Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight • Hacker News Board

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#381

Post by younata » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 7:44 PM UTC

chailatte wrote: post #350

pg wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My whole point is that as far as I can tell he hasn't, and therefore has nothing to apologize for.

AirBnb is yc's baby, sure. But think logically. Either - The woman is traumatized. The very first week, AirBnb does everything right to help. After a few weeks, the woman still feels mistreated and flips out. Writes an angry blog post. When AirBnb denies this, the woman doesn't feel like she's wrong. Keeps pressing her case. But also is touched by many people's help, and turns down free money. - The woman is traumati…

This woman has also had her entire faith in humanity destroyed.

I think option one is more likely.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#382

Post by llambda » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 7:45 PM UTC

PotatoEngineer wrote: post #374

llambda wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just learned more about this situation, and it turns out Airbnb has been offering to fix it, from the very beginning. From the beginning they offered to pay to get her a new place and new stuff, and do whatever else she wanted. I think this goes a long way towards confirming suspicions some people have held since the beginning of the debacle, namely that the victim here is blowing things out of proportion in an…

I haven't downvoted, but I suspect the "she could have been broken into without AirBnB's influence anyway" is the anger-inducing part of your comment. I certainly don't like it.

But home invasions happen every day! This is a fact. And the likelihood only increases when you travel and leave your home... I'm not saying it would have happened if she had never been involved with Airbnb, I'm saying though that it's actually to her benefit it happened through Airbnb because now there's a intermediary offering to help her... Isn't that generally a good thing, someone saying, "Hey we'll get you through this"? If it had been a case of normal home invasion while she was away I doubt it'd be as high profile as this case is and as a result I doubt anyone would be offering to pick up the pieces for her.

It's awful it happened to her. But it's also awful to lay the blame on Airbnb and say they've done effectively nothing to help her. That begins to look an awful lot like someone is trying to make them look bad... I'm not sure that's how I feel, but I understand the detractors of her story more now that details are emerging.

Like all things: clearly there are multiple sides to this story, it isn't as cut and dry as Airbnb heartlessly ignoring one of their customer's awful cases in the name of profit.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#383

Post by ry0ohki » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 7:45 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #319

edw519 wrote: 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've just learned more about this situation, and it turns out Airbnb has been offering to fix it, from the very beginning. From the beginning they offered to pay to get her a new place and new stuff, and do whatever else she wanted. The story Arrington wrote yesterday about Airbnb not offering to help was bullshit. He asked a company spokesman what Airbnb was doing to help her. The spokesman, who'd been told by their…

I find it hard to believe they offered to buy her a new place and stuff before this story blew up, that just seems like bad business.

It seems like it would easily fix the PR nightmare if they sent all of their evidence of these offers to the media outlets which would quickly discredit EJ and put an end to this.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#384

Post by HSO » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 7:50 PM UTC

llambda wrote: post #372

chc wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're using pg's (apparently) second-hand information to discredit EJ's account of her experience. What proof do you have that EJ is misrepresenting anything? At best, this is a case of he-said-she-said. But given pg and EJ's positions relative to the situation here, it seems more likely to me that pg has been misinformed than that EJ is egregiously lying. (I admit the latter is possible , but you seem to be taking…

Paul Graham would have a lot to lose by making such a broad, unfounded statement...unless of course that's what he's been told and has good reason to believe it's correct. If so, why should we disbelieve the pg and Airbnb account? Simply because EJ's is loaded with emotional appeal? I don't see how a random blogger is more plausible than pg and Airbnb? I believe that most of her story is true (in the first blog post…

> I don't see how a random blogger is more plausible than pg and Airbnb?

Yeah, that's status thinking and antithetical to rational discourse. You evaluate a story or its plausibility on _its_ merits, not on the status of who tells it (unless you have _real_ information about the author's credibility, which in this case neither of us, correct me if I'm wrong, have.)

> this seems to corroborate pg's statement, they offered her financial support

No, it doesn't. There's a difference between "offering" support and giving it. What EJ said in her follow-up post is that although she was initially offered full support, none of it has actually materialized in the weeks after.

> But I'm still inclined to believe pg would not spread disinformation; why should he? I think the man is much smarter than you're giving him credit for...

Maybe you should get your nose out of pg's behind and realize that pg too puts his shoes on one at a time and shits like you and me. Having psychological, reputational, and financial stakes in one party of a dispute can induce biases. What I mean is, even good and smart people can fuck up, even with the best intentions. AFAIC, his story gets weighed on the same scale as everyone else's.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#385

Post by PotatoEngineer » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 7:56 PM UTC

llambda wrote: post #382

PotatoEngineer wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't downvoted, but I suspect the "she could have been broken into without AirBnB's influence anyway" is the anger-inducing part of your comment. I certainly don't like it.

But home invasions happen every day! This is a fact. And the likelihood only increases when you travel and leave your home... I'm not saying it would have happened if she had never been involved with Airbnb, I'm saying though that it's actually to her benefit it happened through Airbnb because now there's a intermediary offering to help her... Isn't that generally a good thing, someone saying, "Hey we'll get you thro…

Of course home invasions happen every day. That's not the point. The point is that AirBnB directly put the criminal in her home, though of course they didn't realize that.

I'll leave out the "is EJ lying or is AirBnB" question for now, but AirBnB made it much more likely that her home would be ransacked.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#386

Post by jclampet » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 8:00 PM UTC

I'm much more inclined to believe EJ than Airbnb's spin. The week after EJ's story appeared one of my writers (I'm an editor at a travel website) approached EJ for a story we were doing about safety and vacation rentals. She helped out on the story, but didn't want any more attention drawn to her case at that point. She's been thrust back into the spotlight b/c of Airbnb's spin, not because she's out to get them. If her story was fake, Airbnb wouldn't be doing the serious damage control they're engaged in now.

I think they're seriously worried that the attention to the case will highlight two big weaknesses of their product: 1. In many markets, it's illegal to do short-term rentals, 2. Homeowners/renters insurance doesn't cover damages in these situations. Many markets won't crack down on these rentals (see the NYT story about SF rentals last weekend), but if they in the name of safety or code violations, Airbnb's got a problem. And if people start getting spooked about insurance issues, they're screwed from the other end.

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#387

Post by nakkal » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 8:01 PM UTC

Airbnb should probably read their 6th golden rules of thumb

http://www.airbnb.com/home/goldenrules

"If something goes wrong unexpectedly, be accessible to help remedy the situation. Be a hero to your guest!"

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#388

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 8:02 PM UTC

a3camero wrote: post #213

wheels wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 doubt it is a solved problem or AirBNB would be using it. Imagine what the negotiations would be like. They need insurance for: -An open-ended number of people worldwide (constantly changing) -Any sort of property from shitty apartments all the way to fancy houses (no estimate of value possible, requires appraisers) -Damage/theft caused by people with unverified identities (all they have is CC, stolen?) -Any and al…

[deleted]

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#389

Post by CamperBob » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 8:04 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #158

edw519 wrote: 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…

1. Get a new place for EJ. Furnish it fully. Pay for everything. They should definitely be doing better, but I think this particular advice is wrong. They can't buy a new house for everyone whose home gets vandalized. And any kind of "policy" would make this incident seem more likely to happen in the future, so no one would use the service. Irrational, but people aren't good at thinking about small odds (about 10 mil…

If the odds are "about 10 million to one," then yes, indeed, Airbnb can afford to buy a new house for everyone whose home gets vandalized.

Either the numbers work, or they don't. Which is it?

Re: Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight

#390

Post by lawnchair_larry » Fri, Jul 29, 2011, 8:12 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #362

edw519 wrote: 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…

How do they "just fix this" if her lawyer is saying "let's find the highest possible clearing price for this transaction"? In my experience, that's what a good lawyer is going to say. " This is just business. " Like in any negotiation, anything Airbnb offers is now the price floor. Her best interests are served by turning the pain dial to 11 for as long as the offer is on the table. You don't even have to know anythi…

If she was being coached by a lawyer, said lawyer would surely not let her write another word about it. That's his payday she will burn. I doubt she has one.