91–100 of 243 posts
> The death-like smell emanating from the bathroom was frightening (and still is) and the bathroom sink was caked with a crusty yellow substance. Various pairs of my gloves were strewn about
When someone first told me about AirBnB I immediately dismissed it - just like Fred Wilson did. It fell in the group of ideas which I just find puzzling because the concept is totally alien to something I would want to do/buy/participate in. I don't get why anyone would want to rent out their couch or spare room to a transient stranger - even 'vetted' within a community (and we can see that vetted is very lose here)…
eBay and Craigslist were early instances. I'd count eTrade and other online trading startups as another instance. Blogs, generally, cut out the middleman in publishing.
There's couchsurfing.com, various direct-lending startups, etc. And now AirBnB.
Some of these are fairly low-risk activities.
Craigslist, having been in the business for nearly 14 years (the domain was registered 11 Sept 1997) have a prominently displayed and long list of ways to protect yourself against fraud, including very explicit warnings and suggestions. It smells very real. And there are still a ton of posts to the feedback/help forums asking / warning / telling of scams attempted or perpetrated. And a few notorious headlines.
Startups especially like to portray the world as consisting of mostly nice people. This may be the case, but the exceptions to that rule can be, well, exceptionally bad.
Close family friends run a B&B. They've done it successfully for nearly 30 years, and have mostly good stories to tell, as well as some cool celebrity guests. It takes a mindset, especially when you're inviting strangers into your house (their current setup has separate guest cottages), and it's a lot of work.
Ultimately, AirBnB is going to have to look at whether or not they want to put a bunch of rank amateurs in touch with one another (with the inherent risks), or serve as an intermediary for more established entities (much eBay and CL traffic is now through at least semi-official dealers and brokers).
I can think of some explicit steps EJ could have taken to protect herself: having a storage locker and moving valuables off-site would have been a good first step. Meeting the guest another. Some sort of in-apartment surveillance, at least of entry an exit areas, a third. At the very least this would help track the perp / establish whodunnit.
AirBnB could self-insure or take a guest deposit of some sort (possibly encouraging credit-card fraud) against such issues. I suspect they'll have to or fold with the publicity of this story.
One of the lending companies I spoke doesn't assume systemic risk (based on credit scores and such), but does assume all risk in the event of identity fraud. This would be a very good model for AirBnB to follow. Bruce Schneier has long railed on how credit card / debit card fraud proliferates in large part because banks bear little of tye risk (most falls on merchants, some on cardholders).
This will be interesting to watch.
> I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages This is bad news. They're going to backtrack on this. The sooner they do it, the better for them politically. I understand the problems of setting a precedent. And there really is no getting around the fact that the hosts do have the final responsibility for screening travelers (and travelers for screening hosts). But rightly or wrongly, t…
In this case, and in all others, Airbnb can not be responsible for this kind of stuff. Also, I highly doubt a homeowners policy is going to cover it because the person was renting out their place (again, probably illegally).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Makes me think— Who says someone else has to insure Airbnb? Let's say they add an invisible $1 insurance fee to each booking, that goes into a fund to pay interim damages only when an actual crime is committed. Cases like this are so rare, and although the damage is horrific to one person the dollar amount is trivial on the scale Airbnb operates. Seems like a perfect case for a shared risk pool that actually works ra…
This opens Airbnb up to the risk of significant insurance fraud. Insurance companies have the infrastructure to deal with it, but Airbnb doesn't - and presumably doesn't want to build it.
Insurance fraud is no joke and it takes a hell of a lot of stupidness to attempt it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Makes me think— Who says someone else has to insure Airbnb? Let's say they add an invisible $1 insurance fee to each booking, that goes into a fund to pay interim damages only when an actual crime is committed. Cases like this are so rare, and although the damage is horrific to one person the dollar amount is trivial on the scale Airbnb operates. Seems like a perfect case for a shared risk pool that actually works ra…
This opens Airbnb up to the risk of significant insurance fraud. Insurance companies have the infrastructure to deal with it, but Airbnb doesn't - and presumably doesn't want to build it.
Fraud would mean the owner having an accomplice renter who destroyed something, Airbnb compensating the owner, and then being unable to track down the accomplice for redress. That's only a problem if a significant number of renters are able to use Airbnb without Airbnb having any way to track them down.
And if that's the case, they already have a problem.
> I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages This is bad news. They're going to backtrack on this. The sooner they do it, the better for them politically. I understand the problems of setting a precedent. And there really is no getting around the fact that the hosts do have the final responsibility for screening travelers (and travelers for screening hosts). But rightly or wrongly, t…
I would imagine this would be a situation that homeowners insurance is for. But I bet homeowners insurance won't cover damage caused by running your home as a hotel. If not, then Airbnb should have some sort of insurance for these situations. Can't have all of the upside and none of the downside. Not to mention if this happens a few more times, Airbnb's business model will be legislated away.
"I spoke to Airbnb about EJ’s situation. They won’t reimburse her for damages, they say, and they do not insure against losses. They are helping police track down the person who did this, but their help ends there." ... Fuck. That. I don't care what the long-term implications are, I don't care about precedent, I don't care about policy, I don't care about cost . If my business does this to someone I make it right . E…
Give me a frigging break! I don't care what the long-term implications are Clearly you’re not a business person if you wouldn’t care what the long-term implications of your company’s response to this were. They have responsibilities to investors, employees, and other users—they’re (rightly) making a decision with those stakeholders in mind, not the woman who had her house ruined. I don't care about cost Again, clearl…
Doing the right thing is more important than making money. I'm really glad I learned that before earning my business degree.
I'll tell you a story.
A couple of years ago, during the height of the financial crisis, I decided to quit a pretty safe job, move across the country, and focus full-time on building and selling iOS apps.
Just before the move, with cash tight, I shipped a new app.
It was doing... so well. A nice bit of press, good placement in the App Store, and revenues like no other project had yet produced.
There was just one problem: sometimes, you could enter a shitload of data into the app – and then it would crash without saving. A lot of work lost. Not all of the time, just enough to make you suspicious of the app. And as a result, a worthless tool.
The fix was very easy. Absurdly easy: one line of code. An over-released object. But Apple doesn't work quickly now and definitely didn't then. I had a choice: two weeks of selling what I knew to be a worthless app or destroy all my momentum and pull the app until the fix was ready.
So I pulled the app. Lost the high ranking that would have led to even more sales. Donated all the sales from that first day to a worthy cause, since I couldn't issue refunds. Fuck, did I need that money.
But I never looked back. Because it was the right thing to do.
You profit from creating value. If you do harm, you take responsibility and put things right. Anything less is unworthy of your humanity.
That's it. If my passion for doing the right thing makes me bad at certain things, oh well. Money comes and goes. My conscience is with me until I die.
> What happened to this girl sucks, but your post is overly emotional and absurd. It’s not Airbnb’s moral responsibility to do anything about this.
Sorry you feel that way. We'll never have common ground to work together. Good luck!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As was pointed out before, it's not possible to get insurance for this - homeowner's insurance specifically disclaims damage from renters, and it's generally not legal to rent your premises like this unless you comply with all the hotel rules, so AirBnb can't take out insurance either. All they can do is self-insure, and if they start paying out, people will realize "Hey, I can get a new TV if I let my friend come an…
I don't see what they stand to lose if they take the same stance as homeowner insurers do— if you file a police report, they'll pretty much take your word for it. In fact they have an even better guarantee, since they know (ideally...) exactly who the perpetrator was. They're not giving you the money to replace your stuff, they're lending it to you until they can recover it from the criminal. If the person who you cl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would imagine this would be a situation that homeowners insurance is for. But I bet homeowners insurance won't cover damage caused by running your home as a hotel. If not, then Airbnb should have some sort of insurance for these situations. Can't have all of the upside and none of the downside. Not to mention if this happens a few more times, Airbnb's business model will be legislated away.
As above, airbnb already exists in a kind of legal gray area. There are very few places where it's actually legal according to municipal/zoning rules to rent out rooms this way. Not to mention the significant legal intricacies incumbent in offering insurance to consumers like that.
However I don't agree that because there are legal intricacies a company valued at over 1 billion dollars shouldn't protect its financial future.