Live data from Hacker News

AirCover by Airbnb

airbnb.com

31–40 of 129 posts

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#31
post #11
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Straight to jail. Assets seized by insurance underwriter.

Proceeds to trash jail.

This is also a felony, a friend of mine got destruction of government property for drawing on the walls of his cell while in county jail.

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have a hard time re-entering the usa after automatically losing the case by not showing up at the courthouse and not paying the bill. But in any case the scenario of leaving the country is not unique to airbnb and exists for rental cars, other loans, and basically any activity involving borrowing something

Not really. no time to re-enter, they will not enforce this upon entry. It is not criminal, it is civil. It is not criminal yet to not show up in a civil case.

Here in California (and, I would bet, all other states) it is felony vandalism. Definitely criminal.

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a joke? It's unclear to me, a person without much understanding of the law. Aren't debtors prisons illegal?

Vandalism is a criminal offense, and >$400 damage is a felony here in California.

Luckily you can steal more than twice that at your local Best Buy in California and it's a misdemeanor. So take good care of your AirBnB but feel free to go to town at a Walgreen's. If you can find one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_California_Proposition_47

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#34
post #13
post #2

Perhaps a dumb question but who was handling the insurance before this? Homeowners does not cover rentals, correct? So you needed rental insurance? I’ve always seen airbnb to be too risky to do with your primary residence, which seems to greatly diminish from the efficiency of the service (and of home ownership)

Nobody. AirBNB lived on the gray area where people rented properties that weren’t setup or insured for such.

That’s basically the gig economy. Shifting all the hidden and one off costs to unsophisticated gig workers who are unable to factor those costs in.

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#35
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AirBnB did. I forget the exact terms, but a while back someone's house got trashed and it hit the news. AirBnB announced they'd cover the damage to her house and started an insurance policy.

If you check the airbnb hosts subreddit, there are endless stories of hosts being ghosted by support after a guest trashed the place.

Except, of course, when it blew up either on social media or in the press.

Then suddenly "they made it right" and some spokesdrone trumpeted some bullshit like "In this exceptional case we didn't live up to our members / hosts high expectations".

With rare exceptions I also don't see any more advantage compared to staying in a hotel. But to each his own, I suppose.

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even true, at best a civil case after months and you must provide service to the defendant or defendant attorney - depending on who booked and who stayed can be different and will not proceed normally. tl;dr mostly nothing if they don't value their airbnb account.

At least in New York: "A person is guilty of criminal mischief in the second degree when with intent to damage property of another person, and having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, he damages property of another person in an amount exceeding one thousand five hundred dollars. Criminal mischief in the second degree is a class D felony." https://www.nysenate.gov/legislati…

Good luck dragging the offender to court. Especially if she lives in a foreign country.

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#37
Theoretical insurance doesn't help you when Airbnb will simply ignore you or close your claim without explanation. They have become completely predatory and incompetent towards hosts in the past few years. As soon as something goes wrong they will find a reason to deny your claim. Their support that handles these cases is clearly incentivized to close cases without payouts. The only way anyone sees any coverage from them is if they get social media famous and then they quietly sweep it under the rug and make them sign a non-disclosure agreement to get their payout.

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in New York: "A person is guilty of criminal mischief in the second degree when with intent to damage property of another person, and having no right to do so nor any reasonable ground to believe that he has such right, he damages property of another person in an amount exceeding one thousand five hundred dollars. Criminal mischief in the second degree is a class D felony." https://www.nysenate.gov/legislati…

Good luck dragging the offender to court. Especially if she lives in a foreign country.

No one in the comment chain above me stipulated that the proposed violator was a foreigner. Most Airbnbs in the US are rented by domestic renters. And anyway, I'm only responding to the notion that civil action is the worst case scenario. That is plainly false.

Also, yea, you can commit minor crimes that don't rise to the level of extradition then skip town. That's always been the case. So? Who is going to go to the U.S., trash an AirBNB, risk getting charged with a crime and potentially banned for life from coming back? The people who trash AirBNBs are not the same people who can travel internationally, by and large.

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#39

Wow, the astroturfing in this thread already is happening. 0. This is nothing new, airbnb always had a free "guarantee" they just rebranded it basically from what I see to a trademarkable name. 1. Umbrella policy is better than airbnb. Umbrella policy will go after all parties including airbnb on your behalf. 2. Airbnb has a history of ignoring or mitigating damages unless you get famous on social media - this includ…

Right now I only see one positive comment in the whole thread, did you see more when you posted? I’m curious if some were deleted.

Re: AirCover by Airbnb

#40
post #22

Wow, the astroturfing in this thread already is happening. 0. This is nothing new, airbnb always had a free "guarantee" they just rebranded it basically from what I see to a trademarkable name. 1. Umbrella policy is better than airbnb. Umbrella policy will go after all parties including airbnb on your behalf. 2. Airbnb has a history of ignoring or mitigating damages unless you get famous on social media - this includ…

There was a weird ad-post for You.com earlier, which I mistakenly thought was organic... And now this. HN needs a bit more transparency or it’s going to lose a few of us.

That thread was moderated. You can tell because the founder’s opening introduction was pinned above dang pinning his own comment about a related thread. Those are conscious moderator actions which are about as transparent as it gets and illuminate the thinking on the other side (hint: you’re not aligned, but it sounds like you already expected that)
Post reply on HN