Comedian Furious After Airbnb Rents His Apartment To "XXX Freak Fest" Orgy
gothamist.com
gothamist.com
There's just something about this comedian's indignant attitude that is a real turn off...the way he carefully worded his original post to make it sound like the orgy actually took place, omitting the details that made it clear he prevented the party. And his laughable claim of "this is a family building"...yes, I'm sure the families really appreciate you renting out your apartment to total strangers with no vetting. I wouldn't be surprised if some of this was a setup to provide material for his next comic routine.
Where was it mentioned he'd prevented the party? It sounded instead like he showed up right in the middle of it.
http://gawker.com/man-unwittingly-rents-out-apartment-on-air...
According to Teman, he handed the keys over to David late Friday afternoon. Then, he left his suitcase with his doorman and went to dinner before planning to head out of New York. When Teman returned to his building to retrieve his bag, he saw David in the lobby and overheard him telling others that "they're shutting us down."
Teman asked what was being "shut down," which he said brought a look of mortified recognition over David's face. Concerned and suspicious, Teman went back upstairs to his apartment, where he attempted to figure out what was going on. He opened his computer and Googled the Gmail address and phone number David had provided him during their correspondence on Airbnb. The search of the phone number brought up this tweet from February that advertised a "BBW Panty Raid Party" in New York.
...
Really, this is (yet another) story about the power of social media in our everyday lives, just with a twist of BBW orgy. Had Teman Googled David's phone number before handing over the keys, he probably would have cancelled the agreement and saved everyone the trouble. If David's number wasn't plastered across Twitter, he and whomever wanted to pay $20 to enter his party could have fucked all over Teman's apartment in peace.
Instead, Teman ended up stuck in New York and displaced from his apartment. David did not get to throw his Freak Fest. They both have spent the past 48 hours entangled with lawyers and policemen. What a weekend it could have been.
Does this logic work with other middleman services as well?
Some examples:
* Buy high priced item from (high ranked, but does it really matter?) individual on Ebay, turns out to be fake. Complain that this is Ebay's fault.
* Make some kind of deal on Craigslist. Deal falls through. Claim all the fault of Craigslist.
Aside from the shift in time and the "orgy" angle, the situations are identical. Either HN has dramatically changed, or the collective attitude toward this kind of thing has shifted to a decidedly anti-host (or pro-company?) sentiment. Interesting.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813956
[2] More commentary here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7407796
People react to a story based on the total context, not entirely on the facts. In the previous story, (if I remember correctly), it was presented as an ordinary individual who had their place ransacked and now was afraid to live there. There was an outpouring of support due to the individual being so sympathetic and the case being delivered in such a desperate tone.
In this case the guy comes of (true or not) as entitled and antagonistic.
----
That said, a careful reading of the situations shows its not factually indentical.
The previous case was a home-owner. AirBnB now protects people who own the property from damage caused when leasing.
This case is a renter, who was essentially running a hotel room out of his apartment--an act against his lease, and perhaps even illegal in his area.
http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-travele...
She never said anything about being an owner. As far as I can tell, she was a renter. Certainly, nobody knew if she rented or bought at the time the post hit HN.
Basically, what you're saying is that you don't like the guy's tone, so you think he doesn't deserve sympathy. Glad you don't work for AirBnB customer support.
> Glad you don't work for AirBnB customer support.
To be honest, I don't think he deserves sympathy since I don't know the full story (i.e. what exactly was damaged). But were I customer support, I'd be happy to hold his hand and have a cry with him because well.... that's the job of customer support.
I'd understand if he wrote: "Yeah, so I rented a place out on AirBnb and the guy renting was dishonest and I got burned; moral of the story: check out your renters." That would be totally rational.
Instead we got: "Yeah, so I rented a place out on AirBnb and the guy renting was dishonest and I got burned; moral of the story: AirBnb is a bad company because this is someones fault, and if it's not me (it couldn't be me) and it's not the renter (he's scary), then it must be AirBnb's!"
https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1854409?checkin=03%2F26%2F2014&...
If I had a website that openly facilitated illegal transactions (say, of cell phone jammers), and someone caused damages with an item they bought there, I couldn't throw up my hands and say it's not my problem.
Well, that's the crux of this business; whose responsibility is it, then? If AirBnB facilitates the deal, the liability is at least partially theirs. Otherwise, what's the point of the service? I may as well post to randoms in the classifieds.
And your two examples are nearly identical, but in the first case, eBay WILL take responsibility for the sale, and if you have paid through their payment service (Paypal) you can dispute the transaction. I've done it, and it was seamless.
While I'm actually with you in that I think the apartment owner shouldn't have rented his apartment out, you have to understand that AirBnB's business model would be completely destroyed if this kind of thing consistently happens.
The reason is that a random individual apartment owner has no way to independently vet someone trying to use AirBnB to sublet their apartment. AirBnB is the party with the aggregated information, not the apartment owner.
If apartment/house owners see this business turn into "you have a 999/1000 chance of making $XXX and a 1/1000 chance of sustaining $XX,XXX in damages you are personally liable for, plus eviction", what do you think is going to happen to AirBnB?
I'm not sure whether or not AirBNB should ever have come thus far. They're essentially offloading all the unpleasantness and liabilities of the hotel business on random schmucks that rent out their flats.
There are two ways this could play out. AirBNB will have to start playing by the rules that everybody else plays by, or they'll completely deregulate the Hotel business and we'll all be in comment-spam ratinghell while planning trips in the future.
Exactly. The only question is whether they can convince the necessary number of "schmucks" that they're not actually schmucks.
AirBnB vouched for the trustworthiness of this "David" fellow through their "Verified" badge. This is also their duty and responsibility as the facilitator between renters and rentees. And the process is the same on eBay--if your deal somehow turns out be less than legitimate, eBay will step in and attempt to resolve the situation, as the facilitator between buyer and seller. It is not that it is eBay or AirBnB's "fault", but they do have a reputation to uphold by being a responsive and trustworthy deal facilitator.
Also, craigslist is a listing of classified, and does not facilitate or participate in deals in any way. It is a flawed comparison.
If they're not prepared to do that, they don't have a business model.
The point of this story is that Airbnb's verification system is worth about as much as Craigslist's (i.e. there isn't one) and isn't as good as eBay's.
So they need to work on that, and until they do, it might be an idea to not rent out your apartment on there unless you're really, really, really sure you know who you're renting it out to.
This article does however get into the followup between "victim" and AirBnB.
Letting someone into your home should be a rather big deal. Just because some website vouches for a person doesn't mean you shouldn't do some checking up of your own.
It's sort of like Craigslist. Beware and assess the risks carefully!