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Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

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Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#71

Post by StrawberryFrog »

markbao wrote: post #30

Wow. I love AirBnB, and I hate to say it, but that was a completely boneheaded move. There is absolutely no doubt that EJ is very public on this issue. If it's true that AirBnB tried to cover up the problem, then why? Did the founders think that EJ wouldn't turn around and say that they're asking her to remove the post? Handling this situation should be a top priority for AirBnB. There's the potential that the mainst…

> There's the potential that the mainstream media could have a field day with this.

It's on the front page of the Financial Times today (Friday 29 July) in London. The article is fairly short, is based on the original blog post and the reaction to that, and it also talks about AirBnB's finances (as is appropriate for that newspaper).

It's below the fold - the headline is about US government debt. But still.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#72

Post by sp332 »

BasDirks wrote: post #11

Acquaintances have said they'd probably not use Airbnb for fear of problems like this. After this incident and Airbnb's response, they will never even consider it. And they will tell all their acquaintances, etc, etc.. Airbnb's Achilles' heel is the deep-rooted fear of someone fucking up home. That they did not patch this with a good backup-plan should be a warning to investors.

What backup plan can you have for someone destroying your house, copying all your documents, and stealing your grandmother's jewelery?

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#73

Post by sp332 »

JoachimSchipper wrote: post #68

This should not be [dead] (and please don't downvote me because you disagree with him ; on the other hand, perhaps someone should tell him): "brianchesky 3 minutes ago [dead] Brian Chesky (Airbnb CEO) here. My heart goes out to our host. My co-founder has contacted her multiple times, as recently as last night, and we have again offered to help her in any way that she needs. We will continue to make ourselves availab…

It's dead because he copy&pasted the exact same text on the other thread. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2821305

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#75

Post by BasDirks »

sp332 wrote: post #72
BasDirks wrote: post #11

Acquaintances have said they'd probably not use Airbnb for fear of problems like this. After this incident and Airbnb's response, they will never even consider it. And they will tell all their acquaintances, etc, etc.. Airbnb's Achilles' heel is the deep-rooted fear of someone fucking up home. That they did not patch this with a good backup-plan should be a warning to investors.

What backup plan can you have for someone destroying your house, copying all your documents, and stealing your grandmother's jewelery?

Airbnb should have had a backup plan, not the victim.

Note: i feel terrible for the Airbnb folks. I hope they get out of this mess.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#76

Post by nwmcsween »

markbao wrote: post #30

Wow. I love AirBnB, and I hate to say it, but that was a completely boneheaded move. There is absolutely no doubt that EJ is very public on this issue. If it's true that AirBnB tried to cover up the problem, then why? Did the founders think that EJ wouldn't turn around and say that they're asking her to remove the post? Handling this situation should be a top priority for AirBnB. There's the potential that the mainst…

The fact that this occurred 5 weeks ago yet nothing has been done to rectify this and that the co-founder wanted the victim to put a spin on the situation is astounding.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#77

Post by silverlight »

fab13n wrote: post #62
pseudonym wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>or is an amazing liar I know that people were doubting the veracity of the story in the first place, but I think the initial AirBnB PR statement laid that to rest. At this point, what would EJ gain by lying? Anything that's a blatant lie could just be replied with by "Nope" by AirBnB, and she could only hurt her case by lying about anything right now. Honestly, after what appears to be a month with no help, no repl…

(Disclaimer: I'm not saying that she's lying, and I see no element that makes me believe that she lies. I don't even see any concrete element pointing to a conspiracy, I'm merely pondering how credible it might be). > what would EJ gain by lying? AirBnB has the potential to become very disruptive for the whole hostel industry. This means that there are people, some of them with deep pockets, some of them less than ho…

There's only one problem with your thought process: even if the "thugs" were sent by the big bad hotel industry, they have no influence over the way that AirBnB responds to the incident. If they would have handled it in a responsible, savvy way this would be a non-story, or maybe even a big PR win. The "devious" plan only works if AirBnB bungles the ball, which they have done. They have no one to blame for that but themselves.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter who caused what to happen to this woman, does it? AirBnB have obviously given credence to the basic tenants of her story (she is a person, she used AirBnB, she was ransacked), that is enough. The only thing that matters after that is the way they handled the situation.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#78

Post by AlexandrB »

dlss wrote: post #16
bignoggins wrote: post #3

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…

If this kind of thing happened before, the lack of preparedness is even more damning. You have to know that eventually this would happen to someone influential enough to cause a storm of publicity.

Re: Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry

#79

Post by Maro »

JacobAldridge wrote: post #55
Maro wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Edi…

Yes, the emotional attachment that founders have with their startups is pretty crazy. I think that rational founders learn to normalize it over the years though, at least that's what happened to me.

Criticism sucks, but with a company like Airbnb that's the deal, and the founders knew it from the get go. This is the price (one of many) they pay for their eventual big payday. Overall, it's a pretty good deal though =)

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