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Still no compensation offer from the CEO/Co-founder Lisbeth Kaufman https://medium.com/p/4530d0062e60/responses/show https://medium.com/p/4530d0062e60/response

by natrik 7y ago

Still no compensation offer from the CEO/Co-founder Lisbeth Kaufman https://medium.com/p/4530d0062e60/responses/show https://medium.com/p/4530d0062e60/responses/show https://medium.com/@lisbethkaufman_82625/im-one-of-the-cofounders-of-kitsplit-and-i-wanted-to-respond-to-this-personally-29aded237f7e https://medium.com/@lisbethkaufman_82625/im-one-of-the-cofou... She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors and stopping millions of dollars of theft on the platform, almost surely an exaggeration.

heliodor 7y ago
What a tone-deaf response from the cofounder! The article paints in painful detail how the website claims one thing and the contractual terms do the opposite, resulting in the user being suckered by fine print. Literally, this is a problem of false advertising. Instead of proper fixes to the problem, they will add more fine print and more reasons to rub it in your face when your gear gets stolen.
- theturtletalks 7y ago
  Yes, her response seems to assure people the company is legit, not actually trying to help the person in need. Shows a lot about the company.
iooi 7y ago
> We have 6 different FAQs that warn KitSplit users about the risk of voluntary parting. Ouch, so this isn't the first person to get bit by this on KitSplit, just the first one to get traction. These companies need to get called out way more.
- Beefin 7y ago
  How can consumers review/evaluate platforms like this? Is there a Yelp meets Crunchbase for companies that operate worldwide?
  - egman_ekki 7y ago
    You mean something like trustpilot, only without the possibility to remove negative reviews for money?
- ddalex 7y ago
  They have automated emails for dealing with "voluntary parting". This is a stronger indication of trouble than anything else.
hotgoldminer 7y ago
10 BPs.. Also if they're letting the fraudsters continue to use the service (why wouldn't they if they're generating risk-free fee income to KitSplit), the fraudsters are likely more active the typical users. So if 1/1000 users are fraudsters and fraudsters are 10x more active than regular users, odds are 1 in 100 that your gear gets stolen. Ludicrous.
rhino369 7y ago
>She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors and stopping millions of dollars of theft on the platform, almost surely an exaggeration. If this is true, they should easily be able to afford to self insure against theft by charging 10 cents per thousand dollars of gear rented. Odd that they don't do that huh.
- usefulcat 7y ago
  That would be true if .01% of all rentals resulted in fraud, but that's not what that sentence says. It could be the case that such "bad actors" represent a disproportionately large share of all rentals. Which makes sense--if you're planning on stealing the equipment, you'd probably expect to have your account banned so you'd probably try to steal as much as possible while the account is still considered legitimate. As in this case where the author alleges that the same person also stole someone else's gear on the same day.
  - danShumway 7y ago
    > It could be the case that such "bad actors" represent a disproportionately large share of all rentals. If it's not representative of the actual risk KitSplit will face, then it's also not representative of the actual risk users will face. And if it's not representative of user risk, then it's deceptive for KitSplit to bring it up as a way to defuse the situation or suggest that consumers shouldn't be worried.
- StreamBright 7y ago
  Not blocking 0.01% means how many bad actors exactly?
pixelbath 7y ago
Not only no compensation, I see no actual apology, and aside from a quick note about how they'll re-vet users after they change their profile info (they weren't doing this already?), there's a whole lot of text explaining how it will still be your fault if the equipment gets stolen. In the end, there's not even a "contact me to get this sorted" link; it's just another call to engage with first-tier support some more. Just use Craigslist if you're looking to make money off your high-end gear; at least then, you can know with a higher likelihood that you're being scammed.
- droithomme 7y ago
  Craigslist legally is better. I can look at the person's driver's license myself, and have him sign a legally binding contract agreeing to return the item (like all rental shops do) and I can even collect a deposit that I won't return if he doesn't return. That is much much much better than this scenario. It's a big mystery also how the company claims to take a deposit for the full value of the equipment, and then apparently just keeps the deposit themselves when the item is stolen? Really?
droithomme 7y ago
> She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors Elsewhere is the figure 0.1%, off by a factor of 10. It's not clear whether 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10000 rentals results in theft. However, just because 1 in 1000 rentals results in theft doesn't mean one's assessment is 99.9% effective in blocking bad actors. Bad actors are currently a tiny minority of their users. Apparently 1 in 1000. If you blocked 99.99% of them, then theft would drop to 1 in 10,000,000 rentals. Her claimed numbers make no sense in the context of their actual theft rates. And yes, legally under criminal law it is theft, it is not voluntary parting. Voluntary parting does not appear to be a principle from criminal law and instead is something invented by insurance industry contract attorneys to deny responsibility for insurance claims.
- differentView 7y ago
  Most likely that number was pulled out of her ass.
kevin_b_er 7y ago
They claim they've stopped "millions of dollars of theft", but how about "voluntary parting" since its apparently not "theft"? How much "voluntary parting" have they stopped?
usefulcat 7y ago
> She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors and stopping millions of dollars of theft on the platform Interesting way to phrase it: "..effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors". It sounds precise yet it is anything but because it says nothing about how many "bad actors" there are. Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? And over what period of time? A year? A day? 5 minutes? Any one of those factors could make orders of magnitude difference to the chance that one's property will be stolen. If fraud were really as infrequent as they seem to suggest, then it seems like they should be able to absorb the losses. As it is, it appears they've so far concluded that the negative publicity will cost them less than the actual losses.
moxidize 7y ago
So from what I gather, the only parties that can potentially become "bad actors" are owners who fail to deliver the product and renters who cause a "voluntary parting" of over $200,000 in equipment - and that's how they end up at their 1/10000 incidence rate. So perhaps KitSplit's strategy of blocking bad actors is to redefine them as neutral ones, converting millions in theft into millions in "partings" - which might not be an exaggeration.
- robocat 7y ago
  The 1/10000 is only for theft. It doesn't include voluntary parting. Thanks kennywinker's comment in thread.
anth_anm 7y ago
If it wasn't an exaggeration then I would think they apologize for the inconvenience and pay the guy back. 0.01% would mean 1 in 10000 have an issue.
trhway 7y ago
> This is because the renter is the client who purchases the policy and the insurance company can not file a claim against its client, the renter. That would force the insurance company to file a claim against itself, which is not how insurance works. just a pile of incoherent absurd BS. Looks like that CEO has no idea what she is talking about. How for example does she think auto accidents are handled when both participants have the same insurance company?
differentView 7y ago
99.99% of time when people say "99.99%" it's just made up.
adrr 7y ago
$70(rental fee) / 30%(Kitsplit cut) = $21 revenue 99.99 means one stolen item out of 10,000. So they'll make $210,000(using articles info) but can't pay $3,500 to cover a stolen item out of that revenue. I bet the CEO is lying about the theft rate.
- kennywinker 7y ago
  They don’t even seem to acknowledge this as a theft (voluntary parting?!) so I have NO doubt that 99.99 number is fake as hell.
  - optimuspaul 7y ago
    that's what I got from it, "voluntary parting" doesn't figure into the theft number because they can't/won't acknowledge those thefts as theft.
- Aleran 7y ago
  $70 was the camera owner's revenue after Kitsplit had taken their cut. The rental fee was higher than $70.
go_ruby 7y ago
Exaggeration is charitable, it's probably an outright lie.
duiker101 7y ago
Well it seems like they don't consider this voluntary parting their problem so it's probably not in that statistic. I'm sure it would have a pretty big drop if it were included.
ska 7y ago
She's made one now: https://blog.kitsplit.com/announcing-kitsplit-theft-protection-owner-guarantee/ https://blog.kitsplit.com/announcing-kitsplit-theft-protecti...
- bxio 7y ago
  Ooh, another opportunity to push product. So you gotta purchase optional insurance in additional to the 22% platform fees. Certainly makes the prospect of renting out my kit worth thousands of dollars for literal tens of dollars all the more attractive.
- hisnameisjimmy 7y ago
  Very similar to AirBnB's realization and about-face after the destruction of someone's home. Good on her for coming around and doing the right thing.
  - e_proxus 7y ago
    Perhaps good for future customers, but not really for all the ones that have been scammed before and left in the cold by the company. I can't see this as anything other than "privatizing the profits, socializing the losses" approach that most new gig-economy startups use. First they try to get away with as much as possible, until negative PR or legal requirements forces them to change. And then it's suddenly "a new feature" that they're so proud to announce (even though they created the problem in the first place).

by natrik 7y ago

heliodor 7y ago

What a tone-deaf response from the cofounder! The article paints in painful detail how the website claims one thing and the contractual terms do the opposite, resulting in the user being suckered by fine print. Literally, this is a problem of false advertising. Instead of proper fixes to the problem, they will add more fine print and more reasons to rub it in your face when your gear gets stolen.

theturtletalks 7y ago
Yes, her response seems to assure people the company is legit, not actually trying to help the person in need. Shows a lot about the company.

iooi 7y ago

> We have 6 different FAQs that warn KitSplit users about the risk of voluntary parting. Ouch, so this isn't the first person to get bit by this on KitSplit, just the first one to get traction. These companies need to get called out way more.

Beefin 7y ago
How can consumers review/evaluate platforms like this? Is there a Yelp meets Crunchbase for companies that operate worldwide?
- egman_ekki 7y ago
  You mean something like trustpilot, only without the possibility to remove negative reviews for money?
ddalex 7y ago
They have automated emails for dealing with "voluntary parting". This is a stronger indication of trouble than anything else.

hotgoldminer 7y ago

10 BPs.. Also if they're letting the fraudsters continue to use the service (why wouldn't they if they're generating risk-free fee income to KitSplit), the fraudsters are likely more active the typical users. So if 1/1000 users are fraudsters and fraudsters are 10x more active than regular users, odds are 1 in 100 that your gear gets stolen. Ludicrous.

rhino369 7y ago

>She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors and stopping millions of dollars of theft on the platform, almost surely an exaggeration. If this is true, they should easily be able to afford to self insure against theft by charging 10 cents per thousand dollars of gear rented. Odd that they don't do that huh.

usefulcat 7y ago
That would be true if .01% of all rentals resulted in fraud, but that's not what that sentence says. It could be the case that such "bad actors" represent a disproportionately large share of all rentals. Which makes sense--if you're planning on stealing the equipment, you'd probably expect to have your account banned so you'd probably try to steal as much as possible while the account is still considered legitimate. As in this case where the author alleges that the same person also stole someone else's gear on the same day.
- danShumway 7y ago
  > It could be the case that such "bad actors" represent a disproportionately large share of all rentals. If it's not representative of the actual risk KitSplit will face, then it's also not representative of the actual risk users will face. And if it's not representative of user risk, then it's deceptive for KitSplit to bring it up as a way to defuse the situation or suggest that consumers shouldn't be worried.
StreamBright 7y ago
Not blocking 0.01% means how many bad actors exactly?

pixelbath 7y ago

Not only no compensation, I see no actual apology, and aside from a quick note about how they'll re-vet users after they change their profile info (they weren't doing this already?), there's a whole lot of text explaining how it will still be your fault if the equipment gets stolen. In the end, there's not even a "contact me to get this sorted" link; it's just another call to engage with first-tier support some more. Just use Craigslist if you're looking to make money off your high-end gear; at least then, you can know with a higher likelihood that you're being scammed.

droithomme 7y ago
Craigslist legally is better. I can look at the person's driver's license myself, and have him sign a legally binding contract agreeing to return the item (like all rental shops do) and I can even collect a deposit that I won't return if he doesn't return. That is much much much better than this scenario. It's a big mystery also how the company claims to take a deposit for the full value of the equipment, and then apparently just keeps the deposit themselves when the item is stolen? Really?

droithomme 7y ago

> She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors Elsewhere is the figure 0.1%, off by a factor of 10. It's not clear whether 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10000 rentals results in theft. However, just because 1 in 1000 rentals results in theft doesn't mean one's assessment is 99.9% effective in blocking bad actors. Bad actors are currently a tiny minority of their users. Apparently 1 in 1000. If you blocked 99.99% of them, then theft would drop to 1 in 10,000,000 rentals. Her claimed numbers make no sense in the context of their actual theft rates. And yes, legally under criminal law it is theft, it is not voluntary parting. Voluntary parting does not appear to be a principle from criminal law and instead is something invented by insurance industry contract attorneys to deny responsibility for insurance claims.

differentView 7y ago
Most likely that number was pulled out of her ass.

kevin_b_er 7y ago

They claim they've stopped "millions of dollars of theft", but how about "voluntary parting" since its apparently not "theft"? How much "voluntary parting" have they stopped?

usefulcat 7y ago

> She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors and stopping millions of dollars of theft on the platform Interesting way to phrase it: "..effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors". It sounds precise yet it is anything but because it says nothing about how many "bad actors" there are. Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? And over what period of time? A year? A day? 5 minutes? Any one of those factors could make orders of magnitude difference to the chance that one's property will be stolen. If fraud were really as infrequent as they seem to suggest, then it seems like they should be able to absorb the losses. As it is, it appears they've so far concluded that the negative publicity will cost them less than the actual losses.

moxidize 7y ago

So from what I gather, the only parties that can potentially become "bad actors" are owners who fail to deliver the product and renters who cause a "voluntary parting" of over $200,000 in equipment - and that's how they end up at their 1/10000 incidence rate. So perhaps KitSplit's strategy of blocking bad actors is to redefine them as neutral ones, converting millions in theft into millions in "partings" - which might not be an exaggeration.

robocat 7y ago
The 1/10000 is only for theft. It doesn't include voluntary parting. Thanks kennywinker's comment in thread.

anth_anm 7y ago

If it wasn't an exaggeration then I would think they apologize for the inconvenience and pay the guy back. 0.01% would mean 1 in 10000 have an issue.

trhway 7y ago

> This is because the renter is the client who purchases the policy and the insurance company can not file a claim against its client, the renter. That would force the insurance company to file a claim against itself, which is not how insurance works. just a pile of incoherent absurd BS. Looks like that CEO has no idea what she is talking about. How for example does she think auto accidents are handled when both participants have the same insurance company?

differentView 7y ago

99.99% of time when people say "99.99%" it's just made up.

adrr 7y ago

$70(rental fee) / 30%(Kitsplit cut) = $21 revenue 99.99 means one stolen item out of 10,000. So they'll make $210,000(using articles info) but can't pay $3,500 to cover a stolen item out of that revenue. I bet the CEO is lying about the theft rate.

kennywinker 7y ago
They don’t even seem to acknowledge this as a theft (voluntary parting?!) so I have NO doubt that 99.99 number is fake as hell.
- optimuspaul 7y ago
  that's what I got from it, "voluntary parting" doesn't figure into the theft number because they can't/won't acknowledge those thefts as theft.
Aleran 7y ago
$70 was the camera owner's revenue after Kitsplit had taken their cut. The rental fee was higher than $70.

go_ruby 7y ago

Exaggeration is charitable, it's probably an outright lie.

duiker101 7y ago

Well it seems like they don't consider this voluntary parting their problem so it's probably not in that statistic. I'm sure it would have a pretty big drop if it were included.

ska 7y ago

She's made one now: https://blog.kitsplit.com/announcing-kitsplit-theft-protection-owner-guarantee/ https://blog.kitsplit.com/announcing-kitsplit-theft-protecti...

bxio 7y ago
Ooh, another opportunity to push product. So you gotta purchase optional insurance in additional to the 22% platform fees. Certainly makes the prospect of renting out my kit worth thousands of dollars for literal tens of dollars all the more attractive.
hisnameisjimmy 7y ago
Very similar to AirBnB's realization and about-face after the destruction of someone's home. Good on her for coming around and doing the right thing.
- e_proxus 7y ago
  Perhaps good for future customers, but not really for all the ones that have been scammed before and left in the cold by the company. I can't see this as anything other than "privatizing the profits, socializing the losses" approach that most new gig-economy startups use. First they try to get away with as much as possible, until negative PR or legal requirements forces them to change. And then it's suddenly "a new feature" that they're so proud to announce (even though they created the problem in the first place).