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Comment by PeterHoang718 | Hacker News Reader

Peter H here, the original author of this piece, with an update. I want everyone to know that while this has been a really trying situation, KitSplit has gone to great lengths to help. KitSplit has now fully compensated me for the full value of the gear that was lost, even though this is beyond their legal requirements. They’ve also assured me they are making improvements to their policies and will have additional updates soon. Even before this happened, I continued to use KitSplit —in part because I have been impressed with their customer service throughout this experience. Now, I am pleased that they went above and beyond to help, and are taking this as an opportunity to reflect and improve their system.

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There's legal requirements, and then there's ethical requirements, which are not necessarily the same.

If they are supposedly vetting renters, then it should be incumbent upon them to stand behind their vetting. They should also very unequivocally state that if the renter just walks off with your gear you will not be compensated.

So sure, maybe you're getting repaid by KitSplit because you wrote a blog post about it, but what about everybody else who this has happened to. I doubt you're the only one. If they improve their practices because of this that's great, but the fact that it took months for them to come around, and only after they got some bad publicity, is not a good sign.

Hi Peter! Thanks for the article.

Can you comment on the legal situation, in light of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=united893

It's hard to see how this situation can't lead to charges. Not returning a rental car is grand theft[1], at least in CA; this situation isn't dissimilar. Specifically, see [2]: "voluntary parting" is just insurance lingo, from the legal standpoint, it's simply theft.

Have you sought legal advice on the matter? The police is not an impartial source here, nor the most qualified.

[1]https://www.chamberslawfirmca.com/can-charged-grand-theft-no...

[2]http://www.rentalmanagementmag.com/Art/tabid/232/ArticleId/2...

> KitSplit has gone to great lengths to help

You do realise the only way they compensated you wasn't to "help" you, but to try and shut you up when you started speaking out loud and the story got popular.

If they wanted to help you they'd compensate you immediately, instead of hiding behind their "insurance" that so conveniently for them does not cover theft.

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