbery. "By the time she realized she wasn’t alone, the blade of a kitchen knife was pointing down at her. The stranger grabbed her, shoved her onto a bed, and raped her. Drunken revelers were wandering the streets outside, but the woman was too scared to scream." There is a HUGE difference...
Sorry, I missed that. I'll edit my comment. The perpetrator was caught and presumably prosecuted. Again, what alternative chain of events would you have preferred?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article mentions a RAPE at knife point, not a robbery. "By the time she realized she wasn’t alone, the blade of a kitchen knife was pointing down at her. The stranger grabbed her, shoved her onto a bed, and raped her. Drunken revelers were wandering the streets outside, but the woman was too scared to scream." There is a HUGE difference...
Sorry, I missed that. I'll edit my comment. The perpetrator was caught and presumably prosecuted. Again, what alternative chain of events would you have preferred?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article mentions a RAPE at knife point, not a robbery. "By the time she realized she wasn’t alone, the blade of a kitchen knife was pointing down at her. The stranger grabbed her, shoved her onto a bed, and raped her. Drunken revelers were wandering the streets outside, but the woman was too scared to scream." There is a HUGE difference...
Sorry, I missed that. I'll edit my comment. The perpetrator was caught and presumably prosecuted. Again, what alternative chain of events would you have preferred?
But the article then highlights more (separate) incidents where Airbnb potentially has more responsibility because it was the hosts themselves taking the actions, highlighting weaknesses in Airbnb's background check process:
"Lapayowker’s lawyer, Teresa Li, says the suit was able to proceed, despite the arbitration requirements in Airbnb’s terms of service, because the company hadn’t done a thorough background check of the host. Airbnb only flags prior convictions, and though the host had previously been charged with battery, he wasn’t convicted."
The article then goes on to explain that Airbnb had under-resourced their trust and safety teams. As part of the 2020 COVID layoffs, Airbnb also laid off their entire trust and safety team in Portland, Oregon.
I don't want to quote more from the lengthy article, as it's not my piece, but it seems like Airbnb could be doing more to improve the safety of their platform; such as mandating keyless entry (which would have prevented many incidents, including the aforementioned rape in the lead of the article).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, I missed that. I'll edit my comment. The perpetrator was caught and presumably prosecuted. Again, what alternative chain of events would you have preferred?
That Airbnb take responsibility for its service offering end-to-end, in this case the key exchange. From the article it's obvious the company has no ethics and has tried to cover up shoddy/lax business practices from the beginning, so another alternative that could have helped is Airbnb being liable for damages in the millions/billions until they learn their lesson, or fold if they don't. Oh, it might also have been…
Do you feel the same moral indignation about crimes committed in hotels? Here are NYC stats from 2017:
> In 2017, there were 2,656 hotel crimes reported city-wide, compared to 2,223 in 2015, a 19.5-percent increase... This includes felony assaults, which soared 51.9 percent, from 81 to 122, and third-degree assaults, which jumped 38 percent, from 255 to 352.
How much should the hotel where the 2017 Las Vegas shootings be liable for?
https://nypost.com/2018/06/04/crime-in-nyc-hotels-has-skyroc...
If Airbnb actually cared they would have invested in their operations already; Chesky giving "a promise to verify the photographs, amenities, cleanliness, and safety of all the listings on Airbnb", which the article notes is underway, is ridiculous -- Shouldn't this be a bare minimum of this type of business before they start operating? Basically what the "safety team" does is how Logan Roy from the show Succession w…
* Accepting hosts with prior criminal charges for battery, who then proceeded to sexually assault a guest.
* Under-resourcing trust and safety teams until it became such as big problem, the CEO had to step in.
* Choosing to lay-off the entire Portland trust and safety team during COVID, telling them to relocate to another country (Canada) during a pandemic (!!) at lower pay, or lose their jobs.
I used to work for a 'sharing economy company' (no, not Airbnb, but also not naming names), on what you'd call "trust and safety". I don't feel like we got enough resources.
It was less about trust and safety, and it was more about, "How do we make problems disappear?" There were plenty of sensible ideas that would've improved safety for our users, but they were ignored.
I guess I am in the minority, but I have never understood this business. You would have to pay me to stay in someone else's house vs a hotel.
I should note that we've never rented just a room from Airbnb, but the whole apartment/house/villa, and the ones we have rented are actual rental properties, e.g. the owners rent them out during a whole holiday season.
One of the big bonuses of Airbnb is market segmentation - those same houses, apartments or villas on Airbnb are very often advertised with higher rates elsewhere!