61–70 of 79 posts
- It's not really Airbnb's fault - not much you can do about this aside from apologise and remove the listing (which I assume they did, or will at least investigate)
- You will get scammed if you use MoneyGram. It's the equivalent of sending an envelope full of banknotes. Don't do it!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
why would you trust a company that runs a mostly-illegal apartment rental service? Because the law hasn't caught up to reality yet. Airbnb has made a significant positive difference in my own life. I would've been in a bad spot if not for the places I found via Airbnb. No idea whether the transactions were legal, but in the end I found a place to live and the host found a tenant. Win-win. The problem is when people r…
Did you live in the streets before Airbnb came out?
Wait, I've stayed in several AirBnB places, and you always pay with credit card through the website, where they act as an escrow agent. Wouldn't a request to pay through any off-site means be a massive red flag?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of airbnb's listings in many of their most popular cities are done illegally. It's kind of the m.o. of airbnb. Take a look at Manhattan and do a search for 'whole apt'. Every single one of those is illegal unless the owner has a bed and breakfast license (the one or two that do will mention the fact that they do). When you run the numbers by searching the 'own room' and 'shared room', you realize that over 50% o…
why would you trust a company that runs a mostly-illegal apartment rental service? Because the law hasn't caught up to reality yet. Airbnb has made a significant positive difference in my own life. I would've been in a bad spot if not for the places I found via Airbnb. No idea whether the transactions were legal, but in the end I found a place to live and the host found a tenant. Win-win. The problem is when people r…
What isn't legal (here in NYC and many other places) is having someone rent out a completely unlicensed, unregulated, uninspected room as a 'hotel', which is what airbnb is mostly for.
Funnily, airbnb's silly new commercials here in NYC only touch on the folks who rent out a room in their apartment. They don't mention the illegal full-apartment rentals that are the majority of their business at all.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of airbnb's listings in many of their most popular cities are done illegally. It's kind of the m.o. of airbnb. Take a look at Manhattan and do a search for 'whole apt'. Every single one of those is illegal unless the owner has a bed and breakfast license (the one or two that do will mention the fact that they do). When you run the numbers by searching the 'own room' and 'shared room', you realize that over 50% o…
why would you trust a company that runs a mostly-illegal apartment rental service? Because the law hasn't caught up to reality yet. Airbnb has made a significant positive difference in my own life. I would've been in a bad spot if not for the places I found via Airbnb. No idea whether the transactions were legal, but in the end I found a place to live and the host found a tenant. Win-win. The problem is when people r…
I don't know who cares of a party in a flat. Noisy parties existed before airbnb.
To me, the problem is that since there is no regulation, renting a flat for short periods allows to make much more money than renting it for a long time to a reasonable price. It contributes to the shortage of flats to rent supply, the rise of the rent prices and gentrification.
@everyone: I returned from Barcelona three weeks ago. I rented a very nice apartment in the heart of the Gothic Quarter using AirBnB. As far as AirBnB being illegal, I don't think that is correct. I have many friends who have studied abroad and when they would leave Spain to go travel they would throw their apartment on AirBnB to make a couple bucks. Like with traveling anywhere, just be careful.
Wait, I've stayed in several AirBnB places, and you always pay with credit card through the website, where they act as an escrow agent. Wouldn't a request to pay through any off-site means be a massive red flag?
Yes. Sounds like OP's girlfriend wanted to circumvent Airbnb's escrow service to (presumably) drop the associated fees.
@Poster and @Everyone: I just returned on July 1st from traveling through 8 different countries over a month's span, and AirBnB'd the whole trip. A fellow traveler also experienced the same tragic incident in Berlin. He came to the conclusion that he was logged in to the website via safari on an insecure network and was redirected to the fake site. Its a serious bummer but there was nothing he could do. The best and…
@Poster and @Everyone: I just returned on July 1st from traveling through 8 different countries over a month's span, and AirBnB'd the whole trip. A fellow traveler also experienced the same tragic incident in Berlin. He came to the conclusion that he was logged in to the website via safari on an insecure network and was redirected to the fake site. Its a serious bummer but there was nothing he could do. The best and…
Does the AirBnB mobile app do certificate pinning? Will it error out on an SSL MITM attack?
It is much much more likely it was another case of nearly identical domain name that the scammer owned and the person never noticed.