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Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com

201–210 of 510 posts

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are standing by, and we just contacted her again telling her that we will do whatever we can to help.

For Pete's sake, compensate the woman for her loss already, and get a signed NDA in exchange. This is your chance to show (a) you're not evil, and (b) you can handle the situation.

I feel like it's going to be a bit late for that, but yes, please do something for this woman before the PR damage is irreparable.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#202
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…

we are standing by, and we just contacted her again telling her that we will do whatever we can to help.

Stop standing by and start taking action. Don't ask the victim to come to you for help, start offering help. Be proactive. Be a man about this.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#203
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 couldn't agree more.

Deal with the "if I give you a cookie, everyone else will want one too" problem if and when you actually have it. This isn't about business. It's about helping someone who needs help.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#204
post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you do this as a matter of policy, you are open to fraud. Now you have to spend a significant amount of your resources on fraud detection - perhaps most of them. That's what I mean by they become an insurance company; their day-to-day operation would be indistinguishable fromt that of an insurance company. Both ebay and PayPay went through this, and that's what they spend most of their time doing. But ebay and P…

Insurance (and by extension dealing with insurance fraud) for this sort of thing is a solved problem. They don't need to do it in house. They just pick up a policy from one of the institutional insurers and pass on the cost with a markup. Edit: To clarify, by "this sort of thing" I don't mean "Airbnb like businesses". There's nothing particularly novel about insuring homes, their contents or vacation rentals. An inst…

I would bet dollars to doughnuts that a traditional holiday apartment will only be able to get insurance that is viable if they meet a number of criteria (removal of valuables, cheap furnishings, inspection etc) that would not be available to someone putting their primary residence up for piecemeal rental on AirBnB

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#205
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…

we are standing by, and we just contacted her again telling her that we will do whatever we can to help.

She basically called you a liar...does this outreach statement by you mean that her claims about airbnb's reaction are true?

FTA: “On June 22nd, we learned that the home of one of our San Francisco hosts was vandalized by an Airbnb guest.”

-Based on the delay in their response time, I have reason to believe that Airbnb did not learn of my situation until June 23rd.

...

“We have been in close contact with her ever since, and have worked with the authorities to help find a resolution.”

If the “her” he is referring to is me, then the first part of this statement is false (the second I cannot attest to).

...

I blogged my story, and all these kind and supportive people just ... disappeared.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#206

Brian Chesky (Airbnb CEO) here. My heart goes out to our host. My co-founder has contacted her multiple times, as recently as last night, and we have again offered to help her in any way that she needs. We will continue to make ourselves available to her to do whatever she asks of us in this time of need. We have encouraged her to reach us so that we can help her through this, and we are standing by.

I think you need to act on this, rather than just keep making promises. I also believe you would have helped already if you really wanted to.

You're essentially asking her right now to be a beggar, and putting her into an even more degrading position. What do you expect her to do? Write you that she needs $1000 for a new laptop, $100 for a new door, $50 for new locks?

Put yourself in her shoes. Doubt you would do that.

EDIT: Also, you can't have it both ways. If you state you're going to help her, then help her. Otherwise just state it's out of AirBnbs' reach, and the hosts should have insurance and pay carefull consideration to who they rent.

You're coming of as disingenuous in your remarks.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we are standing by, and we just contacted her again telling her that we will do whatever we can to help.

What does " standing by " mean? What does " whatever we can " mean? Why did you say yesterday there is a suspect in custody if the victim claims the suspect was released a month ago? Do you think it's a problem that we have to parse your words so carefully now?

I think the real problem is that too many people are all in on believing that the blogger's version of events are 100% accurate. Please note I am not saying she's lying, omitting or otherwise distorting the truth -- only providing her perspective on the relationship between herself and AirBnB. Just for the record, I also think AirBnB has utterly fumbled the ball here.

However, I don't think this type of tone is appropriate. If you review my comment history, I am firmly on the side of AirBnB sucking it up and making this right. Unfortunately, this is starting to smell like a witch hunt.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#208
I guess I'm weirdly cynical, but I never though airbnb had a viable model. Perhaps for rental properties, but I would never rent my own home. I see a certain analogy between this and hitchhiking. Hitchhiking used to be safe in America, but now you rarely see it because it's perceived to be dangerous. I always figured airbnb would follow the same trajectory.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#209
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…

In all my years working in health care as an ER and trauma nurse, I learned one thing: Do the right thing for the patient.

If the doctor is doing it wrong... do the right thing for the patient.

If the hospital is doing it wrong... do the right thing for the patient.

If a police officer is doing the wrong thing... do the right thing for the patient.

The ultimate policy is... Do the right thing for the patient.

AirBnb... Do the right thing.

Stop the spin. Don't tell the world what your security features are. Don't tell the Financial Times you are shocked.

Pull out all the stops and make this right, or this will be the end of you.

I've talked countless times with people about your service, and one of the things that comes up all the time is wondering what will happen, "When the first AirBnB murder happens".

It's not a question of "If it happens" it's a matter of "what are you doing to do _when it happens".

People get murdered in Hotels. People get murdered in rental cabins. I've been an ER nurse for years. Murders happen all the time. Someone is doing to die while using AirBnb. You're lucky this was just a robbery.

Learn from this.

Your policy needs to be: Do the right thing for the person.

Build a crisis response swat team that can get on a plane within the hour, fly to a destination and evaluate a crisis situation like this. For the love of gods you need to have 24 hour customer service. Give those people the authority and the responsibility to do the right thing then and there, on the spot.

Stop writing Tech Crunch posts.

Don't worry about telling us that you made it right. That's not important. Don't worry about the press. If you do the right thing, the press takes care of itself. Don't post in this comment thread. Ask your customer, "What do you need me to do to make this right?" "Is there anything at all that I can do to help?" Assign two or three people to the job of fixing this.

Do the right thing. Don't stop until this is right. Do it now.

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