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Comment by cageface | Hacker News Reader

In our rush to disintermediate old industries we may discover that some of those intermediaries are there for a reason.

What I don't get is how AirBnB vets the people leasing in the first place. I have to get a background check when I get a job, when I rent an apartment...does AirBnB really just let people sign up under pseudonyms without doing any one-time identity or background checks? I realize a background check may not have helped at all in this situation, and I don't know how much personal info AirBnB has stored on the guy that did all of this-- but how often is something like this going to happen when you know you're going to be tied directly to the aftermath of it?

Is there anyone on HN who runs a hotel that can say how often you have trashed rooms when you have accurate information on the people renting the room?

It's not just the issue of accurate information. Hotels have a security infrastructure in place and the rooms are checked regularly.

Had the criminals who did this tried it in a hotel there is a very good chance they would have been arrested straight away. They also have an agreement with the guest that the guest is liable for damages.

To be fair. I'd think a guest-liability thing wouldn't be too hard to work into AirBnB's infrastructure, although keeping the hosts honest is another question entirely.

Thinking about it as a whole, I have to wonder if the proper response would be to have a host-to-guest feedback system. As a host, you can request that guests have a certain "level" of feedback, with the drawback of receiving a reduced amount of money. Then on the other side, guests can get that as discounts-- as they travel and get good feedback from the hosts, they then can bunk at with the people who are, in essence, charging less.

Or maybe the whole system is untenable and couldn't possibly work without webcams set up in every room of the host's house. I guess we'll find out where it goes in the next week or so.

They already have host and guest reviews and feedback. Granted, most people are new to the system, and don't have feedback. As an AirBNB host, I screen potential customers all the time, and definitely seeing positive reviews from others is helpful.

Curious-- how does this incident affect your thoughts on being a host, if at all?

It's not just the issue of accurate information. Hotels have a security infrastructure in place and the rooms are checked regularly.

And they have much much less to lose if you trash the room. Hotel rooms aren't filled with a person's prized possesions.

I'm not familiar with how the booking on airbnb exactly works, but given the fact that they shield both parties from each other throughout most of the process, shouldn't airbnb have some information* about the fraudulent party involved here? Email address? IP address from their logs? Phone number ? Credit card? Anything to assist to get a hold of the perpetrators...

I'd think so, assuming they're not blatantly lying about the police "having a suspect in custody" (I really, really, really hope they're not lying about that, just for the sake of how spectacularly stupid that would be.)

Over time AirBnB will probably just become a listing and booking service for established holiday apartments. Places that are furnished accordingly, have suitable insurance and are properly managed by the owner or a agent.

Bringing amateur operators into a sector with potential massive downsides with no education is extremely risky for AirBnB and the hosts.

Same feeling here. There's a lot "social" can do to improve the accommodation industry, but it may have gone a bit too fast. However it ends for airbnb, the idea is sound and will survive/come back, but I always had the feeling that was going too fast and too smoothly. Back to reality.

I think this proves that the model of cheap, social housing will not work. The only way to provide the level of security that this woman is demanding is to dramatically increase the cost of the service or the housing to cover the risk.

I thought one of the reasons this was possible is that Airbnb keeps the parties from learning each other's identity in order to ensure they get their fee. They are an intermediary.

Given how much information is available online, why cant airbnb use, eg facebook, data for identity verification. There are face recognition softwares available now which work well in controlled environment. Of course a persons online identity may be compromised as well. But that does not mean we can not device ways to protect against such incidents using multiple checks. Eg facebook account used to create person profile of guest & host and using face recognition of facebook training dataset and real photo via webcam along with perhaps social security number we should be able to devise ways to protect against such incidents at not very high engineering costs.

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