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Oh, sure. I don't think that this was some sort of hotel conspiracy. I think it was some douchebags who decided that the anonymity provided by Airbnb would make

by lambda 15y ago

Oh, sure. I don't think that this was some sort of hotel conspiracy. I think it was some douchebags who decided that the anonymity provided by Airbnb would make a great cover for some extensive identity theft. I agree, the conspiracy theorists are jumping to conclusions here. But why would you assume that she's trying to squeeze something out of Airbnb, as opposed to what she said, which is to warn people about the risks and about the fact that Airbnb basically has no plan and offers no real help for how to deal with this sort of situation? I've seen nothing other than an explanation of what happened, and a clarification that their spin on the issue doesn't really match up with her experience.

rdouble 15y ago
That's just my cynical take on things from dealing with stuff like this in the past. I honestly don't think there's much AirBNB can do to vet people which wouldn't make the service unusable.
- lambda 15y ago
  There's plenty they could do. They could offer insurance for this sort of situation (yes, they'd have to add an insurance fee or increase their rates for this to make business sense). They could implement credit card address verification, and require that a credit card be in their system for some period of time (3 or 5 days) with a hold on it before someone can make their first rental, which would make it a lot less likely that someone could effectively use a stolen credit card. They could verify phone numbers of guests and hosts by calling them (perhaps even with an automated system, that calls someone up and asks them to punch in a number they got when signing up for Airbnb), which would give an additional piece of evidence about someone's identity if needed. They could implement a trust system in which people with established histories using the system can vouch for someone else, and if no one vouches for you, then you need to do one of the above steps or some other form of additional identity verification. I'm sure there are other ideas that I haven't come up with that would also help and not be too cumbersome; these are just a few off the top of my head. I don't think that any of these would make the service unusable; if they did all of them, it might be a bit cumbersome, but implementing one or two of these measures would be fine. They would add a little bit of friction, for sure, but I think that it would be worth it for avoiding these sorts of awful situations.

by lambda 15y ago

rdouble 15y ago

That's just my cynical take on things from dealing with stuff like this in the past. I honestly don't think there's much AirBNB can do to vet people which wouldn't make the service unusable.

lambda 15y ago
There's plenty they could do. They could offer insurance for this sort of situation (yes, they'd have to add an insurance fee or increase their rates for this to make business sense). They could implement credit card address verification, and require that a credit card be in their system for some period of time (3 or 5 days) with a hold on it before someone can make their first rental, which would make it a lot less likely that someone could effectively use a stolen credit card. They could verify phone numbers of guests and hosts by calling them (perhaps even with an automated system, that calls someone up and asks them to punch in a number they got when signing up for Airbnb), which would give an additional piece of evidence about someone's identity if needed. They could implement a trust system in which people with established histories using the system can vouch for someone else, and if no one vouches for you, then you need to do one of the above steps or some other form of additional identity verification. I'm sure there are other ideas that I haven't come up with that would also help and not be too cumbersome; these are just a few off the top of my head. I don't think that any of these would make the service unusable; if they did all of them, it might be a bit cumbersome, but implementing one or two of these measures would be fine. They would add a little bit of friction, for sure, but I think that it would be worth it for avoiding these sorts of awful situations.