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Comment by kart23 | Hacker News Reader

I like airbnb. They need to get better at weeding out fake/scammy listings, that tend to plague many online marketplaces where things can be listed for free. Maybe some in-person verification system, or a fee that gets refunded if you have a certain number of guests. There are plenty of listings with huge/exclusive homes, yet no reviews and extremely cheap prices. I don't know what people get out of these listings, but it's really weird and makes the user doubtful about the authenticity of the marketplace.

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Easiest solution is to force new hosts to provide a "surety bond" to basically be an honest host. Maybe make them pay 10-25k lump-sum in cash. After a certain amount of guests have visited the offering then the money can be returned. If the host is a scammer then the money can be used to reimburse the guests for their troubles.

The risk vs rewards under this system would discourage bad hosts from joining the platform. For new, honest hosts, it would be a minor inconvenience at best.

>Maybe make them pay 10-25k lump-sum in cash. After a certain amount of guests have visited the offering then the money can be returned.

This is so detached from reality. It would wipe out probably 99% of listings from people not doing it professionally.

The lump-sum fee is just an example number. It could be less for smaller rentals but the point is still there. You need to force new hosts to "prove" they're going to be honest and have a penalty for those who aren't honest. This same concept is used in the cryptocurrency world where you need people to have trust. One example I can point to is Storj where they withhold earnings from people who don't perform per the agreed terms (in this case keeping your storage node running 24/7).

It is okay if certain people are excluded because you only want people hosting that are SERIOUS about doing it. If you can't do the surety bond then you simply aren't ready to be a host. It really is that simple.

I understand what you’re saying but your $10-25k example cripples your point. Many people are hosting for extra cash, so any surety bond would keep away a lot of hosts that are actually honest and good hosts.

What about just tracking the users themselves? Why can't they require the country/province's ID card, and blacklist known scammers? It's usually a lot of the same people. If they also cooperated with law enforcement on getting them prosecuted, the return to scamming would evaporate overnight.

25k seems excessive, but 10% of a years anticipated revenue might be appropriate. It is not unusual to have to but up a bond in order to bid on a contract.

> After a certain amount of guests have visited the offering then the money can be returned.

fraudsters would easily game this. ask a bunch of their friends to "stay" , or even create a bunch of fake accounts and "be our guest"

That would almost completely rule out people renting out a room in their home

Considering they’re borrowing at 10%, they could pay good interest on that money and both sides would come out ahead.

https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-paying-10-percent-int...

That story happened when both the company and financial markets in general were in the dumps. As you can see from the headline, times have changed.

So they've refinanced that debt?

I wonder if guest could also post similar sum before they get to use services. After all guest can cause massive amounts of damage. Maybe something reasonable like 25% of property value... Just to make sure that both sides are honest. Ofc, this will be returned if locations is in perfect condition after the visit.

perfect way to keep the possibility of making money only to people who already have money.

Just withhold the money they made with Airbnb until they have 3 excellent reviews.

That doesn't make sense for the hosts, for 80% of them it could be months until they see the money from their first booking.

Airbnb already holds the money for 24h after check-in, which is enough to defuse 99% of scams. The problem is the guests that book outside the platform, then claim they were scammed.

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