Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight
The real nightmare is Airbnb's handling of this situation.  Slow and inadequate response, a founder trying to put a spin/silence the victim (this is called a coverup) and another founder sending a feeble email stating he/she"would enjoy meeting" the victim.  Sure, if I was the victim I would love to grab a cup of coffee with the founder of the company that created a service that was the direct catalyst of the most traumatic event of my life in recent years to "touch bases" and get to know each other.  How about, "I would like to personally meet you to apologize and talk about how we can make this situation right.  Here's my phone number, please call me any time of the day."  You're in the same neighborhood, surely you can get in touch personally in five weeks if you tried hard enough.<p>And pg doesn't seem to have a clue when it comes to the "personal touch" either.  "Fix it", in this case doesn't mean compensating all damages financially and maybe adding a little extra money for trouble.  The victim's home and sanctuary was violated by people.  If this was a natural disaster, maybe money would go a long way, but this person's trust in people was violated and she also lost "priceless" memorabilia etc. to vandals who are either social misfits and/or drug addicts that methodically deceive unknowing victims.<p>This situation is reminiscent of Sony's reaction to cracker attacks.  The criminals attacked a glaring hole in the security model, company shifts blame to criminals.  "A community built on trust" without security?  What about trust and verify?  The victim clearly states that Craigslist has a better security model and for all we know that couch surfing site too.<p>The lack of security measures in this case illustrate a glaring hole in the founder's approach to the problem.  Any casual observer would conclude that the safety of users is only secondary to the company's goals of generating more revenues and obtaining more funding.<p>Airbnb, please come out of the state of denial and just simply admit:<p>A. We messed up big time<p>B. Any compensation will never truly fix this situation but we will do everything within reason to remedy it<p>C. Lessons from this disaster will be applied immediately to ramp up security and formalizing the response of such crises in the future.