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From the comment in the article it sounds like they are trying to offload the cost/ effort of verifying listings to their customers as well: "But he said the p

From the comment in the article it sounds like they are trying to offload the cost/ effort of verifying listings to their customers as well: "But he said the process would involve asking users whether the information in certain listings turned out to be accurate" So when he says AirBNB is going to verify every listing, he doesn't actually mean they are paying people to do it...

feintruled 7y ago
Using their customers as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Perhaps the analogy works a little too well, when carbon monoxide detectors are involved. Tech companies always expect us to swallow the "oh there's too much to possibly check manually!" (even when they are the richest companies in the world) but surely they could hire an inspector to do random spot checks? I used to have a friend who worked for Guinness who did that, dropped in on random bars to sample the quality of their stock. Quite the job.
duskwuff 7y ago
Which is deeply disappointing, and makes me worried that fraudulent hosts will work around the issue by having a co-conspirator book their room to "verify" the listing.
- jedberg 7y ago
  That would be unlikely to work. It'll probably be like Yelp, where when you check in, they say "does this place have wifi" or "do they take credit cards". You don't verify everything all at once. They'll probably have algorithms to determine who are legit travelers and ask them to do the most verification and of the most risky stuff.
- situational87 7y ago
  It's almost like we are intentionally bending over backwards to avoid hiring some human beings to do some real fucking work. When did this become the mantra of every tech company? Any time a job is created it's viewed as an unfortunate mistake or side effect? Who are we even building all this for?
  - 55555 7y ago
    The founders, and, incidentally, the investors. Employees are a cost and customers are a burden.
    - akiselev 7y ago
      > The founders, and, incidentally, the investors. Isn't it the other way around?
  - briandear 7y ago
    Are you suggesting hiring employees to check every single listing on AirBnB? Does Craigslist verify every listing? For that matter, have newspapers ever done that with their advertising? AirBnB is a marketplace connecting buyers and sellers. Suggesting that a newspaper for instance send an employee to verify that an advertised car in a classified ad is precisely correct is a bit ridiculous but that’s what you seem to be suggesting with AirBnB. How is this any different than a student newspaper running ads for rooms for rent? On the hotel side, Booking.com doesn’t physically verify every hotel room listed either. Overstating amenities or even outright lying is as old as real estate and has nothing to do with “tech.”
    - nkrisc 7y ago
      > Are you suggesting hiring employees to check every single listing on AirBnB? Yes. Unless they don't actually plan to verify listings, in which case they should just state they don't verify listings. Then they don't have to hire anyone extra.
    - wyre 7y ago
      Did you read the original vice article? The airbnb scam is much more harmful than an erroneous classifieds listing. If someone lies on Craigslist and you're smart enough to find out they did you walk away and all that's lost is time. The scammers on airbnb were promising a better place and then had them stay in a place that might as well be a squat. Wasting time, money, comfort, convince, etc.
    - ogre_codes 7y ago
- paulgb 7y ago
  Especially since the Vice piece that sparked all this strongly implies that this is already happening: > Even some of the positive reviews of Becky and Andrew’s Chicago rentals seemed odd, especially those left by other pairs of hosts. Kelsey and Jean, for example, said Becky and Andrew were “awesome and communicative guests.” But they themselves were based in Chicago, where it seemed they had at least two properties of their own. Why would they need to rent from someone else there?
  - thepangolino 7y ago
    That doesn’t seem strange at all to me. A friend of mines regularly rents their place on Airbnb. Then in turn they rent a cheaper property and pocket the difference.
    - gwd 7y ago
      Not sure why you're downvoted. At least one place I stayed at in Switzerland, it was pretty clear something like that was exactly what was happening: The family were living in the house normally, and when someone rented it, they just vacated it and went somewhere else. (I sort of suspect that there had been a recent divorce and the mother was trying to figure out how to be able to avoid having to move due to changed financial situation.) It seemed a bit weird to be taking over this family's house, but they decided it worked for them, and the house was as described, so... shrug Don't know where they went, but a cheaper AirBNB place nearby would be an obvious candidate.
    - fierarul 7y ago
      For every odd situation I see in HN comments there comes somebody like you saying: "why, I just did that yesterday!". A location getting good ratings from other people in the same city that rent 2 other apartments is so odd it should be denied by default and require manual approval. The odds of collusion are quite high. Of course sellers would help each-other with good ratings! Even at the actual cost of paying for a night (in AirBnB fees) it might still be worth it if you want good ratings. So, no, this is pretty strange.
      - 7y ago
- user5994461 7y ago
  And remember to make it a short stay because AirBnb is taking 25% commission on the booking. Friends reviews are costing an arm and a leg.
zik 7y ago
It also doesn't mean you're safe to use airbnb. If you're the first person to try a given scam listing you'll get scammed. And then airbnb will de-list it, after the fact. And then the scammer will create a new listing presumably to scam the next person.
- darkwizard42 7y ago
  For what its worth, Airbnb is pretty upfront about NEW properties in their platform especially those with no reviews yet. Someone always has to give it the first go to know if the hosts are great or not (though acknowledging the property is real shouldn't require a guest to have a bad/potentially bad experience)
  - hello_friendos 7y ago
    Most Airbnb scams rely on false reviews that AirBnb already is failing to catch.
- malkuth23 7y ago
  The first two weeks of people renting my Airbnb got an incredible deal. Airbnb encouraged me to discount what I found later to be way too low prices. I was also very careful to make sure everything was perfect for them since their reviews were so important. Yes there are risks with renting a new place, but there are also huge benefits. As a side note, when I travel and I actually want to interact with my host, I will rent a room in an occupied house and I always pick a newly listed space. since the host is not sick of hosting yet, they are much more friendly. If you go to a place that has been operating for years, they will not want to show you around or hang out. New hosts are much more likely to be social.
pastor_elm 7y ago
Well a host can always pull amenities after an initial inspection. You do need constant verification to keep them on their toes.
pmoriarty 7y ago
How is this an improvement over Airbnb's existing review and complaint mechanisms?
- ogre_codes 7y ago
  If they detached this or made it separate from reviews it would perhaps reduce the fear of retributive reviews from bad hosts. The big problem here is the vast difference between "We are going to verify..." and what they are actually planning. It's just dishonest.
  - YokoZar 7y ago
    AirBNB reviews are unpublished until both sides either finish their review or time out. It is simply not possible to read a bad review and then write a bad review in retaliation.
    - ogre_codes 7y ago
      It's been a while since I used AirBNB so I'll take your word for it. The recent article in Vice suggested that the fear of retributive reviews was something a lot of people were concerned about, so I'm not sure where the disconnect is here. From https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on-airbnb https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-ho...: "After all, Airbnb uses a rating system in which both the host and tenant can publicly provide feedback to one another, which both parties then use to prove their credibility in the future. Because of that, there is a built-in incentive to avoid confrontation, which helps explain why Airbnb hosts consistently receive higher ratings than hotels reviewed on TripAdvisor, according to research out of Boston University and the University of Southern California. If a customer has a negative experience on Airbnb, they might be better off just moving on instead of leaving a negative review." Perhaps it's not retributive reviews so much as complaining during the stay. shrug
    - greggman2 7y ago
      I believe it is possible for the next host to read your review of previous hosts. Why rent to anyone who ever left a bad review? In other words there is an incentive not to leave bad reviews.
SiVal 7y ago
And the worry people have complained about, where negative feedback by a renter gets traced back to the renter, resulting in a retaliatory negative rating, remains a legitimate worry.
jobigoud 7y ago
Wait, I use Airbnb both as a guest and a host and it already works like this? You list amenities. Then the platform asks guests "does this listing have a stove, does it have a carbon monoxyde detector", etc. Then the platform query the host "guests have mentioned you have a stove, is it correct?". I just got such a confirmation request on our listing today.
- greggman2 7y ago
  It's not that simple > does this listing have a stove Guest: Well yes but it doesn't work. Or, well yes but the flame shut off after 2 minutes AirBnB: Sucks to be you but it has a stove so not a lie > does this listing have wifi Well yes but they say it's only got 1meg data so it will run out in probably 2 days and we booked the place for a month. AirBnb: Sucks to be you but it has wifi so not a lie > does this listing have 3 bedrooms Well, it's got 3 rooms, a bedroom, a living room with a bed in it and a kitchen with a bed in it. AirBnB: Bed in room = bedroom so yes it's got 3 bedrooms. Sucks to be you but not a lie etc... The second 2 are actual AirBnB experiences.
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    I'm be curious if you could have pushed back on the bedrooms one. The term "bedroom" has a legal definition in many places (ex, must have door and closed).
    - duxup 7y ago
      It might but I'm not sure Airbnb has a definition.
    - libria 7y ago
      Door + closet + fire-escapable window are a few reqs around here.
      - Teever 7y ago
        How does that definition work on the 30th storey of a condo building?
buboard 7y ago
That's practically asking for fraud. There are 6M listings. How much would it cost them to do the right thing and have them even cursorily inspected? Inspectors would of course have to pose as customers. Damn these sharing startups are tight fisted
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  "Secret shoppers" are already A Thing. https://www.secretshopper.com https://www.secretshopper.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_shopping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_shopping
thrwn_frthr_awy 7y ago
FWIW, a few months ago they sent someone to my listing in person. They offered me $500 to make the changes they suggested.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Explain... AirBnB offered you money to change the text of your AirBnB listing? Why would they do that?
  - thrwn_frthr_awy 7y ago
    Not to change text, to change the unit. One example, they wanted a carbon monoxide detector added to the unit even though the unit has no heater (tropical rental). They said this was to give confidence as guests don't know that there isn't a heater. Things like that.

feintruled 7y ago

Using their customers as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. Perhaps the analogy works a little too well, when carbon monoxide detectors are involved. Tech companies always expect us to swallow the "oh there's too much to possibly check manually!" (even when they are the richest companies in the world) but surely they could hire an inspector to do random spot checks? I used to have a friend who worked for Guinness who did that, dropped in on random bars to sample the quality of their stock. Quite the job.

duskwuff 7y ago

Which is deeply disappointing, and makes me worried that fraudulent hosts will work around the issue by having a co-conspirator book their room to "verify" the listing.

jedberg 7y ago
That would be unlikely to work. It'll probably be like Yelp, where when you check in, they say "does this place have wifi" or "do they take credit cards". You don't verify everything all at once. They'll probably have algorithms to determine who are legit travelers and ask them to do the most verification and of the most risky stuff.
situational87 7y ago
It's almost like we are intentionally bending over backwards to avoid hiring some human beings to do some real fucking work. When did this become the mantra of every tech company? Any time a job is created it's viewed as an unfortunate mistake or side effect? Who are we even building all this for?
- 55555 7y ago
  The founders, and, incidentally, the investors. Employees are a cost and customers are a burden.
  - akiselev 7y ago
    > The founders, and, incidentally, the investors. Isn't it the other way around?
- briandear 7y ago
  Are you suggesting hiring employees to check every single listing on AirBnB? Does Craigslist verify every listing? For that matter, have newspapers ever done that with their advertising? AirBnB is a marketplace connecting buyers and sellers. Suggesting that a newspaper for instance send an employee to verify that an advertised car in a classified ad is precisely correct is a bit ridiculous but that’s what you seem to be suggesting with AirBnB. How is this any different than a student newspaper running ads for rooms for rent? On the hotel side, Booking.com doesn’t physically verify every hotel room listed either. Overstating amenities or even outright lying is as old as real estate and has nothing to do with “tech.”
  - nkrisc 7y ago
    > Are you suggesting hiring employees to check every single listing on AirBnB? Yes. Unless they don't actually plan to verify listings, in which case they should just state they don't verify listings. Then they don't have to hire anyone extra.
  - wyre 7y ago
    Did you read the original vice article? The airbnb scam is much more harmful than an erroneous classifieds listing. If someone lies on Craigslist and you're smart enough to find out they did you walk away and all that's lost is time. The scammers on airbnb were promising a better place and then had them stay in a place that might as well be a squat. Wasting time, money, comfort, convince, etc.
  - ogre_codes 7y ago
paulgb 7y ago
Especially since the Vice piece that sparked all this strongly implies that this is already happening: > Even some of the positive reviews of Becky and Andrew’s Chicago rentals seemed odd, especially those left by other pairs of hosts. Kelsey and Jean, for example, said Becky and Andrew were “awesome and communicative guests.” But they themselves were based in Chicago, where it seemed they had at least two properties of their own. Why would they need to rent from someone else there?
- thepangolino 7y ago
  That doesn’t seem strange at all to me. A friend of mines regularly rents their place on Airbnb. Then in turn they rent a cheaper property and pocket the difference.
  - gwd 7y ago
    Not sure why you're downvoted. At least one place I stayed at in Switzerland, it was pretty clear something like that was exactly what was happening: The family were living in the house normally, and when someone rented it, they just vacated it and went somewhere else. (I sort of suspect that there had been a recent divorce and the mother was trying to figure out how to be able to avoid having to move due to changed financial situation.) It seemed a bit weird to be taking over this family's house, but they decided it worked for them, and the house was as described, so... shrug Don't know where they went, but a cheaper AirBNB place nearby would be an obvious candidate.
  - fierarul 7y ago
    For every odd situation I see in HN comments there comes somebody like you saying: "why, I just did that yesterday!". A location getting good ratings from other people in the same city that rent 2 other apartments is so odd it should be denied by default and require manual approval. The odds of collusion are quite high. Of course sellers would help each-other with good ratings! Even at the actual cost of paying for a night (in AirBnB fees) it might still be worth it if you want good ratings. So, no, this is pretty strange.
    - 7y ago
user5994461 7y ago
And remember to make it a short stay because AirBnb is taking 25% commission on the booking. Friends reviews are costing an arm and a leg.

zik 7y ago

It also doesn't mean you're safe to use airbnb. If you're the first person to try a given scam listing you'll get scammed. And then airbnb will de-list it, after the fact. And then the scammer will create a new listing presumably to scam the next person.

darkwizard42 7y ago
For what its worth, Airbnb is pretty upfront about NEW properties in their platform especially those with no reviews yet. Someone always has to give it the first go to know if the hosts are great or not (though acknowledging the property is real shouldn't require a guest to have a bad/potentially bad experience)
- hello_friendos 7y ago
  Most Airbnb scams rely on false reviews that AirBnb already is failing to catch.
malkuth23 7y ago
The first two weeks of people renting my Airbnb got an incredible deal. Airbnb encouraged me to discount what I found later to be way too low prices. I was also very careful to make sure everything was perfect for them since their reviews were so important. Yes there are risks with renting a new place, but there are also huge benefits. As a side note, when I travel and I actually want to interact with my host, I will rent a room in an occupied house and I always pick a newly listed space. since the host is not sick of hosting yet, they are much more friendly. If you go to a place that has been operating for years, they will not want to show you around or hang out. New hosts are much more likely to be social.

pastor_elm 7y ago

Well a host can always pull amenities after an initial inspection. You do need constant verification to keep them on their toes.

pmoriarty 7y ago

How is this an improvement over Airbnb's existing review and complaint mechanisms?

ogre_codes 7y ago
If they detached this or made it separate from reviews it would perhaps reduce the fear of retributive reviews from bad hosts. The big problem here is the vast difference between "We are going to verify..." and what they are actually planning. It's just dishonest.
- YokoZar 7y ago
  AirBNB reviews are unpublished until both sides either finish their review or time out. It is simply not possible to read a bad review and then write a bad review in retaliation.
  - ogre_codes 7y ago
    It's been a while since I used AirBNB so I'll take your word for it. The recent article in Vice suggested that the fear of retributive reviews was something a lot of people were concerned about, so I'm not sure where the disconnect is here. From https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-host-scam-on-airbnb https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/43k7z3/nationwide-fake-ho...: "After all, Airbnb uses a rating system in which both the host and tenant can publicly provide feedback to one another, which both parties then use to prove their credibility in the future. Because of that, there is a built-in incentive to avoid confrontation, which helps explain why Airbnb hosts consistently receive higher ratings than hotels reviewed on TripAdvisor, according to research out of Boston University and the University of Southern California. If a customer has a negative experience on Airbnb, they might be better off just moving on instead of leaving a negative review." Perhaps it's not retributive reviews so much as complaining during the stay. shrug
  - greggman2 7y ago
    I believe it is possible for the next host to read your review of previous hosts. Why rent to anyone who ever left a bad review? In other words there is an incentive not to leave bad reviews.

SiVal 7y ago

And the worry people have complained about, where negative feedback by a renter gets traced back to the renter, resulting in a retaliatory negative rating, remains a legitimate worry.

jobigoud 7y ago

Wait, I use Airbnb both as a guest and a host and it already works like this? You list amenities. Then the platform asks guests "does this listing have a stove, does it have a carbon monoxyde detector", etc. Then the platform query the host "guests have mentioned you have a stove, is it correct?". I just got such a confirmation request on our listing today.

greggman2 7y ago
It's not that simple > does this listing have a stove Guest: Well yes but it doesn't work. Or, well yes but the flame shut off after 2 minutes AirBnB: Sucks to be you but it has a stove so not a lie > does this listing have wifi Well yes but they say it's only got 1meg data so it will run out in probably 2 days and we booked the place for a month. AirBnb: Sucks to be you but it has wifi so not a lie > does this listing have 3 bedrooms Well, it's got 3 rooms, a bedroom, a living room with a bed in it and a kitchen with a bed in it. AirBnB: Bed in room = bedroom so yes it's got 3 bedrooms. Sucks to be you but not a lie etc... The second 2 are actual AirBnB experiences.
- RHSeeger 7y ago
  I'm be curious if you could have pushed back on the bedrooms one. The term "bedroom" has a legal definition in many places (ex, must have door and closed).
  - duxup 7y ago
    It might but I'm not sure Airbnb has a definition.
  - libria 7y ago
    Door + closet + fire-escapable window are a few reqs around here.
    - Teever 7y ago
      How does that definition work on the 30th storey of a condo building?

buboard 7y ago

That's practically asking for fraud. There are 6M listings. How much would it cost them to do the right thing and have them even cursorily inspected? Inspectors would of course have to pose as customers. Damn these sharing startups are tight fisted

dredmorbius 7y ago
"Secret shoppers" are already A Thing. https://www.secretshopper.com https://www.secretshopper.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_shopping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_shopping

thrwn_frthr_awy 7y ago

FWIW, a few months ago they sent someone to my listing in person. They offered me $500 to make the changes they suggested.

londons_explore 7y ago
Explain... AirBnB offered you money to change the text of your AirBnB listing? Why would they do that?
- thrwn_frthr_awy 7y ago
  Not to change text, to change the unit. One example, they wanted a carbon monoxide detector added to the unit even though the unit has no heater (tropical rental). They said this was to give confidence as guests don't know that there isn't a heater. Things like that.