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Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com

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Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#471

Post by sriramk »

pg wrote: post #319
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…

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…

PG - I can't believe I'm defending Arrington but it is hard to say that he's the one at fault here.

- Most of the damaging content is from EJ's blog. The original TC article only has a couple of bad parts where it says "Airbnb’s response so far has been tepid at best. It turns out that when something like this happens, Airbnb isn’t financially responsible." but that's arguably very fair editiorial opinion given EJ's reaction and the company spokesperson not revealing anything.

- TC has been good about airing the AirBnB side of the story - from Brian Chesky's guest post to updating their initial posts with comments from him.

- All the follow-up brouhaha has been caused by EJ's second post. Now, you seem to be implying that she might be lying with your comments - that's a separate issue. But TC and Arrington have mostly stayed on the sidelines.

There is a lot of he-said, she-said here but all of it is between EJ and Airbnb (or AirBNB through PG's comments here). Arrington, for once, has played it fairly straight and it really isn't fair to blame him for this particular situation.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#473

Post by donpark »

pg wrote: post #319
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…

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…

> 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.

Paul, could you clarify how you know this? Were you told this or have you confirmed this with the victim or some other way?

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#474

Post by leftcoaster »

pg wrote: post #319
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…

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…

"So Arrington, in typical Arrington fashion said ..."

I don't think the ad hominem helps your case, at all.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#475

Post by campnic »

pg wrote: post #319
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…

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…

I'm assuming YC still holds an interest in Airbnb? Seems like I would be distancing myself from this instead of getting into the 'he said, she said' stuff. Neither side will provide proof, so why risk getting involved when you can't be certain of the facts. I realize these people are friends, but this seems like a weird strategic move.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#476

Post by CubicleNinjas »

pg wrote: post #319
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…

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…

This is clearly contradictory to what the actual customer wrote yesterday. The customer is the source here we trust. Not Arrington.

She states she has only heard from two founders since posting the blog article, she received no offers of help, and no one has even asked how she was doing. From my point of view, it is quite clear the Airbnb team is lying to you or simply has had their communication wires crossed for far too long.

Airbnb may mean well, but meaning and action are different things.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#477

Post by ditojim »

natural219 wrote: post #436
ditojim wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ef that. take care of your customers or before you know it, you won't have any.

Blindly repeating a mantra without addressing the argument at hand is going to get you nowhere.

this is my argument: take care of your customers. contrary to your statement, it has gotten me somewhere since that is how i built my business. we've made mistakes and our partners have made mistakes, but we always put the customer's interests first in these situations, regardless of profit or precedent. solutions can be simple. this is one of them.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#478

Post by pbreit »

chc wrote: post #365
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…

Of course "someone is in custody." There are many thousands of people in custody in the US. The question is, how many of them have demonstrated ties to EJ's case? AirBnB's comment implies (but does not state) that the number is 1. Unless AirBnB know something different that they are not sharing with EJ, it would appear the real number is 0. That's what she was correcting.

But the correct answer is "1 or more".

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#479

Post by tptacek »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #455
tptacek wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why's that? What has she written so far that would jeopardize settlement negotiations, or her ability to bring a case to court? Companies are invariably advised to clam up in the face of litigation, but that's because they have a lot to lose and because they have to maintain message discipline across the whole company. Also, because they usually don't want to talk about it.

I'm not saying she has written something bad so far, I'm saying that an ambulance chaser lawyer seeking a settlement would not let her take that chance. The only way that would fly is if the lawyer is vetting everything before it is posted, which is more work for the lawyer. Since lawyers in cases like this are not paid hourly, and taking a cut of the settlement, they are not going to waste their time with that unles…

You think her story adds up? Interesting. It didn't for me.

(I'm sure the event happened the way she said it did, by the way. I'm not one of those people that thinks this is an elaborate scam.)

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#480

Post by larrys »

Even though Fred Wilson said "We couldn't wrap our heads around air mattresses on the living room floors as the next hotel room and did not chase the deal."

...with regards to not funding airbnb I somehow feel that that might not have been the case.

I think Fred's age (49?) and experience in life basically made it hard to understand how an idea like this couldn't have potential problems such, as only one example, this situation.

Hold on a second before you say "it only happened this one time".

How do we know that? People seem to think that either your place gets trashed or it's absolutely fine.

It's not digital it's analog. There's an in between state.

Something could get stolen that you don't know even about until much later. It won't always be the obvious thing like jewelry (and why would you leave that actually) it could be one of many little things you don't realize you have until missing. Or something could be broken.

The fact is there is no way for airbnb to insure against any number of minor type things that could happen. Where minor becomes your problem and your aggravation.

Have you ever seen how big of an industry shoplifting prevention is? Do you really think that only a minor % of the population commits petty type crimes?

And there is the reverse situation.

If you stay at someones place what if they honestly think that you stole something of theirs because they can't find it? Honest mistakes like this happen all the time. And the most obvious culprit tends to be blamed.

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