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How airbnb lost me as a customer

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: How airbnb lost me as a customer

#61

Post by tptacek »

davidw wrote: post #39
tptacek wrote: post #13

(1) You refer to your "apartment", which by convention refers to a domicile that you are leasing. While other HN readers will contest this point, I'd be willing to put money on the fact that you violated your lease by renting out your apartment on Airbnb at all. (2) HN is not a forum for complaints about YC companies, and while I didn't flag this post, you shouldn't overreact if it is killed. Nobody is trying to cens…

> (2) HN is not a forum for complaints about YC companies The user in question looks like he/she has been here for a while, so isn't just someone signing in to bitch about a company. People also regularly use HN to complain about Google, since they are generally not that great at customer service, so it's hardly a precedent. Ultimately, you are correct that it's not the purpose of this site, but as long as it's an oc…

You win some, you lose some. I was in the middle of a bunch of other stuff and dashed off a comment that got itself taken in ways I didn't intend. Sorry! :)

Re: How airbnb lost me as a customer

#63

Post by pasbesoin »

yummies wrote: post #53
andrewcooke wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry to side-track, but it looks like i've misunderstood american english. i thought "apartment" was american for "flat". but apparently it means "rented flat". so what do you call a self-contained living area (several rooms - like a house, but it's not stand-alone) in a larger building if you own it?

it depends on the ownership structure, but usually a condo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condominium 'Colloquially, the term is often used to refer to the unit itself in place of the word "apartment". A condominium may be simply defined as an "apartment" that the resident owns as opposed to rents.'

In some places, you'll run into co-ops (cooperative). For example, New York City. Their prevalence elsewhere has, I've heard, generally declined in favor of condominium charters. (A major factor, I vaguely understand, being the increased autonomy of the members.)

I'm not versed in the details, but in co-ops, group administration seems to have a stronger role. For example, you may need formal approval of the co-op in order to sell your unit, with respect to the particular sale at hand. In other words, if they don't like the prospective buyer (and can argue this on a non-discriminatory basis, I imagine), you have to find another buyer.

Some friends bought into a co-op, and I was solicited to write a letter of recommendation. In addition to a good and well-worded argument for their tenancy, I "punched it up" by placing it on company letterhead and emphasizing the formal role. Apparently, that did the trick. My point being, they had to sell not just the owner but the co-op on their purchase of the unit.

As I think about this, I imagine many co-ops might have some strong opinions on their members' prospective use of AirBNB.

Re: How airbnb lost me as a customer

#64

Post by tptacek »

gte910h wrote: post #35
ARobotics wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comments always make me smile Thomas, you seem like the real life embodiment of the "Lawful Neutral" alignment, always following the letter of each rule. My lease allows subletting, but there may be a provision which I'm not following, I can double check. If this post gets killed, that's fine. I was hesitant to write it, but I thought it might be valuable to share. There's a fine line between useful critique or…

>Your comments always make me smile Thomas, you seem like the real life embodiment of the "Lawful Neutral" alignment I've been trying to think of a good label for him for a long time, and I think that hits it on the nose.

I always kind of thought of myself as Neutral Good. I'm not a believer in rules for their own sake, but the good that comes from ignoring a rule should outweigh the harm incurred by surreptitiously changing the rules on everyone else. The most pernicious harms caused by breaking rules are the ones that aren't obvious, but rather confer an advantage to the parties that broke the rule that the rest of society can't easily detect, until those unscrupulous first movers have managed to roll the advantage up into a competitive moat.

I'm only commenting because I think it's interesting to think about why we think the things we do. I think it's a weird that anyone would want to fit an AD&D alignment onto me. :)

Re: How airbnb lost me as a customer

#65

Post by 001sky »

Isn't there a telephone number? any business dealing in multiple Nxthousands of dollars should have a telephone-help-line. There's no excuse for that (confirmed customer, confirmed booking = $3,000 deal | vs x Prob (1/n)x$15/hr service rep?). Assuming there is someone on the other line available, scan a photo, layer, lock it in a psd or pdf (ie, add further security as appropriate)...send it to them, provide password over the phone, to make it visible, etc).

Re: How airbnb lost me as a customer

#66

Post by gte910h »

tptacek wrote: post #64
gte910h wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Your comments always make me smile Thomas, you seem like the real life embodiment of the "Lawful Neutral" alignment I've been trying to think of a good label for him for a long time, and I think that hits it on the nose.

I always kind of thought of myself as Neutral Good. I'm not a believer in rules for their own sake, but the good that comes from ignoring a rule should outweigh the harm incurred by surreptitiously changing the rules on everyone else. The most pernicious harms caused by breaking rules are the ones that aren't obvious, but rather confer an advantage to the parties that broke the rule that the rest of society can't eas…

I can tell you why: You're clearly a (very) net positive contributor, however "strident" is a predictable default for any post of yours that's overly anything, combined with writing in a classical style.

Why people are trying to label you is you're hard to characterize yet are notably present.

Re: How airbnb lost me as a customer

#67

Post by onetwothreefour »

tptacek wrote: post #24
potatolicious wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "except to the extent that it might be hard to feel sorry for someone who is taking unfair advantage of his landlord and cotenants" The morality and ethics behind AirBnb is far from clearcut. The landlord-tenant relationship is also not so easily moralized - I'd take a flying leap off the high horse unless I knew more.

I'm sorry you felt like I was rebutting the complaint with the landlord thing. I'm not.

Then it was irrelevant.

Re: How airbnb lost me as a customer

#68

Post by papsosouid »

tatsuke95 wrote: post #55
papsosouid wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irrelevance of (1) aside, you are making a huge assumption there. In Ontario for example, you need to tell your landlord, but they basically can't refuse.

There are circumstances in Ontario, mostly relating to trying to terminate tenancy, where the landlord can't reasonably refuse a request to sublet the place. I believe the intent is that you don't get trapped in some lease when you've lost your job and have to move cross-country. The landlord is obligated to mitigate losses, and subletting covers that. I'm going to assume "temporarily leasing my place to make $3,000"…

The Landlord and Tenant act is the relevant law, and doesn't make any distinction between short term and long term sublets. You say you are subletting, and the landlord can refuse only with a compelling reason. There is nothing special liability wise, you are still liable for damages because you are still the one leasing the apartment.

Re: How airbnb lost me as a customer

#69

Post by papsosouid »

tatsuke95 wrote: post #52
papsosouid wrote: post #38

This would be why the ycombinator startup churner is bad. It is entirely focused on having people with no technical skills create companies that rely very heavily on a solid technical foundation. My 8 year old knows not to send sensitive information over unencrypted channels, and that email is completely insecure. Why are people who don't know this making sites like airbnb?

> "It is entirely focused on having people with no technical skills create companies that rely very heavily on a solid technical foundation." Disagree. I don't need to know how to send/receive encrypted information, just that I need it. Someone else can get their hands dirty on the problem. No "technical foundation" necessary, just common sense.

Except that it requires technical skills to know that you need it. Your average joe off the street can have all the "common sense" in the world and still wouldn't know the risks involved.

Re: How airbnb lost me as a customer

#70

Post by drzaiusapelord »

whichdan wrote: post #60
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heaven forbid they spend 10 dollars on a php upload script on SSL for this kind of information as opposed to "Scan you social security card and send it to customerservice@airbnb.com!"

Pedantic note: I'm not excusing them for lacking something as critical as a secure way to transmit sensitive information, but it's certainly more involved than "ten dollars worth of PHP." You're probably looking at setting up a dedicated server to store the images (since you want the server locked down tighter than a normal web server, and you need to think about having different backups in place, etc) and then have…

Whoa $1K? I think I just spent that on hats for my dog last quarter. Seriously, there is NO EXCUSE FOR THIS.
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