14 ms·

Another Airbnb Victim Tells His Story: “There Were Meth Pipes Everywhere”

394 points by jasonlbaptiste 15y ago

nodata 15y ago
I'm struggling to believe how much of a cock-up this is becoming. What should be a simple reality: "sometimes things will go wrong" is turning into something that even seems to be infectious. I give it two days before Y Combinator is explicitly associated with airbnb in a newspaper.
- abrimo 15y ago
  Sometimes things do go wrong however the impact of them going wrong differs between businesses. When things go wrong for a mobile phone company lots of people might have poor reception but when things go wrong for AirBNB, a person could actually get killed. This has always been my fear and I sincerely hope they shutdown or pivot before this happens. AirBNB hasn't been upfront about the level of risk their customers undertake when they use their service. And the downside, however rare a occurrence (even if it's one in a million or one in a thousand) is just too bad to even consider consider using them.
  - ThePawnBreak 15y ago
    "even if it's one in a million or one in a thousand" The probability of being killed ( or at least hurt ) while driving to work is probably larger than 1 in a milion.
jsavimbi 15y ago
> At the end of the day you are renting to a stranger. No better words can express my sentiments. Airbnb customers are participating in a business experiment, they're not hoteliers. What I do find worrisome is that Airbnb being in the customer service business, doesn't appear to be focusing on the user experience at all. What did they do with the money?
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  Probably invested much of it in color.com. :)
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    Sheesh - it was meant as a bit of a joke - hence the :)
    - jsavimbi 15y ago
      People will dv you for any reason. I stopped trying to rationalize it many moons ago. Edit: c'mon, you guys can do better than four downvotes.
    - allenbrunson 15y ago
      So, it was meant to be a joke. Sadly, it wasn't a funny joke. And it adds nothing to the conversation. Hence, downvotes. HN observers often assume we don't have a sense of humor around here. Actually, I've seen a number of funny comments upvoted, and have done so many times myself. It's closer to the truth to say that most people aren't nearly as funny as they think they are.
      - msg 15y ago
        The other problem is that it is interchangeable with many other jokes of the same flavor, ie, they were buying Facebook private shares, getting into the LinkedIn IPO, et cetera. This is a tip off that even if it's funny it might not be relevant. See also the South Park critique of Family Guy. Saying they were doubling down buying shares in Hilton and Motel 6 would at least have been marginally on topic. But still a bit obvious, right?
        gfodor 15y ago
        "supporting their meth addiction" might have worked
JVerstry 15y ago
Renting to strangers is like having sex without protection. Period.
- jsavimbi 15y ago
  You should see what happens when you rent to friends, or worse: family.
  - Luyt 15y ago
    What would happen in such a case? You sound like you have experience with it. They stay forever?
    - jsavimbi 15y ago
      They pee'd on the radiators before they left.
- hnal943 15y ago
  There's lots of ways to protect yourself when renting to strangers. The fact that EJ and others do not avail themselves of the necessary insurance, etc. is what's reckless.
  - scott_s 15y ago
    As has been pointed out multiple times, there is probably no insurance policy that would cover your apartment if you rent it out with AirBNB. Renter's insurance won't cover it, and individuals can't get the kind of insurance hotels get because they don't own the property. And if you meet the classification of a hotel, then there's a good chance you're breaking the law in some places. You can't get insurance while breaking the law.
    - ugh 15y ago
      Why wouldn’t insurances want to insure, though? This is a rare event, insurances love rare events. One problem might be AirBnB’s lack of transparency: Insurances have to know exactly how rare something is. They currently only know it’s rare, not how rare it is. (That said, it seems they could start with a relatively high estimate and adjust it up- or downwards when they start insuring, depending on how often and how much they have to pay. It seems like this would be something insurances excel it, seeing as it’s how they make their money. I’m sure at least AirBnB could work something out with insurances.)
waterlesscloud 15y ago
I'm realizing I'm confused about what value airbnb is offering. If they don't vet people on either end, are they really just a craigslist with payment processing?
- Cushman 15y ago
  The claim is they're a craigslist where you don't get to find out who the other person is until after the payment processing, which would seem to most people to be negative value. Edit: Except for to Airbnb.
  - tokenadult 15y ago
    The claim is they're a craigslist where you don't get to find out who the other person is until after the payment processing, which would seem to most people to be negative value. Exactly this. The first blogger to go public with a report of a place being trashed by an Airbnb guest pointed out that with Craigslist, it is EASIER to contact the guest individually beforehand. Airbnb subtracts value from the typical transaction that would be arranged on Craigslist. That's because Craigslist makes its money from help-wanted ads and a few other ad categories, and doesn't need to monetize transactions for short-term stays in people's homes to keep right on making money. Airbnb claims to be a force for disintermediating the short-term rental industry, but it desires to be market-leading intermediary. It isn't offering a market-leading level of customer service after a problem happens. Nor is Airbnb doing as much to prevent problems as other startup companies in the same space--several of those companies take much greater care to verify guest identities before setting up the transaction. What Airbnb appears to want, compared to other market participants, is to be paid as an intermediary without providing any particular value as an intermediary. That's nice work if you can get it, but that's a business model that is ripe for disruption and not a business model that I would invest in. After edit: I hope everyone is reading the newly submitted article here for the details of what the Airbnb autoresponder message replying to the "urgent" help email address at Airbnb looked like not long ago. As the host thought after his place was trashed, "This freaked me out when I was frazzled. Hundreds of millions in venture financing, millions of dollars in fees, and no 24-hour help desk for emergencies? What am I paying them the exorbitant fees for?"
smanek 15y ago
"""Airbnb, while pointing out that the incident was the first of its kind out of some 2 million stays booked since the company's founding in 2008 ...""" source: 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... Either USAToday misinterpreted/misreported a quote, Airbnb lied to a reporter on the record, or Troy is making up his story. I can't see any other way to reconcile the evidence put forth.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  The actual quote from AirBnB: With a single booking, one person’s malicious actions victimized our host and undermined what had been – for 2 million nights – a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good. Note it implies this is the only incident that has occurred, but they could have had three million incidents and this statement would still technically be true as long as they had two million nights without incidents. Somehow, I doubt USA Today will be thrilled about being manipulated that way...
  - michael_dorfman 15y ago
    Somehow, I doubt USA Today will be thrilled about being manipulated that way... Somehow, I doubt USA Today will even notice. They get served up far more egregious statements on a daily basis. And, by the way, the statement is literally true, regardless of the number of prior incidents (within reasonable bounds). They aren't claiming a perfect 2million night streak in the quote-- rather, "a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good." If they had had 2000 prior bad incidents, they could easily argue that a 99% problem-free rate demonstrates that "people are fundamentally good."
    - Klinky 15y ago
      This just highlights major flaws with the AirBnB business model. I think a more accurate quote would have been that it's "a case study demonstrating that a niche group of people with shared goals can act in a fundamentally good way", translating that to the general population is where AirBnB will have it's growing pains.
reso 15y ago
This is what a bad media cycle looks like. You get a nosebleed in the ocean and the sharks start circling. They'll get through it, though, I am completely confident. At the end of the day, the bad guys are the assholes that abuse the system.
msy 15y ago
I'm starting to think that much like Quora, AirBnB worked because of the nature of its early members and that the model simply doesn't scale.
- gamble 15y ago
  I think it depends on the type of rental. Vacation rentals or rentals where the owner is present can work, but it's extremely risky to hand a stranger the keys to your home and disappear, hoping they won't steal anything or trash the place. It's great that AirBnB's early adopters were largely trustworthy enough to let that practice persist for a while, but it won't survive mainstream popularity.
  - Uchikoma 15y ago
    If you're present, there is a chance you get murdered.
klenwell 15y ago
This does answer one thing that puzzled me about the EJ story. If this was meth addicts, she surely couldn't have been the first victim of this sort of thing. If the culprits in this case aren't related to the ones in the EJ case, I'd be curious if there's an identifiable profile here. The stereotype of the meth addict I operate by is a down-market tweaker who'd have no idea Airbnb existed much less the patience or resources to take advantage of it. But I suppose there's a more upscale demographic that might make up a hellish niche market for Airbnb.
- georgemcbay 15y ago
  She won't be the last either, unless Airbnb makes some sort of fundamental changes. Not only is all of this press bad in terms of basic PR, but now the word is out (to those so inclined who weren't tech savvy enough to previously realize it even existed) that Airbnb is a good place to rent a temporary meth lab as long as you're capable of some basic identity theft.
nanijoe 15y ago
Hopefully, AirBnB is learning what most rookie politicians already know, ie Take care of your PR problems before close of business on Friday , otherwise the entire weekend will feel like one looong horror movie. The good news though is that by Monday morning, people are usually ready to move on to some other news item.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
- michael_dorfman 15y ago
  That business already exists: it's called the insurance industry. I'm shocked that AirBnb apparently hasn't availed themselves of it.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
    - michael_dorfman 15y ago
      It doesn't matter that Airbnb renters are not businesses. There are a number of ways in which this reduces to an insurance problem. First, Airbnb could purchase liability insurance to indemnify themselves against claims made by people like EJ. This would enable them, under certain circumstances, to make generous payouts on occasion while maintaining fixed expenses. Second, Airbnb could easily offer optional insurance to their customers (in this case, the hosts) whereby a small fee is paid for each night's stay, and damages are paid up to a set amount, with proper documentation. (Naturally, Airbnb would then, in this case, attempt to recover the money from the renter who committed the damages.) I see no legal obstacles to such solutions, nor any reason to think it would be too expensive. Believe me, you can get insurance for pretty much anything, and the rate setting follows predictable patterns. Insurance may very well be the whole answer here, and I imagine we are discussing it because a) Airbnb isn't adequately insured, and b) they screwed up the customer relations/PR side of this one enormously.
      - farrel 15y ago
        "There are a number of ways in which this reduces to an insurance problem." You can't get insurance for an illegal activity. If you're subletting your own rental apartment, or in a jurisdiction with laws against unlicensed short term rentals (like New York City no doubt one of Airbnb's biggest markets) renting out via Airbnb is most probably illegal and no insurance company on the planet will cover it.
cletus 15y ago
As much as some people might view this as "sometimes things go wrong", which is basically true, that's not the whole story. The story here is that people are doing things that in most jurisdictions are illegal. AirBnB is profiting off this. Do something illegal and you can't insure against any negative consequences. The whole EJ situation is a potential inflection point. Without knowing the full facts (which no one seems to), it seems like AirBnB was trying to rectify things with EJ and I suspect they were trying to keep her quiet in the process. I have no proof of this. I also suspect that they probably misrepresented their actions to PG. Again I have no proof of this. It is merely my suspicion. But there's something "off" about EJ's position here. Why exactly is a vandalized apartment leaving her homeless? Is it too damaged to occupy? Does she simply not feel safe there? If she has received offers for help, why hasn't she taken it? It's possible she's traumatized by what happens. It's possible she feels so wronged by AirBnB that she's not acting rationally. Or maybe she just wants to get her story out to warn people. I really don't know. Yet something seems... off. The comments of EJ, PG and AirBnB just don't add up. I'd bet money on there being more to come on this story. And while some want to give EJ a free pass here, I don't want to vilify her but she has to take some responsibility for giving strangers the keys to her apartment. I think AirBnB can count their lucky stars this was just a robbery and not a rape or murder. Or someone could have set up a drug lab, causing the Feds to confiscate the property as the proceeds of crime possibly taking months to sort out and prove the person renting out the property didn't know about the drug lab. The hotel industry has fundamental protections for this kind of issue. Not only security but there's the fact that the hotel owner isn't storing their prized valuables where guests can steal them. Nor are hotels putting their staff in a position to be attacked or robbed by a guest sleeping under the same roof (incidents can occur in a hotel but at least there are locked doors separating you from the guests). LIkewise hotels take ID (usually). The legal precedent they set by paying off EJ is a cause for concern though some argue it isn't. This isn't like Apple choosing to replace broken hardware they aren't responsible for (this happens). While doing something illegal (and profiting from it) that can't be insured against, liability is something that could easily destroy the company. Ultimately, AirBnB is making a bet they can effect change on the laws relating to subletting. If the person renting out a room is leasing the property they're in, there's a good chance they can't sublet it (even though many do). This may help them on the liability front as well. Part of the problem here is anonymity on the Internet. This I believe is changing and it will help (IMHO). But it only takes keylogger malware or someone sniffing packets at the Internet cafe to steal someone's online identity and then do what they want. EDIT: clarifications.
benatkin 15y ago
Just in case anyone's curious, CouchSurfing has been around a bit longer than AirBnb and they have their own safety tips and tools: http://www.couchsurfing.org/safety.html http://www.couchsurfing.org/safety.html Here's the AirBnb page about safety: http://www.airbnb.com/home/safety http://www.airbnb.com/home/safety CouchSurfing is similar in that it's about strangers staying at people's places. The biggest difference is that people let others stay at their houses for free. Usually both parties do it for the experience. Many people think it's fun to meet travelers. I knew someone who traveled to Asia and couch-surfed.
- notJim 15y ago
  That AirBnb page was added like a week or two ago in response to the EJ affair.
  - benatkin 15y ago
    Wow, good to know. I confirmed it with archive.org. I don't need to know if Michael Arrington or EJ are telling the truth or not. This is enough for me to not trust AirBnb. With that kind of popularity they should educate potential guests/hosts about safety issues. I'm glad they're doing it now but it's too late for me. (I used AirBnb three times last year but each time I tried to get to know the hosts through a phone call beforehand and was ready to cancel if it didn't feel right.)
  - alsocasey 15y ago
    Not only that, they mention renters/home-owners insurance... but typical renters/home-owners insurance wouldn't cover you in the case of subletting, would it?
- pnathan 15y ago
  I'm given to understand that couchsurfing usually occurs when the host is present, which IMO is a risk-mitigating behavior.
  - Mz 15y ago
    I have not really been following any of this all that closely (though it's been impossible to miss entirely on HN), but my general understanding is that AirBnB originally was going to do a paid version of that and then, for some reason, decided it would be okay for people to not be present.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
zalzally 15y ago
If I were Arrington, I would have posted this story first thing Monday morning.
- pseudonym 15y ago
  Oh, don't worry, I'm sure there's going to be a glut of these stories queued up for about 2am Tuesday morning.
mgkimsal 15y ago
What's going to be a game changer is when stories start breaking about owners who rent out their space as a way to lure in people for killing or torturing them. Right now it's about "you were stupid, why did you rent your space out to strangers?". Later on it'll be "why did you try to save $20 and go sleep some place where you're 110% vulnerable?". You don't control the locks, you don't know the neighborhood or even the layout of the house all that well (are there cameras in the room spying on you?). If Holiday Inn or Marriott had tried to go 'downmarket' by trying to get in the "rent out your space with us - we'll handle the booking logistics", they'd have been eaten alive by the insurance costs of dealing with QA on thousands of rooms/spaces they don't control. They'd have too much name brand recognition and goodwill in their names to lose by leaving customer safety and security to chance. ABNB seems to be coming at this from the other way. What do they have to lose? Investor money? It's a big experiment for them, which they're hoping will pay off, but I think there's a reasons beyond "laziness" or "not getting it" to explain why larger companies well-versed in hospitality/property management have not gone down this road. Will things still work out for ABNB? They might, but they're taking such a hit on this by not just making some of these situations right, then changing their procedures and policies. Apparently these incidents - as infrequent as they may be - have been occurring for a while. There's probably quite a few more that haven't come forward because they've felt it was their own fault, much like domestic abuse spouses blame themselves. Not really wanting to see ABNB fail, but can't help watching this play out, and I somewhat suspect it'll get worse before it gets better.
- rokhayakebe 15y ago
  What's going to be a game changer is when stories start breaking about owners who rent out their space as a way to lure in people for killing or torturing them. I agree 100%. However I ask say how in the world did you think about this?
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    My wife and I watch a lot of murder mystery movies as well as true crime stuff. AirBNB is a "48 Hours" episode waiting to happen. Ann Curry and Keith Morrison will have a field day with it.
gojomo 15y ago
Might have even been the same meth c[r]ooks. Kudos to Dayton for keeping a balanced perspective on the situation, and not equating customer service clumsiness with indifference. I like AirBnb. I will continue to use AirBnb as a guest. (Hypothetically if I were to be a host, I would only rent a hardened/rental-only property with careful assessment of the potential guests.) I am also still bullish on the general theme that the transparency and efficiency of the net makes peer-to-peer transactions between strangers more safe and easy than ever before. But they're going to have to innovate on 'trust and safety' to avoid any impression they're AirBnBnMethDen.
- _delirium 15y ago
  > Might have even been the same meth c[r]ooks. That's what I thought as well (both are SF Bay Area), though it's only a guess. The combination of meth-heads and identity theft seems weird to be repeated. I would even tentatively guess at the meth-heads trashing apts being a cover for someone else who got the idea of using AirBnB to acquire documents for an identity-theft ring, but who knows, it's possible there are actually meth-heads who are also into identity theft, or who at least know someone to sell the documents to.
  - code_duck 15y ago
    If you were gathering documents for an identity theft ring, would you go on a juvenile and pointless rampage in the houses you pilfered? Probably not, since that would only tip off the person being targeted to lock their credit. This is absolutely small time amateur shenanigans. Imagine how the whole deal sounds from the angle of a drug addicted person who is comfortable committing petty/medium property crimes to fund their lifestyle. Unsuspecting urban/suburban dwellers will let you in their houses, unmonitored, for days or weeks, leaving them full of valuables and personal information, in exchange for a small fee that will never even be paid? Sounds like a criminal paradise to me.
    - jsavimbi 15y ago
      > would you go on a juvenile and pointless rampage in the houses you pilfered? Maybe EJ didn't have much in the way of credit to her name so they just trashed the place. It's what jerks do anyways when they either empowered or unsupervised. Although I don't think that an identity theft ring would be able to generate enough cash using Airbnb's hosts, a small scale noobish operation could certainly gain some traction and maybe the people who've actually had their identity stolen don't know about it because nobody bothered to trash their apartment. So maybe the jerk who kicked EJ's toilet to death actually did everyone a favor and brought this out into the open.
gojomo 15y ago
Let's not forget even four-star hotels are not immune to room-invasion burglary, as Alex Trebek learned in SF last week: http://www.baycitizen.org/crime/story/alex-trebek-crime-fighter/ http://www.baycitizen.org/crime/story/alex-trebek-crime-figh...
- jerrya 15y ago
  And here I thought you were going to mention O.J.
code_duck 15y ago
AirBnB never should have set up such an unsafe system, but surely the decisions of the renters are at fault as well. I personally would never even consider allowing people who were not carefully screened by myself to have free reign with my property. I'm pretty sure this is getting large enough to garner the attention of politicians. That may be a positive thing, since AirBnB and their clients are apparently not taking care of safety and procedures adequately on their own.
- pseudonym 15y ago
  Given that most apartments already have no subletting clauses, I don't think additional regulation would help anything. I'm hoping this dies down before some politician tries to make some knee-jerk law, much like that state AG did with craigslist awhile back.
  - code_duck 15y ago
    I have to agree, actually. The government being involved should be a last resort, and there's no indication this is a truly widespread or dangerous issue currently. Ideally, the private parties involved will figure it out.
- mkramlich 15y ago
  My take is the #1 fault is the alledged scumbags who did alleged bad things to the host's property. The #2 fault is the hosts for showing such utter naivete and ignorance about (a) what to leave in the apartment, and (b) understanding what could possibly happen when the strangers stay there and accepting those risks as the flip side of the coin. To the extent AirBnB has done anything wrong or imperfect, it's farther down the list than these actors in the drama. And all of this assumes that the alleged incidents happened exactly as they were portrayed, and were not in fact fraudulent "hit jobs" -- an issue that has not been settled yet, or rather should not be settled in any reasonably skeptical person's mind, given the sum total and nature of the "evidence" and the market context.
  - code_duck 15y ago
AndyJPartridge 15y ago
Stay or rent, you have a choice to do either. (Can't think of anything else to add, sorry.)
muratmutlu 15y ago
My favourite part of the story is they stole the computer...and left a cat!!
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
farrel 15y ago
Besides liability for damages incurred by the guest, hosts are also probably on the hook for liability should the guest be injured (or worse) while staying in your place.
- class_vs_object 15y ago
  > Besides liability for damages incurred by the guest, hosts are also probably on the hook for liability should the guest be injured (or worse) while staying in your place. Good point. I'd imagine hotels are required by law in most jurisdictions to take out public liability insurance. Then there is the issue of who is responsible for ensuring that properties are actually safe for rental on Airbnb (i.e., no exposed electrical wires, slippery steps, etc.)
pitchups 15y ago
There are a few glaring, obvious questions to which I have not seen any answers so far - or maybe I have missed them: Why was it difficult for Airbnb to immediately have the person that trashed the place arrested? Don't they have the person's identity - address, credit card information, phone number, IP address? Don't they run a basic credit check when a person signs up to rent a unit listed on the site? Or at least do some basic identity verification? Or was this person using a stolen identity? Or does Airbnb require that the entire responsibility for this rests on the person renting the place?
- usaar333 15y ago
  I've been wondering this as well, and I didn't see it mentioned in any post thus far. It seems like the most obvious step to do; if police can get the CC number from AirBnB, that should be enough to resolve the SSN. Assuming the info isn't stolen, the criminal is going to have a problem. I'm not an AirBnB user, so maybe I'm missing something.
  - Uchikoma 15y ago
    EJ said she has suspicion they were identity thefts. So they booked with a stolen identity probably.
- lawnchair_larry 15y ago
  Slightly off-topic, but what's with Americans and thinking it is acceptable to run credit checks for everything? Credit history is not an indicator of whether you are deserving of sleeping somewhere for a night. Maybe a criminal record check.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    Credit checks are great for verifying that someone pays their bills, which is an important part of commercial transactions. It also indicates responsibility and the ability to fulfill obligations.
    - 15y ago
turar 15y ago
The identity theft aspect brings up a whole new concern. If a renter steals a host's identity without trashing their place, there's no way to know that something went wrong until it's too late. And if the host subsequently rents her place to other guests, there's no way to know who the identify thief is.
- cageface 15y ago
  Good point. A smart thief would wait a few months before trying to make use of the stolen information.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
bugsy 15y ago
It's very interesting that he had the exact same experience and was given the run around by AirBnB. His story also shows that they are not being completely truthful when they said EJ's case was the first time anything like this had happened in 2 million rentals. I wonder what the real statistics are.
HanPham 15y ago
Seriously, fuck this guy. AirBNB simply facilitates finding people. AirBNB doesn't owe these people a single cent. In fact these AirBNB "victims" should apologize for their self-centered whining. Don't want any risk? Then don't let anyone into your house, dumbass. Don't blame random companies just because you're a fucking idiot.
- parfe 15y ago
  I agree. The only reason this story is getting any play at all is because it involves a shiny trendy company. If these people rented through posting flyers at bus stations or via craigslist the story would be lucky to be printed in the police blotter. EJ especially sounds like a woman-child who wanted all the benefits but is unwilling to accept responsibility for the risks she stupidly undertook.
- _delirium 15y ago
  I don't think AirBnB's involvement is that peripheral. Unlike Craigslist, they don't just operate a site that facilitates finding people; they're active participants in every transaction, and are the ones on record charging credit cards for the rentals.
TracyWilker 15y ago
I just paid $22.87 for an iPad2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $675 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, GrabCent. çom
jmtame 15y ago
It's interesting to note the pattern between EJ and Troy: in both of these cases, the renters were not home, which means they were treating Airbnb more like a "vacation rental" service. They both had a gut feeling that told them the rentee was "off" in their communication. They both didn't meet the people in advance. And the rentees were both meth addicts.
- rdl 15y ago
  Maybe AirBnB should drug test :)
djm 15y ago
I'm starting to think that these unfortunate incidents may actually provide airbnb with the future of it's business model. Right now they are just hooking people up and handling payments. They could go from that to learning how to put in place the best verification/insurance/customer service/emergency handling mechanisms in order to beat competitors in service quality. It's analagous to how paypal won payments by learning to be the best at handling fraud.
diN0bot 15y ago
it's interesting how the couch surfing and airbnb cultures have diverged. i love the community aspect of couch surfing---the fact that it's about spending time with cool people in new places, rather than finding "a cheap hotel", is huge to me. i get that there is a market for people who want cheap hotels rather than a community. however, there was a sense that you were getting more from paying more...like more security or something. yet everyone in couch surfing knows the importance of community references, and to meet folks at a cafe before deciding whether to bring them over. letting someone you've never met use your home while you're not there.....interesting culture screw up. i think adding a little money to the mix drastically changed what became emphasized.
dasht 15y ago
There is a deep ethical problem with starting or funding airbnb, in my opinion: The fraction of people with enough sophistication and resources to be good, safe, hosts and guests is a tiny, tiny fraction of the people in the world. It is absurd to think that airbnb could ever scale to justify its investments if only those sophisticated users were customers. The model relies, therefore, on large numbers of hosts and guests taking foolish risks. Airbnb's light and airy "how it works" video is a fine illustration of just how glib they are in encouraging people to make bad mistakes. The advice on their "safety" page is risible. Because most people are decent, most foolish risks from using airbnb go "unpunished" but certainly not all - as we've seen. A significant percentage of those risks lead to great loss. I fear that Airbnb is going to help kill, kidnap, rape or otherwise grievously harm someone's person, directly, at this pace. That's because to make its numbers the company must, needs be, incite dangerously foolish behavior from many customers. That the investors controlling so many dollars signed off on this investment speaks poorly of the VC system that produced airbnb. It speaks poorly of their common sense and/or dedication to basic social responsibility.
- jjmaxwell4 15y ago
  What about all of the good that AirBnB does for the large majority of people who use the site? Is there a deep ethical problem with letting people supplement their income, while also letting travellers have a cheaper option for a night/weeks stay? The vast majority of people who use AirBnb benefit from it.
  - dasht 15y ago
    "The vast majority of the people who use [it] benefit from it" is true of many products that are correctly removed from the market because of the size of the minority that suffer and the scale of their injury -- weighed against the benefit to other users and society as a whole. More importantly, though, the scope of the risk of airbnb is enormous and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future success. As these two examples of bad experiences have shown, the system can be gamed. As a larger and larger number of bad guys learn that this system can be gamed (and how) -- exploits as a percentage of use and percentage of value received (insofar as you can quantify that) will, it seems to me, almost certainly grow.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Omnipresent 15y ago
Arrington, "in his arrington way", is really out to screw AirBnB now.
- xianshou 15y ago
  TechCrunch has always smelled slightly of yellow journalism, but I would say that, on average, they've given Airbnb fair treatment. Arrington and the TC crew have written very enthusiastically about Airbnb in the past, perhaps excessively so, and now they are fulminating about the users who have been mistreated by Airbnb renters, again perhaps excessively so. Still, I would rather that these cases reach a public forum than that Airbnb have carte blanche to whitewash them for the sake of investor happiness.
uladzislau 15y ago
This one is even more bizarre story than the first one. The part about left cat and stolen computer is hilarious. I'm sure there should be more to this kind of horror stories from Airbnb, EJ was just the first brave person to come forward on her blog. Kudos to her and Mr. Dayton, otherwise such things could happen to many more Airbnb customers including HN crowd. And everybody who is defending Airbnb now should think how would they feel if something like this happened to them or their home.
uptown 15y ago
Trashing is one thing ... but how long until a "guest" leaves behind some hidden cameras?
class_vs_object 15y ago
This new account (of a home trashing occurring 1 month ago, of which Airbnb had knowledge) doesn't seem to reconcile with what Airbnb told EJ: "I do believe the folks at airbnb.com when they tell me this has never happened before in their short history, that this is a one-off case."
- jonuts 15y ago
  Even if you don't want to believe EJ's account of the story, Chesky himself made the claim on camera in May (a month after Troy's incident occurred) that there have been "no major problems" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=channel_video_title#t=5m0s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=chann... I don't see how either of these cases can be viewed as "minor", personally.
rglover 15y ago
After reading EJ's story and now this, I think it's safe to say that although what's taken place is unfortunate, it's really up to the person renting out their place to protect themselves. If Airbnb absolves themselves in their policy docs, then there's not much they have to do if something bad happens. On the contrary, however, they obviously need to have a serious overhaul of how they portray security to customers, as well as the vetting process for renters. Also, developing some sort of insurance program will help to skirt some major issues. I'm glad this is happening now, though, before someone gets hurt. Hopefully Airbnb will look at these events as warnings and take the necessary steps to refine how they protect themselves and their customers.
Uchikoma 15y ago
Creepy for guests: One could book AirBNB space and then reoffer it on AirBNB (is this possible?) or craigslist. So when you arrive, there is a "host" which is not the real one.
jonuts 15y ago
Here is Brian Chesky claiming there have been "no reports of major problems" with AirBnB at TC Disrupt in May. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=channel_video_title#t=5m0s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=chann... Whoops?
yason 15y ago
I might be too old for AirBNB but I wouldn't feel okay accommodating strangers in my own apartment. I will do that for friends and if I'm around myself, for friends of friends too, but even then the scheme needs to originate from some plausible circumstances where I can evaluate my potential guest in other context before we discuss accommodation. So, receiving an email from someone I don't know ("hey, I know your friend, can I stay at your place?") doesn't fly. It's my home and I don't want to think about whether tonight's guest is that one from a thousand or ten thousand who will wreck my place.
beedogs 15y ago
I think it's time for a name change... to AirB&E.
rwallace 15y ago
What we aren't hearing about is the people who declined to use Airbnb and had their homes ransacked because a burglar spotted they were empty. The risk of having the place trashed by a guest has to be offset against the improved security from having somebody in the place. Do we have any data or even credible estimates of the sign and magnitude of the _difference_ in security from using Airbnb?
bproper 15y ago
For God's sake we get it. Why does this drivel have to be on HN everyday? Sometimes when you deal with strangers, they are crazy. Not TECH, Not HACKER, Not INTERESTING!
anonymous 15y ago
What if the hotel industry is setting up these unsuspecting customers of AirBnB? They, the hotel chains really don't like this business model. Create enough negative press, a carefully crafted situation that will cause a busienss to fail and they you can cash in on how "safe" a Hotel chain is...
jh3 15y ago
It's a damn shame that people can't trust people.
larrys 15y ago
I wonder if it occurs to anyone how renting your place out impacts your neighbors. I'm not sure everyone is happy about transients coming and going in a particular building that someone might rent out and the safety of that to others in the building. Some condo buildings for example don't even allow a lease of less than 1 year because it changes the nature of the building.
daynaalexis 15y ago
Two words: shadow economy http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief-relationship-with-airbnb.html http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief-relationshi...
daynaalexis 15y ago
Two words: shadow economy http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief-relationship-with-airbnb.html http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief-relationshi...

394 points by jasonlbaptiste 15y ago

I'm struggling to believe how much of a cock-up this is becoming. What should be a simple reality: "sometimes things will go wrong" is turning into something that even seems to be infectious. I give it two days before Y Combinator is explicitly associated with airbnb in a newspaper.

abrimo 15y ago
Sometimes things do go wrong however the impact of them going wrong differs between businesses. When things go wrong for a mobile phone company lots of people might have poor reception but when things go wrong for AirBNB, a person could actually get killed. This has always been my fear and I sincerely hope they shutdown or pivot before this happens. AirBNB hasn't been upfront about the level of risk their customers undertake when they use their service. And the downside, however rare a occurrence (even if it's one in a million or one in a thousand) is just too bad to even consider consider using them.
- ThePawnBreak 15y ago
  "even if it's one in a million or one in a thousand" The probability of being killed ( or at least hurt ) while driving to work is probably larger than 1 in a milion.

jsavimbi 15y ago

> At the end of the day you are renting to a stranger. No better words can express my sentiments. Airbnb customers are participating in a business experiment, they're not hoteliers. What I do find worrisome is that Airbnb being in the customer service business, doesn't appear to be focusing on the user experience at all. What did they do with the money?

mgkimsal 15y ago
Probably invested much of it in color.com. :)
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  Sheesh - it was meant as a bit of a joke - hence the :)
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    People will dv you for any reason. I stopped trying to rationalize it many moons ago. Edit: c'mon, you guys can do better than four downvotes.
  - allenbrunson 15y ago
    So, it was meant to be a joke. Sadly, it wasn't a funny joke. And it adds nothing to the conversation. Hence, downvotes. HN observers often assume we don't have a sense of humor around here. Actually, I've seen a number of funny comments upvoted, and have done so many times myself. It's closer to the truth to say that most people aren't nearly as funny as they think they are.
    - msg 15y ago
      The other problem is that it is interchangeable with many other jokes of the same flavor, ie, they were buying Facebook private shares, getting into the LinkedIn IPO, et cetera. This is a tip off that even if it's funny it might not be relevant. See also the South Park critique of Family Guy. Saying they were doubling down buying shares in Hilton and Motel 6 would at least have been marginally on topic. But still a bit obvious, right?
      - gfodor 15y ago
        "supporting their meth addiction" might have worked

JVerstry 15y ago

Renting to strangers is like having sex without protection. Period.

jsavimbi 15y ago
You should see what happens when you rent to friends, or worse: family.
- Luyt 15y ago
  What would happen in such a case? You sound like you have experience with it. They stay forever?
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    They pee'd on the radiators before they left.
hnal943 15y ago
There's lots of ways to protect yourself when renting to strangers. The fact that EJ and others do not avail themselves of the necessary insurance, etc. is what's reckless.
- scott_s 15y ago
  As has been pointed out multiple times, there is probably no insurance policy that would cover your apartment if you rent it out with AirBNB. Renter's insurance won't cover it, and individuals can't get the kind of insurance hotels get because they don't own the property. And if you meet the classification of a hotel, then there's a good chance you're breaking the law in some places. You can't get insurance while breaking the law.
  - ugh 15y ago
    Why wouldn’t insurances want to insure, though? This is a rare event, insurances love rare events. One problem might be AirBnB’s lack of transparency: Insurances have to know exactly how rare something is. They currently only know it’s rare, not how rare it is. (That said, it seems they could start with a relatively high estimate and adjust it up- or downwards when they start insuring, depending on how often and how much they have to pay. It seems like this would be something insurances excel it, seeing as it’s how they make their money. I’m sure at least AirBnB could work something out with insurances.)

waterlesscloud 15y ago

I'm realizing I'm confused about what value airbnb is offering. If they don't vet people on either end, are they really just a craigslist with payment processing?

Cushman 15y ago
The claim is they're a craigslist where you don't get to find out who the other person is until after the payment processing, which would seem to most people to be negative value. Edit: Except for to Airbnb.
- tokenadult 15y ago
  The claim is they're a craigslist where you don't get to find out who the other person is until after the payment processing, which would seem to most people to be negative value. Exactly this. The first blogger to go public with a report of a place being trashed by an Airbnb guest pointed out that with Craigslist, it is EASIER to contact the guest individually beforehand. Airbnb subtracts value from the typical transaction that would be arranged on Craigslist. That's because Craigslist makes its money from help-wanted ads and a few other ad categories, and doesn't need to monetize transactions for short-term stays in people's homes to keep right on making money. Airbnb claims to be a force for disintermediating the short-term rental industry, but it desires to be market-leading intermediary. It isn't offering a market-leading level of customer service after a problem happens. Nor is Airbnb doing as much to prevent problems as other startup companies in the same space--several of those companies take much greater care to verify guest identities before setting up the transaction. What Airbnb appears to want, compared to other market participants, is to be paid as an intermediary without providing any particular value as an intermediary. That's nice work if you can get it, but that's a business model that is ripe for disruption and not a business model that I would invest in. After edit: I hope everyone is reading the newly submitted article here for the details of what the Airbnb autoresponder message replying to the "urgent" help email address at Airbnb looked like not long ago. As the host thought after his place was trashed, "This freaked me out when I was frazzled. Hundreds of millions in venture financing, millions of dollars in fees, and no 24-hour help desk for emergencies? What am I paying them the exorbitant fees for?"

smanek 15y ago

"""Airbnb, while pointing out that the incident was the first of its kind out of some 2 million stays booked since the company's founding in 2008 ...""" source: 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... Either USAToday misinterpreted/misreported a quote, Airbnb lied to a reporter on the record, or Troy is making up his story. I can't see any other way to reconcile the evidence put forth.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago
The actual quote from AirBnB: With a single booking, one person’s malicious actions victimized our host and undermined what had been – for 2 million nights – a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good. Note it implies this is the only incident that has occurred, but they could have had three million incidents and this statement would still technically be true as long as they had two million nights without incidents. Somehow, I doubt USA Today will be thrilled about being manipulated that way...
- michael_dorfman 15y ago
  Somehow, I doubt USA Today will be thrilled about being manipulated that way... Somehow, I doubt USA Today will even notice. They get served up far more egregious statements on a daily basis. And, by the way, the statement is literally true, regardless of the number of prior incidents (within reasonable bounds). They aren't claiming a perfect 2million night streak in the quote-- rather, "a case study demonstrating that people are fundamentally good." If they had had 2000 prior bad incidents, they could easily argue that a 99% problem-free rate demonstrates that "people are fundamentally good."
  - Klinky 15y ago
    This just highlights major flaws with the AirBnB business model. I think a more accurate quote would have been that it's "a case study demonstrating that a niche group of people with shared goals can act in a fundamentally good way", translating that to the general population is where AirBnB will have it's growing pains.

reso 15y ago

This is what a bad media cycle looks like. You get a nosebleed in the ocean and the sharks start circling. They'll get through it, though, I am completely confident. At the end of the day, the bad guys are the assholes that abuse the system.

msy 15y ago

I'm starting to think that much like Quora, AirBnB worked because of the nature of its early members and that the model simply doesn't scale.

gamble 15y ago
I think it depends on the type of rental. Vacation rentals or rentals where the owner is present can work, but it's extremely risky to hand a stranger the keys to your home and disappear, hoping they won't steal anything or trash the place. It's great that AirBnB's early adopters were largely trustworthy enough to let that practice persist for a while, but it won't survive mainstream popularity.
- Uchikoma 15y ago
  If you're present, there is a chance you get murdered.

klenwell 15y ago

This does answer one thing that puzzled me about the EJ story. If this was meth addicts, she surely couldn't have been the first victim of this sort of thing. If the culprits in this case aren't related to the ones in the EJ case, I'd be curious if there's an identifiable profile here. The stereotype of the meth addict I operate by is a down-market tweaker who'd have no idea Airbnb existed much less the patience or resources to take advantage of it. But I suppose there's a more upscale demographic that might make up a hellish niche market for Airbnb.

georgemcbay 15y ago
She won't be the last either, unless Airbnb makes some sort of fundamental changes. Not only is all of this press bad in terms of basic PR, but now the word is out (to those so inclined who weren't tech savvy enough to previously realize it even existed) that Airbnb is a good place to rent a temporary meth lab as long as you're capable of some basic identity theft.

nanijoe 15y ago

Hopefully, AirBnB is learning what most rookie politicians already know, ie Take care of your PR problems before close of business on Friday , otherwise the entire weekend will feel like one looong horror movie. The good news though is that by Monday morning, people are usually ready to move on to some other news item.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

michael_dorfman 15y ago
That business already exists: it's called the insurance industry. I'm shocked that AirBnb apparently hasn't availed themselves of it.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
  - michael_dorfman 15y ago
    It doesn't matter that Airbnb renters are not businesses. There are a number of ways in which this reduces to an insurance problem. First, Airbnb could purchase liability insurance to indemnify themselves against claims made by people like EJ. This would enable them, under certain circumstances, to make generous payouts on occasion while maintaining fixed expenses. Second, Airbnb could easily offer optional insurance to their customers (in this case, the hosts) whereby a small fee is paid for each night's stay, and damages are paid up to a set amount, with proper documentation. (Naturally, Airbnb would then, in this case, attempt to recover the money from the renter who committed the damages.) I see no legal obstacles to such solutions, nor any reason to think it would be too expensive. Believe me, you can get insurance for pretty much anything, and the rate setting follows predictable patterns. Insurance may very well be the whole answer here, and I imagine we are discussing it because a) Airbnb isn't adequately insured, and b) they screwed up the customer relations/PR side of this one enormously.
    - farrel 15y ago
      "There are a number of ways in which this reduces to an insurance problem." You can't get insurance for an illegal activity. If you're subletting your own rental apartment, or in a jurisdiction with laws against unlicensed short term rentals (like New York City no doubt one of Airbnb's biggest markets) renting out via Airbnb is most probably illegal and no insurance company on the planet will cover it.

cletus 15y ago

As much as some people might view this as "sometimes things go wrong", which is basically true, that's not the whole story. The story here is that people are doing things that in most jurisdictions are illegal. AirBnB is profiting off this. Do something illegal and you can't insure against any negative consequences. The whole EJ situation is a potential inflection point. Without knowing the full facts (which no one seems to), it seems like AirBnB was trying to rectify things with EJ and I suspect they were trying to keep her quiet in the process. I have no proof of this. I also suspect that they probably misrepresented their actions to PG. Again I have no proof of this. It is merely my suspicion. But there's something "off" about EJ's position here. Why exactly is a vandalized apartment leaving her homeless? Is it too damaged to occupy? Does she simply not feel safe there? If she has received offers for help, why hasn't she taken it? It's possible she's traumatized by what happens. It's possible she feels so wronged by AirBnB that she's not acting rationally. Or maybe she just wants to get her story out to warn people. I really don't know. Yet something seems... off. The comments of EJ, PG and AirBnB just don't add up. I'd bet money on there being more to come on this story. And while some want to give EJ a free pass here, I don't want to vilify her but she has to take some responsibility for giving strangers the keys to her apartment. I think AirBnB can count their lucky stars this was just a robbery and not a rape or murder. Or someone could have set up a drug lab, causing the Feds to confiscate the property as the proceeds of crime possibly taking months to sort out and prove the person renting out the property didn't know about the drug lab. The hotel industry has fundamental protections for this kind of issue. Not only security but there's the fact that the hotel owner isn't storing their prized valuables where guests can steal them. Nor are hotels putting their staff in a position to be attacked or robbed by a guest sleeping under the same roof (incidents can occur in a hotel but at least there are locked doors separating you from the guests). LIkewise hotels take ID (usually). The legal precedent they set by paying off EJ is a cause for concern though some argue it isn't. This isn't like Apple choosing to replace broken hardware they aren't responsible for (this happens). While doing something illegal (and profiting from it) that can't be insured against, liability is something that could easily destroy the company. Ultimately, AirBnB is making a bet they can effect change on the laws relating to subletting. If the person renting out a room is leasing the property they're in, there's a good chance they can't sublet it (even though many do). This may help them on the liability front as well. Part of the problem here is anonymity on the Internet. This I believe is changing and it will help (IMHO). But it only takes keylogger malware or someone sniffing packets at the Internet cafe to steal someone's online identity and then do what they want. EDIT: clarifications.

benatkin 15y ago

Just in case anyone's curious, CouchSurfing has been around a bit longer than AirBnb and they have their own safety tips and tools: http://www.couchsurfing.org/safety.html http://www.couchsurfing.org/safety.html Here's the AirBnb page about safety: http://www.airbnb.com/home/safety http://www.airbnb.com/home/safety CouchSurfing is similar in that it's about strangers staying at people's places. The biggest difference is that people let others stay at their houses for free. Usually both parties do it for the experience. Many people think it's fun to meet travelers. I knew someone who traveled to Asia and couch-surfed.

notJim 15y ago
That AirBnb page was added like a week or two ago in response to the EJ affair.
- benatkin 15y ago
  Wow, good to know. I confirmed it with archive.org. I don't need to know if Michael Arrington or EJ are telling the truth or not. This is enough for me to not trust AirBnb. With that kind of popularity they should educate potential guests/hosts about safety issues. I'm glad they're doing it now but it's too late for me. (I used AirBnb three times last year but each time I tried to get to know the hosts through a phone call beforehand and was ready to cancel if it didn't feel right.)
- alsocasey 15y ago
  Not only that, they mention renters/home-owners insurance... but typical renters/home-owners insurance wouldn't cover you in the case of subletting, would it?
pnathan 15y ago
I'm given to understand that couchsurfing usually occurs when the host is present, which IMO is a risk-mitigating behavior.
- Mz 15y ago
  I have not really been following any of this all that closely (though it's been impossible to miss entirely on HN), but my general understanding is that AirBnB originally was going to do a paid version of that and then, for some reason, decided it would be okay for people to not be present.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

zalzally 15y ago

If I were Arrington, I would have posted this story first thing Monday morning.

pseudonym 15y ago
Oh, don't worry, I'm sure there's going to be a glut of these stories queued up for about 2am Tuesday morning.

mgkimsal 15y ago

What's going to be a game changer is when stories start breaking about owners who rent out their space as a way to lure in people for killing or torturing them. Right now it's about "you were stupid, why did you rent your space out to strangers?". Later on it'll be "why did you try to save $20 and go sleep some place where you're 110% vulnerable?". You don't control the locks, you don't know the neighborhood or even the layout of the house all that well (are there cameras in the room spying on you?). If Holiday Inn or Marriott had tried to go 'downmarket' by trying to get in the "rent out your space with us - we'll handle the booking logistics", they'd have been eaten alive by the insurance costs of dealing with QA on thousands of rooms/spaces they don't control. They'd have too much name brand recognition and goodwill in their names to lose by leaving customer safety and security to chance. ABNB seems to be coming at this from the other way. What do they have to lose? Investor money? It's a big experiment for them, which they're hoping will pay off, but I think there's a reasons beyond "laziness" or "not getting it" to explain why larger companies well-versed in hospitality/property management have not gone down this road. Will things still work out for ABNB? They might, but they're taking such a hit on this by not just making some of these situations right, then changing their procedures and policies. Apparently these incidents - as infrequent as they may be - have been occurring for a while. There's probably quite a few more that haven't come forward because they've felt it was their own fault, much like domestic abuse spouses blame themselves. Not really wanting to see ABNB fail, but can't help watching this play out, and I somewhat suspect it'll get worse before it gets better.

rokhayakebe 15y ago
What's going to be a game changer is when stories start breaking about owners who rent out their space as a way to lure in people for killing or torturing them. I agree 100%. However I ask say how in the world did you think about this?
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  My wife and I watch a lot of murder mystery movies as well as true crime stuff. AirBNB is a "48 Hours" episode waiting to happen. Ann Curry and Keith Morrison will have a field day with it.

gojomo 15y ago

Might have even been the same meth c[r]ooks. Kudos to Dayton for keeping a balanced perspective on the situation, and not equating customer service clumsiness with indifference. I like AirBnb. I will continue to use AirBnb as a guest. (Hypothetically if I were to be a host, I would only rent a hardened/rental-only property with careful assessment of the potential guests.) I am also still bullish on the general theme that the transparency and efficiency of the net makes peer-to-peer transactions between strangers more safe and easy than ever before. But they're going to have to innovate on 'trust and safety' to avoid any impression they're AirBnBnMethDen.

_delirium 15y ago
> Might have even been the same meth c[r]ooks. That's what I thought as well (both are SF Bay Area), though it's only a guess. The combination of meth-heads and identity theft seems weird to be repeated. I would even tentatively guess at the meth-heads trashing apts being a cover for someone else who got the idea of using AirBnB to acquire documents for an identity-theft ring, but who knows, it's possible there are actually meth-heads who are also into identity theft, or who at least know someone to sell the documents to.
- code_duck 15y ago
  If you were gathering documents for an identity theft ring, would you go on a juvenile and pointless rampage in the houses you pilfered? Probably not, since that would only tip off the person being targeted to lock their credit. This is absolutely small time amateur shenanigans. Imagine how the whole deal sounds from the angle of a drug addicted person who is comfortable committing petty/medium property crimes to fund their lifestyle. Unsuspecting urban/suburban dwellers will let you in their houses, unmonitored, for days or weeks, leaving them full of valuables and personal information, in exchange for a small fee that will never even be paid? Sounds like a criminal paradise to me.
  - jsavimbi 15y ago
    > would you go on a juvenile and pointless rampage in the houses you pilfered? Maybe EJ didn't have much in the way of credit to her name so they just trashed the place. It's what jerks do anyways when they either empowered or unsupervised. Although I don't think that an identity theft ring would be able to generate enough cash using Airbnb's hosts, a small scale noobish operation could certainly gain some traction and maybe the people who've actually had their identity stolen don't know about it because nobody bothered to trash their apartment. So maybe the jerk who kicked EJ's toilet to death actually did everyone a favor and brought this out into the open.

gojomo 15y ago

Let's not forget even four-star hotels are not immune to room-invasion burglary, as Alex Trebek learned in SF last week: http://www.baycitizen.org/crime/story/alex-trebek-crime-fighter/ http://www.baycitizen.org/crime/story/alex-trebek-crime-figh...

jerrya 15y ago
And here I thought you were going to mention O.J.

code_duck 15y ago

AirBnB never should have set up such an unsafe system, but surely the decisions of the renters are at fault as well. I personally would never even consider allowing people who were not carefully screened by myself to have free reign with my property. I'm pretty sure this is getting large enough to garner the attention of politicians. That may be a positive thing, since AirBnB and their clients are apparently not taking care of safety and procedures adequately on their own.

pseudonym 15y ago
Given that most apartments already have no subletting clauses, I don't think additional regulation would help anything. I'm hoping this dies down before some politician tries to make some knee-jerk law, much like that state AG did with craigslist awhile back.
- code_duck 15y ago
  I have to agree, actually. The government being involved should be a last resort, and there's no indication this is a truly widespread or dangerous issue currently. Ideally, the private parties involved will figure it out.
mkramlich 15y ago
My take is the #1 fault is the alledged scumbags who did alleged bad things to the host's property. The #2 fault is the hosts for showing such utter naivete and ignorance about (a) what to leave in the apartment, and (b) understanding what could possibly happen when the strangers stay there and accepting those risks as the flip side of the coin. To the extent AirBnB has done anything wrong or imperfect, it's farther down the list than these actors in the drama. And all of this assumes that the alleged incidents happened exactly as they were portrayed, and were not in fact fraudulent "hit jobs" -- an issue that has not been settled yet, or rather should not be settled in any reasonably skeptical person's mind, given the sum total and nature of the "evidence" and the market context.
- code_duck 15y ago

AndyJPartridge 15y ago

Stay or rent, you have a choice to do either. (Can't think of anything else to add, sorry.)

muratmutlu 15y ago

My favourite part of the story is they stole the computer...and left a cat!!

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

farrel 15y ago

Besides liability for damages incurred by the guest, hosts are also probably on the hook for liability should the guest be injured (or worse) while staying in your place.

class_vs_object 15y ago
> Besides liability for damages incurred by the guest, hosts are also probably on the hook for liability should the guest be injured (or worse) while staying in your place. Good point. I'd imagine hotels are required by law in most jurisdictions to take out public liability insurance. Then there is the issue of who is responsible for ensuring that properties are actually safe for rental on Airbnb (i.e., no exposed electrical wires, slippery steps, etc.)

pitchups 15y ago

There are a few glaring, obvious questions to which I have not seen any answers so far - or maybe I have missed them: Why was it difficult for Airbnb to immediately have the person that trashed the place arrested? Don't they have the person's identity - address, credit card information, phone number, IP address? Don't they run a basic credit check when a person signs up to rent a unit listed on the site? Or at least do some basic identity verification? Or was this person using a stolen identity? Or does Airbnb require that the entire responsibility for this rests on the person renting the place?

usaar333 15y ago
I've been wondering this as well, and I didn't see it mentioned in any post thus far. It seems like the most obvious step to do; if police can get the CC number from AirBnB, that should be enough to resolve the SSN. Assuming the info isn't stolen, the criminal is going to have a problem. I'm not an AirBnB user, so maybe I'm missing something.
- Uchikoma 15y ago
  EJ said she has suspicion they were identity thefts. So they booked with a stolen identity probably.
lawnchair_larry 15y ago
Slightly off-topic, but what's with Americans and thinking it is acceptable to run credit checks for everything? Credit history is not an indicator of whether you are deserving of sleeping somewhere for a night. Maybe a criminal record check.
- philwelch 15y ago
  Credit checks are great for verifying that someone pays their bills, which is an important part of commercial transactions. It also indicates responsibility and the ability to fulfill obligations.
  - 15y ago

turar 15y ago

The identity theft aspect brings up a whole new concern. If a renter steals a host's identity without trashing their place, there's no way to know that something went wrong until it's too late. And if the host subsequently rents her place to other guests, there's no way to know who the identify thief is.

cageface 15y ago
Good point. A smart thief would wait a few months before trying to make use of the stolen information.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

bugsy 15y ago

It's very interesting that he had the exact same experience and was given the run around by AirBnB. His story also shows that they are not being completely truthful when they said EJ's case was the first time anything like this had happened in 2 million rentals. I wonder what the real statistics are.

HanPham 15y ago

Seriously, fuck this guy. AirBNB simply facilitates finding people. AirBNB doesn't owe these people a single cent. In fact these AirBNB "victims" should apologize for their self-centered whining. Don't want any risk? Then don't let anyone into your house, dumbass. Don't blame random companies just because you're a fucking idiot.

parfe 15y ago
I agree. The only reason this story is getting any play at all is because it involves a shiny trendy company. If these people rented through posting flyers at bus stations or via craigslist the story would be lucky to be printed in the police blotter. EJ especially sounds like a woman-child who wanted all the benefits but is unwilling to accept responsibility for the risks she stupidly undertook.
_delirium 15y ago
I don't think AirBnB's involvement is that peripheral. Unlike Craigslist, they don't just operate a site that facilitates finding people; they're active participants in every transaction, and are the ones on record charging credit cards for the rentals.

TracyWilker 15y ago

I just paid $22.87 for an iPad2-64GB and my girlfriend loves her Panasonic Lumix GF 1 Camera that we got for $38.76 there arriving tomorrow by UPS. I will never pay such expensive retail prices in stores again. Especially when I also sold a 40 inch LED TV to my boss for $675 which only cost me $62.81 to buy. Here is the website we use to get it all from, GrabCent. çom

jmtame 15y ago

It's interesting to note the pattern between EJ and Troy: in both of these cases, the renters were not home, which means they were treating Airbnb more like a "vacation rental" service. They both had a gut feeling that told them the rentee was "off" in their communication. They both didn't meet the people in advance. And the rentees were both meth addicts.

rdl 15y ago
Maybe AirBnB should drug test :)

djm 15y ago

I'm starting to think that these unfortunate incidents may actually provide airbnb with the future of it's business model. Right now they are just hooking people up and handling payments. They could go from that to learning how to put in place the best verification/insurance/customer service/emergency handling mechanisms in order to beat competitors in service quality. It's analagous to how paypal won payments by learning to be the best at handling fraud.

diN0bot 15y ago

it's interesting how the couch surfing and airbnb cultures have diverged. i love the community aspect of couch surfing---the fact that it's about spending time with cool people in new places, rather than finding "a cheap hotel", is huge to me. i get that there is a market for people who want cheap hotels rather than a community. however, there was a sense that you were getting more from paying more...like more security or something. yet everyone in couch surfing knows the importance of community references, and to meet folks at a cafe before deciding whether to bring them over. letting someone you've never met use your home while you're not there.....interesting culture screw up. i think adding a little money to the mix drastically changed what became emphasized.

dasht 15y ago

There is a deep ethical problem with starting or funding airbnb, in my opinion: The fraction of people with enough sophistication and resources to be good, safe, hosts and guests is a tiny, tiny fraction of the people in the world. It is absurd to think that airbnb could ever scale to justify its investments if only those sophisticated users were customers. The model relies, therefore, on large numbers of hosts and guests taking foolish risks. Airbnb's light and airy "how it works" video is a fine illustration of just how glib they are in encouraging people to make bad mistakes. The advice on their "safety" page is risible. Because most people are decent, most foolish risks from using airbnb go "unpunished" but certainly not all - as we've seen. A significant percentage of those risks lead to great loss. I fear that Airbnb is going to help kill, kidnap, rape or otherwise grievously harm someone's person, directly, at this pace. That's because to make its numbers the company must, needs be, incite dangerously foolish behavior from many customers. That the investors controlling so many dollars signed off on this investment speaks poorly of the VC system that produced airbnb. It speaks poorly of their common sense and/or dedication to basic social responsibility.

jjmaxwell4 15y ago
What about all of the good that AirBnB does for the large majority of people who use the site? Is there a deep ethical problem with letting people supplement their income, while also letting travellers have a cheaper option for a night/weeks stay? The vast majority of people who use AirBnb benefit from it.
- dasht 15y ago
  "The vast majority of the people who use [it] benefit from it" is true of many products that are correctly removed from the market because of the size of the minority that suffer and the scale of their injury -- weighed against the benefit to other users and society as a whole. More importantly, though, the scope of the risk of airbnb is enormous and past performance is not a reliable indicator of future success. As these two examples of bad experiences have shown, the system can be gamed. As a larger and larger number of bad guys learn that this system can be gamed (and how) -- exploits as a percentage of use and percentage of value received (insofar as you can quantify that) will, it seems to me, almost certainly grow.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Omnipresent 15y ago

Arrington, "in his arrington way", is really out to screw AirBnB now.

xianshou 15y ago
TechCrunch has always smelled slightly of yellow journalism, but I would say that, on average, they've given Airbnb fair treatment. Arrington and the TC crew have written very enthusiastically about Airbnb in the past, perhaps excessively so, and now they are fulminating about the users who have been mistreated by Airbnb renters, again perhaps excessively so. Still, I would rather that these cases reach a public forum than that Airbnb have carte blanche to whitewash them for the sake of investor happiness.

uladzislau 15y ago

This one is even more bizarre story than the first one. The part about left cat and stolen computer is hilarious. I'm sure there should be more to this kind of horror stories from Airbnb, EJ was just the first brave person to come forward on her blog. Kudos to her and Mr. Dayton, otherwise such things could happen to many more Airbnb customers including HN crowd. And everybody who is defending Airbnb now should think how would they feel if something like this happened to them or their home.

uptown 15y ago

Trashing is one thing ... but how long until a "guest" leaves behind some hidden cameras?

class_vs_object 15y ago

This new account (of a home trashing occurring 1 month ago, of which Airbnb had knowledge) doesn't seem to reconcile with what Airbnb told EJ: "I do believe the folks at airbnb.com when they tell me this has never happened before in their short history, that this is a one-off case."

jonuts 15y ago
Even if you don't want to believe EJ's account of the story, Chesky himself made the claim on camera in May (a month after Troy's incident occurred) that there have been "no major problems" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=channel_video_title#t=5m0s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=chann... I don't see how either of these cases can be viewed as "minor", personally.

rglover 15y ago

After reading EJ's story and now this, I think it's safe to say that although what's taken place is unfortunate, it's really up to the person renting out their place to protect themselves. If Airbnb absolves themselves in their policy docs, then there's not much they have to do if something bad happens. On the contrary, however, they obviously need to have a serious overhaul of how they portray security to customers, as well as the vetting process for renters. Also, developing some sort of insurance program will help to skirt some major issues. I'm glad this is happening now, though, before someone gets hurt. Hopefully Airbnb will look at these events as warnings and take the necessary steps to refine how they protect themselves and their customers.

Uchikoma 15y ago

Creepy for guests: One could book AirBNB space and then reoffer it on AirBNB (is this possible?) or craigslist. So when you arrive, there is a "host" which is not the real one.

jonuts 15y ago

Here is Brian Chesky claiming there have been "no reports of major problems" with AirBnB at TC Disrupt in May. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=channel_video_title#t=5m0s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etaUBLkRteA&feature=chann... Whoops?

yason 15y ago

I might be too old for AirBNB but I wouldn't feel okay accommodating strangers in my own apartment. I will do that for friends and if I'm around myself, for friends of friends too, but even then the scheme needs to originate from some plausible circumstances where I can evaluate my potential guest in other context before we discuss accommodation. So, receiving an email from someone I don't know ("hey, I know your friend, can I stay at your place?") doesn't fly. It's my home and I don't want to think about whether tonight's guest is that one from a thousand or ten thousand who will wreck my place.

beedogs 15y ago

I think it's time for a name change... to AirB&E.

rwallace 15y ago

What we aren't hearing about is the people who declined to use Airbnb and had their homes ransacked because a burglar spotted they were empty. The risk of having the place trashed by a guest has to be offset against the improved security from having somebody in the place. Do we have any data or even credible estimates of the sign and magnitude of the _difference_ in security from using Airbnb?

bproper 15y ago

For God's sake we get it. Why does this drivel have to be on HN everyday? Sometimes when you deal with strangers, they are crazy. Not TECH, Not HACKER, Not INTERESTING!

anonymous 15y ago

What if the hotel industry is setting up these unsuspecting customers of AirBnB? They, the hotel chains really don't like this business model. Create enough negative press, a carefully crafted situation that will cause a busienss to fail and they you can cash in on how "safe" a Hotel chain is...

jh3 15y ago

It's a damn shame that people can't trust people.

larrys 15y ago

I wonder if it occurs to anyone how renting your place out impacts your neighbors. I'm not sure everyone is happy about transients coming and going in a particular building that someone might rent out and the safety of that to others in the building. Some condo buildings for example don't even allow a lease of less than 1 year because it changes the nature of the building.

daynaalexis 15y ago

Two words: shadow economy http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief-relationship-with-airbnb.html http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief-relationshi...

daynaalexis 15y ago

Two words: shadow economy http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief-relationship-with-airbnb.html http://www.alexisofthought.com/2011/08/our-brief-relationshi...