SFPD Arrests Suspect In Airbnb Rental Trashing

theodp writes "Just days after it was reported that apartment sharing startup Airbnb had raised $112MM at a $1B+ valuation from investors that included Marc Andreessen and Jeff Bezos, Airbnb user EJ's blog entry on the ransacking of her apartment by Airbnb renters went viral, creating a PR nightmare that's turning into a war of words. CNET reports San Francisco police have confirmed that a 19-year-old woman has been arrested in the case, booked on possession of stolen property, methamphetamine, fraud charges, and an outstanding warrant."

Comments

Uh ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like what I would expect from sharing my apartment with random strangers.

It's the risk you take

[ledow]

What I can't believe is not that someone would trash an apartment "just because", but that someone else wouldn't think it was possible. Have they seriously been living in cloud-cuckoo-land?

My ex-mother-in-law rented out her house to complete strangers for six months while she was on the other side of the planet. We all said she was incredibly stupid to do such a thing - not least because in that amount of time you could do ANYTHING, i.e. discover house deeds and sell the house to someone else, sublet it out to complete strangers (it was in the middle of a tourist area and used as a guest house when they were home) and there was no-one to check on what happened (she lived hundreds of miles away from where we did).

Although everything went fine, why on earth would you consider doing such a thing, especially in somewhere that's still housing your clothes, a safe with your personal documents, personal possessions, etc.? You've got to be really stupid or incredibly naive.

I bet your normal house insurance doesn't cover such events. I bet airbnb's insurance doesn't cover such events. I bet its difficult to even find rental insurance that covers you when you have no knowledge of who's renting from you.

It's a horrible thing to happen, and it *shouldn't* happen, but equally if I leave my car out in the road with a "Borrow my car for only £10 an hour" scheme where I never see who borrows my car, it's OBVIOUS that the chances are I will never see my car again or, if I do see it, I won't want to. And a car is a replaceable thing. It's not a house. It doesn't contain safes with all my identification documents (what a stupid idea to leave those, even in a safe, in a house you're renting out).

Seriously, it's a horrendous thing to have happen to you but, more seriously, you *DIDN'T* see it coming?

Re:It's the risk you take

[Anonymous Coward]

"Have they seriously been living in cloud-cuckoo-land?"

They live in San Francisco. 'Nuff said.

Re:It's the risk you take

[Anonymous Coward]

What I can't believe is not that someone would trash an apartment "just because", but that someone else wouldn't think it was possible. Have they seriously been living in cloud-cuckoo-land?

Yes. It's like you should never take a hitchhiker along, since everyone knows there are psychopaths amongst them that will rape and kill you. Or let a stranger make a phone call using your phone, since they can just as well may run off with it. Or simply walk outside. Do you know how many people get pick-pocketed, mugged, kidnapped, run over by cars, etc every day?

The risk of being involved in a car accident is probably even much higher than getting robbed the way this person was (even if you only look at people using that service). But I guess cuckoo-you nevertheless walks, rides or drives on/by the street pretty much every day.

Re:It's the risk you take

[AncientPC]

Ideally centralizing payment and identity verification to a 3rd party is a step up from Craigslist where you have to do it all yourself. EJ stated that AirBNB does not give out contact information until after someone's rented the place, preventing screening applicants.

However from the terms (keep in mind they may have changed it since EJ's case):

"1.2 Identity Verification. We make no attempt to confirm, and do not confirm, any user's purported identity. You are responsible for determining the identity and suitability of others who you may contact by means of this Site. We do not endorse any persons who use or register for our Services, whether as guests or hosts. We do not investigate any user's reputation, conduct, morality, criminal background, or verify the information that any user submits to the Site. We encourage you to communicate directly with potential hosts and guests through the tools available on the Site and to review your hosts’ and guests’ profile pages for feedback from other users.

13.1 IF YOU USE OUR SERVICES, YOU DO SO AT YOUR SOLE RISK. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT Airbnb DOES NOT CHECK ANY GUEST, HOST, OR OTHER USER’S BACKGROUND OR RECORD. Airbnb IS A REPUTATION-BASED SYSTEM. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF OTHER USER’S COMMENTS AND THIRD-PARTY REFERRALS ON HOSTS AND GUESTS. USE COMMON SENSE. BE AWARE AND BE SAFE. OUR SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. WE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM, AND YOU WAIVE, ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

14.1 WE SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY DIRECT, INCIDENTAL, GENERAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES) EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO: (A) THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE OUR SERVICES; (B) HARM OR DAMAGE TO YOUR PROPERTY AS A RESULT OF USING OUR SERVICES; (C) DISCLOSURE OF, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR ALTERATION OF YOUR CONTENT; (D) ANY HARM TO YOU CAUSED IN WHOLE OR PART BY A THIRD PARTY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANOTHER USER OF THE SERVICES; (E) STATEMENTS, CONDUCT OR OMISSIONS OF ANY GUEST, HOST, OR OTHER THIRD PARTIES ON OUR SERVICES; OR (F) YOUR OR ANYONE ELSE'S CONDUCT OR ACTS IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OF THE SERVICES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION FROM INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER USERS OF OUR SERVICES OR PERSONS INTRODUCED TO YOU BY OUR SERVICES, WHETHER ON-LINE OR OFF-LINE."

In essence, I find it hard to understand what added value AirBNB provides over either Craigslist (pay) or Couch Surfing (free, reputation-based).

Re:It's the risk you take

[jimicus]

In essence, I find it hard to understand what added value AirBNB provides over either Craigslist (pay) or Couch Surfing (free, reputation-based).

They don't, so quite how they managed to get a valuation of $1 billion I have no idea. Are we looking at another dot-com boom?

Re:It's the risk you take

[LordNimon]

Although everything went fine

In other words, your ex-mother-in-law proved you wrong.

You really should have come up with a better example.

Re:It's the risk you take

[GameboyRMH]

Check this out, from TFA:

It was several months after moving in that I finally felt ready to try renting it out while I traveled. (I had rented out my apartment several times while living in New York, through Craigslist no less, and always with exceptional results). Now, I convinced myself that anyone would love and respect this lovely space as much as I did. It seemed silly to let a perfectly good apartment sit empty while I traveled, when there were so many visitors to San Francisco in need of a place to stay, who wanted to experience a city as I preferred to: in a local’s home, outside the tourist bubble of a hotel. Anyway I liked the idea of someone being there, looking after my thirsty houseplant, and of course the opportunity to earn some extra cash was more than appealing.

This woman is ultra-naive.

Re:It's the risk you take

[whoever57]

"1.2 Identity Verification. We make no attempt to confirm, and do not confirm, any user's purported identity. You are responsible for determining the identity and suitability of others who you may contact by means of this Site

Since Airbnb does not allow exchange of personal information until after a contract is agreed, that clause seems to be particularly problematic.

Re:It's the risk you take

[Zancarius]

This woman is ultra-naive.

It's helpful to remember that while we geek-types tend toward being highly pessimistic, there are a significant amount of people who truly do live in a world where they believe nothing could possibly go wrong. For us, it's alien, simply because we generally don't trust people--and we can't; optimistic and/or ignorant programmers are likely responsible for exploits the rest of us have to deal with.

On the other hand, the response of Slashdot (again, generally speaking) is a symptom of another facet of our tendencies: We have a hard time living in someone else's shoes. Being unable to see ourselves in her position--simply because we would never commit to doing something in the first place--is certainly no excuse to treat her harshly. Was it a mistake? Maybe, but reading her blog is telling and implies that there was no way that she could possibly vet potential guests. Perhaps I can more easily empathize with some people, but regardless, what she went through is something no one should.

I'm with a handful of other posters here. What value does AirBnB add to renting if they don't give you any information about the guest until the last minute? It seems like a scam to me, and it works because there are an awful lot of people who are far too trusting and caring.

Re:I wish I could view the world EJ's way...

[millisa]

Ooh, good catch. (I'm the A/C above, didn't notice I wasn't logged in). I have to wonder what type of info they may have posted to the logged in user at the time when they made the listings. Probably very little based on what you found. I think most of us agree she appears to have approached the whole thing without enough common sense.

I just ran across this usatoday article which had some more info (apparently the 19 year old isn't in SF PD custody anymore...).

EJ claims she hasn't gotten squat from airbnb still, airbnb is saying they have offered all sortsa compensation. Seems like an easy enough thing to verify; I don't get how it's still a he-says-she-says routine.

What was interesting in the article was this bit from airbnb:
Airbnb, while pointing out that the incident was the first of its kind out of some 2 million stays booked since the company's founding in 2008, announced that it would be doubling the size of its customer service staff (42 people at the time of the incident and 88 currently), offering insurance to hosts and creating a "Trust and Safety" department, among other measures.

That seems to imply that they do not currently offer insurance. How naive of them to not consider it necessary in the last 3 years. One of their similar competitors, roomarama.com, also doesn't provide any type of insurance.

Also from that article:
She said was "growing a very thick skin" because of accusations that she was part of a plot by the hotel industry to discredit Airbnb, and because of criticism that she courted disaster by opening her rented apartment to strangers.
That's just harsh. I couldn't find who was supposedly making those accusations, but if it's more than the cynical /. user, that just isn't right.

Here's hoping she at least gets her backup drive back.

Rose lensed glasses for everyone!

Slashvertisement

[rebelwarlock]

Since there's nothing remotely tech about this story, with the possible exception of a website existing, and the fact that they do unrelated plugs to other stories in an attempt to make this airbnb thing sound neat, I'm going to go ahead and say this is just an attempt at getting more attention/traffic their way. I'm not saying no vandalism occurred, I'm just saying that there's no part of this story that belongs on slashdot, and it's only here because it serves as a way to get them more of that SEO goodness with the google love machine.

Re:Slashvertisement

[adamofgreyskull]

Is the news that we're in the middle of another bubble? To wit: some company I've never heard of that has nothing and produces nothing is supposedly worth $1bn + and has already convinced some chumps to pony up $112m.