On Safety: A Word From Airbnb • Hacker News Board

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#51

Post by mayoff » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:37 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #43

spolsky wrote: post #38

I can't stop thinking that this was a top-secret hit job by some shady character working for the hotel industry looking to derail AirBnB's next fund-raising round. Heck, if Nixon could do it, why couldn't The American Hotel & Lodging Association? So my question to you is: am I quite paranoid or merely rather paranoid?

It does sound just too ridiculous. I mean it's one thing to find the safe and steal credit cards, but I find it more than a little odd that he burned a spare set of sheets in the fireplace.

The sheets could have simply been stolen.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#52

Post by Mz » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:40 AM UTC

learc83 wrote: post #43

spolsky wrote: post #38

I can't stop thinking that this was a top-secret hit job by some shady character working for the hotel industry looking to derail AirBnB's next fund-raising round. Heck, if Nixon could do it, why couldn't The American Hotel & Lodging Association? So my question to you is: am I quite paranoid or merely rather paranoid?

It does sound just too ridiculous. I mean it's one thing to find the safe and steal credit cards, but I find it more than a little odd that he burned a spare set of sheets in the fireplace.

Someone elsewhere (in another related discussion on HN) suggested the place was probably used as a meth lab. They could have been destroying evidence or some such.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#53

Post by MisterMerkin » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:47 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #25

MisterMerkin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How ironic given that they built the business on spamming craigslist and circumventing users' requests to not be solicited.

They did not build the business this way. That was something done years ago by a single contractor without their knowledge, and it had an insignificant effect on their growth. Edit: Actually it sounds like it was several contractors ( http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/07/1-billion-1-br-amazin... )

Thank you for coming forth with a statement on this. I don't remember seeing one from you when this issue first cropped up, which really didn't look good. A lot of people referenced your "founders should push the envelope" phrase in your absence to explain it, which in my opinion made it look even worse. I value your word a lot more than I do theirs since they don't have a known reputation (with me). Culpable or not, that incident still left a bad taste in my mouth.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#54

Post by rdouble » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:47 AM UTC

spolsky wrote: post #38

I can't stop thinking that this was a top-secret hit job by some shady character working for the hotel industry looking to derail AirBnB's next fund-raising round. Heck, if Nixon could do it, why couldn't The American Hotel & Lodging Association? So my question to you is: am I quite paranoid or merely rather paranoid?

My apartment in SF was burglarized and the burglars used a crackhead from the park to act as a lookout and then take the heat later.

I don't think this was an industry setup. However, I would be willing to bet that the real burglar just did the physical and ID theft part, and then let in a bunch of tweakers to wreck the place and throw the subsequent investigation off track.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#55

Post by MisterMerkin » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:48 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #26

MisterMerkin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've got to be kidding me. Are you not aware of AirBnB's history and how they built their userbase?

I replied to the other comment you made saying the same thing elsewhere on this thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2815183

Thanks.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#56

Post by ajays » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 5:00 AM UTC

trjordan wrote: post #5

latch wrote: post #4

There continues to be a major point of conflict between EJ's concerns and AirBnB's position. In fact, the point of conflict is actually within AirBnB's safety policies itself: 1 - Private messaging that lets users learn about each other prior to booking, without revealing private information 2 - Reservation system that allows hosts to accept or decline guests, giving them complete control over who books their space I…

Before booking, AirBnB does not allow you swap personal information, primarily so you can't go outside their system to make your arrangements. There are both financial and community-building reasons for this. Once the payment has been made (well before the guest arrives), the host gets access to all of the private information of the guest. I believe they could chose to rescind the offer of hospitality at this point -…

The solution to that is for AirBNB to offer a compelling value, so that people don't feel the need to bypass them. They can do this by vetting properties, background checks, offering insurance, etc.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#57

Post by Vivtek » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 5:00 AM UTC

spolsky wrote: post #38

I can't stop thinking that this was a top-secret hit job by some shady character working for the hotel industry looking to derail AirBnB's next fund-raising round. Heck, if Nixon could do it, why couldn't The American Hotel & Lodging Association? So my question to you is: am I quite paranoid or merely rather paranoid?

Whatever you are, I'm the same, because it's the second thing I thought of.

But the first thing was that there are a lot of privileged young people out there whose friends might very well have thought a week of utter abandonment and breaking every possible rule would be the height of fun. And yeah, I can easily see that privileged young asshole finding it the height of humor to email the owner every now and then saying how nice the place was - more than likely laughing at how nice the owner actually found the place, if you see what I mean.

I've been a landlord. There is nothing, and I mean nothing at all, that will destroy your faith in humanity more quickly. Seriously. Even though the majority of tenants are perfectly wonderful people, and even though I only had a grand total of six tenants before giving it up as a bad idea, there were some that were just ... well. It's really like a bad dream.

This experience was worse than any of mine, and it was compressed into a single frenetic week of probable partying, but it's the same genre as one particular tenant I'm thinking of. She meant well. Her friends did not. And in the end, I was the one left with the holes punched in the wall, with the dryer stolen, with the garden shed piled to the roof with months-old garbage, with a kitchen floor that could easily have been a bus station, with evidence of a three-inch flood of water from the washing machine, with fleas in the carpet and holes in the yard after she'd signed a clear no-pets clause. (A friend and neighbor of ours owns several apartments in the neighborhood. One of the tenants she evicted had stabbed the refrigerator multiple times. Apparently on a lark.)

So even though it's more fun to imagine it as a conspiracy, I'm afraid the gritty reality is that there are people out there who just don't give a shit about who suffers from their actions, and who think it's fun to damage things.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#58

Post by ajays » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 5:01 AM UTC

It's interesting that he quoted the positive parts from EJ's post; but not the negative parts:

My next call was to airbnb.com - I tried their "urgent" line, their email address, their general customer support line. I heard nothing - no response whatsoever - until the following day, 14 sleepless hours later, and only after a desperate call to an airbnb.com freelancer I happen to know helped my case get some attention.

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#59

Post by ajays » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 5:03 AM UTC

Since this is the third story on this topic on the FP today, I figured a wisecrack is in order.

EJ's blog has the tagline: I leap, the net appears. Every time.

Apparently not this time...

Re: On Safety: A Word From Airbnb

#60

Post by kevinpet » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 5:07 AM UTC

AirBNB has a huge asymmetric trust problem. The hosts have real physical addresses and need to be able to take a payment. Hosts can easily be held accountable.

The guests on the other hand could be anyone. The company's attitude seems to be that allowing the host to interview the guest over email is sufficient to vet the guest. That's absurd. I don't have any special ability to identify a con artist vs. an honest person, and neither does anyone else.

What would be a good solution? Here's a partial solution: require guests to make a partial payment on the credit card they intend to use 30 days before their first booking. This would at least offer some security that the card wasn't stolen. Also of course ban pre-paid cards.