Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html

by foxit • 15 years ago

952 380 15 years ago

ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com

jackwagon2• 15 years ago

"They found my coupons for Bed Bath & Beyond and used the discount, along with my Mastercard, to shop online."

Are you kidding me? Seriously.

tonystubblebine• 15 years ago

My home was burglarized once and among all the serious stuff that they took they also took: tortillas, salsa, ground beef, and cheddar cheese. I still can't believe that.

achivetta• 15 years ago

A jar of coins and... pajamas.

jackwagon2• 15 years ago

No seriously. Excellent stunt for getting out of a crazy credit card bill from Bed, Bath and Beyond. Didn't we see this movie before? What was it.. Fight Club?

stevejalim2• 15 years ago

Yep, when I was burgled, alongside a MacBook, watch and my freakin' backups, which were on a separate drive on a nearby bookcase, they also took some bath soap and a bottle of dessert wine that my gf and I brought back from France specially. I hope they choked on the wine.

That said, I also had they keys to brand new Audi on the kitchen counter (I used to be a car journalist and it was a press test car) and they completely missed them. So, I got off lightly, in some respects, even if the loss of backups is still something that pisses me off today.

I've learned my mistake about backup drives now and do it over wifi to a drive in secret location witheld.

boucher• 15 years ago

The first time my home was robbed (while I was sleeping upstairs), the perpetrators did a whole bunch of bizarre things, like taking a jar of pickles out of the fridge and leaving them on the front porch and taking the laundry detergent from our laundry room and pouring it out in the back yard.

In an unrelated story, I happened to be moving out of that apartment the same day. And the very next day my new apartment also got robbed.

JacobAldridge• 15 years ago

First time I got robbed, they took my CD player, moved my stack of CDs, but left them all there! Way to insult my music tastes.

They also stole my dinner suit. Which I had bought the week before, worn to a party, soaked with my dance sweat, and not yet cleaned. Insurance repaid me the full value of the suit, so essentially I got a "free suit rental" out of the experience.

(Plus the cost of new bars on all my windows. And the experience six months later of, presumably, interrupting the same guy trying to climb in my bathroom window at dinner time. Thankfully he never returned after that.)

keeptrying• 15 years ago

My 42inch tv and nothing else.

thom2• 15 years ago

As a kid, I lost an Atari Lynx to burglars, but I still feel sad about it. Last laugh was on them though, as they left the battery pack. NICE 1.5 HOUR BATTERY LIFE, YOU SCUM.

justhw• 15 years ago

She trusted them and left for the weekend?

_cbsz• 15 years ago

That struck me as odd too -- is this a normal use case for airbnb?

benmccann• 15 years ago

Yeah. The one time I used it, my brother sent a phtocopy of his driver's license to the apartment owner and she sent him the keys in the mail. I was a little nervous about it all working out, but all the hotels in the area were booked or were $600+/night. It ended up being a pretty good experience for us, but it did require both sides to be pretty trusting.

perokreco• 15 years ago

This happens sometimes with couchsurfing as well. People are generally good and trusting.

prof• 15 years ago

I cannot believe he did not meet them in person first. And left valuable things behind.

edit: or she..

dlss9• 15 years ago

1. Sounds like a fairly thorough email screening happened

2. Locked closet

darklajid• 15 years ago

How is that relevant? Apart from the fact that valuables were locked in, I don't get the point:

- You cannot take everything with you, you have to leave stuff at your _home_ (all the documents mentioned for example).

- I won't try to claim that I can speak for the author, but I'd guess that the valuables lost are less a problem. The violation/emotional troubles seem to be worse.

- Giving the nature of the destruction (it seems so much on purpose, so carefully done) I don't even know if 'did not meet them in person first' would've helped. At least the author would recognize these guys again on the street, but I don't believe that it is proven that you would've sensed something that wrong.. It kind of reads like someone enjoyed a dark fetish by destroying random stuff.

erikpukinskis• 15 years ago

You cannot take everything with you, you have to leave stuff at your _home_ (all the documents mentioned for example).

In light of this article, if I ever rented my apartment out for a week, I would box up any sensitive documents, or particularly valuable items, and leave them at a friend's house.

I don't even know if 'did not meet them in person first' would've helped.

Getting a scan of a photo ID, matching it to the person, and possibly getting a current photo of them, along with a license plate number all would be reasonable measures that you could take in a five minute meeting. Not only would they give you more leverage in police investigations, they would probably deter people from trashing/taking your stuff.

The violation/emotional troubles seem to be worse.

Some of the violation comes from the feeling that she can't really do very much about it, and that she was totally unprepared for it. AirBnB offering a few tips, of the "here are some things people to do protect themselves, you might consider them" variety, seems totally reasonable.

javaecc123• 15 years ago

How is that not relevant? I used craigslist to sell a car recently and with strangers showing up asking for solo test drives, the least I could do was ask for a valid license so I could make a copy and a cell phone number, which I verified on the spot. That or no solo test drive. True in extreme cases this would not have stopped my car getting stolen, but I cannot imagine leaving a house full of personal documents and valuables to a stranger whose sex and last name I did not even know. You can tell a lot from meeting someone in person, at least enough to raise red flags or some doubt and maybe have a neighbor check in from time to time.I think airbnb and the internet in general lull some otherwise smart, educated people into a false sense of security they wouldn't have offline but people need to use just as much commonsense online as they would in the real world.

jackpirate• 15 years ago

How could you, in principle, even tell that it was the bnb'ers who did it? What's to say that they didn't accidentally leave the door unlocked when they left, and someone else broke in?

vacri• 15 years ago

If nothing else, it takes a while for wet towels to get mildew.

rdl9• 15 years ago

I am non-representatively paranoid, and have always been afraid of this kind of thing when having guests not personally known to me, visitors to "open house" office events, etc. I think there is little actual risk with almost anyone as a guest (most people ARE good, or at least non-malicious, or at least lazy), but this is why the AirBnB reputation system is so key to their value (and why they'll have a strong network effect).

Maybe the effect of this will be to make people want personal connections (via fb graph or whatever) to their AirBnB guests, or at least requiring minimum numbers of positive reviews from known sources (to prevent the sockpuppet/shill issue).

I wonder if your renter's or homeowners insurance might cover this kind of thing. If it doesn't generally, it'd be awesome if AirBnB could work with a third party insurer (per jurisdiction) to offer optional insurance to hosts (and guests) against this kind of thing.

Jach• 15 years ago

It'd be awesomer if AirBnB just replaced all the material things that are replaceable, relocated this person, and in general made them feel happy/safe again. One time only, introduce a better model to prevent/mitigate/insure (as you suggest) for future occurrences.

ja2ke• 15 years ago

As long as it doesn't start resulting in people 'burning down the place' for the 'insurance' money.

wheels• 15 years ago

I suspect home owner's insurance would not cover this since they would probably see it as an unlicensed rental. I've thought for a while that Airbnb will need to develop an insurance system. I'm sure that lesser incidents of property destruction / theft are far more commonplace (carpet stains, cigarette burns, appliances damaged, "borrowing" something that doesn't get returned) and I've thought dealing with such is going to be eventually crucial to making the model sustainable over time.

And then, of course, there are going to be rare catastrophes like this one -- or worse. Eventually, if the system gets large enough, there will be a sexual assault case. I wonder if Airbnb has pre-baked disaster scenario plans. Eventually they'll have to deal with the emotional, PR, legal and political fallout.

It's still one of the things that keeps me queasy about listing my extra bedroom. I'd guesstimate the replacement value of the contents of my apartment is circa $50k and I'm loathe to gamble with such.

moe• 15 years ago

$50k?

I'd be more worried about a guest setting the house on fire, by accident or not. Fire-damage can easily clock in north of $500k. Good luck explaining the AirBnB concept to your insurance company after a stranger turns out to be "not available anymore" (stolen CC, etc.).

cookiecaper4• 15 years ago

I hate that the author broke out the short skirt rape thing. I don't think someone that leaves their house to strangers while they go out of town for a week is quite as innocent as a rape victim that was targeted for lack of modesty.

praptak2• 15 years ago

Innocent? Careless != guilty.

cookiecaper4• 15 years ago

Right, but it's bad taste to equate a short skirt with letting someone you've never met live in your house completely unattended for a week. Most people have the sense to understand that that is a dangerous idea. I don't endorse either ransacking or rape, and I recognize that there was a crime that was committed here and that the victim is still a victim. But I think comparing that to comments that a woman "deserved" to be raped because of her attire is over the line and insensitive to rape victims.

biot• 15 years ago

The word innocent also refers to childlike innocence, or an innocent mistake just as "loss of innocence" doesn't mean "becoming guilty" (at least not in a legal sense).

danilocampos• 15 years ago

> a rape victim that was targeted for lack of modesty.

That's not really how it works.

cookiecaper4• 15 years ago

This doesn't make sense to me and I don't know if you understood what I wrote.

M1573RMU74710N2• 15 years ago

It is a difficult situation...on the one. hand you can't blame victims for crimes. That responsibility lies 100% with the criminals.

On the other hand, in some cases someone is negligent in taking some easy precautions; and it's hard not to comment on it. I think that's important too. As others have noted this sort of thing is inevitable, and I think it's productive to talk about ways to possibly mitigate it.

AirBnB was certainly negligent, and I understand the rationale at the time and why she was trusting can appreciate it....but still some common sense precautions like asking the neighbors/friends to check in on your renters and inspect the property could have prevented some of this.

Hindsight is 20/20 and who knows how things would go...maybe no precautions could have prevented this. However I think for the sake of people who may be in a similar situation, it's important to talk about ways to protect yourself.

The problem with the meme about "short skirt = rape" is not that it's completely without truth...the problem is that cases where a victim was actually negligent (to an appreciable extent) are exceptionally rare (say, they decided to go visit an ex boyfriend they knew to be violently insane who told them he would hurt them if he ever saw them again)...and even in such an exceptionally rare case rape apologists reach the wrong conclusions based on that.

The topic is so sticky, I feel compelled to repeat myself. Victims are never to blame for the crimes, criminals are.... However as I believe in learning lessons from mistakes, I would feel compelled to think to myself that if you have an ex-boyfriend who is violently insane you should communicate though court orders, the police, or at least a telephone.

That brings up another important distinction: it's not likely that others will be dating one's crazy ex-boyfriend...so there's not much need to have a discussion about possible ways of dealing with said ex-boyfriend.

No person could really expect getting raped to be a reasonable outcome for wearing a short-skirt/walking alone. It's theoretically possible...so are so many other things that it's not practical to think of or try to avoid them all.

The casual link between wearing a dress/walking alone and getting raped/attacked is much more tenuous (well really it's completely non-existent) than the link between opening your home to a stranger for a week without meeting them face to face or taking various other precautions.

Most people could be reasonably expect problems from just handing over your keys to someone, even if it's just having your towels stolen...and everyone who is considering it should be beaten over the head with that fact and do as much as they can to mitigate that risk.

This woman has a point that AirBnB was remiss in reminding her, they have that responsibility. She also has a responsibility herself to take precautions, but that does not negate AirBnB's...I also think she is completely aware at this point in where she failed....but for the sake of others reading the story who might face similar risks, I think it's worth-while to discuss it.

cabalamat• 15 years ago

> I don't think someone that leaves their house to strangers while they go out of town for a week is quite as innocent as a rape victim that was targeted for lack of modesty.

Actually the evidence is the other way: women who wear modest clothing are more likely to get raped than those who wear sexy clothing. This is because rapists see modest clothing as a sign of submissiveness and are more likely to assault women they see as submissive. http://clubtroppo.com.au/2011/05/17/does-provocative-clothin...

Luyt2• 15 years ago

How is this:

"... emphasize that the customer service team at airbnb.com has been wonderful..."

reconcilable with this:

"...My next call was to airbnb.com - I tried their "urgent" line, their email address, their general customer support line. I heard nothing - no response whatsoever - until the following day, 14 sleepless hours later, and only after a desperate call to an airbnb.com freelancer I happen to know helped my case get some attention..."

Does that mean you'd have to know someone who works at AirBnB before you can get customer service? I've heard similar stories about Google, too.

mbreese• 15 years ago

Customer service was apparently wonderful... after they were able to get ahold of them.

One of their suggestions was that airbnb add immediately a 24/7 customer service line, which would have fixed the initial delay.

mrinterweb• 15 years ago

It is unfortunate that stories like that could really harm AirBnB's reputation. I am sure that there are plenty of vacation rental stories of people trashing and burglarizing properties, but the difference is that this was not a vacation rental. I hope that thieves do not make a trend of preying on AirBnB hosts to gain access to their private residences.

mcantelon3• 15 years ago

AirBnB's policy of "disallowing the exchange of personal contact information until the point in which a reservation is already confirmed and paid for" seems like it makes this kind of story inevitable.

badclient• 15 years ago

With a name like Dj Paterson I'm not sure you could even sign up on google+ or fb.

timsally• 15 years ago

After someone has copies of your passport, birth certificate, social security card, etc, what do you even do? Isn't your identity compromised forever?

Ixiaus• 15 years ago

Not really. Often copies or stolen birth certificates, SS cards, and passports are sold to forgers that can use them to make fake passports and identities. So it isn't to necessarily impersonate you (although it can be used for that).

You can get a new SS number, and you can get a new passport which makes the old ones null - but as far as a birth certificate goes - I'm not too privy on the security features of those documents. I do know though that they are rarely used to impersonate and more often used as forgery material.

(please correct me if I'm wrong)

joshfraser2• 15 years ago

This is not the first story like this I have heard about AirBnB. They have just done a good job keeping them hush hush and talking people out of going to the cops. Obviously stories like this are horrible for their reputation and AirBnB have a big incentive to try and take care of issues on their own.

patrickod2• 15 years ago

Have you any links for this? Those sound like pretty big accusations to be making without citations.

joshfraser2• 15 years ago

No links. Just first hand stories from people I trust.

jnordstrom• 15 years ago

If there were links, wouldn't that disprove his point?

pavel_lishin4• 15 years ago

What in the world do they offer hosts to keep them from going to the police? And what kind of host would contact AirBNB before calling the police? If I came home and my apartment was ransacked, I'd probably be on the phone to 911 before I even set foot inside.

varunsrin5• 15 years ago

I always found AirBnB's model based on a surprising amount of trust - I for one would never be comfortable just handing over they keys to my place to a total stranger.

Even if they didn't ransack my place completely, as happened to the unfortunate author - I would be concerned about unintentional damage to my property that I might not discover till too late. Renting out something as private as my primary place of residence just seems like a generally bad idea, especially when I am not around to constantly check in on it. Even if I got to meet them, and they seemed like nice people whats to stop them from leaving without paying if they accidentally broke my TV ?

As the service expands, and becomes more craigslist-y (in terms of audience) I can only see problems like this getting worse, and apart from implementing some kind of guest / host rating system (like ecommerce portals do with sellers) I see no clear solution to the problem.

bambax• 15 years ago

Same here. I'd be more than willing to use the service as a customer, but as a host? Never. If you're a customer the worst of the worst than can happen is you lose the rental fee and have to find a hotel. As a host, the worst that can happen is this.

speckledjim6• 15 years ago

No, the worst that could happen is the host is a psycho who wants to murder / rape / take nude pics of you without you knowing.

There's a reason hotels exist, and there's a reason why it's a bad idea to hitch-hike, or even worse, stay with people you don't know.

zacharypinter3• 15 years ago

Agreed, though I see a lot of people using AirBNB for guesthouses, rooms in their house (where they'll at least be at the place), or investment houses. Those scenarios seem less risky.

michaeldhopkins• 15 years ago

As the service expands, regular people's homes (with unrestorable personal value and charm) will be replaced with commercial properties using airBnB as just another advertising channel. When that happens the fresh appeal will be gone and airBnB will be successful if they have become popular and stable enough that an airBnB listing is mandatory for people in the property management business.

dlss9• 15 years ago

I hope this happens soon.

The risk/reward trade-offs don't seem to be understood by most AirBnB landlords (99.99% chance of earning $100, 0.01% chance of losing $50k+). Even though this is strongly positive expected value, for a family that can't afford to lose $50k this is a game of russian roulette.

My heart goes out to the author of this; I hope the person who did this to her is put in jail, and the system (AirBnB) that enabled that person prevents landlords who can't afford the financial & emotional risk from listing properties going forward.

This is one those places where laws make sense to me; the average person needs to be protected from unknowingly gambling with their family's future.

SkyMarshal2• 15 years ago

>will be replaced with commercial properties

They won't be replaced, just added to. Many travelers prefer the local flavor to some sterile hotel.

kragen3• 15 years ago

> As the service expands, regular people's homes (with unrestorable personal value and charm) will be replaced with commercial properties using airBnB as just another advertising channel.

This could happen (especially if people get scared off by one-in-a-million crimes like this one) but it isn't economically rational. The marginal cost of having someone stay in your spare bedroom is often very small, even negative. This is never the case for commercial hotels.

I would go as far as to say that commercial hotels only exist at all because of an information deficiency: on the traveler's side, about the available spare bedrooms, and on the host's side, about the trustworthiness of the traveler. (Except in exceptional cases, say, Gualeguaychú, which has enormous tourism, dwarfing the city's population for a few weeks a year, and nothing the rest of the time. But I still stayed in a spare room with some random family I met on the street when I went there for Carnaval, not in a hotel.)

It occurs to me that the people with the strongest incentives to trash someone's apartment like this would be hotel owners and managers. Many of them might not be willing or able to do it themselves, but they could certainly hire someone else.

prostoalex2• 15 years ago

AirBnB already has a host rating system, but because of no set level of expectations pretty much everybody gets 5 stars. Hotels are easier to rate in that regard, and people have no qualms leaving lower ratings if they don't see extra towels, have to sit in uncomfortable chairs, or are charged $14.99 for wireless Internet.

Guest rating system is even harder, as unless you're hardcore traveler, your use of AirBnB might be limited to once or twice a year. This would also penalize any new user to the service.

klenwell• 15 years ago

Was this a total stranger? It would make a lot more sense to me if it was an ex-lover or people put up to it by an ex-lover or otherwise someone with a personal vendetta.

Put me in mind of this story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/nyregion/a-revenge-plot-so...

naner• 15 years ago

I can't believe anyone would rent out their home. I assumed most people rented out spare properties, not their primary residence.

vladd3• 15 years ago

AirBnB can be used without issues if you own a property and you're willing to operate it like a hotel: you're present on the premises to check in the guests, you have a room or a reception-like place from where you can monitor the situation, and you're able to inspect the place when they leave.

Operating a property remotely via AirBnB implies all sorts of risks, which makes me think that it might be an unsustainable model, because a black swan event might ruin the property to such extent that it offsets the income made in all the other cases.

AirBnB handles property promotion and property booking on the Internet -- that's fine -- but when it advertised itself it included in the message ways to do property administration (as in rent-your-home-while-away). While this is not connected intricately with their core business, it is the model that some owners assumed by default, without realizing the risks involved or the fact that you are still exposed to one-in-one-hundred unpleasant events.

If they manage to warn about this upfront similar to the way Craiglist does, without losing their brand and their community support, then owners will become aware of those issues and take the necessary protection (by i.e. requesting guarantees/deposits/passports or by using their social network to validate the guests). If they don't, I'm afraid a couple of bad PR articles will be enough to destroy their reputation.

P.S.: I haven't heard of hotels managed remotely; there are some hotels where you check in automatically and you get the keys via some sort of robot system but in the morning there is someone handling the checkout, the cleaning etc. In addition they have your credit card on file, your passport, probably your cam photo when you picked up the keys and the most you can destroy is a hotel room (still a great deal of value but somehow limited and the hotel probably has insurance for it). But automation didn't pick up at scale in the hotel industry. In the current state, it thrives partially because the reception provides the safety-checks and balances needed to prevent and offset these black swan events. I'm not sure the remote administration model is scalable or even manage-able due to this.

dlss9• 15 years ago

Um, this is incorrect. Hotels are vandalized all the time... having a "reception-like place from where you can monitor the situation", and "inspect[ing] the place when they leave" doesn't prevent people from trashing your room/apt.

It sounds like the person who trashed the OP's apartment /enjoyed/ trashing it -- it didn't sound like someone inconsiderate, or in a hurry; it sounded like someone who deliberately and knowingly ruined the place. The security measures you suggest won't stop that sort of attacker.

vladd3• 15 years ago

I've said "to prevent and offset". It's about managing the event (offsetting the bad cases when prevention fails). Having a reception area allows you to have their signature on the contract, to validate their identity (name, nationality, passport) based on the photo ID and how they look in real life and to have on record a lot of validated information about them (which will sure help with police and insurance in case something bad happens).

barkingcat• 15 years ago

But if you have their passport and secured their credit card info, you can report them to the police, and perhaps keep them from leaving the country if the place was trashed totally (ie burned down the building maliciously)

VladRussian2• 15 years ago

>Um, this is incorrect. Hotels are vandalized all the time...

that is the point why they take down your credit card data before giving you the keys. Your vandalizing after that is just an entertainment your card will be charged for.

>The security measures you suggest won't stop that sort of attacker.

so you think the attacker has perfect credit history and there is absolutely no sense in checking it?

rdl9• 15 years ago

I actually feel a lot more comfortable "harshly using" (not really vandalizing, but making full use of) a hotel than someone's airbnb, couchsurfing, or friendly couchsurfing arrangement -- because it's an impersonal commercial space, I'll use all the water I want, leave wet towels all over, etc., whereas at airbnb I feel like I should be even more polite and neat than I would be in my own home.

ern• 15 years ago

A hotel is likely to have CCTV in the lobby, full time security, contacts with local police and lots of institutional experience dealing with disruptive guests. All things that the average part-time innkeeper doesn't have.

urbanjunkie• 15 years ago

This isn't really a 'black swan' event.

A black swan event is something that is very difficult to predict,often because it lies outside normal parameters and expectations.

Renting your place out to strangers who then trash it might be surprising, but hardly beyond the realms of imagination or expectation.

antihero4• 15 years ago

I always thought that AirBNB seems like a great way for unscrupulous addicts (Heroin etc) to get lots of things and leave.

bluesmoon• 15 years ago

I haven't use AirBnB before, but I do use CouchSurfing a lot. CouchSurfing's system of verification, vouching and references makes a big difference to how much you feel you can trust someone who asks to use your home. I do still sometimes accept guests with no references, particularly if it's a last minute, but I check their IDs first, and only give them limited access to my home.

cageface• 15 years ago

It's yet another tragedy of the commons. As AirBNB becomes more popular I expect this is going to happen more often. Unfortunately I think this is only going to have to happen a few more times before people start to seriously question the wisdom of inviting a relative stranger into their homes.

gaius• 15 years ago

Exactly this. A service thorougly tested with (for want of a better term) early-adopter Internet hipsters is going to fail in entirely predictable ways when exposed to the Internet that gave us 4chan.

speckledjim6• 15 years ago

Always bound to happen. Up next, the host who fits spycams in his shower and posts pics of his naked visitors to porn sites.

jrockway• 15 years ago

That's what I would do. I once got a letter from my management company that said, "we are conducting random apartment inspections tomorrow. be aware." This bothered me because I don't really like people in my house, and they didn't give the 24 hours notice required by law. So, I set up some cameras, broadcast it to the Internet, and told my twitter followers to watch my apartment for me while I was at work.

They never showed up.

speckledjim6• 15 years ago

Good reason why renting sucks. (It's not your house).

rms• 15 years ago

Or the guy from Hacker News that enacts that gonzo style as a gimmick to promote his legal porn site.

loevborg• 15 years ago

What a thoroughly evil idea!

jasonshen• 15 years ago

This sort of thing is bound to happen when you have helped over 1 million stays between two people who are usually strangers. I think what's more impressive is how long it took for something this big and this public to happen. Human beings act in strange ways and you take a risk anytime you interact with one. I feel awful that this happened to this woman but I don't think it means Airbnb has a flawed business model or needs to dramatically change the way they sign up users.

morganwarstler• 15 years ago

Airbnb should willingly do MORE to verify users than CarFax, Paypal, Facebook, etc.

Screw your bizmodel.

Run a credit and criminal background check - and charge 4%.

wisty3• 15 years ago

Simple - first time users submit scan of a photo ID, and a picture of themselves. AirBnB checks the ID, and publishes the photo. After booking, the owner can use Skype to see if they match the photo.

domador• 15 years ago

Great idea! However, AirBnB should not only post the photo, but also be in charge of verifying over Skype that it matches the person posting it. If it'd be too expensive to verify every single new user, they could just verify them once they make their first booking.

AirBnB should be the one matching photos to real, living individuals since not everyone renting out their home is likely to be as through as a company with a well-established procedure.

danenania2• 15 years ago

What happened to this person is awful and it´s understandable that she/he is very emotional at this point, but I don´t think the lesson is you can´t ever trust people, or that the AirBnB model is flawed. It´s more like: hope for the best, plan for the worst. There is always going to be some black swan risk even if AirBnB does do more vetting. There´s no reason for example to leave valuables anywhere in the residence while strangers are there. You can´t be 100% protected unless you´re willing to get insurance, which probably doesn´t make sense for the occasional provider, but you can at least remove the low hanging fruit risk-wise. Perhaps AirBnB should take a more active role in educating its providers on basic precautions.

carbonica3• 15 years ago

> There´s no reason for example to leave valuables anywhere in the residence while strangers are there.

So you're saying AirBnB should advocate against rentals while you're away?

Or are you saying, if you want to rent while you're gone for a week, that you should get a week's worth of self-storage (which I've never heard of, but might exist in a city), move all your important belongings to the self-storage unit, and move them back after the guest is gone? That seems quite onerous.

danenania2• 15 years ago

That or drop them with a friend or relative. Why is that so onerous?

I think people should use AirBnB however they see fit, but understand the risks in doing so and take whatever precautions are realistic to lessen them.

This situation would still suck, but not be nearly as bad/scary/expensive if the victim hadn't left cash, credit cards, expensive electronics, legal documents etc. in the apartment. I'm just recommending easy steps to lower the potential downside and increase the overall EV of being an AirBnB provider given that this sort of nightmare is a slight but real possibility.

gojomo• 15 years ago

The guests sound like drug addicts. (Maybe meth? Tweakers do bizarre things like move furniture at odd hours or burn fires without opening the flue.)

I've been a happy AirBnb guest on a few occasions; the one time I had someone's whole usual studio apartment I found it a bit strange how much of their life was left on display for me – like the host's prescriptions still in the fridge! – but of course respected their privacy.

Each time I've been a guest, we've seen photos of each other on the site, and the keys were handed off in person. While I didn't expect anyone to stop by and check on me during my stays, I always had the impression the host or host's friends were nearby.

A guest with criminal intent would try to pick a place for a longer stay, in a more anonymous building, with a host known to be out-of-town. But then again, that's also what someone seeking to burglarize any vacation-emptied residence would do. More or less this same sort of crime could happen without AirBnb, or perhaps be enabled by nothing more than tracking public tweets/'check-ins' to predict unit vacancy.

(Another development I eventually expect in this progression of tech-mediated sharing: a bad-faith host who surveils their guests.)

citricsquid• 15 years ago

I assumed the drug addict thing too, but to me (although I have limited experience with people on drugs) the fact that they took the time to communicate that "everything was okay" to the host (and had the money to pay for all this (although I guess $500 upfront if they're going to steal $2,000 worth of stuff is an "investment" (I guessed at those $ figures))) makes me think it's something more sinister. They'd have to be pretty eccentric even for drug addicts to go to these lengths.

nzoschke2• 15 years ago

I too would guess the guests were meth addicts. I had the unfortunate experience of moving in with some tweakers and some of these behaviors gave me flashbacks.

It's a hell of a drug -- my roommate was once a normal young professional, but methamphetamine use turned him into a monster with bizarre, destructive habits around the house, and dark, evil plotting against friends and us roommates.

He would be sober and make normal plans to go to work, fix up the house, have friends over, then he would get really high and skip work, destroy the concrete floor by "power washing" it, and throw a tweaker party with loud music at 3AM, and threaten everyone that asked him to turn it down.

There was violence, abuse, and damage to the property. I removed myself from the apartment for my own safety, and ended up forfeiting thousands of dollars in security deposit for what he did when left completely on his own.

I obviously don't know the situation here, but all of a sudden my thoughts of again hosting CouchSurfers or AirBnB guests is shaken. There are some bad people out there, made even more unstable with drug use, and these sites offer a vector in which they can enter your life.

mml• 15 years ago

Definitely tweakers. I wouldn't use that sink near open flame for a while.

earino• 15 years ago

Dude, did you just predict that AirBNB is going to be used for mobile meth labs?

anon5• 15 years ago

Speculation alert ----------------------

Could be drug addicts. But my hunch says it could be some known persons to the unfortunate host, playing some dreadful prank. Reasons:

1) From the blog: 'All the while, Dj Pattrson was sending me friendly emails, thanking me for being such a great host, for respecting his/her privacy…. telling me how much he/she was enjoying my beautiful apartment bathed in sunlight, how much he/she particularly loved the “little loft area” upstairs… with an “lol” closing one sentence' This suggests motivation to cause a greater hurt. Thieves will just steal. Drug addicts may not punctually mail all the while.

2) Also I suspect the name DJ Pattrson, may have been carefully chosen. Note the author calls herself 'EJ' (and 'DJ' sort of rhymes). I tried jumbling Pattrson for some meaningful word, but could not get any.

ffffruit• 15 years ago

Is there anything stopping the renter from taking extra precautions? Like for example photocopy the tenants passport?

I am finding it hard to believe that somebody would drop off the keys to his own apartment to a total stranger, regardless of any guarantees the site does, without even wanting to briefly meet them.

xentronium• 15 years ago

> Like for example photocopy the tenants passport?

Doesn't AirBnB do that? If no, then why?!

Disclaimer: never used the service.

g123g• 15 years ago

With internet almost run over by all kinds of scam artists, spammers, pedos etc. is there any surprise that such a thing can happen? You have crackers trying their level best to install keyloggers and other tools to read the passwords to your accounts. And in this environment if you hand over the key of your apartment to some complete stranger, I think the writer should also take some blame for his naivety. Just because airbnb is current flavor of the month it does not mean you throw your basic common sense out the door.

Even if you are present in an apartment yourself, it is still too risky to allow a complete stranger to sleep in the room next to you. How much verification can be done by you or airbnb? The Norwegian shooter had no criminal history that could have been caught by any verification. So how can you be comfortable with allowing a stranger into your home with no verification done at all from your side?

I think there should be a service which will allow you to rent the room only to your friends or to friends of friends but no further than that. This friend list can be from facebook, linkedin or Google+. This will reduce the chances of getting a rental but give peace of mind that you are not letting some hardened criminal into your home.

Robin_Message• 15 years ago

I know this is a horrible and shocking event, and my thoughts are with the person who has had their life violated, but I feel compelled to comment that you are wrong.

The internet is not "almost run over [with] scam artists, spammers, pedos etc." They are visible and use anonymity to do what they do on the internet, certainly, but it is far from overrun.

Secondly, is it really too risky to be asleep without a locked door between you and the world? That is a scary, closed world to live in. You are also wrong to blame the victim; they say themselves they made a mistake not to do more verification, but the blame can only be on the perpetrator †.

Finally, let's not forget that most sexual assaults and rapes [1] are carried out by friends and acquaintances, so limiting your contact to friends of friends is unlikely to make you significantly safer.

Overall, I think your conclusions are the worst to draw from this attack. Take care, but don't go crazy keeping out the "other".

† It might be useful to make a distinction between casual responsibility and moral responsibility. The victim may have done something that helped cause the attack, but they are not at fault.

[1] According to (admitted a random googling) the American Centre for Victims of Crime, 77% of rapes are committed by non-strangers. http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&...

ceejayoz• 15 years ago

> Finally, let's not forget that most sexual assaults and rapes [1] are carried out by friends and acquaintances, so limiting your contact to friends of friends is unlikely to make you significantly safer.

I'd imagine that's because those people tend to get let into one's home more than a stranger, which means the stat doesn't help your point much.

hluska• 15 years ago

There is a big chicken or egg problem right at the core Of this sad case. On one hand, why would anyone trust someone they have only had limited conversations with to stay in their home...alone? On the other hand, if Airbnb allows renters to do background checks before the agreement is finalized, how do they avoid private sales?

I can't resolve this, so I wouldn't dream of renting my place out unless I was going to be there. And even then, I'd sleep with one eye open!

kenjackson2• 15 years ago

Why doesn't AirBnB simply do the checks you would do? In fact AirBnB can give a checklist of services they can run from nationwide background to credit checks. You check off what you want done, and AirBnB bills you for them.

dools• 15 years ago

"I certainly cannot and do not blame the agency for what has occurred. If anything, I blame myself"

Yeah no shit. You let strangers stay in your house for a week and all your valuables were still in the apartment?

I guess Airbnb could have a "safety" section but this type of warning would be similar to the "Caution! Hot!" they're forced to put on coffee cup lids now.

prawn3• 15 years ago

Looks like a couple of reporters have already hit the comments area looking for more info for a story. It goes far, far beyond a basic theft or incident of vandalism and could easily blow up internationally and do a great deal of damage to the AirBnB brand.

I don't know the blogger in any way at all, but have to admit that my first thought was to wonder if this might've been arranged by a competing industry or service at all. Sounds a bit over the top to be a pre-conceived plan though. Doubt various hotel associations would be desperately unhappy to see this story though, you have to admit.

Between Google and AirBnB, I'm sure the police could have IP addresses of the perpetrator(s) and track them down unless they were particularly smart (and if they are particularly smart, they'd be picking bigger targets...).

mike-cardwell• 15 years ago

I don't think what you're suggesting is that paranoid. There has to have been some motive. Perhaps it was just somebody seeking revenge, either against the person whos flat it was, or against AirBnB.

prawn3• 15 years ago

I presume AirBnB got some money from the person making the booking, so you're probably right that they went in with some plan having had to pay up front (?) for the opportunity.

I'd also be curious (but not enough to look into it further!) to know whether the lister made it clear in their profile that they would not be meeting the renter in person.

Could be a mixture of theft and then opportunistic/drug-fueled mischief. Backtracking, I wonder if someone put a group up to it, or suggested that AirBnB listers could be soft targets - opportunity for the thieves and also for someone putting them up to it.

Short of having the blog post taken down, even if a follow-up is added to the top of the post, this will be very damaging for AirBnB. I've used the site a few times successfully (though ended up thinking it was often more trouble than just using a cheap hotel) so hate to see this happen.

carbonica3• 15 years ago

To suggest it might not be paranoid, but merely prudent. To think it's at all more likely that this is a setup against AirBnB and not just... you know, crime... I think is in fact paranoid.

If you want motive, here's one that you might be surprised to learn motivates a lot of crime: the guest needed money for drugs/debt/food/just wanted money, and thought he might get away with it.

Houses get broken into. People get mugged. There doesn't need to be a conspiracy for these things to happen.

nzoschke2• 15 years ago

To me this sounds like the work of meth addicts (I have another post on the thread about this), but I do share your general suspicions.

All of a sudden AirBnB seems like a tough brand to keep clean -- at any time a host or guest (or frankly anyone) can either do something crazy or fabricate a story about doing something crazy.

I have very few tools at my disposal to verify these claims as a passive observer, so the net result is to trust the AirBnB system less.

imaverickk2• 15 years ago

It begs the question, what would be a good verification system for online identities so that sites like AirBnB can leverage? Also, will your property insurance cover this or would this be considered albeit rightly to some extent a carelessness on your part. Come to think of it, like any other insurance industry, providing insurance (dedicated?) for such people for an additional X% wouldn't be a bad start - though it might need more volume for it to be profitable.

Creyels• 15 years ago

I like the (security) services offered by Onefinestay http://www.onefinestay.com/hosts

Everyday someone checks your home and cleans it.

Additionaly they actually turn your home into a more hotel-like experience - so guests are provided with towels etc. At least for higher priced accomodations a good choice.

rdl9• 15 years ago

I'm curious what the specific crime is if you're in a place like NYC or SF (where <30 day rentals are illegal for zoning reasons), you legally permit someone entry to your space, and he just trashes (vs. stealing) stuff. It should be a crime, but what is it? Not theft, not trespass.

"Criminal damage to property", or vandalism, probably counts, but that's really up to the jurisdiction on what it includes.

I wish this guy would try this in Singapore; 3 years in prison and/or caning.

mseebach4• 15 years ago

Grand theft auto of a car that's parked illegally is still grand theft auto. Ie. that renting the place out is in violation of zoning laws does not make any difference to what crime the guest commits.

The bigger problem is insurance, which, as others point out, probably does not cover.

VladRussian2• 15 years ago

whats wrong with renting through Craigslist (except obvious problem of spam from companies like AirBnB) ? Both parties may request and provide any documents/verifications until their mutual full satisfaction. We had no problem renting space in Europe from US for example though some amount of communication and search was involved - we didn't like some people, some people didn't like us as we needed full paperwork from them for visas, etc... i wonder how such fine tuning of mutual requirements would be possible through "blind renting" service like AirBnB.

shareme• 15 years ago

It sounds like AirBnB need to educate first-time users more..

It obviously is not for those people who have property that cannot remove personal items from said property before doing a earn-my-trust AirBnB person trial run..

brianchesky• 15 years ago

Hey everyone - we were shocked when we heard about this unsettling event. We have been working closely with the authorities, and we want to reassure our community that, with the help of our security infrastructure, we were able to assist the police in their investigation, and we understand from authorities that a suspect is now in custody.

We've created a marketplace built on trust, transparency and authenticity within our community, and we hold the safety of our community members as our highest priority. We will continue to work with our users to stamp out those who would put that community at risk in any way. The vast majority of our community members genuinely respect and protect each other, but we urge users to be careful and discerning with each other and to hold others accountable through reviews, flagging and our customer service channel. Our hearts go out to our host and we will continue to work with her and with the authorities to make this right.

vladd3• 15 years ago

Hey brian,

- what's your side of the story on being unreachable 14 hours after the event?

- did you offer AirBnB credit or compensation to the victim to stay elsewhere during this?

abrimo• 15 years ago

To be fair I doubt the victim would be comfortable receiving airbnb credit or using the service again. If this happened to me and I was offered credit, I would feel insulted.

jeffool2• 15 years ago

Purely pulling this out of my ass, but I'm hoping whoever took his initial call(s) just severely misunderstood the situation. Maybe people have had trashy guests or items broken and became irate over them, and that's what this person thought was happening. I hope.

I don't know the company's "side of the story", and would be surprised if it was ever really discussed in any way aside from steps taken to remedy this situation... But as this suggests, they apparently need, above their "urgent" number, a "Bat-Phone" for severe cases.

zacharypinter3• 15 years ago

This doesn't specifically answer your question, but the post does seem to mention that financial compensation from AirBNB was offered:

"They have offered to help me recover emotionally and financially, and are working with SFPD to track down these criminals."

mkramlich2• 15 years ago

I think it's presumptious to assume AirBnB owes anybody anything. The renter knew (or should have known, if not retarded) the risk she/they were taking. And AirBnB cannot literally be responsible for every single human being's action who is a party to their service. The person that, allegedly, trashed/robbed the place is clearly the person who did something evil and illegal. Blame the perpetrator, not a middleman or scapegoat.

sylvinus• 15 years ago

Thanks for taking care of it, also good to know they got a suspect.

What can you say on the 24/7 "urgent" line, which sounds like an important feature even for cases less dramatic than this one?

robjohnson• 15 years ago

This seems to be the crux of the issue right here. When I heard the airbnb business model, this type of situation was the first thing that came to my mind. Airbnb absolutely does provide an incredible service, but these types of issues need to be solved. A 24/7 line should be step 1.

rdl9• 15 years ago

It's a lot easier to do routine stuff well than to deal with unique situations like this. AirBnB has done the latter, and has proven again that they're a great organization with excellent customer service. Congratulations and best of luck with resolving everything successfully.

aribnbsucks• 15 years ago

i call bullsh1t on that.. havent seen airbnb do anything about this 'unique situation' that isn't contradicted at every turn...

antihero4• 15 years ago

Have you considered doing more to confirm the identity of someone?

chegra• 15 years ago

What I would like to see and would think would be a great win for AIRBNB, publicity-wise, is an offer to restore this person's stuff.

teyc• 15 years ago

The difference between a hotel and a home is that while a hotel may be trashed occasionally by the drunk rockstar, there is nothing sentimental in the hotel room. Screening is not going to stop someone pathological from unleashing wanton destruction. Even ordinary renting out houses usually require some kind of bond to be placed to deter and filter out riff raffs. I wonder if AirBnB would ever do this because it increases the transaction costs dramatically. On the other hand, it is a nice cash "float".

robtoo2• 15 years ago

We've created a marketplace built on trust, transparency and authenticity

Not if this quote from the linked article is true, you haven't...

airbnb.com tightly controls the communication between host and traveler, disallowing the exchange of personal contact information until the point in which a reservation is already confirmed and paid for.

bhickey• 15 years ago

This information is correct.

mseebach4• 15 years ago

No? It's built on. Controlling the communication is about avoiding "20% discount if you pay me in cash up front" scams, and yes, about protecting AirBnBs revenue stream.

It's a trade-off: This process enhances trust since you know your host doesn't get your money until you've checked in and found everything to be in order - and the host knows that the money is held and that he won't have to deal with late or no payment.

I don't get this focus on the personal contact issue. What exactly could the victim gain from having exchanged personal contact information prior to the booking, that he was unable to do after he got the contact information? He admits he didn't even catch that the guest misspelled his own name?

hammock• 15 years ago

Emotionally devastating story, but it seems like there is an easy solution to this. Have AirBnb contract include an insurance policy (superseding the homeowners insurance) for the time of rental. Also, have Airbnb keep credit card info on hand and hold guest responsible for any damage. Pretty standard business practices.

marquis3• 15 years ago

I've had terrible experiences while travelling extensively and staying semi-permanently where landlords do anything they can to keep your deposit, especially when you don't speak the language so well. I'd not be comfortable having a stranger be able to claim I made some kind of damage, and it become some kind of paypal-like black-hole of unwarranted claims. Ultimately reading this, I feel so sorry for the host, as a random, rare victim of a dehumanizing crime. It could have happened on craigslist, or via a friend-of-a-friend. Not to say that AirBnB doesn't need to address this, but holding a large amount in escrow like a car rental deposit would be offputting to me (with car rentals there is clear evidence, and you do a full inspection beforehand, though I'm sure it's possible to get burned on this).

ajays• 15 years ago

But an insurance policy would further cut into their revenue stream.

A credit card number doesn't help much when you're dealing with anti-social elements (they'll just use a stolen one).

mikecaron3• 15 years ago

What about regular homeowner's insurance? Surely there can be policies that can cover this kind of thing which a host can obtain on their own. AirBnB doesn't have to muddy their business model with doing insurance, let the insurance people do this.

jarek2• 15 years ago

Um, then the anti-socials can just get a temporary/secondary card with a $500 or $1000 limit. Damage here sounds like it goes over $10000, it's not like you can put that kind of holds on people's cards for every rental you arrange.

zacharypinter3• 15 years ago

At the risk of it being slightly poor taste to go down this tangent:

Given how rare this type of thing is, AirBNB could have a great extra source of income by offering optional insurance for an extra fee (similar to car rentals).

damonpace• 15 years ago

Airbnb has done a great job so far, but I think there needs to be some more effort put into validating the renters information. There are several ways to do this via online identities, credit cards, etc. The other option I would definitely add is a specialized rental insurance of some kind. An additional $10/night across all rentals should help pay for situations like this along with the basic broken item situations that I know you deal with. Let the homeowners decide if they want to charge/pay that fee. Then it is in their hands if they choose not to.

abaldwin• 15 years ago

Airbnb's review system sucks! Why are there no dates on any of the reviews? What determines the order of the reviews? In my experience, I've seen more recent negative reviews get pushed below older positive reviews. Why are we not allowed to sort the reviews by date or rating like on any other reasonable review system? This is the opposite of 'transparent'.

TeMPOraL• 15 years ago

Hmm?

http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare...

(Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2820615)

Freeman77• 15 years ago

Although there have been negative PR effects for Airbnb due to this incident, it appears that they have benefited as well, by wisely using the lesson learned to improve their business by adding essential insurance and pre-deal inter-member communications services, among other things. The future value of that benefit to a start-up company most likely far exceeds the damages suffered by this host, assuming the PR issue can be positively resolved. There was no similar benefit for the host, unless you count the lesson learned that they should avoid the sort of activity your business is built around.

So here's a suggestion: acknowledge publicly that this incident exposed ways in which the service could be improved and offer to make this one host whole as compensation for that value. Solves everybody's problems in one fell swoop without accepting blame for something that isn't Airbnb's fault (and more importantly without resorting to blaming the victim - not the host's fault either). I'll bet it would cost far less than the usual media blitz companies commonly use to repair their images after incidents such is this. Consider it a good investment in the company's future.

buster• 15 years ago

Wow.. that's terrible! I really enjoyed all my couchsurfing and airbnb experiences so far, they resulted in the best travels i ever had.. it's sad to see such a thing happen, and i hope the criminaly will be catched and punished.

Still, i am looking forward for my next airbnb trip, it's a great way to travel!

DrStalker• 15 years ago

Does AirBnB offer any help with insurance? I know my home & contents insurance wouldn't cover any of this: I'd need to get (expensive) commerical insurance or some sort, and I'm guessing most AirBnB hosts don't have that.

The idea of renting out my place with no recourse to insurance if it is destroyed is far too insane to contemplate for me.

lutorm2• 15 years ago

Given the exposure, I would expect AirBnB to have liability insurance up the wazoo. It seems likely they would lose a lawsuit in this case, and even with just partial liability it could be very expensive.

sequoia2• 15 years ago

Why would they lose a lawsuit if one were brought in this case? I haven't read it but I'd wager their TOS gives them the right to your first born child (hmm... I'm trying to say it probably disclaims any possible liability in the broadest possible terms, bad analogy perhaps). Then again, whether that holds in court is something we couldn't know until after a case.

fakeer• 15 years ago

Trust me, be it AirBnB or FairBnB, just never hand over your home keys to a stranger - a stranger to "you". Make it a thumb rule.

PS. sad to hear the loss and trauma BTW.

eric-hu2• 15 years ago

Is no one else struck by the peculiar behavior of the tenants?

Scattering bleach powder across the apartment and taking the time to hang up strange photos seems a bit too erratic to me.

I wonder if the renter has serious mental issues or if this was part of some intelligent plan (i.e. hired by couchsurfing).

This is PURE speculation, don't cite this post as anything else.

rdl9• 15 years ago

one word explains all of this: methamphetamine. (and I say this as someone who believes in drug decriminalization or legalization)

eric-hu2• 15 years ago

I'm generally for (soft) drug decriminalization, too, but I don't have much experience with meth heads :)

Would someone upped on meth be able to conduct himself well via email, sending polite thank-you's?

jv22222• 15 years ago

This could resolved if airbnb insisted on a refundable deposit of $500-$1000 per visit.

Omnipresent4• 15 years ago

500 to 1000 is not bad of a seed funding for a thief. I think better security measure would be to provide some sort of valid state or federal or national identifications. Any decent hotel requires this so why not AirBnB?

marquis3• 15 years ago

I would pay to be verified by AirBnB, by uploading a picture ID and having a human verify this. A service I use provids added verification by mailing you a code that you enter on the site to prove your address. Things like this could help a lot to assisting with identity scams.

SkyMarshal2• 15 years ago

Most of their customers would stop using it then. They use AirBnB instead of some swank hotel in large part for the cost. Even if the deposit was just a temporary hold of their funds or credit, that would be a huge turnoff to a large chunk of their customer base.

extension2• 15 years ago

I wonder if the hotel chains would hire goons to do this.

extension2• 15 years ago

Ouch. Not sure what everyone has against this simple speculation. The hotels have already used some sleazy legal tactics against Airbnb and corporations have been known to do worse when an entire industry is under threat.

I just find it odd that a mere thief would go to so much extra trouble to destroy things and cause grief.

jakarta• 15 years ago

To me, this underscores one of the key risks to having an AirBnB room for rent.

I think if you are going to do it, you really have to be careful.

1. You should probably be someone that works from home / is home often. At least then you can monitor your place more often. You wont be seeing inside the room, but you could at least hear if anything insane is going on in it.

2. You should not have much by way of valuables around your place, nothing easy to steal. The first place I rented on AirBnB was like this. There was no TV/dvd player/ps3, the host had a laptop which he took with him. It consisted mostly of cheap Ikea-ish furniture. This works in my mind because it mitigates what can/can't be stolen.

Omnipresent4• 15 years ago

victim is correct, this was bound to happen to someone and as the service goes popularity, there will be more victims in the future. AirBnB should have other security measures in place like providing driver license #, ssn, etc. so that identity of the person renting the place is assured. With all the recent funding leading to great PR, bad elements will start coming in. Site is no longer bound to the nice educated customer base.

caf3• 15 years ago

How do you verify that the drivers license, ssn etc are genuine, and not simply stolen as the credit card numbers are?

marquis3• 15 years ago

Send a physical letter to the address of the user's bank account, or other form of ID?

lwhi2• 15 years ago

I remember a while back, someone on HN commented that they preferred the AirBnB model to CouchSurfing; because they felt that they were under no obligation to spend time with their host, or try to repay their hospitality with a meal or gift.

CouchSurfing relies upon (and in turn reinforces) a culture of good-will.

Because AirBnB converts the CouchSurfing model into a simple cash transaction - I think a lot of the positive norms that are inherent to CouchSurfing are lost.

micheljansen• 15 years ago

Exactly, it seems much harder to blatantly vandalize the home of a like-minded person who personally welcomes you into their home, offers to show you around etc. than the fancy loft of some faceless traveling businessman. Also paying for something tends to give certain people a sense of entitlement.

Of course none of this makes what happened to the poor person in this case OK or even remotely acceptable. Nonetheless, I think understanding why things happen is a good step towards coming up with a solution.

Maybe if AirBnB can get some of the personality of the Couchsurfing community, it can get some of these positive norms that go with it as well. The trick would be how to do that without losing the low social barrier to entry they have now.

Uchikoma3• 15 years ago

Woman gives apartment keys to complete stranger. Gets robbed.

279 points and 124 comments on HN.

Uchikoma3• 15 years ago

Thanks for the -4, I think a.) that's worth it b.) proves my point. A "new" business model aka AirBnB does not change any facts.

fjabre• 15 years ago

+1.

It's because HN is fundamentally biased and always will be. The top 2 comments are not surprisingly pro airbnb:

a) People are still good fundamentally - because that's exactly what I'd want to hear if someone ransacked my place.

b) PR from a guy who works there.

I personally wouldn't want to stay in a stranger's house and I don't think I ever will - no matter how big airbnb becomes I believe there will always be a percentage of people who are uncomfortable with the airbnb business model.

Obviously a lot of people don't care and airbnb will go on to be successful I'm sure but it's a shame this community has such a hard time being honest with itself.

edw519• 15 years ago

I get angry when I realize I will never again be who I've always been before, someone who lived strong and free by the creed that people are essentially good, that if you think optimistically, trust others.

Please don't let them steal this too.

I'm really sorry for your bad experience, but remember:

  - You can still live strong and free.
  - People are still essentially good.
  - You can still think optimistically.
  - You can still trust others.

It's true, you will never be who you've always been. But you can be almost the same person, still optimistic and trusting, just a little less naive. You many not realize it now, but the time will come when you may actually appreciate this as a learning experience.

There are bad people out there and some of them will want to hurt you. You don't have to sacrifice who you really are because of them. You just have to live a little bit differently.

Don't let them take away you really are. Believe it or not, that would be much worse than what they've already done.

Lots of well wishes for your quick recovery.

levigross• 15 years ago

IMHO There are bad people out there and some of them will want to hurt you. You don't have to sacrifice who you really are because of them. You just have to live a little bit differently. means don't use AirBnB

ryanklee• 15 years ago

If the implication is don't use AirBnB, then the implication is also: never leave your own home and never let anyone in, which is paranoid and absurd.

You might object that what you say applies only to strangers and not to those you trust, but then you would be forgetting that everyone you trust was once a stranger.

Simply walking down the street is a testament to one's notion that in general humans are good and that that goodness is worthwhile enough to risk the occasional social or even physical injustice.

maratd• 15 years ago

> - People are still essentially good.

Out of every 100 people, 98 are absolutely wonderful human beings, 1 is an asshole, and 1 is a lunatic. My experience out of doing retail for a few years.

PonyGumbo• 15 years ago

Note that these can be the same people on different days.

Hisoka• 15 years ago

I think the wonderful human beings are also lunatics. Just some a less extent than others.

Shenglong2• 15 years ago

You're very optimistic. While I don't agree that people are essentially good, I envy your ability to see the world that way.

rkalla2• 15 years ago

I was sitting here mulling over why you wouldn't think that people are essentially good and it dawns on me that a lot of people are scared and likely have behaviors that suggest they aren't good (e.g. drive by someone with a flat tire in the rain because they are scared it's a robbery setup for passer-bys)

I think if you just look at your day to day interactions, most people are decent. I doubt many people are trying to rob you, hit you or actively steal from you. Sure there are outliers, but the majority don't do this.

Lastly, as a reformed paranoid "everyone is out to get me", I would make the observation that the energy you put out there has maybe 70% to do with the types of reactions you get back.

A friendly, open-faced "Hello" gets a hell of a different response from a shrouded, closed off, nervous "Hello".

Try and be more free for 3 days and see if the experience you have with others is better.

DanielRibeiro• 15 years ago

You might also consider taking a look into this: "Don't punish everyone for one person's mistake"[1]

[1]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPOezLL398U&feature=share

jimbokun• 15 years ago

I haven't watched the linked video, but the word "mistake" in no way applies to this situation. This was an entire week devoted to thinking up ways of being cruel to another human being.

hessenwolf• 15 years ago

People are generally good, but there is no bar so low that 99% of humans can not be convinced to slither under given the right circumstances. The world is full of horror.

bh42222• 15 years ago

But you can be almost the same person

Some people are very badly affected by trauma. But most do get over it and the almost same person is actually a wiser slightly more careful person. A bit less idealist, yep, but that's growing up.

xster• 15 years ago

Key takeaway from your story: you're still healthy and unharmed. All the material stuff is superficial, the only thing of real value is you.

pbhjpbhj3• 15 years ago

>All the material stuff is superficial, the only thing of real value is you.

Our house was broken in to by youths looking for drug money. It took me a couple of years to get over the sense of not wanting to trust people.

The sense of betrayal was considerably enhanced by two factors - I was on a neighbourhood committee with the mother of one of the youths that broke in; an amount of cash was taken that belonged to a group that we volunteered with to help children on the estate from whence the youths came.

IMO the greatest harm was stealing [for a time] my trust in others.

People kept empathising with me as to how violated we must feel, how awful having people in our home. None of that mattered to us really though.

AretNCarlsen2• 15 years ago

> People are still essentially good.

Experiment indicates that the majority (65%) are not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

I am sorry to be a downer, and I agree that it is nice to pretend that people are essentially good. Ignoring the Milgram results, however, leads us to forget why we have to maintain societies with complex crime deterrent schemes, and why we should not trust anonymous individuals who cannot be located for punishment.

"[H]alf ... were female, and their rate of obedience was virtually identical to that of the male participants." "Where participants had to physically hold the "learner's" arm onto a shock plate, ... 30 percent of participants completed the experiment."

Steve0• 15 years ago

That doesn't seem to be the conclusion of said experiment. "In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40)[1] of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, though many were very uncomfortable doing so; at some point, every participant paused and questioned the experiment, some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating in the experiment." IMHO Milgram's experiment has more to do with obedience than ethics.

dbingham2• 15 years ago

"I don't think that means what you think it means."

That experiment deals with ability to disobey authority, not with the basic goodness of the people performing the actions. Nearly 100% of the people performing the actions questioned what they were doing. That indicates they knew it was wrong, instinctively and didn't wish to do it. But we are well trained to listen to authority, and the authority figure was telling them to continue.

This actually backs up the idea that people are essentially good. But it also provides evidence for the idea that most people can be easily lead into violating their natural conscience.

Studies of innate "goodness" performed on children reveal that most people, from birth, have an innate moral conscience that we would consider 'good'. I'll see if I can find a link to back this up.

Here we go: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01human.html?adxnn...

SatvikBeri• 15 years ago

People react wildly differently in different circumstances. This has been proven over and over. The Milgram experiment was heavily designed to influence how people act. A twist in circumstances can easily get 100% of people to do the "right" thing. If you only look at extreme cases like this, you won't get an accurate idea of human behavior.

I think it's fair to say that the vast majority of people, in normal circumstances, are essentially good.

barrkel• 15 years ago

That experiment shows you exactly the opposite, rather: that people who seem essentially bad (i.e. bad in essence) may simply be responding to circumstances, incentives and social pressure.

lwhi2• 15 years ago

Most people are able to think 'this would make me feel awful, I don't want to make someone else feel this way' - those that aren't are usually canny enough to pretend.

People might not be essentially 'good' - but most people are rational and lucid enough to stay within the bounds of what's socially acceptable .. even if they're unable to empathise.

This was a random nutter / group of nutters .. stuff like this, unfortunately, happens all the time - although, thankfully, on a minimal scale.

The issue for me, is related to some fundamental flaws in AirBnB's business model .. flaws which are seem largely absent from the alternative of CouchSurfing.

zenica• 15 years ago

I agree. They should do the same experiment and replace authority with $$. Maybe they did but I cannot find reference.

I think you will see 60% of people will do horrendous things for a little bit of money.

nosequel• 15 years ago

Someone once said (can't for the life of me find the quote), that the difference between a good man and an evil one was that the evil one did the things that the good man thought about doing.

ap22213• 15 years ago

Sometimes things go very very wrong. That's why they invented insurance.

Most people act 'good' most of the time. That's why this whole society thing stays cohesive. But, everyone has a probability to act badly. Just consider someone who may have had a stroke that considerably changes their personality.

A small portion of people act 'evil' under more common situations.

It's odd that airbnb doesn't seem to risk mitigate these sorts of black swan events. They wouldn't lose much having a 100% loss redemption clause. It would seem that the property owner would be much less likely to game the system than the visitor.

Dn_Ab• 15 years ago

The vast majority of People are good yes. The main problem is that most people stop caring too quickly. On a multidimensional empathetic scale they stop caring with a nigh exponential drop off the further away from the this and now the other person is. Once someone's genetic and then phenotypic expression is far away from theirs, once the spacial, chronological and cultural locations etc. are diverged; people stop caring enough. Sometimes the person that they do not care about is their future self.

The keyword is enough. Certainly if everyone was too empathetic that would neither be good. But I do think the world would be a better place if more people did not set the line of when to stop caring and empathizing so close to Now and Me. If they picked a slightly less steep atttenuation function then we would not have so many perfectly good people that were bigoted Xist bastards when it came to topic X. or peopele who were just following orders. or just having a bit of fun. or well at least it is not me. or on and on. for example.

asciilifeform3• 15 years ago

Cui bono?

Hotels.

It seems likely that this "mysterious" crime was paid for by an organization serving the interests of hotels.

innes4• 15 years ago

Cui bono?

On some level, the bad bastards who did it.

Alternatively yes, of course. Building 7, Area 51, Chemtrails etc...

asciilifeform3• 15 years ago

The apartment-trashing was entirely senseless. The motive was clearly not theft, for example.

The simplest hypothesis is that the purpose of the crime was to create outrage - in order to destroy the reputation of AirBnB and its business model. It may yet succeed in doing so.

danberger2• 15 years ago

Just out of curiosity, why didn't the victim post any pictures of the damage?

YooLi• 15 years ago

They stole his camera?

danberger2• 15 years ago

I would hope she took pictures for documentation purposes... even if her camera was stolen, she should have borrowed one or bought one for this purpose.

econgeeker• 15 years ago

AirBnB makes us travelers vulnerable to being scammed as well. In the most recent rental, it really was a roll of the dice to see if we were going to have an apartment or not (and of course, by the time we could have contacted AirBnB to say we'd been scammed, the scammer would already have our money, due to the way AirBnB works, and their lack of any way to contact them.)

I travel full time. I'm a nomad. I would rent thru AirBnB for 365 nights a year if they provided the service that they originally set out to provide. I think they changed their focus, and rather than building an organic community of people renting their places to each other, they are pursuing the expensive travel market. This makes sense given the profits are higher and it is easier to get vacation rentals in the system than individuals. But they're not the ebay of travel anymore, they've become a HomeAway clone.

They also really need to change their policies on communication- they inhibit our ability to talk to the owners before renting, and this is worsened given that many owners may not speak english. Letting us call them or email them is not going to want us to cut AirBnB out of the deal, because the primary value AirBnB provides is the fraud protection of letting us pay by credit card.

There's no reason for any company of this size not to have a 24/hour hotline. It may be midnight in california, but it is 5pm somewhere. You have listings around the world.

AirBnB's priorities seem to have shifted away from building an organic "ebay of travel" with regular people to maximum growth in revenue, by going after the high end travel market, with a distinct lack of customer service. This may not be intentional, but I'm part of the market-- a heavy use part of the market- and that's how it is looking to me.

So, 24 hour hotline, policies for dealing with things that go wrong, to help customers, and letting the people use the site communicate are the changes I'd make. I bet you'll find that more communications means more confidence and more nights rented.

johnx123-up• 15 years ago

Agreed. Couple of days back, I went through one AirBnB competitor http://www.quora.com/Airbnb/Will-Agriya-Burrow-be-a-threat-t... There comments suggest that HomeAway model is better and also they're adding SecondPorch.

I initially thought that their comparison http://www.launchfeed.com/launches/view/1308830151 is weird. But, that makes sense now.

deathflute• 15 years ago

I have always been skeptical about such services. It is like collecting pennies in front of a steamroller. Sooner or later, a tail event like this is bound to happen. A distribution of hosting experiences has to be fat-tailed. It is okay to deal with that risk when even the worst case scenario is acceptable. But, for your own home how can it be acceptable?

caf3• 15 years ago

A reminder that there's more to scaling out to millions of users than ensuring your hardware is up to the task.

rglover• 15 years ago

This is one of those things that made me weary about the home rental business (not necessarily just AirBnB). While I do feel the idea is great, I'm not sure I'd be as composed as this person; especially coming back to a destroyed and violated home. I guess there's no way around it, but this should definitely add an extra layer of thought before posting your home on AirBnB or any other service. Scary stuff.

sequoia2• 15 years ago

Moral of the story: By using a service like AirBnB to make some cash, you are Rolling the fucking dice. It's naïve to think otherwise, and if you're not comfortable with that kind of risk, don't do it. It seems some people see the service as "easy money" and don't consider outcomes like this.

I think it's best compared to hitchhiking: Is it cheap? Hell yes. Is it consistant/reliable? no. Is it as safe as a bus/plane? usually yes, sometimes no in a big way.

I travelled in my youth (5 years ago :p) around several states via thumb. It was a calculated risk I was taking, and both I and other hitchhikers I knew were aware of this risk and took steps to mitigate it (carrying mace, turning down rides– one friend would take a photo of the plates and text them to a friend each ride, informing the driver that he/she was not anonymous).

AirBnB is like this: you save/make some money, but rather than a Hotel (or bus company) being on the hook for a bad outcome, YOU are on the hook. If you're not prepared for that, don't do it. It's not "easy money."

yalogin• 15 years ago

The most important thing to note is this has happened even before it hit critical mass, hell its in its infancy still. This is the reason why Airbnb never made sense to me as a business. The author is lucky there was no bodily harm done to him. It's too much of a risk to rent out your personal property to total strangers. Now they forever know where you live and more so know the complete layout of your house and what you have in it and your schedule. At the end of the day it cannot be more than bedandbreakfast.com used as a listing sits for businesses. That is why the 1billion valuation does not make sense either.

blinkingled• 15 years ago

I so wish he had a camera at least on the entrance of the apartment. Besides I hope that since the burglar used Internet for communication the IP address is recorded with AirBNB or Google and that will help track him/her down.

Horrible story to be sure. Trust no one goes too far but trust and verify should be the norm. I for one would have thought twice before giving out house keys to a person who misspelled his/her own last name. I guess as he seems to indicate AirBNB model/markting fooled him into 100% trust.

zeteo• 15 years ago

Welcome to the real world, such things are bound to happen. The main question is: to what degree does AirBnB know the identity of the perpetrator? Let alone helping the police catch them; but is AirBnB even able to prevent this person from making a new account and repeating the deed?

jmm• 15 years ago

Call me insensitive, but I think the drama here is overblown. Renting out your room to strangers comes with risks. Theft is an obvious one. Could have been a one or two paragraph post, but maybe this is part of the catharsis in getting over a robbery.

And now call me a cynic, but I kind of have the feeling that the the public drama of this complaint is a way of getting the sweetest customer service response ever from AirBnB. Like, new gear, near apartment, moving costs, all of it. Almost like a cooked up insurance claim... if it's not that, AirBnB will probably experience that kind of scam at some point.

matdwyer• 15 years ago

I just was quoted in a national article here in Canada (the Globe & Mail) that talked about using AirBNB... I've passed this story along to the author who is going to see about a followup.

This wont stop me from using AirBNB as a guest, but I was never comfortable with renting my own home anyway.

edit - if AirBNB kept a drivers license scan on file to confirm the credit card was the users, that would be helpful. I know that is difficult with privacy laws, etc, but when I check into a hotel I always have to show my ID to make sure it has my name on it....

evilduck• 15 years ago

if AirBNB kept a drivers license scan on file to confirm the credit card was the users

Don't credit card companies prohibit this?

veyron2• 15 years ago

Of all of the items discussed, the birth certificate, social security and passport are the most important (imho). Supposing I kept them in a bank safety deposit box, what would a thief need to get access to that box?

inmygarage2• 15 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if this was organized and executed by an AirBnB competitor.

It is just too malicious and meticulously done to constitute a random crime (do I watch too many crime shows? maybe.) AirBnB just closed a gigantic $100m round and they are doing phenomenally well, and here comes someone who makes "everyone's worst fears" about lending out their apartment to a stranger come true.

lsb• 15 years ago

Are the stakes high enough that you'll pay someone who doesn't snitch to screw with your competitor? If you ever get found out, your brand's mostly sunk.

anonymous246• 15 years ago

Interesting. I can't see the upvotes but your comment didn't go gray on my downvote. I guess the YC/Airbnb/"laws don't apply on the Internet" fanboys are out in force just like I expected.

inmygarage2• 15 years ago

What do you mean "laws don't apply on the internet". Someone very clearly broke the law here and should be caught and punished accordingly. That's not the argument - it's that a lot of companies can and will play dirty if they have to. Don't you remember the facebook/google PR scandal from a few months ago?

Background: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/05/12/facebook-bu...

chanon• 15 years ago

If the competitor was in the same business, I think this kind of story would negatively affect them too.

Well, unless hotel chains are cooperating in doing it to tarnish AirBNB's repuatation - but I still think that is unlikely.

swah• 15 years ago

There is no way those guys lived there for a week and left no fingerprints.

int3rnaut• 15 years ago

I wrote a comment 2 days ago about some of the psychological barriers of this model that AirBnB would have to overcome--and I never even considered the traveler to be the one who's sketchy/troublesome.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2802898

On that note though, it'll be really interesting to see how AirBnB tries to counter this problem--there's a reason why people are so secluded and things are so private and fenced.

hnsmurf• 15 years ago

Does homeowner's/renter's insurance cover the property damage from renting out your place?

Nutella22• 15 years ago

No, it doesn't cover illegal transactions. In many places the Airbnb rentals are violations of local or state hotel laws. Even in places not covered by those kinds of laws, it's unlikely that insurance for owners and renters of a private home covers commercial services in the home. Of course everyone should check their own policy to be sure.

jarek2• 15 years ago

I'm shocked by some things I've read in this article. I don't want to blame the victim, but the author has rented out their home for a full week and left identity and financial documents behind a plywood or MDF door. Data, passport, birth certificate, and cash. Trusting people is nice, but surely there's a limit at which it becomes insane. I get a little nervous when I leave my documents in my (empty) apartment over a long weekend; I'm flabbergasted as to why the author seemingly wasn't bothered until after the crime.

katieben• 15 years ago

It would be interesting to see AirBnB's response to this.

Syama• 15 years ago

Personally I think the poster is stupid as f@#&, leaving her apt to complete strangers and then blaming her loss on someone else. What did she expect? B&B's usually have someone onsite to prevent things like this from happening. The person to blame here is the poster and of course the tweakers, not Airbnb.

peterwwillis• 15 years ago

Does AirBnB have owner's/hoster's testimonials like CouchSurfing? It really goes a long way to show someone is trustworthy if they've stayed at 100 people's homes and everyone said nice things about them.

nhangen2• 15 years ago

Why would you ever rent your place, important valuables inside the property, without being home?

I can understand leaving the place empty of valuables and renting it remotely, but to rent your primary residence while you are away is incredibly foolish. I just don't get it.

justin_vanw• 15 years ago

Reading this article, my spidey sense was tingling the entire time. For whatever reason, I instinctively do not believe that the story this person is telling is the truth.

lurker19• 15 years ago

Good explanation of why hotel rooms cost more than AirBnB rooms.

rkalla2• 15 years ago

Why was the title of this post changed? It used to have the name "airbnb" in it earlier this morning, around 400 votes.

Omnipresent4• 15 years ago

Noticed that as well. changed because of bad PR perhaps?

spearo77• 15 years ago

Is there any way to find out who changed the title? The submitter or admins?

Timothee2• 15 years ago

Most likely admins since, IIRC, a submitter has only a short time window to edit a submission.

pg• 15 years ago

When submitters rewrite titles of posts we almost always (if we notice) replace them with the original title. We've done that since HN started. Otherwise submitters compete to make attention-getting titles, and you end up with the frontpage of reddit.

CamperBob• 15 years ago

Otherwise submitters compete to make attention-getting titles, and you end up with the frontpage of reddit.

That sounds like an excellent matter to leave in the hands of the users who vote for/against stories.

lawnchair_larry• 15 years ago

As someone who has submitted non-linkbait titles and had them edited to be less useful, I find this annoying. You should stop doing that.

innes4• 15 years ago

Hmmm, somebody changed the title of this HN post from "AirBnB: Crimes committed against a host"...

jaredmck2• 15 years ago

yeah, i'm interested to see what the reasoning behind this change is. seems suspect.

jaredmck2• 15 years ago

Why was the title of this submission changed? Was it because the old title mentioned AirBnB?

bignoggins• 15 years ago

My wife and I been traveling around the world staying at airbnb's for the last 4 months (www.shenventure.com is our travel blog). During our stay in Hong Kong, our host required a photocopy of our passport or driver's license. I think this was a clever deterrent on his part.

chris1024• 15 years ago

Is this real? It sounds like a fictional story.It's awfully flowery prose for someone who was just victimized and "laying in fetal position in her stairwell." Nowhere does it say this isn't fiction. Awful lot of buzz and no further response from the author?

The journalist who commented on the blog who checked with SFPD was unable to find the case.

So -- real or fiction? Someone call in SNOPES!

varunsrin5• 15 years ago

Can someone please explain why the post name was changed? If it was to 'protect' AirBnB I find that in poor taste - this is a legitimate problem that occurred with the service, though it is likely not a specific problem. if the OP (foxit) requested or made this change, let us know.

pabloiv• 15 years ago

I really hope this incident doesn't break her spirit. As someone who's been shot at, beat up, robbed, held up, and still trusts people: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

That said, I also rent out my place through AirBnB. (http://www.airbnb.com/rooms/106355) I interview everyone who stays with me through Skype before confirming any reservation. AirBnB, has a very classy membership, and we've had great experiences with all our guests, but due diligence is still a must. Communicating with your potential guests is essential, as is reading between the lines. You should also make an effort to look at their face at least once before booking. Skype is perfect for this and AirBnB doesn't block it.

hobbsmeter2• 15 years ago

Why isn't the title the original one explicitly mentioning AirBnb? Bad PR for YC's portfolio company?

njharman• 15 years ago

Yeah, guess people are different. I would NEVER invite strangers to be in my house alone. Esp not with my stuff still there. I can't comprehend why anyone would. Can't understand how airbnb is popular service. But, it is. Like I said people are different...

grannyg00se• 15 years ago

"They ... found the passport, cash, credit card and grandmother's jewelry I had hidden inside. They found my birth certificate and social security card, which I believe they photocopied "

Why would you leave your birth certificate and social security card behind when you have strangers occupying your home?

Passports, ids, hard drives, diamonds .... these are all small but very important items that fit perfectly into a safety deposit box.

watty2• 15 years ago

So anything remotely related to YC companies that shed good light are immediately frontpaged but something potentially dangerous that is bad PR gets title changed?

gord• 15 years ago

Heartbreaking to read this.

Hang in there.

It may help to think that a) these people are broken in some profound way, possibly from some early abuse b) this may not be directed at you personally, you did not deserve this, and this was not your fault

I do think the AirBnB business model needs to take into account some kind of insurance cover, or set aside some percentage of funds to apply to help in the edge cases like this - so that some of the practicalities are taken care of [ such as cleaning the apartment, temporary accommodation ] giving the victim some breathing space to heal from this.

prayag• 15 years ago

AirBnb is not legally liable. They are however morally liable. Every company does legal. It's the moral compass that differentiates a company and their founders.

grandalf• 15 years ago

I dunno this seems like a hoax to me. Something is fishy about it. I suspect it is a negative PR scam aimed at airbnb.

mkramlich2• 15 years ago

The description of what happened, supposedly, is so weird, that I'd bet most likely this was an astroturfed (setup) incident. On the other hand, never underestimate just how stupid, mean, random, evil or rude a human can be. The more I live the greater depths you see. Also, even if this was a faked/fraudulent event, regardless, it would still be true that this kind of thing could naturally happen to anybody that makes their place available via AirBNB. It's statistically inevitable, given the nature of the service and the nature of humanity.

sweetchar• 15 years ago

How sad. I hope you'll be able to cope from this experience soon.

Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned

Related Stories