Airbnb Horror Story Points to Need for Precautions

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/08/15/your-money/airbnb-horror-story-points-to-need-for-precautions.html

by mwytock • 11 years ago

20 18 11 years ago

mobile.nytimes.com

orthoganol• 11 years ago

The thing we need precaution against is AirBnB hosts who've turned renting out apartments into full fledged businesses. Because in my experience when someone doesn't actually live in the apartment, quality drops and there's no actual home-iness. One exchange: "Is this a mattress? Is it not just a box spring?" "I'm sorry you don't enjoy this type of mattress... For this price point for this rental, this is what you can expect."

As far as full apartments go, I'd seriously like to meet one AirBnB host in Japan or China (the main places I've used it) who aren't part of AirBnB based businesses, just 1 person who is actually sharing their home while they're away for a bit, or whatever AirBnB claims it's all about.

This is the giant elephant in the room about AirBnB, and I doubt they're ever going to discuss it publicly.

JohnTHaller• 11 years ago

The majority of AirBnB rentals in NYC are "entire place", or at least they were when it was easier to compare available numbers. This despite the fact that renting out your entire place when you're not there is illegal in NYC unless you've specifically been licensed as a bed and breakfast. Not just illegal as in 'violating your lease' (the majority of AirBnb) but illegal as in a violation of the law. Interestingly, AirBnB's NYC commercials only highlight the private room with the family also present since they own the place aspect - which is a very small portion of AirBnB's NYC business.

dferlemann3• 11 years ago

In China, many people invest their money in properties. So, you would have a well-off household owns more and more apartments just for safekeeping. I would imagine it's a good opportunity for AirBnB type of services to thrive. At the same time, a lot of Chinese are quite distrusting of unknown person for good reasons. Renting out their own place with all their belongings can just be asking for trouble.

Japan on another hand, might be doing a better job welcoming guest to stay over their own home. I wouldn't know though.

dferlemann3• 11 years ago

Companies and products get their reputation damaged often because of the people who answer the call lack of common sense and empathy... At the same time, they expose the problems more effectively than anything else.

rayiner2• 11 years ago

Still, logic and decency would suggest that when you’re in danger, as Mr. Lopez claimed to be, Airbnb would come to your rescue.

Does it? AirBnB doesn't have duties to guests because they're just a transaction middelman. Hotels are liable for the safety of their guests, but they also have control over the premises they rent, which AirBnB does not.

Of the various criticisms against AirBnB, this is the least sympathetic one in my opinion (the tragedy of Mr. Lopez's individual situation aside). When you rent off AirBnB, you're renting from some random stranger, with all the attendant risks. You're not renting from a company that bears liability for your well being. That's just the nature of the transaction.

pen2l5• 11 years ago

Perhaps the case here is that AirBnB is misleading guests into thinking that it'll assume responsibility equal to the responsibility a hotel would take, when it really doesn't.

Anyway, sadly (and obviously) this submission has been flagged, would be better to carry discussion to a lessly-YC controlled platform: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comments/3h7ivz/airbnb_h...

DanBC3• 11 years ago

It probably got flagged as a dupe. YC and HN keep sayi g that they don't penalise negative stories about YC companies.

dang3• 11 years ago

I'm beginning to become annoyed with you for insinuating the same falsehood every time one of these stories comes up. You've done it countless times, and it puts us in the position of either saying nothing and letting the falsehood stand—which isn't right—or having to answer it, a dreary chore that steals cycles away from things that actually help the community.

It's time you supplied some evidence (which you won't, because we don't do the things you say), or dropped this. Repeating the same falsehood ad nauseum is not legit.

The only thing that happened to the present post is that users flagged it, presumably because it was an obvious duplicate. We didn't see the post until a few minutes ago, and the only moderation we did was unkill it so discussion can continue. That's standard practice.

dferlemann3• 11 years ago

By "coming to your rescue," it doesn't mean actually coming... It means just call the cops at least. Instead, they asked her to call cops then let cops call them to get address. It seriously increase the response time, and potentially cost lives. It seems to be common sense to me. So, it does!

rayiner2• 11 years ago

It'd be very dangerous for AirBnB to give out the address of where someone is staying in response to random phone calls.

DanBC3• 11 years ago

See also this thread from a day ago (63 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10064782

Airbnb Horror Story Points to Need for Precautions

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