Hacker News Reader

Comment by cobertos | Hacker News Reader

I had this experience too. Booked on AirBnb with someone who was about the same price as the hotels. Turns out the hosts were just employees of some letting company. They wanted photo ID, a deposit, and sign a second contract in a _separate website_, which I declined. Contacting AirBnb support they said this was fully allowed and I should have read the description harder. I did get a full refund but was told it was only because it was "my first time" and I've never had other issues.

I'm glad I turned around and booked with a hotel. It was very personable, good value, and better than what I would've gotten for the same price on AirBnb for that city.

View on HN

> They wanted photo ID, a deposit, and sign a second contract in a _separate website_

Yup my average airbnb experience in eg Spain is: dealing with an agent, asked to submit all my personal data to some random third party, all other communication done via WhatsApp, and often my number is given to third parties without my consent who spam me with things like offers of experiences/day trips etc

Just note that in a lot of countries, like Spain, the rental or hotel establishments are required by law to collect a lot of your information. It feels totally intrusive, but it's the law unfortunately.

Also, in places where there are such requirements, someone not following them and requesting the information could be a significant red flag. What other ordinances are they ignoring that could affect your safety or just your enjoyment?

Sure, but I expect AirBnB to handle this. (At least clearly communicate the requirement, cite the relevant statutes, link them, explain them, and help both parties be compliant while respecting users' privacy and hosts' time.)

I had some random folks in hostel reception taking full photo with their private smartphone of my id document "for the police", despite I clearly said I do not consent to have a copy of my document taken. Spanish hosts are absolutely shady and sloppy privacy wise.

EDIT. Spaniards don't take it personally. There is a war at the EU borders and there are waves of scams and various predatory behaviours, plus usual organised scams from Balkans, China, and India. Visitors will not be happy about their documents being scanned.

Where it’s the law for the lodging provides to have a copy of ID, you either consent to have them make a copy of your ID or you don’t get a place to stay. You don’t get to not consent and also get a place to stay.

Look up "spanish hotel/hostel fined for copying guest id". They certainly are not allowed to copy documents of EU citizens.

They were fined because they weren’t using the third-party online service that GGGGP is complaining about: https://spanishnewstoday.com/tourism-sector-wages-war-as-new...

They were probably telling the truth. It’s pretty common to have to register hotel/hostel stays with the authorities, and it’s increasingly uncommon to own a flatbed scanner - so what did you expect them to do, pull out a DSLR?

Identify the guest and write down the details read from the document, that's what most in Europe outside of Spain are doing.

I stayed with a friend in a Balkan country a couple years back and she had to take my passport and that of a couple of relatives down to the police station.

I'd expect them to get the right equipment for them to operate their business instead of having people use their private cell phones to save my photo id to their personal iCloud account and God knows where else.

It's like you're arguing banks should be absolved of using tls because it's just so tricky.

If your business requires you to handle PII I expect you to have the right equipment and processes to handle it.

There are too many shady middlemen in the vacation rentals space. I refuse to rent any place that has a separate lease, but they're no longer unheard of.

To some degree, I understand the businessification of rentals - it's uncomfortable for both parties if you're trying to get a grandma to meet you to exchange keys after a late flight. But also, that person-to-person charm is a big part of why people chose Airbnbs in the first place. If it's just an IKEA flip of an old apartment, why bother?

I've actually noticed that my taste in interior design has been impacted. The "pastel and sculpted veneer" aesthetic that took over Airbnb, "modern" coffee shops, and supposedly adult furniture brands like West Elm disgusts me now. I suspect it would have appealed to me if it hadn't been badly copied with shitty materials so many times. Now, I associate it with hollow experiences, poor craftsmanship, and attempts to get me to pay more for a "quality" I won't receive.

Here in Italy the law say that it’s mandatory to meet in person to give you the keys and to do identification, so the grandma should meet you anyway

Of course there are people that still ignore this, but the government has started to crackdown on this a bit, for example some months ago they started removing key boxes on the walls in the street

What city was this booking for?

Not the OP, but happened to me in London.

This was in Manchester, UK

Not OP but something similar to me has happened in Berlin, but in my understanding this is more due to local regulation which effectively makes "true" Airbnb's illegal and the places that remain on the platform are basically apartment letting businesses

any chance this was the "sonder" brand? They have weirdly invasive identity requirements.

Nope, this was CEFAS

Reply on news.ycombinator.com