

Vandalised home puts pressure on Airbnb - arghnoname
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/9aac5f80-b924-11e0-bd87-00144feabdc0.html

======
Ygor
The question now is will this be the Hindenburg moment of this type of
services, or is it just a speed bump?

We'll see how all this bad press is going to spread across the rest of the
mainstream media and tabloids. I know we are all disappointed with the way
airbnb handled the situation, but we really shouldn't be happy if all the
sensation seeking press starts using this to boost their sales, and in the
process damages this market beyond repair.

~~~
jccodez
I remember the early days of ebay and stories of fraud. I don't think this
will be the end. They need to make adjustments, but I don't think this is the
"end" of this type of service.

~~~
robjohnson
I tend to agree. While the largest unknown independent variable here is how
the Airbnb handles this crisis, I feel that they will be able to steer the
ship through this.

~~~
jccodez
I find it interesting how people handle crisis. You can act on feeling, or you
can act on logic. They (airbnb) need to be more logic based in their approach
and state the facts: Our system is not perfect. We are making adjustments. We
will compensate this person for their loss. Instead, they are providing tons
of great coverage to the press.

------
adnam
Why would anyone give the keys to their home to a total stranger? (And leave
them on their own for a whole week?)

~~~
limedaring
What I don't understand is renting to a stranger... but leaving valuables in
the house. At least put that stuff in storage while you're out.

~~~
mentat
Yes, this exactly. You're not letting your friends use your house. Trusting
random strangers, getting burnt, and then saying that it's all the fault of
the person who introduced you to them as a stranger makes no sense. Airbnb
wasn't vouching for their renters any more than a hotel booking site does. You
think hotels leave expensive unsecured items in all their rooms? Do you think
hotels don't have a way of charging for damage? This person didn't think their
actions through at all and now they're blaming everyone but who they should,
themselves.

My eastern European friends have told me that Americans are strange with the
example being that they need their coffee labeled hot whereas "normal" people
know that coffee is hot. This is the same thing. Leaving very valuable things
out when inviting strangers to stay in your house when you're not going to be
present is just something "normal" people know not to do.

~~~
ryusage
> Airbnb wasn't vouching for their renters any more than a hotel booking site
> does

The victim in this case stated that, before using Airbnb, she would normally
perform background checks on potential renters. Airbnb, though, marketed
themselves as a safe and reliable way of vacation renting, and implied that
they took on the responsibility of this sort of screening. In fact, they make
it impossible for users to do it themselves. Whether or not they do in fact
screen renters, it doesn't sound unreasonable for the victim to have believed
that they do.

> Leaving very valuable things out when inviting strangers to stay in your
> house

At one point in her blog, she does mention that she had taken everything of
value and locked it in a closet that the guests did not have access to (and
presumably did not know the contents). They literally broke the locked door
down. Valuables aside, they also went on to damage or destroy nearly
everything else in the house, valuable or not. Removing valuable items from
the house entirely would still not have prevented the violation of her home.

I don't think it's at all fair to blame the victim here. It's not a simple
matter of an American lacking common sense.

~~~
mentat
> they make it impossible for users to do it themselves

That seems like a fundamental problem with their business. I'm inclined to
agree that unless they make a serious shift in the information they're
providing to people providing rooms, their business isn't going to work much
longer.

> locked it in a closet that the guests did not have access to

If it was the only locked closet in the house then it would have been rather
obvious. You point is essentially valid though, hiding her stuff would not
have prevented someone not interested in financial gain from destroying her
house. However, not taking that basic step, irregardless of the intent of the
strangers, seem to still lack "common sense".

------
arghnoname
There's nothing new in the actual story. I thought it's placement on the front
page (below the fold) of the print edition was significant. It's not exactly a
tech publication.

~~~
jsavimbi
> (below the fold)

web 1.0 term now in disuse. As soon as a story, any story, is disseminated by
a world renown publication such as the Financial Times, it might as well be
the main story for the amount of time the long tail decides to keep it alive.

It's a business problem; the tech part to AirBnB was just the application.
Developers should get used to the fact that their apps grow up, move away and
marry business people.

~~~
michael_h
Point taken, but 'below the fold' is most assuredly not a web 1.0 term when
we're talking about a printed publication.

~~~
jsavimbi
In today's terms, a printed publication is entirely below the fold.

------
bproper
It would cost a fraction of their recent raise to make this woman whole again,
at least financially.

They should have brought her in, given her a heartfelt apology from the
executive team, and paid her a large lump sum. In return she would sign a NDA.

~~~
raganwald
> In return she would sign a NDA

It depends what’s in the NDA. If AirBnB are acting honorably and correctly,
there is no nead to silence me about what happened to me and how they
responded.

About the furthest I would >personally< go is agreeing not to disclose the
exact amount of compensation. That’s a fairly normal term, and the usual
reason is to prevent scammers from being enticed into fraudulent claims of
damages, or for others to use my settlement as a baseline for negotiations.

Other than that, asking me not to talk about something that actually happened
is wrong. If they do A and B and C in the negotiating room, well, they ought
to stand behind my talking about A and B and C, at least in general terms.

Trying to “buy my silence” would raise my hackles, and I would immediately
presume that they were an untrustworthy organization that prefers guile and
miscommunication to honest dealing.

>JM2C, it’s a matter of personal conscience to decide what to accept or
refuse. But it’s also a matter of public perception. If I read that they
settled with her and she agreed as a term of the settlement not to talk about
it... I would make certain inferences about AirBnB. Of course, this has not
happened so we are speaking only of a hypothetical situation.<

~~~
bambax
> _Trying to “buy my silence” would raise my hackles_

Same here; if I were in such a predicament I don't think there's any amount
that would justify signing a NDA.

I'm wondering if this is what happened? As the story stands, one side is
clearly not telling the truth, or withholding a part of it.

What could have happened could have been, Airbnb offered compensation + NDA,
victim said she wouldn't sign it. Back and forth a few times, and in the end
she went ahead with her blog post. Seeing this, Airbnb stopped all
communications.

If this is actually what happened, they should have offered compensation
anyway, no strings attached.

It'll be very interesting to know the real details; I don't understand how
they could let this blow out of proportion like this.

------
indrax
Other times when people get their houses ransacked while on vacation, we don't
have a flap of stories about the post office leaving mail in the mailboxes. A
criminal decided to use AirBNB to find an empty apartment and provide cover.

It is important for them to react well to this, but they just can't provide
real security. And they shouldn't have to, they're matchmakers.

All this media attention is going to make them feel like they need to do
everything, but past the basics of providing good customer service lies a few
good measures and a lot of security theater. They're being hammered to do the
impossible because they are novel.

------
Omnipresent
never imagined this type of thing would happen in startups - top level
bureaucracy. Doesn't this happen in big corps?

Maybe I'm looking at this whole black cloud of bad PR in a simplistic way but
why is it so hard to bring EJ over or fly over to her, assess the situation,
put her in a hotel, replace her stuff, help her find a new place. Doing that
will get AirBnB much much more popularity than their famous cereal box story
that we've heard so much of.

------
Havoc
>These included doubling the size of its customer support team, setting up a
24-hour telephone hotline, and offering insurance products.

That is a pretty weak response. Peddling insurance...really?

Even worse I can't really think of a better response. i.e. The model might be
inherently flawed & un-fixable.

------
civild
It won't be long until the tabloids pick this up and run with it, applying
their own sensationalist inaccuracies. I think Airbnb have to act quickly to
fix this before it turns into a Fox affiliate human interest story and damages
their reputation irreconcilably.

~~~
corin_
Can't speak to American papers, but it certainly won't be big news in UK
tabloids, if it's mentioned at all. The FT cares because it's business,
tabloids won't care because it's not a particularly well-known business (over
here).

~~~
swombat
_tabloids won't care because it's not a particularly well-known business (over
here)._

1) I actually started using Airbnb because a non-technical friend used it and
said it was great. It's more widespread than you think, even in Europe.

2) Tabloids will love the human interest angle, and be quite happy to blame
"internet startups" in general for ruining this person's life. Accuracy is
optional in a lynch mob.

~~~
corin_
I suspect you're wrong, but perhaps I am, who knows. The way I see it is we've
all heard of Hilton or Marriot hotels, and if something went down in a hotel
room in one of those chains, papers wouldn't cover it because of the company,
their decision would be based purely on how interesting what happened was. In
this case, someone having their appartment robbed, without tying it into
business/tech it's not all that interesting as news.

So, while people may know the name of AirBNB (I still suspect that actually
not a huge number over here know it, just seems more widespread because it
only takes a few non-tech people to know about something well known in the
tech scene for it to seem widespread to us), I don't know if people who care
about it only for the rooms, and don't care about the actual company, will
give much thought to this news.

~~~
rubinelli
Just give them a slow day and I'm sure they will be all over it. It's like
those crimes that are somehow related to games or comics, "the murderer was
reenacting his favorite scene!" or "the victim refused to give his character's
login!"

------
dbuizert
I think more importantly, could this have been prevented? They should have
done the proper research on the risks involved.

They should also have provided users with a quick (even webpage) on risks
involved and precautions people can take and make. And provide the users more
background info on the renter. It's not as simple as running a hotel.

To me this looks and feels like a story of simple thinking and bad iterating.
I doubt this is the only case out there. There should have been a lot of minor
issues as well. And we all know it starts small before it becomes a tornado
and tears your house and community down.

------
gaurav_v
The last line of her most recent blog post pretty much sums up the entire
thrust of her story and its problems for Airbnb:

"And for those who have so generously suggested a donation fund be set up to
help me recover, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and suggest that
instead, you keep the money and use it to book yourself into a nice, safe
hotel room the next time you travel. You’ll be glad you did."

~~~
SteveJS
How does using a hotel when you travel, help prevent your home from being
burglarized while you're away?

------
zwieback
My first thought was "business opportunity to offer insurance to airbnb
customers".

Apparently there are already websites up to do just that.

~~~
rmc
Good luck being able to cover all a person's personal heirlooms that cost
thousands.

~~~
aeden
As long as the volume of insurance related payouts is small enough and the
volume of customers purchasing insurance is large enough, then it's a viable
business model. In fact, that's how insurance works (and how it stops working
when there are major catastrophes that cause the number of claims to spike
dramatically).

------
pseudonym
I'm a little surprised it took this long to start showing up in print, as it
were. I'll also be interested in seeing if they do a followup with her latest
post.

~~~
o1iver
This long? The initial blog post went viral yesterday only... So to be in
todays print edition I guess they wrote it last night or during the night...

~~~
pseudonym
Yes, but the actual incident and blog post was weeks ago, and this is the kind
of combination of thing that rags like to pick up on-- harshly-treated victim,
forgotten by an up-and-coming company that doesn't know how to spin PR
properly.

~~~
o1iver
Yeah, but do you think that they follow all the blogs by non-celebrities... no

------
chailatte
At this point in time, I wonder if it's in pg's best interest to cut loss, and
sever the relationship with airbnb altogether. Sell yc's stake in airbnb, and
avoid talking about them ever again.

Sure, airbnb has a $1b valuation for now. But does anybody really think
they're worth $1b after this, and only on an estimated $10M _cumulative_
revenue? (not to mention the pending stock market collapse and IPO window
closing, precipitated by US default next Tuesday)

They have a pretty toxic public image now amongst early adopters, and will
only get worse. They have a business process which now appears to be broken,
and it will cut into their already miniscule revenue to fix it. They do not
have a moral/charismatic leader that can guide them thorough an important
crisis like this. They are deemed illegal in many parts of US, and will likely
be more so later once more mainstream media picks up on it.

On top of that, they are destroying yc's precarious image. And they're
dragging this entire mess on all the other yc's startups (the other yc
founders have to stand up to defend airbnb. Other applicants realizes that the
best performing company in yc is one that does evil)

~~~
SoftwareMaven
With the exception on the potential hit to AirBnB, I think you've overstated
every single claim in your post. Of course, I have no evidence of market
effects; only time will tell, but YC is not going to be judged and thrown out
as unworthy because one company has a significant (perhaps deadly to the
company) issue.

And why does YC have a "precarious image"? I've never heard anything of that
nature. Every YC person whom I've spoken to (albeit not a huge percentage!)
has loved the program.

~~~
trebor
Some aging statistical research shows that if you have a bad experience you'll
share it with 26 other people; having a good experience nets only 13 people.
Multiply that by the internet and predict the market effects.

As disastrous as this is to EJ and her life, I think it'll be the utter ruin
of AirBnB.

------
shareme
Its not a customer service issue..hold on wait..let me explain..

Its an identity problem..How do you have processes and procedures in place
that uses identity as the qualifier of being able to trust a person to temp
rent to ? Fro example, world wide what do we use as the identifier to get all
this info? Is it a credit card number? Is it a credit card number and other
pieces of info?

Look at the processes of PayPal..similar identity/trust problem or Amazon
Stores..

I submit that Airbnb has not solved the identity/trust set of problems yet and
that is their stumbling block not reactions to customer problems as the
techmedia has blarred..

~~~
giardini
The identity/trust set of problems was solved long ago by hotels and most
other businesses: when the customer arrives you meet him, check his id, get
payment info and show him his room. You can take pictures of him if you wish
(e.g., security cameras in the lobby). A check-out process should also occur.

The AirBnB contract should be between rentor and owner of rental property:
AirBnB's participation should be only as an agent. That limits liability and
makes clear what is expected of each party.

IMO AirBnB should not be responsible. This is looking more and more like a
shakedown of AirBnB or preparation for a lawsuit.

~~~
Aloisius
Exactly. Every vacation rental I've ever had asked me for my ID and often, a
refundable deposit to cover damages. When I used AirBnB in Paris, the owner
asked to see my passport.

------
helwr
There is no such thing as bad publicity

~~~
SoftwareMaven
BS. Perhaps the vast majority of publicity can be made positive for you, but
if you screw up in your handling, you can get eaten alive.

AirBnB had a chance to make this publicity tolerable. Instead, they worried
about "precedent" and "cost" and, in a fit of immaturity, tried to sweep it
under the rug. _Every one of those actions have magnified the severity of this
crisis._

Now, instead of them being in the drivers seat of the story with some control
of the fire, they are subject to whatever the winds want to do with it. In
both cases, stuff gets burned, but it's usually not houses, businesses, and
people in a controlled burn.

------
Uchikoma
Danger, Will Robinson.

------
karl11
Has there been any verification anywhere that this actually happened, beyond
just two blog posts?

~~~
kafene
I would take the response by brianchesky as an authoritative source indicating
that it did actually happen.

~~~
asmithmd1
It just seems a little too perfect to me. With the amount of money at stake in
disrupting the hotel business it is not impossible that the event was staged.
Her writing is just a little too perfect and why doesn't she respond to emails
from the press?

[http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011...](http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2011/07/airbnb-
nightmare-apartment-trashed-safety-renters/178966/1)

It seems like the only person who has talked to her is the CEO of airbnb

~~~
danso
With his business model at stake, don't you think the CEO is smart enough to
do some basic vetting before giving a response that acknowledges the veracity
of the alleged crime?

EJ may be anonymous to the rest of the world (though her blog has lengthy
posts from as long as two years ago...pretty good trolling setup if she were a
troll, even though you can backdate posts), but presumably, airbnb has all of
her personal information, and as an tech-savvy startup, has conducted basic
online research of her (her credit card was obviously valid; does she have a
FB account. does googling her bring up any connection to the hotel industry,
etc.?)

~~~
corin_
I'm not jumping on the conspiracy theory bandwagon and think that the idea is
nonsense, but hypotheticall, _if_ I were trying to make Airbnb look bad (and
had had spare cash to do it with), I wouldn't just pay someone to say it
happened, I'd also per someone to rent the appartment, and actually do this
stuff, so that any checks show the crime did indeed happen.

~~~
danso
Sure...but the more people you bring into the conspiracy, the more likely it
is to be found out. Of course airbnb will call the cops into investigating
this. If this were a setup, EJ and her fellow perpetrators made it MUCH more
complicated than it needed to be. The alleged homewrecking occurred over a
lengthy time period and involved not only simple burglary, but destruction of
walls and bizarre behavior (such as the picture moving). Moreover, they
apparently left a lengthy e-paper trail. If EJ faked all of that, she gave the
cops and airbnb a lot of avenues to poke holes in the story, such as checking
timestamps, IP addresses, even the linguistics in these alleged email
exchanges.

What would the hotel industry have to gain? The beatdown of a website that has
yet to reach mainstream consciousness...Airbnb is a long ways from being the
Netflix to the hotel industry's Blockbuster Video. What do they have to lose?
Hmmm...millions, maybe a billion in liability and legal fees, nevermind prison
sentences for the numerous people involved in such a scheme.

Also, look at the date of the original post:
[http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-
travele...](http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-travelers-
lost-faith-difficult.html)

June 29. I only found out about this through HN a day ago, and that seems like
when this all went viral.

Maybe I'm underestimating the hotel industry's savviness and patience
here...but why would it wait for a viral campaign to serendipitously happen,
as opposed to going through their considerable resources of outreach and media
contacts? EJ could've easily made a sincere-in-appearance call out to a Bay
Area publication...hell, even Patch...instead, she apparently left only a
blogpost.

And hell, her blogpost is terrible SEO: "Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a
difficult lesson learned" One thing I would expect of big-calcified-industry
folks to have at least down is their SEO bulls __*.

If a major hotel company were clever and innovative enough to pull this off
without being exposed (which would include not only faking the fake crime
emails, but hiding the emails they used to internally discuss all of
this...something that no business, such as the financial giants, have yet done
successfully) it's far, far more likely they would've come up with a better
Internet business model by now.

