The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed • Hacker News Board

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#101

Post by Cushman » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:06 PM UTC

scott_s wrote: post #99

Cushman wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see what they stand to lose if they take the same stance as homeowner insurers do— if you file a police report, they'll pretty much take your word for it. In fact they have an even better guarantee, since they know (ideally...) exactly who the perpetrator was. They're not giving you the money to replace your stuff, they're lending it to you until they can recover it from the criminal. If the person who you cl…

Taking the same stance as homeowner's insurers do implies that they would be the insurance company. That's an enormous can o' worms.

Why? They insure one specific thing: a contract between two individuals that they trust. The only way they lose out is if they don't actually have any realistic way to enforce the contract on the renter— which would surely be a way bigger problem for their business than having to pay out some fraudulent damages?

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#102

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:06 PM UTC

danilocampos wrote: post #65

patrickod wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you have rather AirBnB done in this situation? Do you not think it's a little unreasonable that AirBnB would have to take on the role of the insurer here ? People should know the risks they're taking in letting a complete stranger into their house without even meeting in person. Just because someone found you through AirBnB doesn't mean you can take the risk for granted. You're still letting a complete str…

> What would you have rather AirBnB done in this situation? Make their user whole with a big fat wad of cash that approaches the value lost in the described crime. Relocation assistance. Go completely above and beyond. > Do you not think it's a little unreasonable that AirBnB would have to take on the role of the insurer here ? In general? Sure. Here? Absolutely not unreasonable. This is the absolute worst case scena…

No, the worst-case scenario would be that guest copies keys, returns, and rapes and kills the owner/occupant.

Remember: once you've allowed physical access to your resources (computer, accounts, home, ...), all bets are off with regards to future security.

AirBnB has a pretty intractable problem here.

People aren't fundamentally vettable. It's an age-old problem. TSA, the HUAC, lie detectors, loyalty oaths, pledges, blood bonds, FICO scores, PGP webs of trust, are all attempts to solve that problem.

We can identify, authenticate, predict, track, audit, and prosecute.

We can't know the future.

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#103

Post by StrawberryFrog » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:06 PM UTC

jerrya wrote: post #7

How long before AirBnB offers some form of insurance, much as ebay started offering buyer protection. Related: how long before your home owner / rental insurance specifically excludes AirBnb type activities?

Your home owner / contents insurance almost certainly doesn't cover you for this, and never did.

Letting a stranger stay for a few nights in exchange for money is not novel to Airbnb, and will be excluded.

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#104

Post by vaksel » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:06 PM UTC

robtoo wrote: post #19

AirBnB is one rape case away from disaster.

murder would be worst...serial murders that get turned into a movie(i.e. the craigslist killer) especially

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#105

Post by wheels » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:08 PM UTC

tc wrote: post #21

> I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages This is bad news. They're going to backtrack on this. The sooner they do it, the better for them politically. I understand the problems of setting a precedent. And there really is no getting around the fact that the hosts do have the final responsibility for screening travelers (and travelers for screening hosts). But rightly or wrongly, t…

I understand the problems of setting a precedent.

I don't, actually. If the financial industry has taught us one thing, it's that you can insure anything.

Let's assume that this is a very rare occurrence and that the total cost of making this right (say, tops $100k?) can be amortized over the profit being generated. I have a hard time understanding how it'd be rocket surgery to get something in place to handle these cases, especially just after a $112 million cash infusion.

Everyone keeps bringing up fraud, but fraud is nothing new to insurance and there are centuries of practices established in that industry for dealing with such – i.e. it will happen, it can be minimized by establishing premiums, requiring police reports, and, again, amortizing the cost of fraud over the spread of valid commerce.

[Edit replying to parent's #2 edit]

Sure, this one needs to be out of pocket. Actually, it'd probably be easier for them to insure now since there's a data point for how often this will happen per x number of rentals. Handling one of these out of pocket can't be a biggie for a company with several orders of magnitude more cash in the bank. And with a multi-billion dollar valuation, there will be institutional insurers that will be willing to build up a risk profile for them and work out a policy to handle these these things in the future.

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#106

Post by Bogdanp » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:08 PM UTC

I had to check the FAQ question about the piano. It used to be at http://www.airbnb.com/help/question/31 but they seem to have removed it.

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#107

Post by ceejayoz » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:08 PM UTC

forgot_password wrote: post #56

Doesn't AirBnb require a credit card from the renter? Wouldn't it be straightforward to find the vandalizing renter using their credit card information? I'm sure that I'm missing something here...

An identity thief or general criminal likely has access to any number of stolen credit cards.

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#108

Post by StrawberryFrog » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:09 PM UTC

tc wrote: post #21

> I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages This is bad news. They're going to backtrack on this. The sooner they do it, the better for them politically. I understand the problems of setting a precedent. And there really is no getting around the fact that the hosts do have the final responsibility for screening travelers (and travelers for screening hosts). But rightly or wrongly, t…

> "we've made sure our customer is whole."

When it gets to personal things like "found ... grandmother's jewelry" and "I don't have the mental energy to take those last few steps into my apartment. It's too creepy in there anyway."

It's really hard to "make someone whole" with a cash payout. There's a lot of distress involved. It's not just a case of "TV was stolen, TV costs $500, here's $500". There's family heirlooms and emotional trauma involved.

Aside from that difficulty, you're perfectly right.

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#109

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:11 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #60

tc wrote: post #21

> I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages This is bad news. They're going to backtrack on this. The sooner they do it, the better for them politically. I understand the problems of setting a precedent. And there really is no getting around the fact that the hosts do have the final responsibility for screening travelers (and travelers for screening hosts). But rightly or wrongly, t…

As was pointed out before, it's not possible to get insurance for this - homeowner's insurance specifically disclaims damage from renters, and it's generally not legal to rent your premises like this unless you comply with all the hotel rules, so AirBnb can't take out insurance either. All they can do is self-insure, and if they start paying out, people will realize "Hey, I can get a new TV if I let my friend come an…

[deleted]

Re: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

#110

Post by limedaring » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 10:12 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #40

helipad wrote: post #26

IMHO AirBnB is no more responsible than CouchSurfing. Whilst AirBnB charges a fee, that's purely as middleman for connecting two parties. Of course it's horrific for the person, and this is an extreme example, but it's a lesson learned of how to rent out a property. Take AirBnB out of the equation, and they've just let a complete stranger free reign over their apartment with a key for a week whilst leaving their own…

AirBnB's model depends on the two parties not being able to contact each other before a purchase is made. This is a restriction that does not happen on Craigslist, and as such, I'm able to vet just about everything I need to know about a candidate renter before he/she even knows the physical address of my place. For those prospective renters who don't have any real online identity (and decline to provide any other ki…

You can totally message a person before being made — I personally don't rent out my rooms to anyone who hasn't messaged me first and I at least got a bit of personal information. Or do you mean messaging via email rather than through Airbnb?