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Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

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Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#151

Post by prawn »

carbonica wrote: post #119
mike-cardwell wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think what you're suggesting is that paranoid. There has to have been some motive. Perhaps it was just somebody seeking revenge, either against the person whos flat it was, or against AirBnB.

To suggest it might not be paranoid, but merely prudent. To think it's at all more likely that this is a setup against AirBnB and not just... you know, crime... I think is in fact paranoid. If you want motive, here's one that you might be surprised to learn motivates a lot of crime: the guest needed money for drugs/debt/food/just wanted money, and thought he might get away with it. Houses get broken into. People get…

Not many opportunistic thieves would pay to rent a target which they haven't cased, right? And meet whoever handed over the keys. Seems pretty bizarre.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#153

Post by js2 »

speckledjim wrote: post #148
dmm wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in life carries risks. Trusting strangers is nice. I'd rather live in a world where I can. Then again I live in a place where people leave their cars unlocked.

Sure, but the whole premise is that you're traveling. Going to unknown territories. If I'm going traveling, I'm sure as hell in "untrusting" mode since I don't have a clue what the locals are like. There's strangers as in "local resident I see each day but don't know", and there's strangers as in "I've just traveled to a completely different country and have no clue who this person is" Wanting to trust everyone and b…

This family bicycled 26,000 miles over 43 months and didn't run into a single one of those nasty horrible people. Maybe they were extremely lucky, but I like to think you can't live your life worrying about the few nasty horrible people.

http://familyonbikes.org/blog/2011/01/isn’t-bike-touring-dan...

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#154

Post by mml »

gojomo wrote: post #51

The guests sound like drug addicts. (Maybe meth? Tweakers do bizarre things like move furniture at odd hours or burn fires without opening the flue.) I've been a happy AirBnb guest on a few occasions; the one time I had someone's whole usual studio apartment I found it a bit strange how much of their life was left on display for me – like the host's prescriptions still in the fridge! – but of course respected their p…

Definitely tweakers. I wouldn't use that sink near open flame for a while.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#155

Post by innes »

asciilifeform wrote: post #149

Cui bono? Hotels. It seems likely that this "mysterious" crime was paid for by an organization serving the interests of hotels.

Cui bono?

On some level, the bad bastards who did it.

Alternatively yes, of course. Building 7, Area 51, Chemtrails etc...

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#156

Post by econgeeker »

AirBnB makes us travelers vulnerable to being scammed as well. In the most recent rental, it really was a roll of the dice to see if we were going to have an apartment or not (and of course, by the time we could have contacted AirBnB to say we'd been scammed, the scammer would already have our money, due to the way AirBnB works, and their lack of any way to contact them.)

I travel full time. I'm a nomad. I would rent thru AirBnB for 365 nights a year if they provided the service that they originally set out to provide. I think they changed their focus, and rather than building an organic community of people renting their places to each other, they are pursuing the expensive travel market. This makes sense given the profits are higher and it is easier to get vacation rentals in the system than individuals. But they're not the ebay of travel anymore, they've become a HomeAway clone.

They also really need to change their policies on communication- they inhibit our ability to talk to the owners before renting, and this is worsened given that many owners may not speak english. Letting us call them or email them is not going to want us to cut AirBnB out of the deal, because the primary value AirBnB provides is the fraud protection of letting us pay by credit card.

There's no reason for any company of this size not to have a 24/hour hotline. It may be midnight in california, but it is 5pm somewhere. You have listings around the world.

AirBnB's priorities seem to have shifted away from building an organic "ebay of travel" with regular people to maximum growth in revenue, by going after the high end travel market, with a distinct lack of customer service. This may not be intentional, but I'm part of the market-- a heavy use part of the market- and that's how it is looking to me.

So, 24 hour hotline, policies for dealing with things that go wrong, to help customers, and letting the people use the site communicate are the changes I'd make. I bet you'll find that more communications means more confidence and more nights rented.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#157

Post by asciilifeform »

innes wrote: post #155
asciilifeform wrote: post #149

Cui bono? Hotels. It seems likely that this "mysterious" crime was paid for by an organization serving the interests of hotels.

Cui bono? On some level, the bad bastards who did it. Alternatively yes, of course. Building 7, Area 51, Chemtrails etc...

The apartment-trashing was entirely senseless. The motive was clearly not theft, for example.

The simplest hypothesis is that the purpose of the crime was to create outrage - in order to destroy the reputation of AirBnB and its business model. It may yet succeed in doing so.

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#158

Post by marquis »

hammock wrote: post #141
brianchesky wrote: post #87

Hey everyone - we were shocked when we heard about this unsettling event. We have been working closely with the authorities, and we want to reassure our community that, with the help of our security infrastructure, we were able to assist the police in their investigation, and we understand from authorities that a suspect is now in custody. We've created a marketplace built on trust, transparency and authenticity with…

Emotionally devastating story, but it seems like there is an easy solution to this. Have AirBnb contract include an insurance policy (superseding the homeowners insurance) for the time of rental. Also, have Airbnb keep credit card info on hand and hold guest responsible for any damage. Pretty standard business practices.

I've had terrible experiences while travelling extensively and staying semi-permanently where landlords do anything they can to keep your deposit, especially when you don't speak the language so well. I'd not be comfortable having a stranger be able to claim I made some kind of damage, and it become some kind of paypal-like black-hole of unwarranted claims. Ultimately reading this, I feel so sorry for the host, as a random, rare victim of a dehumanizing crime. It could have happened on craigslist, or via a friend-of-a-friend. Not to say that AirBnB doesn't need to address this, but holding a large amount in escrow like a car rental deposit would be offputting to me (with car rentals there is clear evidence, and you do a full inspection beforehand, though I'm sure it's possible to get burned on this).

Re: Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

#160

Post by marquis »

Omnipresent wrote: post #132
jv22222 wrote: post #109

This could resolved if airbnb insisted on a refundable deposit of $500-$1000 per visit.

500 to 1000 is not bad of a seed funding for a thief. I think better security measure would be to provide some sort of valid state or federal or national identifications. Any decent hotel requires this so why not AirBnB?

I would pay to be verified by AirBnB, by uploading a picture ID and having a human verify this. A service I use provids added verification by mailing you a code that you enter on the site to prove your address. Things like this could help a lot to assisting with identity scams.
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