"He requested that I shut down the blog altogether or limit its access"
If true, that's really sleazy.
Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
251–260 of 510 posts
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
I couldn't agree more. Deal with the "if I give you a cookie, everyone else will want one too" problem if and when you actually have it. This isn't about business. It's about helping someone who needs help.
This is about business. Airbnb can't be sustained for free. It will cease to exist if it can't make money.
You're right. And if they don't fix this and find a way to deal with it in the future, they won't have any one renting their homes out. Then they'll be out of business.
It is in their best interest to fix this, call it a first-time problem, and then find a long term fix. Otherwise, their model is gone.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is ridiculously short sighted. It is AirBnB's commercial interest -- if nothing else -- to make this issue go away. Thinking like this is what keeps PR people in business.
I disagree, this is just a case of HYPER OMG!! This will not effect AirBnB business, investment, popularity or success even if it hits the front page of FT. You dont rent out your principal residence to someone you don't know and found on the net. Duh.
You know what AirBnB is right? Its entire business model hinges on people renting out their principal residence to someone they don't know. And you don't think this story will affect their business model? I'm just baffled.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#254Airbnb & YC, just fix this please: 1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything. 2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal. 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a gia…
Damage control. That should have been in place for things like this. And it looks like there isn't.
I wonder how their risk analyses looked like.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#255Airbnb & YC, just fix this please: 1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything. 2. Help her restore her virtual identity. Use any resources at your considerable disposal. 3. Help her find her irreplaceable stuff. A few private detectives and a small team of scouters can make more progress in 2 weeks that the SFPD can make in a lifetime. Publish pictures of her grandmother's jewelry to enlist a gia…
4. Hire her and pay her well (perhaps even with equity). She is obviously an excellent writer and an empathetic persona. But more importantly, she is an expert in addressing what is clearly the weakest link in your business model's chain.
I highly doubt she wants to work for them, given what happened to her and Airbnb's response.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Once you do this as a matter of policy, you are open to fraud. Now you have to spend a significant amount of your resources on fraud detection - perhaps most of them. That's what I mean by they become an insurance company; their day-to-day operation would be indistinguishable fromt that of an insurance company. Both ebay and PayPay went through this, and that's what they spend most of their time doing. But ebay and P…
OK, so they're an insurance company, just like ebay. And Google isn't really a search company but an advertising one. So what? Your underlying premise seems to be that a responsible business model isn't viable. Is your argument that therefore companies should be irresponsible where there is profit to be made? I would argue they become an insurance company, or make it clear that the householder assumes all the risk an…
Your underlying premise seems to be that a responsible business model isn't viable. Is your argument that therefore companies should be irresponsible where there is profit to be made?
Geez, that's a leap. I thought I made myself clear: they either need to change their company completely to deal with this problem, or they will cease to exist. I'm not certain that they can completely deal with this problem - the risks are much more open-ended than with ebay and PayPal. So I think it's possible the business model cannot survive - which I thought I made clear when I said it was not sustainable.
I'm arguing that their company may cease to exist because of this problem. I don't know how you connected that to advocating for companies to be irresponsible.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
In all my years working in health care as an ER and trauma nurse, I learned one thing: Do the right thing for the patient. If the doctor is doing it wrong... do the right thing for the patient. If the hospital is doing it wrong... do the right thing for the patient. If a police officer is doing the wrong thing... do the right thing for the patient. The ultimate policy is... Do the right thing for the patient. AirBnb.…
I think all of this crossed their minds. Honestly, I don't think Airbnb wants to leave this person hanging. If they pay for this incident, they are possibly opening the door for the kinds of schemes people pull on insurance. You know, the whole "rob my place and I'll collect the insurance" schemes. If Airbnb pays for this incident, they effectively become an insurance company. Maybe what they should do is offer some…
The are already introducing an insurance scheme, or that is what they claim. They simply will have to adapt - or it turns out their business model is not sustainable.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
A tip for you: I work in support, and weasel words are the substance of our being. You tell the customer "Do A, B, and C, and that should get you up and running". They don't really hear the 'should', but it needs to be there because computers are fickle and anything can go wrong. In short, I guess I'm saying I'm a bit more practised at recognising weasel words for what they are - and in this situation, it's not reall…
I think you may have misparsed the sentence due to some ambiguity in the phrasing. The phrase "contacted again telling her" isn't meant to be read "contacted, again telling her"; it should be "contacted again, telling her". In other words, "again" refers to the contact, not to the telling.
partly, technically, yes. Remove the "again" from the quoted bit if you prefer. It is still Round 2 of saying "we'll be there for you", and Round 1 failed once they got what they came for.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#259The solution for AirBnB is (or was...) simple.
1. Make this person whole, at least in terms of material possessions and safety, to the extent possible. And do it FAST
2. Ask them to take down the blog, and replace it with something along the lines of "my situation is resolved. Thank you AirBnB. But I can't discuss the terms".
3. Work on strengthening your internal processes to make sure the chances of a similar incident are further reduced by a couple of orders of magnitude
4. Improve your customer-service department.
But it's been almost a month, and they still haven't done any of this. They just seemed too concerned about what this will do to their valuation. This is pure bullshit on their part! It shows that they have absolutely no idea how to operate in a customer-facing industry.
Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edit: bring on the downvotes! That's right, downvote a difference of opinion, and forget about logical or reasoned counterargument. Next time the internet lynch mob will come for your startup; hope that someone takes your side when they do. ---- Don't you think the CEO has to worry about the people he's paying? Who knows what their burn rate is; that funding could have been a life or death event, and in the event of…
Don't you think the CEO has to worry about the people he's paying? Who knows what their burn rate is; that funding could have been a life or death event, and in the event of death then a bunch more unemployed people would be hitting the streets. Well, how bad is bad PR? Their service has this major flaw that your home can get royally trashed & there is no backup. If they let this stand AS-IS, all it's going to take i…
If Honda advertised that their cars were safe, but in some cases under normal operation their cars had catastrophic failure despite the owner not doing anything out of the ordinary, then yes, Honda would have a major issue on their hands.
If you look at the advertising for cars, it's always along the lines of safer instead of safe. A LOT of lawyer-hours went into protecting them from exactly this scenario.