They Bought a House to Airbnb. They Were Banned for Knowing the Wrong People
vice.com
vice.com
I do wonder if they went through the process to get a proper permit to operate.
Wouldn't this violate terms of service? Sounds like a really bad idea in any case. How else would they be able to "associate" her account with Carl's but for this act?
> Shortly afterward, Carl received an email informing him that he was not allowed to be an Airbnb user because of information that had surfaced on a background check. The report, which Motherboard reviewed, showed that Carl had been convicted of two non-violent offenses in 2015 and 2016—theft and drug possession, which Turner said she had been unaware of. Hoping to help, Turner decided to book a place to stay with her mom, saying she would stay with her and help her out until they found a permanent solution.
It reads to me like Turner signed up to rent a place and wrote on the form that she and her mom would be the tenants, and Airbnb decided (apparently correctly?) that Turner was going to let banned Carl stay in her stead.
The articles really not clear on when this happened or how close in time it was to Turner’s ban, so I don’t think he have enough information to know how airbnb figured out Turner and Carl were closely related, but it doesn’t seem like they were wrong either.
Btw, I’m not defending airbnb here, I hate these kafkaesque determinations and private sector policing of associations. But if you’re going to sign up to be both a host and a user of airbnb (which I personally would not), it doesn’t really sound like the system led to an egregious, indefensible outcome here.
Suddenly removing a customer from a platform, and then denying them the right to appeal, is obviously wrong. Unfortunately it's not just AirBnb. Many people have experienced similar kafkaesque treatment in the hands of large private corporations.
This is orthogonal to whether the policy was judicious - it only means ABnB decided the cost wasn't worth the benefit.
AirBnB trying to solve the problem of people not being able to affording living in their own homes by acquiring even more AirBnB rentals.
I suspect this won't end well for AirBnB, or people trying to just survive.
Also when you commit fraud on a platform (even a little tiny fraud) you might get banned.
They bought a house to stay in when they had to commute in to the city, and planned to rent it out when not staying there to make it feasible.
They also could not sell it “for a profit” because, as the article states, housing prices had tanked since they bought it.
(Also… are prices tanking in Austin? If so, first I’ve heard of it. Sounds more like the investment was already a stretch for them, and when it couldn’t flow cash in exactly the way they wanted expected, it was game over.)