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Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

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Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#421

Post by hv23 »

LogicX wrote: post #102
pseudonym wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair. I'd think a guest-liability thing wouldn't be too hard to work into AirBnB's infrastructure, although keeping the hosts honest is another question entirely. Thinking about it as a whole, I have to wonder if the proper response would be to have a host-to-guest feedback system. As a host, you can request that guests have a certain "level" of feedback, with the drawback of receiving a reduced amount of money…

They already have host and guest reviews and feedback. Granted, most people are new to the system, and don't have feedback. As an AirBNB host, I screen potential customers all the time, and definitely seeing positive reviews from others is helpful.

Curious-- how does this incident affect your thoughts on being a host, if at all?

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#422

Post by tjic »

mapgrep wrote: post #410
pg wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just learned more about this situation, and it turns out Airbnb has been offering to fix it, from the very beginning. From the beginning they offered to pay to get her a new place and new stuff, and do whatever else she wanted. The story Arrington wrote yesterday about Airbnb not offering to help was bullshit. He asked a company spokesman what Airbnb was doing to help her. The spokesman, who'd been told by their…

In this response from Paul Graham we have an example of how this crisis could taint ALL Y Combinator companies. I say this as a fan of Mr Graham, Hacker News (which he created), and his essays. But this is 100 percent the wrong reaction by Paul to the sickening -- sickening! -- disclosure that Airbnb tried to get this guest to hush up the utter sacking of her apartment in order to close a funding round . Paul, you sh…

> you should be condemning Airbnb's pathetically slow response (which you do not dispute)

Yes, he does dispute it. Read his post.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#423

Post by YuriNiyazov »

mapgrep wrote: post #410
pg wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just learned more about this situation, and it turns out Airbnb has been offering to fix it, from the very beginning. From the beginning they offered to pay to get her a new place and new stuff, and do whatever else she wanted. The story Arrington wrote yesterday about Airbnb not offering to help was bullshit. He asked a company spokesman what Airbnb was doing to help her. The spokesman, who'd been told by their…

In this response from Paul Graham we have an example of how this crisis could taint ALL Y Combinator companies. I say this as a fan of Mr Graham, Hacker News (which he created), and his essays. But this is 100 percent the wrong reaction by Paul to the sickening -- sickening! -- disclosure that Airbnb tried to get this guest to hush up the utter sacking of her apartment in order to close a funding round . Paul, you sh…

Just so you know, the phrase "shocked -- shocked! --" (which you seem to be referencing here with your invocation of "sickening -- sickening! --") is a reference to the movie Casablanca, where it is uttered cynically by a corrupt police chief who is not shocked at all as he's been participating in the illegal activity himself from the very beginning. So, if you are genuinely sickened, it's inappropriate.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#424

Post by farrel »

run4yourlives wrote: post #322
a3camero wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it is a solved problem or AirBNB would be using it. Imagine what the negotiations would be like. They need insurance for: -An open-ended number of people worldwide (constantly changing) -Any sort of property from shitty apartments all the way to fancy houses (no estimate of value possible, requires appraisers) -Damage/theft caused by people with unverified identities (all they have is CC, stolen?) -Any and al…

Lloyd's will insure it if you can think of it, basically. AirBnB is not that far out there that they couldn't get at least three special risk companies to give them a decent quote. I'm in the insurance field btw.

Can you even get insurance on an illegal activity. It seems clear that many people on Airbnb are either illegally subletting their rental apartment or in places like NY where Airbnb is violating laws meant to stop illegal and unlicensed hotels.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#425

Post by lambda »

rdouble wrote: post #417
lambda wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who exactly are you trying to claim the "conspiracy theorists" are? People who believe her story more than Airbnb's response? As far as I can tell, she's not trying to get some sort of payout from Airbnb. If she were, it would be much easier to threaten to sue, and then settle out of court, than to post about it on her blog. I think that she was just trying to warn people about the risks of Airbnb; that while it's al…

Who exactly are you trying to claim the "conspiracy theorists" are? Guys like spolsky who suggested it might be a group of goons hired by a hotel association. I now just think she got burglarized, and found out the hard way that SFPD can't really do much to help. She probably doesn't have renter's insurance, which does not apply in the case of an illegal sublet anyway. She's a freelance writer, so she's probably brok…

Oh, sure. I don't think that this was some sort of hotel conspiracy. I think it was some douchebags who decided that the anonymity provided by Airbnb would make a great cover for some extensive identity theft. I agree, the conspiracy theorists are jumping to conclusions here.

But why would you assume that she's trying to squeeze something out of Airbnb, as opposed to what she said, which is to warn people about the risks and about the fact that Airbnb basically has no plan and offers no real help for how to deal with this sort of situation? I've seen nothing other than an explanation of what happened, and a clarification that their spin on the issue doesn't really match up with her experience.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#426

Post by rdouble »

lambda wrote: post #425
rdouble wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who exactly are you trying to claim the "conspiracy theorists" are? Guys like spolsky who suggested it might be a group of goons hired by a hotel association. I now just think she got burglarized, and found out the hard way that SFPD can't really do much to help. She probably doesn't have renter's insurance, which does not apply in the case of an illegal sublet anyway. She's a freelance writer, so she's probably brok…

Oh, sure. I don't think that this was some sort of hotel conspiracy. I think it was some douchebags who decided that the anonymity provided by Airbnb would make a great cover for some extensive identity theft. I agree, the conspiracy theorists are jumping to conclusions here. But why would you assume that she's trying to squeeze something out of Airbnb, as opposed to what she said, which is to warn people about the r…

That's just my cynical take on things from dealing with stuff like this in the past.

I honestly don't think there's much AirBNB can do to vet people which wouldn't make the service unusable.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#427

Post by tungwaiyip »

tungwaiyip wrote: post #418
ellyagg wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I greatly sympathized with her plight originally, I do note that she is somewhat disingenuous in her post today. For example, she quotes AirBnB as saying someone is in custody and then says local officials have not contacted her saying that's the case, implying that this somehow invalidates their claim. But then she goes on to show detailed knowledge of someone being in custody, even though they haven't been ch…

I have some idea on the discrepancy. Neither party are being deliberately disingenuous. It is more of a point of view issue. This mess take a long time to fix even in the best circumstance. So it is natural for EJ to still feel violated and frightened. She say "Since June 30, this co-founder has been the only person at Airbnb from whom I have received occasional contact regarding my situation". I think she is too sha…

And a lot of this is probably a rehash of those WTF moments the founders have with their girlfriend. Look at this statement:

(the second co-founder) suggesting we meet for coffee as he “would enjoy meeting” me. He made no inquiry into my current emotional state, my safety or my well being.

So Airbnb do all they can to escalate the case, to compensate her, to assist the police, etc, or as least it is the best for a tech company to do. All these seem secondary to the victim. What she really want is for someone to ask her if she is ok.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#428

Post by YuriNiyazov »

HSO wrote: post #384
llambda wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Graham would have a lot to lose by making such a broad, unfounded statement...unless of course that's what he's been told and has good reason to believe it's correct. If so, why should we disbelieve the pg and Airbnb account? Simply because EJ's is loaded with emotional appeal? I don't see how a random blogger is more plausible than pg and Airbnb? I believe that most of her story is true (in the first blog post…

> I don't see how a random blogger is more plausible than pg and Airbnb? Yeah, that's status thinking and antithetical to rational discourse. You evaluate a story or its plausibility on _its_ merits, not on the status of who tells it (unless you have _real_ information about the author's credibility, which in this case neither of us, correct me if I'm wrong, have.) > this seems to corroborate pg's statement, they off…

> Yeah, that's status thinking and antithetical to rational discourse. You evaluate a story or its plausibility on _its_ merits, not on the status of who tells it (unless you have _real_ information about the author's credibility, which in this case neither of us, correct me if I'm wrong, have.)

What about in the other direction? I have no information about the author's credibility whatsoever, but from personal interaction I have ample information about PG's credibility.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#429

Post by run4yourlives »

farrel wrote: post #424
run4yourlives wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lloyd's will insure it if you can think of it, basically. AirBnB is not that far out there that they couldn't get at least three special risk companies to give them a decent quote. I'm in the insurance field btw.

Can you even get insurance on an illegal activity. It seems clear that many people on Airbnb are either illegally subletting their rental apartment or in places like NY where Airbnb is violating laws meant to stop illegal and unlicensed hotels.

Sub-letting is more often perfectly legal, but yes, I'd imagine if you are in contradiction of either your rental agreement and/or local laws you would also be voiding your insurance contract.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#430

Post by nhangen »

edw519 wrote: post #141

Airbnb & 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…

Why should AirBnB offer to replace her stuff, when she made the mistake of not properly screen the person, and left everything free for the taking while away during the rental period. Sure, maybe they need better security, but no one forced her to rent out her place, and no one forced her to hand the keys over while she was gone.
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