10 ms·

How airbnb lost me as a customer

• spaghetti 14y ago
  Airbnb should have a phone number that people who are renting out their homes can call 24/7 for help, advice etc. If they do have this why didn't the author use it?
• jpdoctor 14y ago
  > and a copy of a utility bill What a dumbass requirement. As if somebody with access to a printer would not be able to produce one.
  • toomuchtodo 14y ago
    I have seen people photoshop utility bills, proof of insurance, etc. Requirements like this are hilarious.
    • codegeek 14y ago
      except that if you are caught, it is a federal offense at least in the US to forge things such as utility bills etc. It is more of a deterrent than anything else against outright fraud.
      • toomuchtodo 14y ago
        Citation?
    • geekfactor 14y ago
      The probably don't really care. It's just some CYA forced on them by their insurance company.
    • deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
  • brucehart 14y ago
    I have never understood this either. These procedures must be a relic from a time when most people did not have access to laser printers. Similarly when I went to renew my drivers license, they required proof of my social security number. My old license (with a picture of me, holograms, etc.) wasn't acceptable, but a health insurance card that could have been printed by anyone with access to a laminating machine was perfectly fine.
    • TheCapn 14y ago
      If we're going to rally against archaic "security" practices can we start to jerk about signatures? I'm not sure how my scribbles identify me when the person looking into it has no clue if those are TheCapn's scribbles or Brucehart scribbling "TheCapn" all signature-like.
• mootothemax 14y ago
  Look at it from the other side of things: how would you react if AirBnB weren't doing these checks? If I'm staying somewhere, I'm leaving my luggage, and there's plenty of opportunities for stuff to go missing, whether in the middle night or otherwise. That's just the petty crime aspect, leaving aside other opportunities for much more serious badness. It's bad that their customer service failed you, but I'd much rather there was a tiny bit of hassle for people renting out apartments for the safety of those staying there.
  • hbien 14y ago
    But the document checks weren't finished yet and the guest still arrived. At this point, they're not really protecting the guest.
  • drzaiusapelord 14y ago
    Heaven forbid they spend 10 dollars on a php upload script on SSL for this kind of information as opposed to "Scan you social security card and send it to customerservice@airbnb.com!"
    • whichdan 14y ago
      Pedantic note: I'm not excusing them for lacking something as critical as a secure way to transmit sensitive information, but it's certainly more involved than "ten dollars worth of PHP." You're probably looking at setting up a dedicated server to store the images (since you want the server locked down tighter than a normal web server, and you need to think about having different backups in place, etc) and then have one of the engineers spend a few days developing a system to upload the images and allow secured access to their support staff. Sure, writing the code to upload files is easy, but the security and UI take a good bit of effort. You're probably looking closer to $1k excluding the cost of hardware and the SSL cert.
      • drzaiusapelord 14y ago
        Whoa $1K? I think I just spent that on hats for my dog last quarter. Seriously, there is NO EXCUSE FOR THIS.
• envex 14y ago
  Are you really worried that they'll have your height and eye color? You've already let a "stranger" into your house, but these details to too sacred? Just take photos off all and black out any info you don't think is appropriate.
  • ARobotics 14y ago
    It's more the principle of requiring additional information after a reservation has been booked instead of being up-front about it, and sending it over unencrypted email. The biggest issue is that I responded to their original email within 24 hours, but have now waited 10 days without resolution or any feedback.
  • 4qbomb 14y ago
    Envex, if you are not worried about this sort of thing. How about you go follow @ewconsultors on twitter. Dare ya...
• mindstab 14y ago
  You're essentially acting as a hotel business. I'm not sure you can do that with the level of anonymity you require to a legal corp like airbnb to remain legit. You may have unreasonable expectations. Try something even more underground next time I guess. There probably isn't anything they can do. But yeah, I suppose listing it more clearly would have been nice :) (and better communication, something most tech startups need to learn to scale)
  • ARobotics 14y ago
    It's not about anonymity - they have a verified phone number and email address, they have my address and name. My payment is in the form of a check sent to the address being rented, paid to the name on the account. When I created the account, if they had said "We need a credit card number to confirm your identity" or "Use this secure form to submit a copy of utility bill" I would have gladly complied. Asking me to send them over email after a reservation is much more frustrating. Not responding for two weeks when I do email them a photo of utility bill is more frustrating still.
• stuffihavemade 14y ago
  If anything, I'm surprised they allowed you to rent out your place without that verification in hand. There is enough possible legal/liability quandaries around the idea of AirBnB that is seems risky to sanction the rental of a place without confirmation of the owner's identity.
• thisnewacct 14y ago
  i would not want to send my photo id over the internet either, they should announce before any transaction has taken place that this is a requirement
• rekoros 14y ago
  Wait, are you sure it's airbnb and not citimortgage?
• austenallred 14y ago
  I'm a little shocked that you overcame all of the other concerns of using AirBNB but balked at a failed firefox plugin. I'm sure there's a logical explanation and probably a little bit of mismanagement on behalf of AirBNB, but that's something that can be corrected.
• smurph 14y ago
  I think you were right to avoid sending that info because that's an identity thief's gold mine. On the other hand, I wonder how many times airbnb has been scammed. Hopefully this is some kind of knee-jerk reaction to problems they are having and not just an unprovoked screw up.
• 4qbomb 14y ago
  It's amazing what some companies ask you to send via email. The inherent trust people put in email systems is honestly scary. envex seems not worried if someone has their eye color or height. I can promise you every bit of information someone can obtain on you IS useful. Dear AirBnB, Sending utility bills and drivers licenses over email is NOT appropriate!!! This makes me want to pentest AirBnB and find their vulnerabilities before someone evil does....
  • fusiongyro 14y ago
    Is it just me, or does that sound like a thinly veiled threat?
  • specialist 14y ago
    > It's amazing what some companies ask you to send via email. My state allows people to cast ballots via email. During the hearing, some retired National Guard General testified that "security has gotten really good". I assume he's on the payroll of the vendor, but I didn't bother to check (this time).
• socmoth 14y ago
  It sounds like their customer support failed you. Whatever tool they were using to track your email thread failed or someone acted too hastily and responded to the thread inappropriately by asking for the same information. You are right they made a mistake in sending you two emails and it is annoying they are holding your money. I have no inside information about Airbnb, but I'd guess they are slowing moving the money to try and prevent fraud on their system. Basically, A stolen card being used for a high value amount. Obviously that is annoying to anyone who is waiting for money, but I've seen it happen in many situations where money is transfered. Are you a frequent hoster? If you have a lot of money coming in for your apartment, it is much more likely that it would be transfered quickly. If you are a frequent hoster, is this a unusually large amount at once? Or is it from someone who is using Airbnb for the first time? In the end, it sounds like your experience wasn't so great. But I'd hope you remember that it is just people on the other end answering your email and trying to prevent fraud. Many of those people answer hundreds of emails a day and probably make mistakes as often as anyone else. I hope everything works out for you.
• tptacek 14y ago
  (1) You refer to your "apartment", which by convention refers to a domicile that you are leasing. While other HN readers will contest this point, I'd be willing to put money on the fact that you violated your lease by renting out your apartment on Airbnb at all. (2) HN is not a forum for complaints about YC companies, and while I didn't flag this post, you shouldn't overreact if it is killed. Nobody is trying to censor you; if it happens, just move your post to Tumblr.
  • solsenNet 14y ago
    yeah this is a pretty classic example of what startups have to deal with: irrational customers. the guy is getting $3k from a transaction that breaks all kind of rules, and is upset that a _SCAN_ of his Driver's License might be intercepted in a "man in the middle" attack on a sent email!?!?!?
    • ARobotics 14y ago
      And if I weren't upset with it, someone else on the internet would be calling me stupid and telling me I deserved it when my identity was stolen or some account was compromised because I was sending things over unencrypted email. Some days I guess you just can't win. Again though, issue number 1 is unresponsive, unhelpful technical support.
  • njs12345 14y ago
    Please explain how (1) is relevant to the complaint at hand.
    • tptacek 14y ago
      It's not, except to the extent that it might be hard to feel sorry for someone who is taking unfair advantage of his landlord and cotenants and then complaining about the poor customer service that he was provided when doing so. Again though: it's not. It's a mostly orthogonal point.
      • 14y ago
• Apreche 14y ago
  Small claims court.
• papsosouid 14y ago
  This would be why the ycombinator startup churner is bad. It is entirely focused on having people with no technical skills create companies that rely very heavily on a solid technical foundation. My 8 year old knows not to send sensitive information over unencrypted channels, and that email is completely insecure. Why are people who don't know this making sites like airbnb?
  • thesausageking 14y ago
    It's not that they can't; it's that they don't care. Airbnb has a great engineering team who could definitely setup a more secure way to do this. The issue is that they only do things that will make them money. Until a lot of customers complain and hurts customer acquisition or revenues, they're not going to change it. This is exactly the MVP / "lean startup" approach: do the absolute minimum. It's a smart way to deploy capital. But customers of these kinds of companies should be careful but they're usually complete products (by design) and may have sharp corners. I normally stay away from buying anything from startups for this reason.
    • papsosouid 14y ago
      By definition they can not possibly be a great engineering team if they demonstrate that they are completely and totally incompetent like this. "I don't care about doing important things correctly" is a statement of incompetence.
  • tatsuke95 14y ago
    >"It is entirely focused on having people with no technical skills create companies that rely very heavily on a solid technical foundation." Disagree. I don't need to know how to send/receive encrypted information, just that I need it. Someone else can get their hands dirty on the problem. No "technical foundation" necessary, just common sense.
    • papsosouid 14y ago
      Except that it requires technical skills to know that you need it. Your average joe off the street can have all the "common sense" in the world and still wouldn't know the risks involved.
• radley 14y ago
  As one of many start-up peeps here on HN we've very sorry you had to jump through those hurdles. Your post is on the main page and is certain to get the right attention quickly. For the rest of us, the only responses required is someone who knows ABNB lets us know they contacted them, and then ABNB following up here with an apology to the user & HN. Don't talk on and on about it. Just fix it.
• k-mcgrady 14y ago
  Although AirBnB customer service was bad here it seems you also were at fault. They asked for two documents. You didn't want to send one of them over email (understandable). At that point you should have cancelled the rental. Hoping they would get back to you and waive a requirement wasn't a good idea. Not sure HackerNews is the right place for this. Emailing AirBnb's customer service/complaints department would be better.
• variousbagels 14y ago
  Maybe quit being a little bitch and send them your info? The fuck are they gonna do with your eye color and height?
• amino 14y ago
  I think this raises another point... shouldn't email be a secure method of communication? Do you think its time for mail servers to start supporting encryption as a default?
• ARobotics 14y ago
  It's too late for me to edit my original post now, but for posterity - airbnb contacted me and resolved the issue. The final customer service rep I spoke to was friendly and helpful, and they refunded the 3% listing/service fee as amends for the slow support.
• witoldc 14y ago
  Heaven forbid someone learns your highly secretive height, weight, eye color and DL license number which is completely meaningless. They communication does appear to suck, but your paranoia is unfounded.
• 001sky 14y ago
  Isn't there a telephone number? any business dealing in multiple Nxthousands of dollars should have a telephone-help-line. There's no excuse for that (confirmed customer, confirmed booking = $3,000 deal | vs x Prob (1/n)x$15/hr service rep?). Assuming there is someone on the other line available, scan a photo, layer, lock it in a psd or pdf (ie, add further security as appropriate)...send it to them, provide password over the phone, to make it visible, etc).