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This is really crappy and airbnb fucked up big time, twice now. But... there's something odd about the way the victim writes, and I don't understand why it's jumping out at me: " bouncing between friends’ homes".. " clutching my pillow".. " breathing through panic attacks".. " scouring the city’s pawn shops".. " this too shall pass and I will be made whole again. "
I was the main anti-AirBnB poster last time around...but.. I gotta say, something about all this now seems like it's a set up for a big fat lawsuit. I've never been violated this way (or anything close to it), so maybe I'm being insensitive, but this is crossing into whining territory to me. If you want to complain about a _really_ bad experience, a lack of customer support, and insensitive and money-focused founders…
I'm using airbnb in Berlin right now. Two days ago I received a knock on my door. Turns out it was the real owner of the apartment and he had the Paperwork to prove it. Fortunately he was nice enough to let us stay without compensation. When I went to the airbnb website to try and call them all I got was a web message box. I filled out a message and sent it on its way but that's a pretty lousy system. Luckily for me…
Exactly. Based on EJ's description of AirBnB customer service, and the 2,000,000 bookings the founders cited earlier today, we'd be fools to think this was the first time someone broke the law using AirBnB -- I'm guessing the others just gave up on support after being ignored, and focused on talking to the police. The real black eye here is the kind of support EJ received before she wrote her blog post -- most people…
I'm using airbnb in Berlin right now. Two days ago I received a knock on my door. Turns out it was the real owner of the apartment and he had the Paperwork to prove it. Fortunately he was nice enough to let us stay without compensation. When I went to the airbnb website to try and call them all I got was a web message box. I filled out a message and sent it on its way but that's a pretty lousy system. Luckily for me…
Someone who was not the real owner of the apartment (presumably thief/criminal) put the place up on AirBnB. You unknowingly rented the place from this person, and during your stay, the real owner showed up and asked what you were doing in his house?
I'm surprised the mainstream media hasn't picked this up. It has all the right plot points to drive a story -- over-the-top crime, police can't find the persons involved, the victim is striking back at the company who started the mess.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Based on EJ's description of AirBnB customer service, and the 2,000,000 bookings the founders cited earlier today, we'd be fools to think this was the first time someone broke the law using AirBnB -- I'm guessing the others just gave up on support after being ignored, and focused on talking to the police. The real black eye here is the kind of support EJ received before she wrote her blog post -- most people…
I am giving a statement to the police later today along with a lawyer and the real owner of the apartment. I'm not sure how far this will escalate here in Germany but I'd imagine as airbnb has facilitated a transaction with a criminal the German authorities will want to pursue further. I'm not the victim here, but the owner is.
In the comments to the other story, people kept talking about how it is safe to rent using AirBnB. If the owner here had been less understanding, I'm guessing you would have at least spent the night in jail (assuming you speak German and everything else went well).
Handling this situation should be a top priority for AirBnB. There's the potential that the mainstream media could have a field day with this. The incident will undoubtedly be part of the hotel lobbyists' list of reasons AirBnB should be made illegal. And if the investigation reveals that they were cooking drugs in the place, that's even more damning.
It's disappointing to see this happen to one of the most interesting startups as of late, and I hope they turn around their attitude for the better. This is already really damaging, but it could be way worse if things don't change.