If I were Arrington, I would have posted this story first thing Monday morning.
Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
21–30 of 254 posts
Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
#22What's going to be a game changer is when stories start breaking about owners who rent out their space as a way to lure in people for killing or torturing them.
Right now it's about "you were stupid, why did you rent your space out to strangers?". Later on it'll be "why did you try to save $20 and go sleep some place where you're 110% vulnerable?". You don't control the locks, you don't know the neighborhood or even the layout of the house all that well (are there cameras in the room spying on you?).
If Holiday Inn or Marriott had tried to go 'downmarket' by trying to get in the "rent out your space with us - we'll handle the booking logistics", they'd have been eaten alive by the insurance costs of dealing with QA on thousands of rooms/spaces they don't control. They'd have too much name brand recognition and goodwill in their names to lose by leaving customer safety and security to chance. ABNB seems to be coming at this from the other way. What do they have to lose? Investor money? It's a big experiment for them, which they're hoping will pay off, but I think there's a reasons beyond "laziness" or "not getting it" to explain why larger companies well-versed in hospitality/property management have not gone down this road.
Will things still work out for ABNB? They might, but they're taking such a hit on this by not just making some of these situations right, then changing their procedures and policies. Apparently these incidents - as infrequent as they may be - have been occurring for a while. There's probably quite a few more that haven't come forward because they've felt it was their own fault, much like domestic abuse spouses blame themselves. Not really wanting to see ABNB fail, but can't help watching this play out, and I somewhat suspect it'll get worse before it gets better.
Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
#23Might have even been the same meth c[r]ooks.
Kudos to Dayton for keeping a balanced perspective on the situation, and not equating customer service clumsiness with indifference.
I like AirBnb. I will continue to use AirBnb as a guest. (Hypothetically if I were to be a host, I would only rent a hardened/rental-only property with careful assessment of the potential guests.) I am also still bullish on the general theme that the transparency and efficiency of the net makes peer-to-peer transactions between strangers more safe and easy than ever before.
But they're going to have to innovate on 'trust and safety' to avoid any impression they're AirBnBnMethDen.
Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
#24""" Airbnb, while pointing out that the incident was the first of its kind out of some 2 million stays booked since the company's founding in 2008 ... """ source: http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011... Either USAToday misinterpreted/misreported a quote, Airbnb lied to a reporter on the record, or Troy is making up his story. I can't see any other way to reconcile the evidence put forth.
The actual quote from AirBnB:
With a single booking, one person’s malicious actions victimized our host and undermined what had been – for 2 million nights – a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good.
Note it implies this is the only incident that has occurred, but they could have had three million incidents and this statement would still technically be true as long as they had two million nights without incidents.
Somehow, I doubt USA Today will be thrilled about being manipulated that way...
Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
#25[deleted]
That business already exists: it's called the insurance industry.
I'm shocked that AirBnb apparently hasn't availed themselves of it.
Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
#26As much as some people might view this as "sometimes things go wrong", which is basically true, that's not the whole story. The story here is that people are doing things that in most jurisdictions are illegal. AirBnB is profiting off this. Do something illegal and you can't insure against any negative consequences. The whole EJ situation is a potential inflection point. Without knowing the full facts (which no one s…
> Why is a vandalized apartment leaving her homeless?
I would guess the vandalization of her flat leads her to not feeling "safe" there anymore, and thus not being able to live there.
Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
#27What's going to be a game changer is when stories start breaking about owners who rent out their space as a way to lure in people for killing or torturing them. Right now it's about "you were stupid, why did you rent your space out to strangers?". Later on it'll be "why did you try to save $20 and go sleep some place where you're 110% vulnerable?". You don't control the locks, you don't know the neighborhood or even…
What's going to be a game changer is when stories start breaking about owners who rent out their space as a way to lure in people for killing or torturing them.
I agree 100%. However I ask say how in the world did you think about this?
Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
#28I'm realizing I'm confused about what value airbnb is offering. If they don't vet people on either end, are they really just a craigslist with payment processing?
They also have a spiffy web-site and app that does a nice job showing off properties and assisting you in finding the properties you want.
But yeah, they are essentially just middlemen. They benefit from keeping the buyer and seller apart until the deal is done and they get their cut.
Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
#29> At the end of the day you are renting to a stranger. No better words can express my sentiments. Airbnb customers are participating in a business experiment, they're not hoteliers. What I do find worrisome is that Airbnb being in the customer service business, doesn't appear to be focusing on the user experience at all. What did they do with the money?
Probably invested much of it in color.com. :)
Sheesh - it was meant as a bit of a joke - hence the :)
Re: Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”
#30""" Airbnb, while pointing out that the incident was the first of its kind out of some 2 million stays booked since the company's founding in 2008 ... """ source: http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011... Either USAToday misinterpreted/misreported a quote, Airbnb lied to a reporter on the record, or Troy is making up his story. I can't see any other way to reconcile the evidence put forth.
The actual quote from AirBnB: With a single booking, one person’s malicious actions victimized our host and undermined what had been – for 2 million nights – a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good. Note it implies this is the only incident that has occurred, but they could have had three million incidents and this statement would still technically be true as long as they had two million nights…
Somehow, I doubt USA Today will be thrilled about being manipulated that way...
Somehow, I doubt USA Today will even notice. They get served up far more egregious statements on a daily basis.
And, by the way, the statement is literally true, regardless of the number of prior incidents (within reasonable bounds). They aren't claiming a perfect 2million night streak in the quote-- rather, "a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good." If they had had 2000 prior bad incidents, they could easily argue that a 99% problem-free rate demonstrates that "people are fundamentally good."