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Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

blog.airbnb.com

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Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#81

Post by techiferous »

OpenAmazing wrote: post #57

Its seems that, based on the positive media reaction to this, AirBnB has done everything right from the start: Everyone is piling on them for screwing up the initial reaction to EJ, by not going far enough in offering to help her. But AirBnB didn't do much to help Troy (from the TechCrunch post) 2 months ago, and that story didn't blow up in to a PR disaster. They simply gave him a few free nights and he was happy. S…

"may have been optimal"

I follow your reasoning, but this approach is optimized for Airbnb alone. The trick is to find an approach that maximizes both Airbnb's business goals and the happiness of the customers.

Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#82

Post by Cushman »

JimmyL wrote: post #28

Two things immediately pop out from this: "Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post trying to explain the situation, but it didn’t reflect my true feelings." I'm not sure how I feel about this line (I assume it's referring to his TC post). On one hand, it's nice that he's now 'fessing up with a this-is-how-I-feel post. On the other, it's a pretty clear admission that he's had no problems in the past sending out PR spin…

Why do you suppose this is an insurance policy and not a cash guarantee? They never use the word. It's a flat $50,000 everywhere, with terms and conditions to vary by area, and to apply retroactively— does that really sound like insurance?

I know you're gonna say fraud, but why do you think they've doubled the size of their customer support team in the last month? These guys aren't dumb, they knew this was coming. This is the thing they can do with all of their money that will keep them on top.

In fact... my money says the real reason for trying to get EJ to amend the original blog post was they were hoping to keep the story from breaking in mainstream press before they got this system launched.

Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#83

Post by jacquesm »

drgath wrote: post #78
jacquesm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let it go. They did the right thing, maybe they were doing it all along, maybe they did it under pressure, it does not matter. What matters is that EJ (and others) will be compensated and AirBNB will live to fight another day in a much stronger and more real-world grounded fashion. Maybe their margins won't be quite as high but that's what usually happens when you underestimate the cost of doing business. Winners all…

> "What matters is that EJ will be compensated and AirBNB will live to fight another day" That's what we're not sure about. EJ, a renter herself, likely didn't have the right to rent out her unit. The blog post says "We will extend this program to EJ...", not "We'll take care of EJ." She still has to qualify through whatever insurance company airbnb is working with. It's going to be an even worse PR disaster when the…

I think it would be a fair bet that AirBNB will not risk that and will budget out-of-pocket.

Also, I don't see how an insurance company would ever agree to pay out on past cases so my guess is that they'll be paying for all of those out of pocket.

Going forward from Aug. 15th it looks like they'll have a deal in place and in the meantime things are 'murky'. The blog post leaves enough room for AirBNB to assume complete responsibility and/or work together with an insurer, but from the point of an AirBNB host that will likely make very little difference.

Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#84

Post by JimmyL »

temphn wrote: post #54
JimmyL wrote: post #28

Two things immediately pop out from this: "Earlier this week, I wrote a blog post trying to explain the situation, but it didn’t reflect my true feelings." I'm not sure how I feel about this line (I assume it's referring to his TC post). On one hand, it's nice that he's now 'fessing up with a this-is-how-I-feel post. On the other, it's a pretty clear admission that he's had no problems in the past sending out PR spin…

Ever hear the parable about the man in the arena? It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcomi…

The potential for fraud doesn't concern me because Airbnb will clearly get an insurance company to run this program white-label, and they have whole departments designed to find and fight fraud. Based on the profits in the sector, it seems like they do a pretty good job of it.

As for the veracity of their line about someone being in custody with the SFPD, I stand corrected - my mistake. The last stuff that came to the top of my head was based off EJ's post on 28 July. A few searches reveal that the day after that post went up, the SFPD announced they had arrested someone.

Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#85

Post by drgath »

tptacek wrote: post #75
JimmyL wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - but isn't this then a huge out for Airbnb, in terms of reducing the number of people that will actually be covered under this? NY has its well-known laws that make most Airbnb listing contrary to State law, and in my lease (for example) it specifically says that I can't rent it out to people without the landlord's permission - which I think is similar to most boilerplate leases. Given that, would all the da…

It seems silly to the point of trollish to argue that the $50k guarantee Airbnb announced in a post about EJ's incident would have been designed to exclude EJ. Give it a rest.

Clearly it wasn't designed to exclude EJ, but it also likely wasn't designed with EJ in mind. airbnb is no doubt working with an insurance company, and if that company finds an "out", they're going to take advantage of it. Like most all renter contracts, it excludes subletting without consent, which is what EJ may have been doing.

Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#86

Post by shoota »

drgath wrote: post #66
ScottWhigham wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Just because someplace costs $200k doesn't mean it costs $200k to rebuild from the ground up " In Dallas (where I live), a structure usually costs much more to tear down and rebuild new than it is currently worth. For example, you might get a mortgage on a $250,000 10yo house here yet your insurance will be for $375,000 for that reason.

True. I was just thinking of typical airbnb apartment rentals, where the property owner only owns the "walls-in" portion of the unit.

Yet a renter will still be held responsible by the owners of the building if anything outside of their possessions is destroyed.

Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#87

Post by tptacek »

drgath wrote: post #85
tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems silly to the point of trollish to argue that the $50k guarantee Airbnb announced in a post about EJ's incident would have been designed to exclude EJ. Give it a rest.

Clearly it wasn't designed to exclude EJ, but it also likely wasn't designed with EJ in mind. airbnb is no doubt working with an insurance company, and if that company finds an "out", they're going to take advantage of it. Like most all renter contracts, it excludes subletting without consent, which is what EJ may have been doing.

Let's definitely have a 19-comment argument speculating about the worst possible case scenario with the $50,000 guarantee Airbnb just announced, because that will definitely pump the oxygen back into the thread.

Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#88

Post by jacquesm »

drgath wrote: post #85
tptacek wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems silly to the point of trollish to argue that the $50k guarantee Airbnb announced in a post about EJ's incident would have been designed to exclude EJ. Give it a rest.

Clearly it wasn't designed to exclude EJ, but it also likely wasn't designed with EJ in mind. airbnb is no doubt working with an insurance company, and if that company finds an "out", they're going to take advantage of it. Like most all renter contracts, it excludes subletting without consent, which is what EJ may have been doing.

After mentioning EJ specifically in this post and very specifically mentioning that they will take care of her not taking care of her would be 'suicide by media' at this point.

If you thought what happened so far was ugly I'd hate to see what would happen if that were the case. Can we move past this?

Sure it is all words but they are on the company blog this time, not in a forum and to me they come across as written by a man that has seen the Elephant in person.

Specifically: "We will extend this program to EJ and any other hosts who may have reported such property damage while renting on Airbnb in the past."

Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#89

Post by OpenAmazing »

techiferous wrote: post #81
OpenAmazing wrote: post #57

Its seems that, based on the positive media reaction to this, AirBnB has done everything right from the start: Everyone is piling on them for screwing up the initial reaction to EJ, by not going far enough in offering to help her. But AirBnB didn't do much to help Troy (from the TechCrunch post) 2 months ago, and that story didn't blow up in to a PR disaster. They simply gave him a few free nights and he was happy. S…

"may have been optimal" I follow your reasoning, but this approach is optimized for Airbnb alone. The trick is to find an approach that maximizes both Airbnb's business goals and the happiness of the customers.

True. I should have prefaced with "from a business standpoint".

Re: Our Commitment to Trust & Safety

#90

Post by fleitz »

lyudmil wrote: post #51

Giving credit where credit is due, I think Mr. Chesky and Airbnb have done a good job here. Corporations aren't intrinsically ethical (by law) but start-ups are small enough that they can (a) afford to act human and (b) be held accountable by their customers in meaningful ways. This is why people like Airbnb and why they (myself included) were disappointed in the way the situation was handled. I loved reading Mr. Che…

Corporations must follow the ethical standard set by the law just as any other legal entity. Corporations actually have more stringent ethics than other legal entities such as persons. A person does not have any fiduciary duty to others unlike a corporation which is incorporated with a set of documents explaining it ethics and responsibilities to other parties (such as shareholders). As a person under the law I can act completely in my own best interest (negligence, power of attorney, and other corner cases excluded) and there is no ethical problem whereas when a corporation puts it's own interests ahead of those of its shareholders it is acting unethically.
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