A man is in Spain and calls his mother in US for help, and mother then calls an US company for help, who refuse to hand out client information for random people who call and claim that the client is doing a crime?<p>Instructing to call the police was definitely the best possible course of action, and the mistake they made was to hand out a local number for the police of Madrid instead of instructing the mother to instruct his son to call the emergency number of the country he's in, 112 in Europe. Had AirBnB sent someone visit the place, he would arrive there much later than the police could, and would still be unable to do anything but to calm the emergency number that he can't get in and a customer's mother in the US claims there's a crime going on.
My 60+ year old mother has a neighbor renting on Airbnb illegally.<p>The Airbnb guests have repeatedly scared her late at night by mistakenly trying to open her door, yelling, partying, etc. She doesn't feel safe in her own home anymore.<p>Airbnb support responded to her complaint but took no action.<p>It's wrong to even allow apartments or condos to be rented out, it hurts all the neighbors, but Airbnb chooses to hurt people in order to make more money.
On the other side of the wall I'm typing this is an AirBnB.<p>39/40 people are fine. Sometimes strangers try and get into my house because they're confused, but that's about it.<p>A few weeks back hundreds of drunk teenagers threw a rooftop party (and also a hallway party outside my apartment). AirBnB has no official support mechanism for neighbours, and the carpet still has all the beer stains I asked AirBnB to clean.
This is a terrible incident, and poor initial handling, but it sounds like a reasonable policy change on the part of the company.<p>I'm actually suprised though that host safety/security hasn't been a bigger issue. Last weekend my wife & I stayed at an apartment ("whole place") in a large US city. The host, a girl in her early 20s, probably quite new to the city, and who we didn't meet, left us her apartment keys (all of them): there was no combination lock on the door, i.e. nothing preventing somebody from duplicating the keys and having permanent access to the apartment. On top of that, all of her stuff was in the apartment - clothes, paperwork, jewelry - and as far as we could see (we didn't snoop beyond looking for an iron) she didn't have a lockbox there.<p>Obviously she's naive, but she's not alone; I've heard several similar stories. I'm not sure what I'd have airbnb do to improve the situation; at minimum, though, requiring the use of combination door locks with guest-specific combinations would seem like a good policy, although obviously they'd lost a lot of hosts by doing so.
I really feel for the boy's mother who must have gone through hell after her son called her. I was once in a similar situation myself where a dear friend of mine got in big trouble while traveling in Vietnam:<p>Since the country is a Malaria area my friend took prophylactic medication (Malarone). As an (infrequent) side effect these drugs can cause hallucinations and severe anxiety attacks, which unfortunately is what happened to her. When the symptoms hit her she was alone (as the only Western person) in a small train station in Ho-Chi-Minh city and became suddenly so scared that she hid in a corner, hallucinating and unable to call out for help. Lucky for her I called her up after she failed to send me a message as we had agreed on a few days earlier and found out about the dangerous situation. And while she was not able to speak clearly she was at least able to communicate where she was to me. So, I immediately thought about how I could get help to her and tried calling the local emergency numbers using Skype, my mobile phone and my landline. As it turns out, those numbers are usually not reachable from outside the country.<p>So what I did instead (and what I would do again in a similar situation) was to call the emergency number of the local embassy / consulate in the country. These always have staff answering the phone 24/7, but unfortunately even they are not always willing to help you. It usually helps to first get the name of the person who answered the phone and then explain to him/her that the person in distress is a citizen of his/her country and that he/she is in acute danger. Also, explain to them (in case they forgot) that it is their duty to protect the life of the citizens of their country abroad and to do anything in their power to get help to them as fast as possible. They will know better than you which number to call or how to organize help (in case the emergency response system is not very functional as was the case in Vietnam). Do not waste time trying to call the local emergency numbers.
What a horrible story. Airbnb and Uber are both going to have to work through some rough patches with how they handle situations like these. While technically not responsible, they have an opportunity to make their services safer than the alternatives.<p>Personally, I have used Airbnb to travel all over Europe with mostly great experiences. A couple places have had things break that the host had to fix, but nothing that ruined my trip. Many of the hosts have been over the top awesome. I had great and unique experiences in both Hungary and Croatia directly because of the host.<p>Right now Airbnb is fighting a scam on their site where listings are put up with an email in the listing or you request information about the listing and the host emails a link to a site that looks like Airbnb but is just a scam to collect CC information. It would stink if this is marking the end of the VRBO glory days.
The plural of anecdote is not data. There are more than 100k stays every night in an Airbnb. You could find a horror story for <i>any</i> big company that does something 100k times or more. This article says more about NYT and its so called journalism than it does about Airbnb.<p>It's <i>obviously</i> a horrible experience for the person involved. That doesn't make the story relevant to Airbnb, just like the MH17 crash doesn't say anything about Malaysia Airlines or flight travel in general.<p>EDIT: Accommodating nitpickers and straw men.
Airbnb customer service really shat the bed on this one. There's really no excuse for refusing to call the police when you are told a heinous crime is in progress. Probability wise it was 1/800,000 for that evening but that single anecdote is really painful to hear.
Anecdote: host from hell.<p>We stayed in an airbnb in Amsterdam. Looked decent. However, we spent the first evening coordinating getting the shower fixed as it was overflowing. C'est la vie, win some lose some. Ok.<p>After that, when trying to sleep, the boiler made a very bad rattling noise, so again had to call someone about it. Again, win some lose some.<p>After that first evening, we sent a legitimate refund claim to the owner saying we can live with the (by then partially fixed) situation because we didn't want to waste time looking for somewhere else. We requested a one day refund as it had been spent fixing stuff. We then went to bed.<p>Midnight rolls around and my wife and I are fast asleep. My phone rings and it's the airbnb host demanding that we vacate the property, and "not to worry, I will help you get a room at the hotel over the road". Why? Because we had the temerity to request a refund.<p>(Context: he later tried to explain his attitude with "we should have contacted him directly because if a refund claim is put through, his property is downvoted in the airbnb listings". I have no idea if that is true).<p>He jumps in his car and an hour later, we are arguing on the doorstep about it, us in our PJ's wondering the hell is going on.<p>Airbnb handled the situation fairly well. However, if airbnb was my company, or the host was an employee of mine, he would have been fired. That host is still happily using airbnb.<p>Since that and a couple of other sketchy airbnb experiences I only use the service now when the hosts/property come extremely or personally recommended. I completely discount the online reviews.<p>I like the variety of experiences offered by airbnb. I don't like the inevitable encounters (and extreme experiences) possible with asshole airbnb hosts.<p>And there is nothing airbnb can do about it, short of striking dodgey hosts off their listings, which they didn't do in this case so I wonder how many other situations like that there have been where nothing was done.
I am a host for Airbnb, I did had a problem with one guest and Airbnb beside taking report they don't do anything else. I was very frustrate, they kept saying someone from Safety will call, they never did. In the Jacob situation I find so "Stupid" the fact that Airbnb hasn't done anything. All these Safety Promises that they have I don't think are real.At the same time, Jacob could text the address but I understand in a moment of panic. Are these people verified ??? Really?? How can a man had a woman name?? That's my question to Airbnb..
This was inevitable. People will do things in their own homes they wouldn't dare do in a hotel room as the hotel would call the police. The only real surprise is that AirBnB investors don't see themselves as culpable.<p>I don't think this is the worst it will get either.
I get that Airbnb is the darling of this forum, and I even had good experience with it. Yet the amount of victim blaming is unbelievable. Instead of a guy being raped by trans "woman". Had it been a female victim, Airbnb would be apologizing like crazy, instead we get this utterly dismissive reply. NYTime has also abandoned any sense of equity by refusing to name the perpetrator while splashing the identity of the victim while putting blame on him.<p>We allow flimsy standards in Campus Prosecution and hide the identity of the victim. While in this case we are watching the victim being re-victimized.<p>Where is accountability?<p>Where is the zero star review that's supposed warn potential users?<p>This entire incident is truly sickening.
Use an illegal (or soon to be illegal at least in Spain) service, get in trouble. I don't really understand what crosses the mind of someone who decides to sleep in someone else's house.<p>I like the "victim blaming is wrong" narrative. Taking a stupid risk is OK? Since when? Are we children?