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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

#371

Post by elizabeth-iii »

chailatte wrote: post #348
forgotAgain wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TechCrunch is reporting I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages, they say, and they do not insure against losses. They are helping police track down the person who did this, but their help ends there. http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the-moment-of-truth-for-air...

I love that the entire investment community is gaga over this company. So they sold a fad product (cereal) at the right time to make a little bit of money. Just tells me they have no moral integrity (which explains the craigslist email spamming). So they struggled to make rent in SF a while. Who told them to stay in an expensive city with no savings? That's bad financial planning, and they could've bootstrapped their…

My opinion is that the service is questionable. The fact that there is no way to contact a person until they accept your credit card. My friend paid for the stay, contacted a person via website, the person replied yes and asked to call him to make arrangements. Ended up, that nobody realized that nobody can see contact information. The day was waisted. So when my friend wanted to delete profile from airbnb, it is not allowed. So all we could do was telling about the horrible experience. They do not have detailed terms and conditions on the site, and all what a person should be aware of. I guess that they really do not care about customers. Like I heard from other people, this is like a typical startup from silicon valley, a new bubble. I guess we need to look at that in a positive way. So they just need to get enough money to get a lot of advertisement. Nothing will kill a horrible product faster that a good advertisement.

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

#372

Post by elizabeth-iii »

chailatte wrote: post #348
forgotAgain wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TechCrunch is reporting I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages, they say, and they do not insure against losses. They are helping police track down the person who did this, but their help ends there. http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the-moment-of-truth-for-air...

I love that the entire investment community is gaga over this company. So they sold a fad product (cereal) at the right time to make a little bit of money. Just tells me they have no moral integrity (which explains the craigslist email spamming). So they struggled to make rent in SF a while. Who told them to stay in an expensive city with no savings? That's bad financial planning, and they could've bootstrapped their…

My opinion is that the service is questionable. The fact that there is no way to contact a person until they accept your credit card. My friend paid for the stay, contacted a person via website, the person replied yes and asked to call him to make arrangements. Ended up, that nobody realized that nobody can see contact information. The day was waisted. So when my friend wanted to delete profile from airbnb, it is not allowed. So all we could do was telling about the horrible experience. They do not have detailed terms and conditions on the site, and all what a person should be aware of. I guess that they really do not care about customers. Like I heard from other people, this is like a typical startup from silicon valley, a new bubble. I guess we need to look at that in a positive way. So they just need to get enough money to get a lot of advertisement. Nothing will kill a horrible product faster that a good advertisement.

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

#373

Post by elizabeth-iii »

chailatte wrote: post #348
forgotAgain wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TechCrunch is reporting I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages, they say, and they do not insure against losses. They are helping police track down the person who did this, but their help ends there. http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the-moment-of-truth-for-air...

I love that the entire investment community is gaga over this company. So they sold a fad product (cereal) at the right time to make a little bit of money. Just tells me they have no moral integrity (which explains the craigslist email spamming). So they struggled to make rent in SF a while. Who told them to stay in an expensive city with no savings? That's bad financial planning, and they could've bootstrapped their…

My opinion is that the service is questionable. The fact that there is no way to contact a person until they accept your credit card. My friend paid for the stay, contacted a person via website, the person replied yes and asked to call him to make arrangements. Ended up, that nobody realized that nobody can see contact information. The day was waisted. So when my friend wanted to delete profile from airbnb, it is not allowed. So all we could do was telling about the horrible experience. They do not have detailed terms and conditions on the site, and all what a person should be aware of. I guess that they really do not care about customers. Like I heard from other people, this is like a typical startup from silicon valley, a new bubble. I guess we need to look at that in a positive way. So they just need to get enough money to get a lot of advertisement. Nothing will kill a horrible product faster that a good advertisement.

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

#374

Post by elizabeth-iii »

chailatte wrote: post #348
forgotAgain wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TechCrunch is reporting I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages, they say, and they do not insure against losses. They are helping police track down the person who did this, but their help ends there. http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/27/the-moment-of-truth-for-air...

I love that the entire investment community is gaga over this company. So they sold a fad product (cereal) at the right time to make a little bit of money. Just tells me they have no moral integrity (which explains the craigslist email spamming). So they struggled to make rent in SF a while. Who told them to stay in an expensive city with no savings? That's bad financial planning, and they could've bootstrapped their…

My opinion is that the service is questionable. The fact that there is no way to contact a person until they accept your credit card. My friend paid for the stay, contacted a person via website, the person replied yes and asked to call him to make arrangements. Ended up, that nobody realized that nobody can see contact information. The day was waisted. So when my friend wanted to delete profile from airbnb, it is not allowed. So all we could do was telling about the horrible experience. They do not have detailed terms and conditions on the site, and all what a person should be aware of. I guess that they really do not care about customers. Like I heard from other people, this is like a typical startup from silicon valley, a new bubble. I guess we need to look at that in a positive way. So they just need to get enough money to get a lot of advertisement. Nothing will kill a horrible product faster that a good advertisement.

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

#375

Post by andjones »

First, I do not believe this is the place to make a stand about our trust in humanity. I believe that is best left to philosopher who has all of human discourse to use.

My argument rests on the fact that Airbnb is moving closer to the average. Airbnb is moving closer to the average in the sense that they are attracting more people. After several million bookings, the general booking population will look more like the average in terms of disabilities, crime, unemployment, and many other imaginable statistics. Airbnb may not be quite there, but they are certainly growing closer.

The question becomes, how to improve trust as Airbnb moves closer to the average?

One such way is to implement trust systems. One such way is their existing feedback systems for people who use Airbnb. Hosts and renters alike can rate each other across several factors. Over time, one can develop a reputation that is accepted as a "I will do no evil". Heck, Airbnb could even reward these people with lower booking rates / larger cut as host.

Trust systems are fine for those who have earned trust within the system. How does one bootstrap trust in an increasing paranoid system? There is a cost associated with this in the sense of gaining references or examining the social network of a first time renter. After such examination the responsibility relies upon some host to have an increasingly long conversation with a first time renter. This can be done before or after booking. However at the end of the conversation, one ultimately relies on their own judgement, which means the conversation can be gamed.

In a future, Airbnb could work with outside systems. Airbnb could work with criminal databases, social information, along with associated other signals. All these approaches hint at a big brother approach where Airbnb is the ultimate judge and jury on who can host and/or rent. I don't see Airbnb being very popular in this approach.

In the end, I think Airbnb has the responsibility to make things right in this situation. In the future I think they have the responsibility to make things right while their business model relies on the trust of their customers. Increase awareness and increase their own detection measures to the extent that they do not become big brother.

Ultimately, I think things like this will continue to happen. However, the success (or failure) of the Airbnb billion+ business will depend on their response to such future events. Continue to make the host (the supply) happy and Airbnb will do well.

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

#377

Post by pyre »

afterburner wrote: post #209
rkalla wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sitting here mulling over why you wouldn't think that people are essentially good and it dawns on me that a lot of people are scared and likely have behaviors that suggest they aren't good (e.g. drive by someone with a flat tire in the rain because they are scared it's a robbery setup for passer-bys) I think if you just look at your day to day interactions, most people are decent. I doubt many people are trying…

Maybe it's the difference between "people act good most of the time" and people truly being good. I don't think the vast majority of people are up to something criminal right this moment, but I might be less confident that 99% of people are motivated by good intentions. "Good intentions" and "not a criminal" are very different standards, but that's the point. The fear thing made me think something else entirely: does…

This just reminded me of an interesting idea one of my highschool teachers proposed: mother that doesn't love their child, but still performs all of her motherly duties because she feels a responsibility towards the child?

Is she worse than a mother that loves her child? Is she better because she can 'do the right thing' even though her feelings might opposed?

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

#378

Post by Hyena »

alanh wrote: post #340
Steve0 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem to be the conclusion of said experiment. "In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40)[1] of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment." I…

So people know what they do is wrong and do it anyway. How does this make people "good"? It makes them knowingly evil.

Or they felt trapped by their agreement to participate in the experiment. They made an offer to annul the contract, which would indicate that they were following through with what they had agreed to do. Moreover, the situation they were in was greatly outside their experience with what people had ever asked them to do in fulfilling an agreement.

If you promised someone "I'll do whatever it takes for you to have a good time while you're visiting", you probably aren't imagining that it will involve a triple homicide and a liquor store robbery. If it starts there, you'll likely refuse. But if you slowly build up to that, the pressure to keep complying with your agreement builds....

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

#379

Post by ximeng »

Shenglong wrote: post #216
rkalla wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was sitting here mulling over why you wouldn't think that people are essentially good and it dawns on me that a lot of people are scared and likely have behaviors that suggest they aren't good (e.g. drive by someone with a flat tire in the rain because they are scared it's a robbery setup for passer-bys) I think if you just look at your day to day interactions, most people are decent. I doubt many people are trying…

Hey, don't get my wrong! I'm probably one of the most cheerful and happy people you'll ever meet in real life. I'm always smiling and enthusiastic with everything I do. And you're right - people tend to (usually) treat me the same way. Everything is beautiful on the surface, and that's just about never where I have a problem. I've been betrayed by a lot of people I trusted, and I've had to do some things (not for my…

Interesting story, keep it up. I submitted it at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2816167 on the chance it reaches a wider audience.

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

#380

Post by jeffool »

sjs wrote: post #257
jeffool wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely pulling this out of my ass, but I'm hoping whoever took his initial call(s) just severely misunderstood the situation. Maybe people have had trashy guests or items broken and became irate over them, and that's what this person thought was happening. I hope. I don't know the company's "side of the story", and would be surprised if it was ever really discussed in any way aside from steps taken to remedy this sit…

That doesn't matter. They are obligated to investigate each and every phone call to their fullest extent. Only if the same person called repeatedly could they even begin to think about the "boy who cried wolf" excuse.

Sure, I just mean to say that a person calling the urgent line because someone may have accidentally pocketed a key and the homeowner is concerned, is reasonable. That should be investigated.

But the guy calling with a police report on his entire place being completely trashed? The calls for the support staff to have a Bat-Phone to someone at a very high level, if not the top.

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