What is the insurance premium on:
1) A dedicated holiday apartment with little valuables and suitable furnishings
2) My primary residence full of my own furniture, valuables and sentimental items
Who is going to do that appraisal? AirBnB?
That's actually fairly easy. Host should declare coverage limits. Does not make sense to artificially lower the limits, since insurance will not pay for what's not declared. Thinking somewhat similar to insurance that FedEx and UPS are happy to sell.
Do you think in this instance putting down a credit card would have helped? The vandals were obviously criminals intent on abusing a renter through the airbnb service. Wouldn't they have simply used a stolen credit card number?
They could only do it once, I suppose. But then that's why there's the "total cost + 20%" hold placed on the card. That way, if it is stolen and reported during the stay, AirBnB calls da cops and yay justice; if they leave scott free, well at least there is some recompense to the owner.
I really don't see people running robbery scams on Airbnb with any frequency. I mean, if they have that many stolen credit cards, why waste time robbing people's houses when they could, you know, buy stuff with those stolen cards?
While that is true, robbery is not the crime EJ is describing.
They did steal things from her, but they also set out to totally destroy her apartment and take things of sentimental value to her. I'm not sure what that sort of crime would be called, but it's clearly more sociopathic than a regualr robbery.
Re:Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
by dangrossman on Friday July 29, 2011 @06:44AM
(#2821119)
How do you do #1? The card you get with many bank check accounts is a bank card, is a debit card, and will auth through your payment gateway as a credit card just fine. AFAIK, you don't know what backs the number someone just gave your web form, only whether your auth/capture on it worked or not. Would they need to require a faxed copy of the card?
The same way a hotel does it. Pre-approve a deposit on a credit card or actually remove a deposit on a debit card.
Re:Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
by dangrossman on Friday July 29, 2011 @09:42PM
(#2824575)
We're not on the same wavelength here... as I said, you can authorize (pre-approve an amount to charge) on bank cards, debit cards with the Visa/MC logo, Visa/MC gift cards, etc. Since that's true, an auth doesn't tell you that the person presented a credit card.
now that sounds like a service that i would actually use.
3) Get some customer service (seems like anything would be better than what they currently have)
1) You MUST put down a CREDIT CARD. Not a bank card, not a debit card, not a prepaid card. No plasticky no rentee. A major credit card to make a transaction. No bitcoin, no cash, no BS. Airbnb then puts a hold equal to transaction cost + 20% for the duration of the stay. That 20% can be put toward insurance on both ends, paid out when satisfactory closeout of the transaction on both ends occurs. If renters balk at the 20% hold, they shouldn't be on vacation. If owners balk at the "hold" instead of cash in hand, they can take their business to craigslist or wherever.
2) AirBnB must then become an arbitrator, a mediator, a guarantor, and/or (unless they want to outsource this) an insurer.