The story is on the front page of this morning's Financial Times (UK edition): http://www.politicshome.com/timthumb.php?w=450&src=%2Fim...
Story here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9aac5f80-b924-11e0-bd87-00144feabd...
Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
51–60 of 144 posts
Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what they're smoking over there, honestly. Cut off all contact through their CS to the victim, and then have a cofounder want to "meet them for coffee"? After asking her to take down the blog or give it a positive-twist ending? I don't know what they're expecting but I'm hard-pressed to think of what they could do worse, short of joking about it on twitter. Edit: Holy god, I didn't realize the actual tim…
What you're calling a 'sudden Customer Service cutoff' is actually when (from victim's account) communication switched to being with a cofounder. That's escalation and unification, and it's not fair to portray a direct open line to the boss as a 'cutoff'. (That the victim portrays it that way suggests they may have had better rapport with the original CS liason. Perhaps that person included more social/emotional nice…
Yeah, I think that's structurally the correct response (escalate her directly to the founders), but unless the cofounder is actually good at that kind of thing (apparently not), they probably should've additionally assigned someone who is good at it as a contact person to check up on her situation / provide assistance / etc.
Heck, if the original CS rep had good rapport, maybe the right response would be to keep him/her as the main contact person, but escalate the CS rep into more of a personal representative of the founders, with more authority to provide assistance, and a direct line to keep them updated. Of course, that's a guess with hindsight.
Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
#53The story is on the front page of this morning's Financial Times (UK edition): http://www.politicshome.com/timthumb.php?w=450&src=%2Fim... Story here: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/9aac5f80-b924-11e0-bd87-00144feabd...
That's the old story. They haven't seen yet the newest post. When they will have, all hell will break loose for AirBNB.
Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
#54airbnb need to realise this will not go away. The way I see it, their two main options are: 1) hire a PR firm, lawyer up and let the spin doctors handle things. With the amount of money they have, this is a real option. They could probably convince or coerce (bully?) the victim into accepting a settlement in exchange for keeping quiet. The PR machine would then be free to write (or rewrite) the story as they see fit.…
Not a reflection on Brian, ( I know nothing about him) but it is my observation that 'talking' about openness and transparency is easy. Implementing it in a competitive environment is difficult.
Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
#55Worth noting that, despite recent large valuations and funding rounds, the founders of Airbnb are still driving their baby and have a massive emotional attachment to it. (As do all business owners.) This is their first significant black eye (the Craigslist stuff was far more limited in its audience reach), and has the potential to derail a company that's only 2 years old. Of course they're going to be responding emot…
I donwvoted you. I don't see how what you write is relevant. Everybody is emotionally attached to their startups, including me, so?
So ... I don't believe that level of emotional attachment is well understood by people who don't have their own business. There's criticism - in this thread and elsewhere - of how Airbnb have handled this whole situation, especially some of the information in the OP. I think there would be less criticism if more people understood the emotions of being a business owner - emotions lead us to do non-rational things.
Edit: To add how good it was to see someone explain a downvote, so we could continue a discussion.
Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what they're smoking over there, honestly. Cut off all contact through their CS to the victim, and then have a cofounder want to "meet them for coffee"? After asking her to take down the blog or give it a positive-twist ending? I don't know what they're expecting but I'm hard-pressed to think of what they could do worse, short of joking about it on twitter. Edit: Holy god, I didn't realize the actual tim…
What you're calling a 'sudden Customer Service cutoff' is actually when (from victim's account) communication switched to being with a cofounder. That's escalation and unification, and it's not fair to portray a direct open line to the boss as a 'cutoff'. (That the victim portrays it that way suggests they may have had better rapport with the original CS liason. Perhaps that person included more social/emotional nice…
[deleted]
Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know what they're smoking over there, honestly. Cut off all contact through their CS to the victim, and then have a cofounder want to "meet them for coffee"? After asking her to take down the blog or give it a positive-twist ending? I don't know what they're expecting but I'm hard-pressed to think of what they could do worse, short of joking about it on twitter. Edit: Holy god, I didn't realize the actual tim…
What you're calling a 'sudden Customer Service cutoff' is actually when (from victim's account) communication switched to being with a cofounder. That's escalation and unification, and it's not fair to portray a direct open line to the boss as a 'cutoff'. (That the victim portrays it that way suggests they may have had better rapport with the original CS liason. Perhaps that person included more social/emotional nice…
If I'm not mistaking the timeline here (and I may well be), the process went like this:
June 22: Ransack
June 23: AirBnB starts talking to her
June 29: She posts the blog
June 30: CS Liason cuts contact, first contact from cofounder
Random points between the June 30 and July 26: "this co-founder has been the only person at Airbnb from whom I have received occasional contact regarding my situation, his messages directed primarily at my blog post and its activity on Twitter. "
July 26-27ish: Blog posts blows up on HN
July 27: Other co-founder says he "would enjoy meeting" her for coffee.
I'd consider infrequent communication, primarily about the blog post, as pretty damn close to a cutoff. Especially if the first contact from the co-founder on the 30th was primarily about "Would you please make your blog say nice things about us".
But yes, perhaps cutoff isn't the correct word for the situation. I stand corrected.
Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm more disappointed with airbnb screwing this up than that there are bad people using the site. They should have dropped everything to fix this. I wonder what pg thinks about this.
I'm curious to hear if PG even knew about this before it blew up.
That's pretty unfair to PG since he's not involved in AirBnB's support.
Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
#59Airbnb is one of the good ideas that came out of the SF/SV area that wasn't really means tested and a cock-up like this was bound to occur. It places an incredible amount of trust in the hosts and guests. This is alright I guess for some places but definitely not others.
I assume that if Airbnb got its start in Detroit, for example, and not San Francisco then safety and security would have a different context. For me, when I was in university I left the door to my apartment unlocked, a lot. I knew everyone in our building and had so many people coming and going from my place that it was easier that way. Plus, being a broke college student the most expensive thing in the apartment was the bottles of liquor :-). But this is definitely not something I would do in any other city.
EJ assumed that keeping valuables in a locked closet would be enough. Severely overestimating the role a locked closet plays in a house. Being a traveller myself I am constantly worried about the security of my house. Renting it out to a stranger with my valuables still inside would drive me nuts.
I like the idea of airbnb but I haven't used them because they don't have listings for the places I go. And the thought of having to move all the expensive stuff out of my place, pay for storage, and move it back when I arrive is a bigger hassle than I can deal with.
Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry
#60This 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. "
as one smart commenter http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2820778 has finally got it (and as usually - once somebody was able to get it and explained to the rest of us, it seems obvious ) - PTSD