Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

vice.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 632 posts

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#411

Post by lixtra »

ejain wrote: post #331

Just talked to someone at Airbnb. Two takeaways: 1. If the property does not match the description, take pictures (they won't just take your word for it). 2. If you are told that the original property is not available, contact Airbnb right away, and they will give you a full refund and help you find a place to stay (Airbnb or otherwise). Fortunately, I've never had to put any of this to the test...

> 2. If you are told that the original property is not available, contact Airbnb right away...

Can you ask your friend how to contact Airbnb such that you get a reasonable fast response, say within 1h?

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#412

Post by ghaff »

Fomite wrote: post #395
kieckerjan wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what kind of plan B are you talking about?

I often have a cancelable hotel reservation on hand.

Fewer and fewer hotel reservations let you cancel until 6pm day of though like they used to. More and more cancelable reservations want 24, 48, or even 72 hours these days.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#414

Post by dwaltrip »

jancsika wrote: post #366
elchupanebre wrote: post #342

Here is another scam that someone tried to pull on me. I booked a place in Reno a week in advance. On the night before check-in at about 2am I got a text from the host asking me to increase the price of stay by $20. That was small and I did not want the hassle of arguing but just decided to leave it till morning. In the morning I looked at it again on computer (as opposed to the phone) and saw something odd: the date…

That is such an elegant scam. It's like a magic trick complete with misdirection. Is there market where HN-type people come up with these and sell them to people to implement?

> That is such an elegant scam. [...] Is there market where HN-type people come up with these and sell them to people to implement?

Seriously? What kind of fucking question is that?

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#415

Post by weberc2 »

spraak wrote: post #347
weberc2 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> need to read "between the lines" of misleading representations of properties. I've never had a problem with this, but I also don't bother staying anywhere that doesn't have a 4-star or better average. If you just set your filter at >= 4 stars, then these problems go away, and we also comb through the reviews of our top picks to make sure there's nothing unexpected. Consequently, we've had nothing but good experienc…

What you described sounds exactly like "reading between the lines"

I meant that the review score should tell you whether or not you need to read between the lines. If you don't want to read between the lines, stick to results with 4+ star reviews (maybe 4.5+ star reviews). I _also_ read other reviews out of an abundance of caution and to give some insight into how the top results differ. We should be able to agree that this is not meaningfully "reading between the lines" even if we don't agree about the reliability of average review score as an indicator.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#416

Post by lixtra »

munificent wrote: post #269
apacheCamel wrote: post #261

I am not sure why, but reading this article just made me feel pretty ill. How does someone (multiple someones?) have the moral ability to do these kinds of things? I seriously can't believe the whole stack, from AirBNB to the scammer, just let these kinds of things go. At the end, where the author states she will continue to use AirBNB because it is cheaper kind of rubs me the wrong way. For a company to allow such s…

There's a weird fundamental flaw in social groups which is this: 1. Trusting trustworthy people increases efficiency. The less checking and verification you have to do, the less redundant work there is and the more easily things go. 2. As the number of trustworthy people in a group increases, the value of choosing to trust a random person increases. The odds get greater that they will be trustworthy, letting you reap…

You can drive the number closer to 100% by making sure to have strong revenge on malice and a high probability that the revenge hits the right person.

In practice that means trust people once you have confirmed identity and if you’re in a trustworthy legislation.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#417

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

yumraj wrote: post #402
itake wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't work well b/c then Airbnb just bans you from the platform

This is the 3rd or 4th comment I've seen about not reporting to credit card company because AirBnb may ban you. Are people really so afraid of being banned by a company such as Airbnb that they will just suck up when defrauded? It's a vacation rental company, and not very good at that. Why are people so afraid of it? Genuinely curious..

Because they control a huge part of the market, and the cost of accepting the fraud is often lower than the cost of losing access to that part of the market.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#418

Post by code_duck »

dawnerd wrote: post #374
nathancahill wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I'm in charge of booking a ski trip for ~15 friends each year, and the amount of reading between the lines I have to do to make sure everyone has a comfortable place to sleep is crazy. Tons of places count sofas/pullouts/day beds in the "Sleeps # of People", and they often count the temporary beds as space for 2. So you'll see places that say, Sleeps 16, but there are only 3 or 4 real beds. Hotels have it right…

What ridiculous is when you try searching for 'whole homes' and you end up getting 'apartments' which are nothing more than someones basement. Airbnb seems to encourage this too by letting people put whatever tags they want. It's kind of a joke. In addition, hiding the address makes it hard to double check on google street view. Edit: My workaround is selecting super hosts only, 3-4 bedrooms, 1+ bathroom. Seems to fi…

I have even seen this on Zillow recently. Searching for rentals, choose type as House, and then it's the upper floor department in a house and the listing reads "you will be sharing the top floor with me".

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#419

Post by warent »

ghaff wrote: post #407
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't make a business of an honest marketplace based on selling services only to dishonest people. Eventually your own customers will ruin the business. This is the fundamental reason "Organized Crime" always fails in the end.

Organized Crime mostly fails because people get thrown in jail. Obviously not happening here.

Usually because someone ends up betraying them, e.g. the Chicago Outfit. In other words, dishonesty ends up ruining them. So the comment still makes sense.

Re: I Accidentally Uncovered a Nationwide Scam on Airbnb

#420

Post by koolba »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #401
jancsika wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is such an elegant scam. It's like a magic trick complete with misdirection. Is there market where HN-type people come up with these and sell them to people to implement?

You can't make a business of an honest marketplace based on selling services only to dishonest people. Eventually your own customers will ruin the business. This is the fundamental reason "Organized Crime" always fails in the end.

Isn’t that what all those credit card dump sites do?
Post reply on HN