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

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

ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 399 posts

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

#161

Post by innes »

asciilifeform wrote: post #157
innes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are aware that there exist nasty people? People who take pleasure in inflicting pain? That's the simplest hypothesis. There's no need to lurch into dark conspiracy theories without any supporting evidence.

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

#162

Post by marquis »

caf wrote: post #137
Omnipresent wrote: post #121

victim is correct, this was bound to happen to someone and as the service goes popularity, there will be more victims in the future. AirBnB should have other security measures in place like providing driver license #, ssn, etc. so that identity of the person renting the place is assured. With all the recent funding leading to great PR, bad elements will start coming in. Site is no longer bound to the nice educated cu…

How do you verify that the drivers license, ssn etc are genuine, and not simply stolen as the credit card numbers are?

Send a physical letter to the address of the user's bank account, or other form of ID?

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

#163

Post by _delirium »

asciilifeform wrote: post #157
innes wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dunno, the "meth party" hypothesis elsewhere in this thread seems pretty simple/plausible also.

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

#164

Post by levigross »

edw519 wrote: post #147

I get angry when I realize I will never again be who I've always been before, someone who lived strong and free by the creed that people are essentially good, that if you think optimistically, trust others. Please don't let them steal this too. I'm really sorry for your bad experience, but remember: - You can still live strong and free. - People are still essentially good. - You can still think optimistically. - You…

IMHO There are bad people out there and some of them will want to hurt you. You don't have to sacrifice who you really are because of them. You just have to live a little bit differently. means don't use AirBnB

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

#165

Post by dlss »

michaeldhopkins wrote: post #146
varunsrin wrote: post #26

I always found AirBnB's model based on a surprising amount of trust - I for one would never be comfortable just handing over they keys to my place to a total stranger. Even if they didn't ransack my place completely, as happened to the unfortunate author - I would be concerned about unintentional damage to my property that I might not discover till too late. Renting out something as private as my primary place of res…

As the service expands, regular people's homes (with unrestorable personal value and charm) will be replaced with commercial properties using airBnB as just another advertising channel. When that happens the fresh appeal will be gone and airBnB will be successful if they have become popular and stable enough that an airBnB listing is mandatory for people in the property management business.

I hope this happens soon.

The risk/reward trade-offs don't seem to be understood by most AirBnB landlords (99.99% chance of earning $100, 0.01% chance of losing $50k+). Even though this is strongly positive expected value, for a family that can't afford to lose $50k this is a game of russian roulette.

My heart goes out to the author of this; I hope the person who did this to her is put in jail, and the system (AirBnB) that enabled that person prevents landlords who can't afford the financial & emotional risk from listing properties going forward.

This is one those places where laws make sense to me; the average person needs to be protected from unknowingly gambling with their family's future.

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

#166

Post by deathflute »

I have always been skeptical about such services. It is like collecting pennies in front of a steamroller. Sooner or later, a tail event like this is bound to happen. A distribution of hosting experiences has to be fat-tailed. It is okay to deal with that risk when even the worst case scenario is acceptable. But, for your own home how can it be acceptable?

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

#167

Post by dmm »

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…

> a nice hippy dream.

Bullshit. Live in fear of strangers your whole life or trust the basic humanity of strangers. Either way you're still going to die of heart disease like the rest of us. Why don't you live in constant fear of that?

Stranger danger is a result of a fear-mongering media. Are you seriously worried about serial killers? Do you know how few of them there are and how freaking many people there are in the world?

People love to live in fear of things like strangers because it's immediate and controllable. They can just choose to stay away from them. It gives people a sense of control. Heart disease is long-term and amorphous. It's harder to gain immediate relief from fear of that.

By all means, don't leave a bunch of cash around while staying at a stranger's house. Take reasonable precautions. But fearing people by default is irrational.

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

#168

Post by ry0ohki »

mseebach wrote: post #150
robtoo wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've created a marketplace built on trust, transparency and authenticity Not if this quote from the linked article is true, you haven't... airbnb.com tightly controls the communication between host and traveler, disallowing the exchange of personal contact information until the point in which a reservation is already confirmed and paid for.

No? It's built on . Controlling the communication is about avoiding "20% discount if you pay me in cash up front" scams, and yes, about protecting AirBnBs revenue stream. It's a trade-off: This process enhances trust since you know your host doesn't get your money until you've checked in and found everything to be in order - and the host knows that the money is held and that he won't have to deal with late or no paym…

If someone comes from Craigslist, you can at least Google for their name, try to find a Facebook page, etc... BEFORE they enter your house. At best, the way it is for the author, she could have done some checking, but at that point the freak is already in her house.

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

#170

Post by asciilifeform »

innes wrote: post #161
asciilifeform wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are aware that there exist nasty people? People who take pleasure in inflicting pain? That's the simplest hypothesis. There's no need to lurch into dark conspiracy theories without any supporting evidence.

The polite "everything is beautiful" emails suggest against meth addicts. And it seems like too much work for a run-of-the-mill sadist.
Post reply on HN