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How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

chriskiehl.com

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Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#311

Post by zoklet-enjoyer »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #310
zoklet-enjoyer wrote: post #36

I refuse to use Airbnb after a couple of shitty experiences. The first time, the place was fine and everything. The issue was that when I got there the host told me that he wasn't supposed to be renting out his apartment, gave me a description of the property manager, and told me to tell the manager that I'm friends with the host and staying with him for a few days if the property manager chats me up. So it was just…

How were the reviews on these places and how many?

I don't remember. The first place was an apartment in Lower Queen Anne with the best views of Seattle I've ever seen, so I imagine the reviews were good.

But yeah, this was like 2017 and 2018 so I don't remember the details, and the 2nd one I didn't book so didn't really look at that.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#312

Post by mech422 »

zarzavat wrote: post #149
lotsofpulp wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be trivial to ban a certain billing address, plus a lot of companies require SMS 2FA now, and most people do not have multiple phone numbers to burn. Besides that, I think AirBnb might require you to upload government issued photo identification too, but I am not sure.

Myths that programmers believe about reality: - Only one person can live at an address - Two people with the same name can't live at the same address (Jr/Sr)

The one I learned on Wall St. in the 80s: SSN are not always unique or available.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#313

Post by mech422 »

ScottEvtuch wrote: post #158
dghlsakjg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha. I had the same reaction. Clearly this person has never had to deal with addresses in a database. There are any number of ways to represent the exact same address (apt vs. unit vs. suite vs. '#', 5 digit zip vs. 9- digit zip, st. vs. street), and there are cases where the same address serves multiple people (private/virtual mail boxes). A billing address is a loose identifier at best.

Surely almost everyone does address standardization on user inputted fields, right? You'd be silly not to do this.

I wonder how that's handled now... last I hear the USPS had a database on CD-ROM you could get. Wonder if its api based now?

We used to run 'zip correct' jobs for large merchants at the service bureau I worked at just out of high school. Just 'correcting' thousands/millions of addresses at a time.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#314

Post by therealdrag0 »

fruit2020 wrote: post #23
Matheus28 wrote: post #4

I don't see why someone would still use Airbnb for short stays. At $1.5k for 5 nights in Seattle you can surely stay at a decent hotel (which the OP ended up doing anyway, at $1.3k), and not have to deal with some weird hosts. Hit them with a chargeback, who cares about getting banned from Airbnb.

Homes are sometimes nicer than hotels, better suited for families with children.

Or friends. We get AirBnBs for 4-10 friends at a time and it’s a blast. Way better than hotels. Nice to have a proper kitchen and living room to hangout in privately.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#315

Post by dghlsakjg »

ScottEvtuch wrote: post #158
dghlsakjg wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha. I had the same reaction. Clearly this person has never had to deal with addresses in a database. There are any number of ways to represent the exact same address (apt vs. unit vs. suite vs. '#', 5 digit zip vs. 9- digit zip, st. vs. street), and there are cases where the same address serves multiple people (private/virtual mail boxes). A billing address is a loose identifier at best.

Surely almost everyone does address standardization on user inputted fields, right? You'd be silly not to do this.

You try, but sometimes you have to accept addresses as written.

Again, it just isn’t that easy.

PMB 123 456 Main st.

May or may not be the exact same mailbox as:

Suite 123 456 Main st.

My official address is on “XXXX Boxwood Cres”. Not Boxwood Cr., not Boxwood Crescent, not “Boxwood Cres.”

Of course all of those will work for mail, but if I want to transfer the deed, or do anything of legal relevance, the government needs the address to be exactly like the first one.

For every way you can think of trying to standardize it, there is an exception.

Half addresses, letters in addresses, addresses with no number, etc. All this and we haven’t even left the US yet, other countries have their own variety of whacky shit.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#318

Post by couchdb_ouchdb »

gameman144 wrote: post #56

I wonder what the outcome would have been here if the author just turned this into a game of chicken with the host. It sounds like the host said "You can't have this reservation you made", the author said "Okay, I'll cancel", and the host said "Whoops too late". Since the host is the one who was requesting that cancellation, I'd be curious what would have happened if the author replied with "You can cancel the reserv…

Exactly. You just don't cancel. And you show up. Worst case you can always book a hotel last minute.

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#319

Post by dghlsakjg »

indymike wrote: post #294
dghlsakjg wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An important thing to remember is that the chargeback doesn't necessarily absolve you of the legal need to pay. Just because the credit card company claws the money back doesn't mean that a merchant can't come after you in court/debt collection. It's not common, but for a big enough transaction, there's nothing stopping a business from coming after you.

> An important thing to remember is that the chargeback doesn't necessarily absolve you of the legal need to pay. This is a misconception that many people have - at least in the US market. I owned an MSP for about a decade, and this was often the most common surprise for merchants: charge backs were final and were actually pre-accepted by the merchant as part of their merchant agreement (it's similar in concept to bi…

I can’t find any reliable sources on this either way, but some blogspammy sites suggest that merchants are within their rights to pursue legal action outside of the credit card channels

Re: How to lose $950 quickly on Airbnb

#320

Post by caminante »

xwdv wrote: post #303
caminante wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I missing something? AirBnB's TOS which provides reasoning. [0] This policy isn't foreign to hotels. I don't want customers signing in their kids for a room to throw a party without the parents present. They do these checks to limit fraud you describe. The cancellation refund discretion is part of the host's TOS , too. [0] https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/427

Putting it in a TOS is one thing, how is it enforced ? Also, it’s trivial to book a room at a hotel and have someone else check in under the reservation as long as you put them on the guest list. I’ve done it before. Not sure how this is fraud.

>Putting it in a TOS is one thing, how is it enforced?

This comes off like a bad faith question because OP wrote this article because AirBnB's TOS was enforced in explicit detail.

> Also, it’s trivial to book a room at a hotel and have someone else check in under the reservation as long as you put them on the guest list. I’ve done it before.

Did you have to present ID? Were you over 18? Did someone in your party already have a credit card on file before anyone got the first set of keys? If you do those things, there's no trivial difference between making your own reservation.

The issue isn't whether you can get legally away with spoofing a reservation account. The issue is whether you're potentially liable for breaking a contract or committing fraud.

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