let's be careful out there

Lisa723
Level 10
Quilcene, WA
41 Replies 41
Kath9
Level 10
Albany, Australia

@Lisa723 ugh. Why don't these people just review their guests appropriately or vent here if they have to. This just gives the rest of us a bad name. 

Susan1404
Level 10
Covington, GA

I was a member of the Blacklist group and the problem was that there wasn't enough moderation on the group.  It started as a decent idea and went downhill from there.  I did see the post about the guest "peeing" and thought that might not have been a very smart thing to post.  Apparently it wasn't!

 

Inna22
Level 10
Chicago, IL

@Lisa723 there was a post on a local chicago group about the guy who had a party at my house and trashed it. He just attempted to have a Halloween party at somebody else’s house And was posted on blacklist. So I clicked on the link to the post and couldn’t find the group. Your article explains where it went. Too bad. There would’ve been a lot of use to it should have it been run appropriately.

@Inna22 

The Blacklist group shone a vivid spotlight on the "Airbnb Party" phenomenon, and on the chaos and destruction that these wild (and frequently violent) "events" cause - on a nightly basis - in many towns and cities. It also highlighted Airbnb's consistent failures and negligence in dealing with the issue, and was shockingly bad PR for the company. As such - and regardless of how it was run - the page was always going to be shut down... one way or the other. 

@Susan17 it is shocking how little airbnb chooses to do about it even though it costs them money as well.

On balance, it obviously earns them a great deal more than it costs them though, @Inna22. Otherwise, why let it continue unchecked, when there are so many simple measures and solutions that could be put in place to prevent it, and to save innumerable hosts from having their homes wrecked, and their little businesses destroyed? 

@Susan17 someone booked my house for Halloween and admitted when the time came to check IDs that it will be a party with strippers who were obviously were not interested in being available at check in time with IDs. Airbnb BEGGED me to give him all the money back. They should have been kicking him off the platform instead

now they have taken the payment control out of your hands.

Mark116
Level 10
Jersey City, NJ

If you are relieving yourself outside, do you really have an expectation of privacy?  It's illegal isn't it?  Seems like kind of an overreaction to me, but I'm not surprised I guess.

@Mark116 what is an overreaction? If you mean shutting down the page, people were posting all kinds of identifying info and private messages directly off the Airbnb platform, as well as surreptitiously recorded images. Most of it a blatant violation of Airbnb privacy rules, at minimum. I won't be surprised if multiple hosts get deactivated, assuming FB is sharing the page data with Airbnb now.

@Mark116 agreed. You're staying in a place with disclosed cameras and you choose to expose yourself in that way, you have little reasonable expectation of privacy.

This stuff wouldn't be necessary if Airbnb would just ban guests who damage host homes or act inappropriately. Airbnb is not a hotel service. Hosts do need to have more information about the person coming - but you are right - the reviews need to be accurate.

What concerns me is host reports of Airbnb deleting bad reviews when the guest complains. So how can we know if the guest created problems from previous hosts?

Airbnb needs to go back to its roots. Homesharing, not hotel substitutes.

 

Susan17
Level 10
Dublin, Ireland

I've written many times on this forum, that posters need to be acutely aware that the Community Centre itself is a prime source of material for journos, and is closely monitored by reporters from around the globe. I've lost count of the number of times I've seen details and quotes from CC threads, replicated word for word in various media articles. Also, I've personally been contacted by several reporters over the years, on foot of posts I've written, as I'm sure many other contributors must have been too. (I prefer to keep to my "one-woman band" ethos though! ;)) 

 

So a word of warning - always beware of troll posts on here from new members, particularly those that are somewhat outrageous and very often specifically designed, purely to elicit an intense reaction from the host community (You can spot them a mile off) And don't ever post anything on this forum that you're not completely happy for the whole world to see, or that you're not willing or able to back up 100%, if the sh*t ever hits the fan. 

 

While I fully agree that a number of the posts on the Airbnb Guests Blacklist were ridiculously petty, and some definitely did go well beyond the pale, the group was also an invaluable resource (and prevention tool) for hosts in over-saturated cities that have a massive problem with neighbourhood disruption, anti-social behaviour and extensive property damages, arising directly from out-of-control Airbnb parties. The group's intervention absolutely did  save countless hosts from the nightmare of having their homes thrashed and destroyed by hundreds of marauding revellers, and that crucial little detail shouldn't be forgotten in all the hysterical hoo-hah either. 

 

Several Blacklist group members actively sought out social media posts advertising upcoming parties in Airbnb listings, and dedicated a great deal of their own time and resources to tracking down the real identities of the guests and the addresses of the listings, and informing both the unsuspecting hosts and Airbnb itself of exactly what the guests were planning. It's important to note here that despite incontrovertible proof of the guests' nefarious intentions being provided to the company by the Blacklist group, in many such instances, Airbnb were either resistant to the host cancelling at all, or they re-housed the guests without ever letting the new hosts know why they were cancelled by the previous hosts. That's a fact, and I have the evidence to support it. 

 

I couldn't agree more with @Christine615's point, that Airbnb's steadfast refusal to ban seriously problematic and troublesome guests from the platform, and abject failure to hold such guests accountable for their destructive actions - while simultaneously making it increasingly difficult for hosts to vet who will be coming into their homes -  has undoubtedly created an insecure, unsafe operating environment where hosts feel that they need to engage in such groups, in order to protect their homes, their families and their income. 

 

What a crying shame that its come to this. 

 

@Susan17 well said. This work should have been done by their trust and safety department in the first place. Funny they are even called that. Right now there is no trust and absolutely no safety. I would imagine their only concern is declined credit cards, because that's a direct loss to airbnb