Introduction:

I’m Asher Fergusson. This past September, my wife and I experienced two consecutive Airbnb nightmares that left us and our 10-month-old son on the street in Europe. It was a horrible experience.

As a result, I decided to conduct an Airbnb guest research study, and subsequently wrote an article about its findings. My research partners were Sheana Ahlqvist, PhD and Erin Smith. They are also joining me on this AMA.

We’re doing this AMA because we want to see Airbnb succeed, but our findings indicate they are not doing a good enough job keeping up with their massive growth. We uncovered multiple dangerous loopholes & scams that are going unchecked and we want to bring awareness to these issues.

Summary of our research:

According to Airbnb customer service, 3% to 7% of stays turn into a “problem stay” (that’s over 2 million ruined trips per year). Here’s what’s most likely to go wrong on your next stay based on 839 3rd-party online reviews shared by dissatisfied Airbnb guests:

Host cancels stay (20.5%), Scams (15.4%), Unsafe conditions (13.4%), Not as described (12.2%), Fake Listings or Reviews (3.8%), Discrimination (1.1%)

We found that Airbnb customer service makes everything far worse: 82% of the people who had a problem with their Airbnb stay mentioned customer service as a problem. 57.5% of those people listed customer service as their primary complaint.

See our full infographic that was submitted Monday to /r/Dataisbeautiful here (it has over 2,000 comments, many of which are stories from other dissatisfied Airbnb users) : https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7hk5xu/according_to_airbnb_customer_service_3_to_7_of/

Other key findings from our research:

  1. Lax or nonexistent ID requirements and background checks for hosts
  2. Price point arbitrage scam with duplicate listings
  3. Co-founder Brian Chesky claims a natural “immune system” is supposed to regulate good and bad users, but the review system is flawed and often biased.
  4. A scammer can use the same listing photos on multiple accounts.
  5. A host who has been "permanently banned" can get back on the platform instantly under a different name.
  6. Listing addresses are not verified so a "bad" host can list any address whether they own the property or not.

Proof:

If you would like to read our full article, our published study or our video with proof, you can find it on Asher’s website here: https://www.asherfergusson.com/airbnb/

ASK US ANYTHING!

Edit: Thanks everyone! We signing off at 4:30pm PST but will check back in the morning to see if there are any unanswered questions. Cheers, Asher, Sheana and Erin.

Comments: 280 • Responses: 33  • Date: 

lmaccaro429 karma

While in Barcelona staying at a VRBO/Friendlyrentals unit, our (well-secured) room was keyed into the night before we were to leave and everything was taken except for our passports. Well over $5,000 in value.

Googling this, I found many other similar horror stories about the Barcelona rentals market.

How often have you run into this type of scam?

asherfergusson175 karma

ASHER: There were some examples but it was very rare.

asherfergusson199 karma

ERIN: The few examples we did see involved people knowing that the location was an Airbnb and tracking and following guests. There were some instances where people were robbed and there were some instances of an unwelcome, uninvited visitor at the door. These were not common but they were notable.

Ima_Grab_Yo_Snatch269 karma

My friends and I were staying at a home in Nashville for a bachelor party. The owner was coming in to check on us throughout the week (totally understandable). But our third night there we noticed a camera in one of the bedrooms and asked him about it. He said he'd check on it the next day. While we were out getting lunch he stopped by and said there was no camera and he wasn't sure what we were talking about. We went back to the home and sure enough the camera was gone.

We complained to Airbnb and got no response or refund. The big fear that we had was that there were some provocative things happening in that bedroom that we wouldn't like the world to see (remember, bachelor party). If any of those videos were ever to be found somewhere online, do we have a legal leg to stand on in terms of suing the host?

asherfergusson81 karma

ERIN: That’s more of a legal question, and it involves several layers of legality. Full disclosure: I am NOT a legal expert, nor are Asher or Sheana. I do not claim to know the laws of every state or governing location.

  1. Some states in the US, for example, are one-party consent states. This means of the recorded parties, only one must consent (obviously the person doing the recording consents, so done and done). Other states may require majority consent, while still others require all-party consent.
  2. Some laws may differentiate between video-only, video+audio, and audio-only recording.
  3. Some legal proceedings may require the incident to have been reported to officers of the law, and may require certain types of and amounts of proof. Other types of infractions may not require such evidentiary support.
  4. If the cameras were disclosed, I seriously doubt there’s anything to be done about it
  5. If they were not disclosed, it may even depend on what was recorded? Hard to say.

Long story short, there are so many jurisdictional overlaps here that it would be hard to say for sure what legal protections there are, but it’s likely that the victim(s) of privacy-infringement in the context of hidden cameras would have some recourse.

In any case, you should absolutely take the matter to the police as soon as it happens and have full photo/video evidence.

sunflower3284189 karma

Hidden cameras; I'm seeing it a lot more in the news recently. Is it happening more than we think it is?

asherfergusson285 karma

ASHER: Honestly, one or two instances is too many in this case, but it seems to be a lot more than that. Makes me nervous to stay in a place on Airbnb ever again! Who knows how many places actually have them because if they're hidden well you will never know... :(

One redditor said: "My parents just this week discovered hidden cameras in their airbnb spread throughout the house. Even worse, when they discovered them and covered them up, within an hour they got an angry call from the host demanding they uncover them so they could continue watching my parents. So not only did they have cameras, they were actively monitoring them, which is such an insane invasion of privacy. Predictably, my parents couldn't get a refund from AirBnB even though they left more than a night early." https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7hk5xu/according_to_airbnb_customer_service_3_to_7_of/dqsasev/

Another Redditor said: "I found hidden cameras in an airbnb I stayed in. It happens probably more than we all think. This person is still listed as a host here in Austin, tx the last time I looked despite me bringing it to Airbnb attention. Apparently it's not against their TOS" https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/7hk5xu/according_to_airbnb_customer_service_3_to_7_of/dqs69bd/

There have been major news reports such as this video from ABC News which reports on a Florida couple who found cameras hidden in the smoke detector in the bedroom. The host had been on Airbnb for years and had good forty reviews.

why_adnauseaum77 karma

All of this is really scary and sad. As a Superhost with Airbnb, we've really enjoyed the experience. We've met a variety of people, become friends with many of our guests and even have repeat guests. We're probably not your typical hosts, though, as we interact with our guests quite a bit (making them breakfast most days and often invite them to eat with us) - but not past their comfort level as we respect their need for downtime and privacy. We lay ALL this out in our listing and are very detailed as to who we are and why we chose to do this. However, I was very skeptical of this idea when my SO first proposed this because "strangers in my house, while I sleep?!" Butbits been great - so far. From the viewpoint of a host and a user of Airbnb, I'd also recommend reading the listings very careful. Take note of how many times they've cancelled on a booking. You can also go to Google earth and look at the property and the area. We've had great customer service through AirBnB, though. Just lucky?

asherfergusson50 karma

ASHER: You sound like a great host - the kind I'd want to stay with :)

We've found that their customer service seems to be hit or miss but has definitely headed noticeably south in the past year as they've continued to grow at astronomical rates.

One host we interviewed share this:

“I think Airbnb has suffered the typical tech conundrum: growing faster than it’s ready for. It needs to have dedicated community managers for every major market to help out with on-the-ground issues, and it needs to up its customer service game—or at least, bring back the level from (circa) 2014 when it was at the top of its game.” - Kristin

Thelastpancake151 karma

It looks like most of the research was focused on guest experiences. Have you looked into problems hosts have encountered? My mother operates an AirBnB where guests were able to book a whole week at the guest home on her property, show up the first day and trash the place, only for her to find out from AirBnB in the morning that the credit card on their account was no good. Meanwhile she was stuck with evicting a dozen or so rowdy guests by herself. She lives (most the time) alone on a large ranch, and she felt stranded to deal with them on her own.

asherfergusson64 karma

SHEANA: Yes, this study was focused exclusively on guest experiences, and only negative experiences at that. Because Airbnb is a two-sided marketplace (i.e., there are both guests who stay at Airbnbs AND hosts who offer Airbnbs) there is the potential for abuse on both sides. Your concern sounds similar to the finding here, that customer service was a frequent complaint among guests.

amerika77115 karma

AirBnB needs to be regulated the same way the hotel industry is. Without those regulations, there will always be unsatisfied or unhappy customers. As a hotel & restaurant owner, the amount of regulations & hoops I had to jump through to get where I am now is astonishing in comparison to the average home owner that can list their house, guest house, cottage, condo, or whatever dwelling on a network and charge similar prices to that of which I charge for a night, and get away with it. My question is, what are your thoughts on making AirBnB regulated? Cheers

HeyItsMau83 karma

I got my MBA in sustainable business and focused a lot of my work on the sharing economy. I found it to be a shame that companies like AirBnB and Uber have a fundamentally sustainable business models (on paper, it's to utilize unused resources), but have devolved into traditional mindsets of short-term profits. Particularly, I feel both companies have an arrogance about them when it comes to playing with regulations. I think OP's third findings address this - CEO Chesky hides behind the guise of neo-liberalism and innovation to circumvent what's best for society and ultimately, their own sustainability.

A pattern that I noticed between those two companies is arrogant leadership. It's reductive to say, but for the sake of brevity, both CEO's strike me as Silicon Valley fratboys. I think the curtain has fallen around Uber a bit, given all of their problems with sexism that I believe comes from a culture straight from the top.

Anyways, back to AirBnB's point, I think they have been repeatedly making the mistake of ignoring requests to sit-down with governments to talk about regulations. They have a good chance to pave their own destiny - one that would inevitably mean regulations that cause less profits in the short-term, but ultimately better in the long-term. I have no doubt that it's going to take a few more highly-publicized disaster stories before politicians decide to really crack-down on them. Going back to the Uber comparisons ...it has already happened to them. They are banned from a few major cities because they didn't bother to sit down at the table with the government before it was too late. AirBnB can be proactive about protecting themselves now, but they choose not to. Good though. I'm waiting for a better behaving replacement.

asherfergusson51 karma

ASHER: This is really well said and is exactly our conclusion.

This is an excerpt from The Upstarts by Brad Stone:

…Chesky had subscribed to the purist’s view of online marketplaces: Users were supposed to police one another by rating their experiences. Untrustworthy actors would be drummed off the platform by bad reviews, rejected by the web’s natural immune system. It was a libertarian view of the internet and had the whiff of Silicon Valley snake oil. The prospect of a negative review is of little use after a serious breach of etiquette —or a criminal act. But because of their shared faith in the power of self-policing marketplaces, Chesky and his colleagues hadn’t made serious investments in customer service or customer safety. The fact that Blecharczyk, as well as the company’s controller, Stanley Kong, had been put in charge of customer service at a company now with over 130 employees while the other founders looked for an executive to run the department was telling. “We viewed ourselves as a product and technology company, and customer support didn’t feel like product and tech,” Chesky says. Source

This below text I've taken out of my article but furthers the points.

Here is a quote from a recent interview with Fortune on October 23rd, 2017 with Brian Chesky (Airbnb co-founder).

Interviewer asks: “You’ve also had your share of controversy and you’ve run into all sorts of challenges whether it’s safety incidents, legal pushback or discrimination. What of those has been hardest for you?”

Brian Chesky replies: “Well I think that the first one one was by far the hardest. The first big, big crisis or challenge we had. We didn’t have robust 24/7 customer support, we didn’t have a trust and safety team, we didn’t remove very many users and then a woman’s apartment got trashed and it was a huge wake up call. It told me that though our thesis was our community is an immune system, people didn’t want to wait for the immune system to kick in. That we had a responsibility to prevent these bad things from happening. It completely changed our model. Now we’re pretty hands on in managing the marketplace.”

When Chesky says “immune system” I believe he means that when Airbnb users go out and stay at bad listings they will then write bad reviews that will inform future travelers.

Are you kidding me, Mr. Chesky?!!

You’re expecting us, travelers, to spend thousands of dollars on a trip and then have our vacation ruined so that we can be part of your “immune system” in order for you to make more money at our expense?

This logic is ridiculous. I can see how an “immune system” works on websites like Reddit, Facebook or YouTube where inappropriate content gets flagged by users. But the stakes are low there since we’re separated from “bad people” by our computer screens.

With Airbnb, it’s completely different. Accommodation is the most important base need for successful travel and usually costs $1000s. An “immune system” in this case is just not good enough.

How do we know we’re not going to be staying with a convicted felon or sex-offender when you allow anyone to become a host? How do we know the place we’re renting is even legal? And after years of Chesky’s “immune system” being up and running, we’re still seeing hundreds of problems with false, deleted, censored, and untrustworthy reviews plus dangerous stays and hosts, so the immune system is obviously not working.

It is apparent that Chesky has had this idealistic view from day one. He didn’t think customer support was that important because the users would self-govern. This is total BS considering the fact that it wasn’t until August 2017 that they allowed reviews to be shared even if someone cancelled their stay or left early.

Those censored reviews are the most important reviews to create an effective "immune system" because if someone finds the place in that bad shape they have to leave it must be really bad. But of course, those bad reviews would have drastically reduced Airbnbs revenue because no one wants to stay at a place 3-stars... Seems pretty damn shady to me.

asherfergusson56 karma

ASHER: I believe that in theory companies like Airbnb and Uber etc could regulate themselves but because they are mega for-profit businesses they always keep profits in mind. E.g they make it as easy as possible for anyone to become a host because they have a shortage of hosts but this makes them open targets of scammers and criminals.

So I think because of their profitability bias, they need to be regulated to increase the safety of their users.

coryrenton83 karma

are there any characteristics to look for that decrease the chance of it being a bad experience?

asherfergusson184 karma

ASHER: My top tips are to only stay at places that have a shit ton of reviews, only stay at places that have a 5-star average, only stay with Superhosts. Don't stay with a host who has more than one or two properties.

You can read all 54 of my tips on my site here: https://www.asherfergusson.com/airbnb/#safety-tips

WombleCat47 karma

Where has your study been published - can you please share the DOI link? I can't find it on your website.

WombleCat41 karma

Okay thanks, but is this undergoing any peer review for publishing in an academic journal?

kalshassan45 karma

This is the point. This is not “research”, it’s not peer reviewed, it’s not published. It’s a collection of anecdotal accounts, with no evidence of bias awareness.

MacorgaZ6 karma

Fergusson himself is clearly biased into wanting to prove Airbnb and its support are terrible, because of his bad experience with the moldy Airbnb rental. There's no real scientific basis for this, but hey, it does give a nice infographic.

asherfergusson3 karma

ASHER: I partnered with Sheana and Erin to remove my bias. If you read the paper you will see this:

The primary coder studied sample reviews and created a coding system to represent the seven most common complaint categories. A second coder also scored a sample of responses, and their agreement met the standards of interrater reliability (Cohen’s kappa = .82). Team members read the reviews and determined which category or categories each review fit into based on predetermined qualifying reasons or problems.

asherfergusson20 karma

ASHER: Since we are fully independent researchers we needed to start somewhere and Reddit is a great place for that. If there is anyone who would like to help us get the data peer-reviewed and published in an academic journal we'd love to collaborate.

DaFakeRedKnight28 karma

Does AirBnB have a chance at competing with Conventional Hotels with the level of complaints and horror stories they have currently?

asherfergusson48 karma

ERIN: Well, they are competing for the same market, but they offer very different experiences. And as far as I know, they are already doing a very good job at competing with the hotel industry. That being said:

  • How often does a hotel cancel your stay with no warning and without rebooking?
  • How often do guests get scammed at a hotel by the hotel?
  • How often do guests encounter a huge bed bug infestation that leaves them with bites all over, and the hotel doesn’t try to make amends or compensate?
  • How often does something go wrong at a hotel that’s not your fault and you don’t get a refund?

Hotels offer a huge amount of consistency, and they’re backed by a company that can make immediate refunds and other compensation much more attainable should the occasion call for it. They are secure, private, and you know exactly what to expect. Lastly, they are regulated and need to renew their license every year.

On the other hand, Airbnbs tend to offer lower prices in many cases (though many listings are as expensive as or more expensive than hotels), and with an Airbnb you can easily find a listing that can hold large numbers of guests and which includes amenities like a kitchen, separate rooms for guests, and more of a “home-y” feel than a hotel.

There are benefits to each, but our concern is that the potential consequences of using the unregulated Airbnb platform are potentially quite bad. If Airbnb gets its act together, it could be a fantastic competitor. Until then, it might be too risky for some travelers, especially families and business people.

DaFakeRedKnight2 karma

Side Note: Erin are you related to JackFilms in anyway? You look like his Fiancee

asherfergusson5 karma

ERIN: Ha! No, I’m not, but I find it funny that our names are both Erin!

Partly_Dave24 karma

I have found what appears to be a number of apartments in the same area run by one person or company under different host profiles.

Is this common? And is there a reason for this?

asherfergusson53 karma

ASHER: From our little look in Paris, London and New York City it is very common. Airbnb seems to be doing nothing to prevent these duplicate listings. If a host is legit they would list all their properties under one profile but if the properties are all listed under different host accounts they will almost always be connected to a scam. This is exactly how I got scammed in Paris and I consider myself a savvy user. I've successfully used Airbnb since 2012 until this past September when I had trouble two days in a row.

asherfergusson25 karma

ERIN: We’ve seen these duplicate listing scams and arbitrage scams run in a variety of ways, but we’ve found that the following two scenarios were the majority:

  1. A form of arbitrage where the host creates multiple Airbnb listings at different price points. When the higher priced listing gets rented, the lower priced guest is canceled and typically at the last minute.

  2. Airbnb doesn’t require hosts to have any form of ID except for an email address and phone number. That means new accounts and listings can be instantly created after getting “permanently banned” while using the same duplicate listing photos. Asher has video evidence of the scammer who took advantage of his family in Paris doing this with five different accounts in 6 weeks. We found that because hosts can just jump back on the platform under any name and birthdate, duplicate listings from different people are more common than we originally thought, and many of them are scammers, as we’ve personally experienced.

We know that many hosts operate many Airbnb listings as a money-making business and they attempt to do so legally through the platform, though studies have shown that the customer satisfaction when guests stay at a listing operated by a host who has more than 1 or 2 listings drops significantly the more listings a host operates. It sounds like what you’re saying is that these companies have duplicate listings listed under multiple different host or company names? That sound like the arbitrage scam, to me.

mclavastar20 karma

Has Airbnb contacted you regarding your research? Will you continue to investigate more Airbnb cases and have you considered expanding your investigations spectrum into other industries like Uber? What is is the most shocking case you stumble upon in your Airbnb investigation?

asherfergusson32 karma

ASHER: Airbnb has not contacted us yet. We may consider researching other companies. What would be the most interesting is to build upon our Airbnb study by doing a similar study of hotels but that would require a much bigger research budget. The benefit would be that we could make a comparison of what's most likely to go wrong at an Airbnb vs hotel.

Here are some of the most shocking Airbnb guest horror stories we found on major news websites:

Idbsvnl15 karma

Sex offender. It's mind boggling that Airbnb does not vett hosts in any way. That is super scary.

asherfergusson8 karma

ASHER: In that case, the guy didn't show up in the sex offender databases so even if they did background check him they wouldn't have found him! :*(

sushiandtacos19 karma

What are your thoughts on the Adam Ruins AirBnb segment of his show? Does his claims hold any water?p

asherfergusson21 karma

ASHER: We have seen the video but we haven't gone through it point by point. If I recall, all his points are backed up by major news outlets but some of them might be out of date now. Overall he makes some very good points especially with explaining how Airbnb impacts housing markets.

WiseWordsFromBrett18 karma

If I charge more, am I less likely to get a complaint? (cognitive dissonance)

asherfergusson18 karma

SHEANA: Great question (and I’m assuming you’re asking as a Host?). Unfortunately, the current study didn’t analyze any pricing data, so we can’t make any conclusions about Airbnb specifically. That being said, there is some evidence that pricing does influence perception https://www.vox.com/2015/5/20/8625785/expensive-wine-taste-cheap so it’s possible that could happen here as well to small some degree. I’d love to pull some data to look into this!

WiseWordsFromBrett6 karma

Thanks! Maybe a future project. I asked as a potential host. I suspect that people that stay at the Waldorf complain as they feel entitled, but an Airbnb is different. I also wonder if people skip over the very low price option as it appears unfit for price alone.

asherfergusson9 karma

ASHER: Airbnb markets itself as a competitor to hotels. Its prices are in most cases every bit as expensive as a hotel, and they advertise that with Airbnbs you can count on amenities that you couldn’t easily find in a hotel. They also advertise that their Customer Experience team is available 24/7 to assist you. They position themselves as more than a cheap alternative, and many families use the site to find reasonable and comfortable accommodations for larger groups.

houinator8 karma

What do you think AirBnB should be doing to improve their dismal customer service?

asherfergusson35 karma

ERIN: We found that their customer service team is incredibly disorganized, unhelpful and even rude when something goes wrong. They don’t offer enough support for finding new accommodation and may leave their guests on the street to fend for themselves. They also don’t have any customer-facing support ticketing system, instead, they rely on all emails going through [email protected] which is a black hole.

To remedy these issues, it'd be ideal to:

  • Retrain all staff on high-tension call and problem-solving techniques, and have regular reviews to ensure that the trainings are being utilized and implemented successfully.

  • Be sure there is an effective support ticket system which includes call-logging, and which all Customer Experience Specialists have access to so that they can view past calls and current tickets, including who is helping the caller with existing issues. All photos, documents, and logged calls should be in the same place, and the support ticket system should also be customer facing so that this information is fully transparent all cases are logged in a history.

  • Designated calls to very specific, specialized teams so that each type of call finds the most experienced CES possible. Have a superior available to each team at all times to ensure swift assistance and the ability to escalate situations as necessary.

  • Make the Airbnb contact information more readily available on the website and mobile app, and in multiple locations available to both guests and hosts.

Above all, it’s absolutely crucial to execute reorganizations and re-trainings in one fell swoop, and to address this with existing Customer Experience Specialists as a sort of “new leaf”. Customer service and call centers are already infamous for having extremely high turnover rates, and Specialists with Airbnb have been quoted describing Airbnb Customer Experience as a terrible place to work because of the stress, negativity, and burnout. Approaching this as a fresh start will typically re-invigorate existing representatives, and often allows for almost immediate positive results.

These are just a few suggestions that we think will help tremendously. We obviously don't know the inner workings of Airbnb but through our research, we can easily infer that all these problems need addressing.

BaconBeard22 karma

The majority of their customer service is handled by a third party company called 24-7intouch (www.24-7intouch.com), they handle Netflix, Nintendo, Abercrombie and Fitch, and several other companies as well.

asherfergusson19 karma

ASHER: Are you kidding me? That explains a lot...

dBrutalz3 karma

Why 839? Serious question.

asherfergusson13 karma

SHEANA: We looked at all available reports posted in the past 12 months because we wanted to see the current state of Airbnb not what it was like 3 years ago. It just so happens that all the available reports added up to 839.

In case you’re wondering, the sample size is actually quite large (as one Redditor pointed out in the Dataisbeautiful thread, peer-reviewed scientific studies often draw conclusions from fewer than 30 participants.). Given the inherent selection bias, it’s important to remember that this study may not represent how many people experience these problems on Airbnb, but rather what kinds of problems they experience.

These are the kinds of problems people were willing to report when they already 1) had a negative experience, 2) choose to share it publicly with the world, and 3) wanted to share it on one of several specific 3rd-party Airbnb review websites. They did implement some policy changes a few years ago, so we wanted to get a sense of what experiences guests are having now.

Kubsphan2 karma

Do you have any tips to help pick out AirBnB listings and avoid horror stories?

asherfergusson8 karma

In my article, I shared 54 tips. These suggestions are based on my experience using Airbnb since 2012 and the collective experience of over 50 travel bloggers with a combined total of over 1200 Airbnb stays all over the world.

If we had followed all those tips we wouldn't have ended up at the moldy place in Paris or gotten scammed at the next place. And I believe these tips would make the likelihood of something going wrong to be less than 1%.

https://www.asherfergusson.com/airbnb/#safety-tips

Flash_ina_pan2 karma

[deleted]

asherfergusson8 karma

ERIN: I think it’d have to be a multifaceted approach. Airbnb’s idea is clearly a great one and we want to see them succeed - we just don’t want anyone to get hurt in the process.

  1. The first step would almost certainly be a customer service overhaul - without that, you can’t clean up your reputation or fix existing issues.
  2. The second would absolutely have to be better security and identity verification, along with address verification for listings to avoid scams and duplicate listings. In many countries, you can sign up to be a host within 10 mins and the only form of ID required is a phone and email. No background checks (unless they have the real name and date of birth of the host and you're a US resident). No proper screening either.
  3. Some sort of insurance might be nice? Or at least an optional insurance package that can be charged a little extra for or something.
  4. Airbnb ABSOLUTELY MUST honor its own policies and refund promises when they make them. This is a top customer service complaint. If they continue to take actions that seem to exploit their users, they’re going to have a hard time solving problems.

Does that answer your question?

spockspeare2 karma

How much is AirBnB going to get sued for?

asherfergusson2 karma

ERIN: Good question! Unfortunately, I’m not sure money is enough of a motivator here. If it hasn’t happened for these issues already, it likely won’t. They’re involved in a number of suits already, according to several news stories that we read.

[deleted]1 karma

[deleted]

asherfergusson2 karma

What your describing is very fishy and I wouldn't stay in those places as they are definitely going to be connected to a scam. Do they have different price points?

In my video, I show the scammer who got us in Paris having four different listings within 6 weeks all with different "hosts". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAAQgP6Tg-4

Fistermanh1 karma

Who funded your study?

asherfergusson1 karma

ASHER: I did. I have no connection to any organization.

AtheistComic0 karma

Hello I am a resident of Canada and my question is whether or not provincial ministries will step up regulations against faulty short term rental companies through the due diligence requirements of the Occupational Health & Safety act? Owners of businesses are responsible for the safety incidents that occur at those locations, however if they are criminal then arrests and what not— however if they are shady or gray area loopholes, to what extent could the Ministry of labour of Ontario for example step in and levy fines and close businesses running this way?

Businesses must protect those that occupy their locations up to the point of criminality, then it becomes a police matter obviously.

asherfergusson5 karma

ERIN: That’s an excellent question. Unfortunately, we’re not familiar with local or regional ordinances that regulate businesses like this in Canada, but we’d LOVE to see something done about these issues, especially since (obviously) issues are not isolated to one country.