Airbnb Horror Story Points to Need for Precautions | Hacker News Reader

Airbnb Horror Story Points to Need for Precautions

nytimes.com

A man is in Spain and calls his mother in US for help, and mother then calls an US company for help, who refuse to hand out client information for random people who call and claim that the client is doing a crime?

Instructing to call the police was definitely the best possible course of action, and the mistake they made was to hand out a local number for the police of Madrid instead of instructing the mother to instruct his son to call the emergency number of the country he's in, 112 in Europe. Had AirBnB sent someone visit the place, he would arrive there much later than the police could, and would still be unable to do anything but to calm the emergency number that he can't get in and a customer's mother in the US claims there's a crime going on.

I agreed with you up until "Instructing to call the police was definitely the best possible course of action". I really think AirBnB should have called the police, instead of shifting that responsibility. The article even says that they'll be making sure all staff know to contact the police directly in future cases like this.

The person in the apartment is absolutely the best person to call the police.

When he dials the emergency number he gets put through to the local handlers who will send a car quickly.

Calling his mother, who then calls AirBnB, who then call some other AirBnB office, who then call the police introduces a bunch of delay and missed information.

We don't want people to think that calling a private company is the right thing to do here, where a crime is being committed.

It would certainly have been better if the guy in the apartment had called the police, but airbnb should have called them anyway.

AirBnB certainly need better protocols for this kind of thing.

It's only hinted at inthe article, but a few people die by suicide in hotel rooms. AirBnB staff need to know how to respond better.

> I really think AirBnB should have called the police

I can see that quickly becoming a new form of SWATTING

Unlike a hotel which has to maintain security staff, and often a hotel doctor aren't Airbnb shifting the burden of their own business costs onto society?

In this case the mother and or police?

>> the emergency number of the country he's in, 112 in Europe

There are some exceptions so its worth checking before you travel:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_nu...

On a cellphone it doesn't matter whether you type 112 or 911 or press the "emergency services" button. They all do the same, there is a special emergency signal that it sends to the network. That signal makes it a priority call (it even works when the network is overloaded and also works through roaming / other networks that you would normally not be allowed to use), the entered number doesn't matter because the network will automatically connect such emergency calls to the appropriate local emergency services.

Did you read the article? In some countries 112 will get you police. In others it will get you fire. In most, but not all, it'll get you to the emrgency call handling centre.

The article talks about the son messaging his mother, and then says "by the time his mother realized that Airbnb would not give her his address and that she had to get it from him, he said, his host had cut off Internet access".

At a guess, I'd say the son didn't have roaming, and had connected to the host's wifi to send messages. The article also said "Mr. Lopez did not realize his phone would allow him to call and said he would have been scared to speak out loud into the phone in any event".

The son could even have been using an ipad/ipod to send messages, so it wasn't unreasonable to think a phone call might not have been possible at all.

You should be able to call 112 even without a SIM card, not to mention roaming.

In Germany, not any more since 2009 due to massive amounts of abuse (http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Kein-Notruf-ohne-SIM-...).

Heh, if I were to commit a bank or casino robbery, I'd just have ten or twenty guys reporting fake hostage, rape and murder cases at the same time so that the police is spread too thin to come for aid.

You used to be able to make emergency calls in the UK without a valid SIM card, but it's been required since 2009 [1][2] (apparently to cut down on untraceable hoax calls).

There is a technical difference though, between 'Roaming' and using another network in the same country. I have roaming enabled on my Vodafone account, but I can't connect to O2's UK network when Vodafone is out of range, because the other UK networks are on a list of not-permitted networks. The technical solution is called LSS - "Limited Service State" (sometimes referred to as "Emergency Roaming", and that's what allows us to 'camp' on another network to make an emergency call, but it's a different technical implementation to roaming.

Here's a thought though…if someone visits the UK from abroad, and hasn't activated roaming, is their SIM card considered 'valid' enough for the sake of LSS/Emergency Roaming?

[1] http://community.giffgaff.com/t5/Using-giffgaff/Emergency-Ro... (GiffGaff is a UK mobile operator, but the requirement stands for all UK operators).

[2] http://media.ofcom.org.uk/news/2009/next-steps-to-ensure-ava... (Ofcom is the UK regulator for communications industries).

My 60+ year old mother has a neighbor renting on Airbnb illegally.

The Airbnb guests have repeatedly scared her late at night by mistakenly trying to open her door, yelling, partying, etc. She doesn't feel safe in her own home anymore.

Airbnb support responded to her complaint but took no action.

It's wrong to even allow apartments or condos to be rented out, it hurts all the neighbors, but Airbnb chooses to hurt people in order to make more money.

Is that really Airbnb's fault?

Airbnb is the service provider in this case, but there are other companies with a similar service, or the neighbour could let it out personally to other people.

Assuming the neighbour is subletting illegally as you state, surely that's where the problem lies.

It's not airbnb's fault but if found to be true why wouldn't airbnb simply de-list them?

It's like being a CEO and finding out that one of your employees or contractors is engaging in illegal activity. They get fired. Simple.

Sure, if Airbnb have been given proof that the subletting is illegal, they should remove the listing.

But my point is that doesn't really solve the problem. What should be sorted is the fact that this person sublets the flat illegally.

And what did the police say when you reported this illegal activity?

What makes you think she reported it? Betrayal is not as universally popular as it used to be, and some people even believe that two wrongs don't make a right. Crazy, right? I know.

>It's wrong to even allow apartments or condos to be rented out,

its wrong to tell property owners who they can or can not allow into their property.

In case it is forbidden either by rent contracts or by law, AirBnB/Uber are, in this case knowingly, assisting parties in illegal acts and should be punished as such.

When I'm e.g. a store operator and knowingly buy and later resell stolen goods, I'm punishable as part of a criminal organization. What AirBnB does in this case, aiding illegal action or in fact actively promoting illegal action, is exactly the same.

The only difference between said store owner and AirBnB/Uber is that the latter companies have boatloads of dollars for lawyers and quite possibly for what we call "bakshish".

>In case it is forbidden either by rent contracts or by law, AirBnB/Uber are, in this case knowingly, assisting parties in illegal acts and should be punished as such.

Forbidden by Contract is a civil matter and AirBnB has no way of knowing this or should care at all

I am 100% opposed to laws forbidding property owners from renting out rooms either short or long term

In either case this is 3rd party liability which should not even be a concept in American Law.

>When I'm e.g. a store operator and knowingly buy and later resell stolen goods, I'm punishable as part of a criminal organization

If you can not see the difference in a person selling OTHER PEOPLES stolen property and a person selling THEIR OWN property then I really do not believe we are going to agree on much here.

>The only difference between said store owner and AirBnB/Uber

No the biggest difference is One company has the complete permission of the property owner to resell/rent the property, and the other does not.

You've missed the case where a rental tennant uses AirBnB to sublet to a third party.

Ann owns the property. Bob rents the property from Ann. Bob uses AirBnB to rent the property to Chris.

That would be the "Forbidden by contract". If Bob has a lease with Ann that forbids short term rental of a room, then Ann can persue legal action against bob including damages and eviction

Only Ann has the right to do this however, not AirBnB, not the neighbors, no one else besides Ann. AirBnB has no obligation to know about, enforce, or ask about any contract or agreements Bob may have with Ann.

I will add also that if Ann contacts AirBnB as the owner of the property AirBnb has an obligation to remove the listing.

Often however I see less property owners complaining about AirBnB and more neighbors who simply assume the Tenant does not have permission to sublet (which I would not really call AirBnB as sublet either but...).

There's probably a niche for "regulatory complaints as a service". It can be tricky for people to know which departments handle which complaints, so being able to send a bunch of evidence and a desired result to a service who then formats that all correctly and reports it to the variety of interested regulators would save time and frustration. If done well it would increase the quality of regulation.

On the other side of the wall I'm typing this is an AirBnB.

39/40 people are fine. Sometimes strangers try and get into my house because they're confused, but that's about it.

A few weeks back hundreds of drunk teenagers threw a rooftop party (and also a hallway party outside my apartment). AirBnB has no official support mechanism for neighbours, and the carpet still has all the beer stains I asked AirBnB to clean.

What did the apartment's management say when you reported this?

They'll wait a few months till the official cleaners do the carpets.

>the carpet still has all the beer stains I asked AirBnB to clean.

Why do you believe AirBnB has the responsibility to clean the carpet?

Why don't you?

Because that would create 3rd party liability, it would be no different than holding Ford responsible for a Drunk Driver, or Smith & Wesson Responsible for a shooting.

I have a feeling though you support those things as well

No, but feel free to tell me what my opinions are.

This is a terrible incident, and poor initial handling, but it sounds like a reasonable policy change on the part of the company.

I'm actually suprised though that host safety/security hasn't been a bigger issue. Last weekend my wife & I stayed at an apartment ("whole place") in a large US city. The host, a girl in her early 20s, probably quite new to the city, and who we didn't meet, left us her apartment keys (all of them): there was no combination lock on the door, i.e. nothing preventing somebody from duplicating the keys and having permanent access to the apartment. On top of that, all of her stuff was in the apartment - clothes, paperwork, jewelry - and as far as we could see (we didn't snoop beyond looking for an iron) she didn't have a lockbox there.

Obviously she's naive, but she's not alone; I've heard several similar stories. I'm not sure what I'd have airbnb do to improve the situation; at minimum, though, requiring the use of combination door locks with guest-specific combinations would seem like a good policy, although obviously they'd lost a lot of hosts by doing so.

Airbnb could partner with a lock company to allow owners to buy the cheaply. Then the access could be handled in the Airbnb app, and revoked after the person leaves.

That would limit access to app-users. Plenty of people use Airbnb only on the web.

I really feel for the boy's mother who must have gone through hell after her son called her. I was once in a similar situation myself where a dear friend of mine got in big trouble while traveling in Vietnam:

Since the country is a Malaria area my friend took prophylactic medication (Malarone). As an (infrequent) side effect these drugs can cause hallucinations and severe anxiety attacks, which unfortunately is what happened to her. When the symptoms hit her she was alone (as the only Western person) in a small train station in Ho-Chi-Minh city and became suddenly so scared that she hid in a corner, hallucinating and unable to call out for help. Lucky for her I called her up after she failed to send me a message as we had agreed on a few days earlier and found out about the dangerous situation. And while she was not able to speak clearly she was at least able to communicate where she was to me. So, I immediately thought about how I could get help to her and tried calling the local emergency numbers using Skype, my mobile phone and my landline. As it turns out, those numbers are usually not reachable from outside the country.

So what I did instead (and what I would do again in a similar situation) was to call the emergency number of the local embassy / consulate in the country. These always have staff answering the phone 24/7, but unfortunately even they are not always willing to help you. It usually helps to first get the name of the person who answered the phone and then explain to him/her that the person in distress is a citizen of his/her country and that he/she is in acute danger. Also, explain to them (in case they forgot) that it is their duty to protect the life of the citizens of their country abroad and to do anything in their power to get help to them as fast as possible. They will know better than you which number to call or how to organize help (in case the emergency response system is not very functional as was the case in Vietnam). Do not waste time trying to call the local emergency numbers.

What a horrible story. Airbnb and Uber are both going to have to work through some rough patches with how they handle situations like these. While technically not responsible, they have an opportunity to make their services safer than the alternatives.

Personally, I have used Airbnb to travel all over Europe with mostly great experiences. A couple places have had things break that the host had to fix, but nothing that ruined my trip. Many of the hosts have been over the top awesome. I had great and unique experiences in both Hungary and Croatia directly because of the host.

Right now Airbnb is fighting a scam on their site where listings are put up with an email in the listing or you request information about the listing and the host emails a link to a site that looks like Airbnb but is just a scam to collect CC information. It would stink if this is marking the end of the VRBO glory days.

The plural of anecdote is not data. There are more than 100k stays every night in an Airbnb. You could find a horror story for any big company that does something 100k times or more. This article says more about NYT and its so called journalism than it does about Airbnb.

It's obviously a horrible experience for the person involved. That doesn't make the story relevant to Airbnb, just like the MH17 crash doesn't say anything about Malaysia Airlines or flight travel in general.

EDIT: Accommodating nitpickers and straw men.

>There are what, more than 100k stays every night in an Airbnb? I'm sure you could find a horror story for Hilton, or Walmart, or Apple, or any other company that operates at such a big scale.

Hilton, Walmart, Apple -- 100k? Big scale?

EDIT: Ambiguous reason.

jk.

Just noting that this was oskarth's original text (as I saw it).

EDIT: I'm the nitpicker not the straw man D:

Holy a shit a man gets raped by a Trans-person, and Politically correct people like you are blaming the victim. In any other cases, a simple call leads to immediate police action.

Had the victim been a female we would have 100+ article stating that sharing economy is just another iteration of patriarchy, and PG gravelling and announcing startup batch for female exclusive sharing sites.

I don't see the poster above blaming the victim.

>EDIT: Accommodating nitpickers.

Maybe there's something we're missing?

showsomeempathy looks to have been created to post in this thread.

EDIT:

>EDIT: Accommodating nitpickers and straw men.

I think I made a straw man!

> Maybe there's something we're missing?

This is the charitable interpretation of the, albeit somewhat delusional, grandparent (showsomeempathy greenie). Since I support charitable interpretations, I'll respond to it. I generally don't see the point in responding to nitpickers and uncharitable readers, hence the previous edit.

While true that I could have removed something nasty from my original comment, the truth is more mundane. Aside from the additional second paragraph, the only thing I substantially changed was the sentence you quoted.

> I think I made a straw man!

No, you are the nitpicker :) Implicit in the 100k big scale sentence is that (a) it's 100k or more (b) relative scale matters. I would consider having 100k people / night for an accommodation service to be big scale. More generally, it simply has no relevance (just like this whole subthread ;) for the point being made, hence the nitpicker designation.

EDIT: Lesson: never, under any circumstances, engage with trolls.

It was interesting watching you edit the shit out of this comment. Iteration is great but, man, sometimes you should iterate alone.

And when you fuck up as badly as you did, own it. You'll do better next time.

EDIT:

Not so sure about "but, man, sometimes you should iterate alone." Others learn from our failures.

EDIT:

Hurt feels? "A troll, ignore."

Airbnb customer service really shat the bed on this one. There's really no excuse for refusing to call the police when you are told a heinous crime is in progress. Probability wise it was 1/800,000 for that evening but that single anecdote is really painful to hear.

Anecdote: host from hell.

We stayed in an airbnb in Amsterdam. Looked decent. However, we spent the first evening coordinating getting the shower fixed as it was overflowing. C'est la vie, win some lose some. Ok.

After that, when trying to sleep, the boiler made a very bad rattling noise, so again had to call someone about it. Again, win some lose some.

After that first evening, we sent a legitimate refund claim to the owner saying we can live with the (by then partially fixed) situation because we didn't want to waste time looking for somewhere else. We requested a one day refund as it had been spent fixing stuff. We then went to bed.

Midnight rolls around and my wife and I are fast asleep. My phone rings and it's the airbnb host demanding that we vacate the property, and "not to worry, I will help you get a room at the hotel over the road". Why? Because we had the temerity to request a refund.

(Context: he later tried to explain his attitude with "we should have contacted him directly because if a refund claim is put through, his property is downvoted in the airbnb listings". I have no idea if that is true).

He jumps in his car and an hour later, we are arguing on the doorstep about it, us in our PJ's wondering the hell is going on.

Airbnb handled the situation fairly well. However, if airbnb was my company, or the host was an employee of mine, he would have been fired. That host is still happily using airbnb.

Since that and a couple of other sketchy airbnb experiences I only use the service now when the hosts/property come extremely or personally recommended. I completely discount the online reviews.

I like the variety of experiences offered by airbnb. I don't like the inevitable encounters (and extreme experiences) possible with asshole airbnb hosts.

And there is nothing airbnb can do about it, short of striking dodgey hosts off their listings, which they didn't do in this case so I wonder how many other situations like that there have been where nothing was done.

I am a host for Airbnb, I did had a problem with one guest and Airbnb beside taking report they don't do anything else. I was very frustrate, they kept saying someone from Safety will call, they never did. In the Jacob situation I find so "Stupid" the fact that Airbnb hasn't done anything. All these Safety Promises that they have I don't think are real.At the same time, Jacob could text the address but I understand in a moment of panic. Are these people verified ??? Really?? How can a man had a woman name?? That's my question to Airbnb..

This was inevitable. People will do things in their own homes they wouldn't dare do in a hotel room as the hotel would call the police. The only real surprise is that AirBnB investors don't see themselves as culpable.

I don't think this is the worst it will get either.

There are plenty of stories like this from hotels.

https://www.google.com/search?q=sexual+assault+hotel&tbm=nws

Yes, that doesn't contradict the point though.

What happened to the guy with the XXX Freak Fest?

he moved out, Airbnb paid part of the damages and overall expenses.

Yeah I know about that part, but last I know he was on the street because no one would rent an apartment to him.

I get that Airbnb is the darling of this forum, and I even had good experience with it. Yet the amount of victim blaming is unbelievable. Instead of a guy being raped by trans "woman". Had it been a female victim, Airbnb would be apologizing like crazy, instead we get this utterly dismissive reply. NYTime has also abandoned any sense of equity by refusing to name the perpetrator while splashing the identity of the victim while putting blame on him.

We allow flimsy standards in Campus Prosecution and hide the identity of the victim. While in this case we are watching the victim being re-victimized.

Where is accountability?

Where is the zero star review that's supposed warn potential users?

This entire incident is truly sickening.

I like how you demand accountability, but are happy to insert your own version of the story to suit your own agenda.

Now that you mention it, the whole thing does seem to lack a certain appreciation for the gravity of the incident. A person got raped and the company's reply is:

"Oh, we're sorry. Security is our number 1 priority and we'll call the police ourselves next time."

And the debate here is "Well the victim should have contacted the police themselves. Doesn't he even know which emergency number to call?"

While I sincerely I hope the conversation would have been more serious if the victim was a girl, I am appalled at the current reaction.

paraphrasing but "Caveat emptor"

"Need for Precautions"

How about not staying in a stranger's house?

"How about not wearing revealing clothes"

"How about not walking in the wrong neighborhood"

"How about not looking anywhere but towards the ground"

I find this response pathetic.

I can legally go to downtown Baghdad if I wished. I have every right to as well.

But people shouldn't give me advice on how to minimise danger because that's victim blaming those who have been that have been hurt or killed?

As advice "Never accept the hospitality of strangers [even when bought and paid for via a trusted third party that publishes reviews]" verges on tinfoil hattery though.

I think downtown Baghdad is a few orders of magnitude more dangerous and I'd still consider "how about not going to downtown Baghdad" an unreasonably snarky response to an article on victims of bombings.

I was commenting on the part of the headline that naively suggests that there's an option other than accepting the risk that comes with staying at a stranger's house or not accepting it.

Not sure how you got from there to rape victim blaming and bomb victims in Irak.

Use an illegal (or soon to be illegal at least in Spain) service, get in trouble. I don't really understand what crosses the mind of someone who decides to sleep in someone else's house.

I like the "victim blaming is wrong" narrative. Taking a stupid risk is OK? Since when? Are we children?

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