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You don't have to believe in a conspiracy. You just have to believe that there are some extremely difficult customers out there. Given that AirBnB offered her

by temphn 15y ago

You don't have to believe in a conspiracy. You just have to believe that there are some extremely difficult customers out there. Given that AirBnB offered her money and she isn't picking it up or returning their calls, but is talking to reporters, the most plausible explanation is that she's looking to get a huge payday in a lawsuit. She didn't have to think of the idea herself. A lawyer or family member may have put the thought in her head. "This is a billion dollar company, you know!" Do you really think she's not going to go for big dollars in a lawsuit at this point?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
carbonica 15y ago
> Given that AirBnB offered her money There's been conflicting reports about this. Airbnb told TechCrunch - on the record - that they wouldn't pay for anything, that they didn't want to set a precedent. > she isn't picking it up or returning their calls She says that they stopped calling her after she posted the blog, except to beg her to take it down and suggest she pretend everything is all better. > is talking to reporters She's posted two blog posts - the first one reporting the incident, and another a month later. That's not "talking to reporters." Your framing is disingenuous at best. > Do you really think she's not going to go for big dollars in a lawsuit at this point? I don't think that a lawsuit would do well considering she said several times in her initial blog post that AirBnB is not at all to blame for her experience and that she held a significant amount of responsibility. Here's where you're taking it: she's not the victim, AirBnB is the victim. She's the "extremely difficult customer," or as Robert Scoble put it, "batshit crazy" and a "drama queen." She's not a victim, she's just a bitch. Right. I don't like demonizing victims, but I know in the male-dominated tech world this kind of framing is an easy sell.
- ThomPete 15y ago
  I think the basic point is that you are talking as if there is certainty around your claims when there isn't.
  - carbonica 15y ago
    Nothing she's said has been disputed by anyone. Why do people suspect she's been dishonest if nobody even disputes anything she says?
    - llambda 15y ago
      Why do you infer she's being honest? That argument goes both ways; problematically significant however is the fact that we don't have all the facts therefore there's no use assuming she's lying or Airbnb is lying!
- temphn 15y ago
  > That's not "talking to reporters." http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011/07/plot-thickens-airbnb-renter-horror-story/179250/1 http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011... "Meanwhile, I communicated by email and by phone late Friday with a woman who said she was "EJ," a corporate events planner who later asked me not to be identified by name because of her continuing fears that other suspects may still be at large and because of the online furor surrounding her experience. (She also said she was speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, and I confirmed portions of her information with the San Francisco police department.)"
  - carbonica 15y ago
    I stand corrected. The fact remains that nothing she's said has been disputed by anyone, the only people who have been inconsistent are airbnb and pg, and yet she's still the one being attacked.
- natural219 15y ago
  "Here's where you're taking it: she's not the victim, AirBnB is the victim. She's the "extremely difficult customer," or as Robert Scoble put it, "batshit crazy" and a "drama queen." She's not a victim, she's just a bitch. Right. I don't like demonizing victims, but I know in the male-dominated tech world this kind of framing is an easy sell." This is your problem. You're thinking in terms of "victims" and "villains" when, instead, you should be thinking about the available facts and information. "There's been conflicting reports about this." - good news! We've been updated. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822721 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822721 That is the latest report from pg/airbnb.
  - carbonica 15y ago
    > That is the latest report from pg/airbnb. And TechCrunch has already commented on this (http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/how-the-hell-is-this-my-fault/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/how-the-hell-is-this-my-fau...), which is why I said there are conflicting reports: > 2. Airbnb’s Christopher Lukezic told me on Wednesday that the company was not responsible for EJ’s losses, that they would be paying anything for her losses, that they are just a service to match people and that they were helping the police find the people who did this. This was on the record, and it was a call we emailed about first. I didn’t take him by surprise. And I read this back to him before I posted. > 3. Paul Graham says instead “The spokesman, who’d been told by their lawyers that he couldn’t go into detail about that because of the precedent said “I can’t comment on that.” So Arrington, in typical Arrington fashion said “Well, unless you tell me I’m going to write that you’re not willing to do anything for her.” And he did. Really not cool. > That’s a lie. What he said is what I wrote in no. 2 above, and what was in the original post.
wisty 15y ago
If she is lying, AirBnB can sue her for defamation. At the very least, there's some wacky timeline here - she blogs that AirBnB have done nothing, AirBnB respond by offering her something, then tell everyone that "Look, it's not like that, we made an offer to fix up her place". Which is really dodgy. I suspect that AirBnB are telling themselves "We did no wrong, we didn't trash her appartment, she's a litigious who is dragging our name though the mud". Fair enough. Grow up, you are running a company that is going disrupt the hotel industry - get used to it. Everyone else in hospitality is capable of dealing with ugly situations. Many of them remain good people, despite the ugliness. I really doubt that AirBnB are a bunch of "nice" people though. Their business is basically illegal in virtually every state. They might be charismatic. They might even have good intentions. But I doubt they are all stereotypical Boy Scouts (as opposed to real Boy Scouts, who are often capable of being very streetsmart, if the situation calls for it).
- temphn 15y ago
  > I suspect that AirBnB are telling themselves "We did no wrong, we didn't trash her appartment, she's a litigious who is dragging our name though the mud". Fair enough. Grow up, you are running a company that is going disrupt the hotel industry - get used to it. Everyone else in hospitality is capable of dealing with ugly situations. Many of them remain good people, despite the ugliness. On the one hand you admit they are disrupting the hotel industry, so they should suck it up and suffer random abuse yet remain good guys and totally affable. (But you wouldn't say the same to the woman). On the other hand you presume them to be evil and say that their business is "illegal in every state" (which it isn't). Don't you think that's a mite contradictory?
jacques_chester 15y ago
> Given that AirBnB offered her money and she isn't picking it up or returning their calls, but is talking to reporters, the most plausible explanation is that she's looking to get a huge payday in a lawsuit. Or she doesn't want "hush" money, or she's feeling scared and hurt.

by temphn 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

carbonica 15y ago

> Given that AirBnB offered her money There's been conflicting reports about this. Airbnb told TechCrunch - on the record - that they wouldn't pay for anything, that they didn't want to set a precedent. > she isn't picking it up or returning their calls She says that they stopped calling her after she posted the blog, except to beg her to take it down and suggest she pretend everything is all better. > is talking to reporters She's posted two blog posts - the first one reporting the incident, and another a month later. That's not "talking to reporters." Your framing is disingenuous at best. > Do you really think she's not going to go for big dollars in a lawsuit at this point? I don't think that a lawsuit would do well considering she said several times in her initial blog post that AirBnB is not at all to blame for her experience and that she held a significant amount of responsibility. Here's where you're taking it: she's not the victim, AirBnB is the victim. She's the "extremely difficult customer," or as Robert Scoble put it, "batshit crazy" and a "drama queen." She's not a victim, she's just a bitch. Right. I don't like demonizing victims, but I know in the male-dominated tech world this kind of framing is an easy sell.

ThomPete 15y ago
I think the basic point is that you are talking as if there is certainty around your claims when there isn't.
- carbonica 15y ago
  Nothing she's said has been disputed by anyone. Why do people suspect she's been dishonest if nobody even disputes anything she says?
  - llambda 15y ago
    Why do you infer she's being honest? That argument goes both ways; problematically significant however is the fact that we don't have all the facts therefore there's no use assuming she's lying or Airbnb is lying!
temphn 15y ago
> That's not "talking to reporters." http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011/07/plot-thickens-airbnb-renter-horror-story/179250/1 http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011... "Meanwhile, I communicated by email and by phone late Friday with a woman who said she was "EJ," a corporate events planner who later asked me not to be identified by name because of her continuing fears that other suspects may still be at large and because of the online furor surrounding her experience. (She also said she was speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, and I confirmed portions of her information with the San Francisco police department.)"
- carbonica 15y ago
  I stand corrected. The fact remains that nothing she's said has been disputed by anyone, the only people who have been inconsistent are airbnb and pg, and yet she's still the one being attacked.
natural219 15y ago
"Here's where you're taking it: she's not the victim, AirBnB is the victim. She's the "extremely difficult customer," or as Robert Scoble put it, "batshit crazy" and a "drama queen." She's not a victim, she's just a bitch. Right. I don't like demonizing victims, but I know in the male-dominated tech world this kind of framing is an easy sell." This is your problem. You're thinking in terms of "victims" and "villains" when, instead, you should be thinking about the available facts and information. "There's been conflicting reports about this." - good news! We've been updated. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822721 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822721 That is the latest report from pg/airbnb.
- carbonica 15y ago
  > That is the latest report from pg/airbnb. And TechCrunch has already commented on this (http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/how-the-hell-is-this-my-fault/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/30/how-the-hell-is-this-my-fau...), which is why I said there are conflicting reports: > 2. Airbnb’s Christopher Lukezic told me on Wednesday that the company was not responsible for EJ’s losses, that they would be paying anything for her losses, that they are just a service to match people and that they were helping the police find the people who did this. This was on the record, and it was a call we emailed about first. I didn’t take him by surprise. And I read this back to him before I posted. > 3. Paul Graham says instead “The spokesman, who’d been told by their lawyers that he couldn’t go into detail about that because of the precedent said “I can’t comment on that.” So Arrington, in typical Arrington fashion said “Well, unless you tell me I’m going to write that you’re not willing to do anything for her.” And he did. Really not cool. > That’s a lie. What he said is what I wrote in no. 2 above, and what was in the original post.

wisty 15y ago

If she is lying, AirBnB can sue her for defamation. At the very least, there's some wacky timeline here - she blogs that AirBnB have done nothing, AirBnB respond by offering her something, then tell everyone that "Look, it's not like that, we made an offer to fix up her place". Which is really dodgy. I suspect that AirBnB are telling themselves "We did no wrong, we didn't trash her appartment, she's a litigious who is dragging our name though the mud". Fair enough. Grow up, you are running a company that is going disrupt the hotel industry - get used to it. Everyone else in hospitality is capable of dealing with ugly situations. Many of them remain good people, despite the ugliness. I really doubt that AirBnB are a bunch of "nice" people though. Their business is basically illegal in virtually every state. They might be charismatic. They might even have good intentions. But I doubt they are all stereotypical Boy Scouts (as opposed to real Boy Scouts, who are often capable of being very streetsmart, if the situation calls for it).

temphn 15y ago
> I suspect that AirBnB are telling themselves "We did no wrong, we didn't trash her appartment, she's a litigious who is dragging our name though the mud". Fair enough. Grow up, you are running a company that is going disrupt the hotel industry - get used to it. Everyone else in hospitality is capable of dealing with ugly situations. Many of them remain good people, despite the ugliness. On the one hand you admit they are disrupting the hotel industry, so they should suck it up and suffer random abuse yet remain good guys and totally affable. (But you wouldn't say the same to the woman). On the other hand you presume them to be evil and say that their business is "illegal in every state" (which it isn't). Don't you think that's a mite contradictory?

jacques_chester 15y ago

> Given that AirBnB offered her money and she isn't picking it up or returning their calls, but is talking to reporters, the most plausible explanation is that she's looking to get a huge payday in a lawsuit. Or she doesn't want "hush" money, or she's feeling scared and hurt.