
Airbnb deleted my emails - sushiguy
I have been a loyal Airbnb customer for a some time and have stayed with wonderful people all over the country except this past experience. It all started when I booked a trip to [undisclosed location] hackernews land. I&#x27;ve seen the listing from the airbnb website and read the description and it seemed like it would be a wonderful place to stay.<p>Long story short the listing was not described as it was on the airbnb listing page and there were multiple rules broken on the host end in which I ended up canceling my 28+ days stay (only stay for 2 nights). I reached out to airbnb only to find that they could simply do nothing but highly recommended that I talked to the couple and ask for a refund. I sent images, emails etc to airbnb and they still sided with the host.<p>Today during my lunch break I received an email from airbnb. I did not open the email as I was hurrying back to the office. 3 hours later I am out of the office and am searching for the email and nothing is there. I then look in my sent box and nothing is there.<p>Airbnb logged into my gmail (signed up using gmail oauth) and erased our conversation what should I do?
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jcr
You are claiming that AirBnB has illegally accessed your email account without
providing any proof whatsoever. Unless you have supporting evidence that
AirBnB is to blame, then you are mostly likely making a false claim here on
HN. This is simply defamation.

Occam's Razor (and common sense) suggests the most likely culprit is the one
who is profiting from illegally accessing your email account, namely the host
you are trying to get a refund from and get suspended on AirBnB for false
advertising (not-as-described policy violations).

As for what you should do, the first thing should be obvious; change the
password on your gmail account, and fully scan all of your systems for malware
(including you phone if it has been used to access your gmail account).

Next, call AirBnB directly and explain what has happened _without_ falsely
accusing them of illegally accessing your email account.

The only reason why I have not flagged this submission is it would most likely
make the submission "[dead]" (invisible) and the stated policy for "bad news"
on HN about YC-funded companies is to let it stand.

(enable the "show dead" setting in your HN user profile if you want to see all
the spam submissions)

~~~
sushiguy
If it was a claim my friend I would not have posted it via hacker news. I have
posted it to bring awareness. The proof I have is I do not use my personal
computer at work (luckily had backed up emails on personal laptop) which is
from 9am - 6pm. Also I checked my gmail today at around 1pm and only read a
conversation in which did not include airbnb. Lastly, why would I delete an
email if I am disputing charges against airbnb?

~~~
jcr
You are missing the point. I believe you that some unknown person illegally
accessed your gmail account and deleted messages sent to and received from
AirBnB. The thing to realize is AirBnB would not hack your account, instead
they would simply not send you a message in the first place.

The person who has motivation to hack your gmail account, delete messages
to/from AirBnB, and most likely forge messages from "you" to AirBnB is the
host you are disputing.

------
ratfacemcgee
airbnb's permissions only allow them to:

1\. View your email address 2\. View your basic profile info 3\. View metadata
for files in your google drive 4\. manage your contacts

notice there isn't permission for deleting your emails, or even viewing your
emails.

what i would do is take a deep breath, and think rationally about this. why
would airbnb, a public company, risk all the good will they have built up over
the years they have been in service by deleting your emails.

Now, what airbnb CAN do is unsend an email, some providers offer this. here is
how to do it with gmail:
[https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1284885?hl=en](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1284885?hl=en)

~~~
sushiguy
^That is what most likely happened. Sorry about the post. Thanks for
clarifying. Pretty rude of them if you ask me.

~~~
jcr
Unfortunately, that is not the answer. The Google "Undo" function only delays
the sending of the message, so if AirBnB sent you a message, and selected
"Undo" then you would have never seen the message in your inbox.

[https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1284885?hl=en](https://support.google.com/mail/answer/1284885?hl=en)

> _" Note: To give you time to undo, Gmail delays sending the message for a
> few seconds. So if you don't select "Undo" within the time limit, your
> message will be sent. "Undo send" may not work if you experience connection
> issues."_

If you did not delete the message from AirBnB, then someone else did. Since
they also cleaned out your "sent" folder, they also most likely forged
messages _from_you_ to AirBnB.

------
alain94040
Your story makes no sense. Why would AirBnb care about erasing that email? And
why do you think AirBnb has access to your gmail account?

You may want to take a deep breath and think twice before making more
assumptions.

------
kohanz
> Airbnb logged into my gmail (signed up using gmail oauth) and erased our
> conversation

That's quite an accusation. Do you have proof?

~~~
sushiguy
Yes I have backups of the emails along with screenshots of when I last access
my gmail account. Sounds pretty unbelievable, I am totally shocked.

~~~
kohanz
Perhaps you can prove that _someone_ deleted those e-mails, but what proof do
you have that it was AirBnb?

