36 votes

I accidentally uncovered a nationwide scam on Airbnb

4 comments

  1. [2]
    Deimos
    Link
    Finally took the time to sit and read through this article today. It's a great article and investigation by the author, and yet another example of the internet becoming like a low-trust society,...

    Finally took the time to sit and read through this article today. It's a great article and investigation by the author, and yet another example of the internet becoming like a low-trust society, where we have to be suspicious of everything because the "laws" and enforcement can't be relied on. The author obviously invested a huge amount of time tracking all of this down, and Airbnb didn't even bother to give them a proper response to their investigation, and took only minimal action.

    Unfortunately, I can only see all these problems getting worse until something changes. We keep rewarding tech companies that build platforms too large to effectively manage, and they'll only become more and more infested with scammers as they realize how easy it is to get away with.

    9 votes
    1. arghdos
      Link Parent
      In my personal experience (largely with non-tech savvy individuals), even getting people to recognize that building a platform too large to manage is an issue that can or should be up for...

      We keep rewarding tech companies that build platforms too large to effectively manage

      In my personal experience (largely with non-tech savvy individuals), even getting people to recognize that building a platform too large to manage is an issue that can or should be up for discussion is difficult. I'm not quite sure whether Facebook et al's response of "there's too much content, we can't possibly manage it except with more/better algorithms" line has caused it, but it seems very few people have been exposed to the argument.

      4 votes
  2. Wendigo
    Link
    And this is one of the many reasons that I do not like anything about 'gig economy' work. People get screwed over and played with and the companies do the bare minimum to handle it.

    And this is one of the many reasons that I do not like anything about 'gig economy' work. People get screwed over and played with and the companies do the bare minimum to handle it.

    7 votes
  3. SourceContribute
    Link
    Haha, it looks like the scammers are A/B testing their fake listings? Re-using the same name and photos to see which one will get a hit, this is incredible. I wonder if AirBnB will just fold a...

    Haha, it looks like the scammers are A/B testing their fake listings? Re-using the same name and photos to see which one will get a hit, this is incredible. I wonder if AirBnB will just fold a service like that into their own service to do the more legal version of this, which would be price discrimination (I remember a story where airlines (I think) would charge more if you accessed their site from a Macbook than from a PC).

    5 votes