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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Do you remember the first time you heard about Airbnb? Did you find the premise more than a little shocking being asked to pay money to pay in a stranger's home? Did you think what's to stop someone from taking advantage of me, fom stealing my property or doing something even worse? Or if you were an early Airbnb host, did you have similar fears about letting strangers just stay at your place?

Well, now that Airbnb is a $90 billion company, it's hard to remember that at the start, many folks were uneasy with the concept. These days, Airbnb has more listings than rooms in the top seven hotel chains combined, and while many of us have forgotten those fears that made us hesitate to use Airbnb at the start, the company itself has never forgotten and in fact, spends upwards of $50 million a year, paying out to customers who had negative experiences using the service, those experiences including property damage and in some cases, even assault and rape.

With me now is Bloomberg business reporter Olivia Carville. She's written an article about Airbnb's safety unit called, Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away. Olivia, welcome to WNYC.

Olivia Carville: Hey, Brian. Thanks so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: You report that Airbnb pays out about $50 million a year to hosts and guests who have had bad experiences using their platform. I wonder if you could start with what some of the most common reasons for those settlements are?

Olivia Carville: Sure. The vast majority of that $50 million figure does go to property damage. We're talking instances where guests are staying in your property and they break a window, accidentally set the kitchen on fire, break a table or a dining room chair. Anything that can relate to property damage is also included in this $50 million figure, but what I was really focused on is the role of the safety team inside the company that deals with the most serious safety issues at Airbnb, which includes violent crimes and side listings. While we don't understand what the actual number of legal settlements the company pays out each year, there is also included in that figure settlements relating to assault cases, physical assault, sexual assault, and in some cases, rape and even murder. Payouts going to families that [unintelligible 00:02:46] survivors for crimes like that.

Brian Lehrer: Your reporting starts with a shocking and terrifying story of a woman who had what we can all agree is probably the worst experience a person could imagine using Airbnb. The result was a $7 million payout, and that's a lot out of $50 million total. What happened?

Olivia Carville: It is a lot and in that particular case, that was one of the biggest settlement payouts we were aware of during our reporting. In that situation, a young Australian tourist had flown into New York City with a group of friends to celebrate for New Year's Eve in 2015. They'd arranged to stay in an Airbnb property just a couple of blocks from Times Square. When they landed in New York, they went to pick up the keys and the host told them to collect the keys from a local bodega. They just walked in and picked up the keys from behind the counter. They didn't have to provide identification.

When the woman left the party that night to come home, she was on her own and she returned to the apartment, and she was unaware that there was a man inside the apartment. He was hiding in the shadows and he approached her with a kitchen knife and proceeded to rape her at knifepoint. When the police later caught this man, they found inside his backpack, a number of incriminating items. There was the knife that he used in the attack, there was the woman's earring, and it was also a duplicate set of keys to the Airbnb. So this offender had somehow obtained a set of keys to the Airbnb apartment that this young Australian tourist was staying in.

Brian Lehrer: Your reporting, as you said, focuses on Airbnb's Trust and Safety team, a unit you call a black box. What did you learn about the safety team and why is it shrouded in secrecy?

Olivia Carville: The safety team and society of Airbnb is made up of about a hundred agents who are based all around the world. These guys are really the cleanup crew, they are the fixers. If anything goes wrong during a stay that results to safety issues, the call is immediately transferred through to these agents. They're highly trained in trauma care. They work to try and protect victims when something goes wrong. A lot of them explained scenarios where they had guests hiding in wardrobes who had been assaulted by hosts, cases where guests have crawled into the bed with children of their hosts, and the safety agents have to deal with these cases.

Some of them have had calls about hosts discovering dismembered human remains inside their properties and what to do in the aftermath of that. If there's a party house scenario, a shooting inside a home, the safety team is on the end of the phone with the victims, both on the host side and the guest side, working to help them through that, and also at the same time, hoping that by doing what can, providing financial support, emotional support to those victims, that they are protecting the company's public image in the hope that these people won't then go on to feel as though Airbnb was responsible.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, have you ever had an unsafe experience using Airbnb either as a guest or a host or if not unsafe, something that caused you to ask for some kind of damages? Call in and tell us about it, 646-435-7280. Did you deal with Airbnb's Trust and Safety team? Did they offer you money or pay for a plane ticket or a stay in an actual hotel? Did the experience change the way you think about the platform or how you use it, guest or Airbnb host? If you had a nightmare guest and you had to deal with the company's Trust and Safety unit, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, for Olivia Carville who wrote an article about all of this called Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away.

It's easy to throw money at people after they've had bad experiences, but trying to prevent those experiences is often more challenging for any company in any situation. For example, one outcome of the rape case near Times Square was for the company to try to reevaluate and make rules around how hosts transfer keys to guests that has proved difficult, right?

Olivia Carville: Yes, that's right, and it's important to remember that this isn't just an Airbnb problem. These issues occur in Expedia's Vrbo platform, on TripAdvisor, on Booking. When the short-term rental industry was created, it really changed the way we traveled entirely. Instead of being in a hotel where you get a keycard to access your room, you're meeting a stranger online, exchanging money, and then staying, in some cases, in the same home, or if not in that stranger's home. There were no real regulations over the short-term rental industry when these platforms began and you're right, they have put a lot of effort into trying to create policies, to prevent bad things from happening.

Airbnb updated its key exchange policy in 2019. It states that the key exchange arrangement between hosts and guests has to be secure, but after the story came out, Expedia and TripAdvisor have both now updated the policies on the key exchange arrangement to make it even stricter to say hosts cannot leave keys in public places, and they cannot leave keys with anyone who is not associated with the property and had that policy been in place in the case, wouldn't have been behind the counter at a bodega and it's possible that maybe this case could have been prevented.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Daniel in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hey, Daniel.

Daniel: Hey, Brian. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian Lehrer: Sure.

Daniel: Can you hear me?

Brian Lehrer: We can hear just fine. Can you hear me?

Daniel: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I guess my question and with all this reporting, I became really interested in it because I currently am going to a trip to Costa Rica and it's the first time I'm going out of the country since the pandemic. I noticed that in the pandemic, Airbnbs have gone up. I'm concerned about, I haven't heard any bad news about experience, but this shows me that they're hiding the bad news, so I'm not sure what's going on behind the scenes with Airbnb. I guess my question is how can I, moving forward, especially on a trip like Costa Rica where it seems to be a great place to stay. I just want to make sure, what are some steps that I can take as a traveler to remain safe and to know that I'm aware of things that have gone on. Is there a review site that really honest about a site? That's my question towards the--

Brian Lehrer: Do you see what you've done, Olivia? You've taken this nice poor guy who's innocently booked an Airbnb in Costa Rica and now you have him worried that he's going to become a crime victim or something from his host.

Olivia Carville: I think it's a great question. One important thing to remember here is that the cases we are talking about are exceptionally rare. Safety incidents only occur in 0.1% of stays on Airbnb. Statistically speaking, it's very unlikely for anything to ever go wrong during a stay and the company is there to support you if that does happen. I think it's a really good question that you're raising. One of the things you can do is look very closely at the wording in the listing and some of the safety features that they may or may not have.

Airbnb encourages all of their hosts to have carbon monoxide detectors, for example, smoke detectors to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning during a stay. You should look at the listing and see if the host offers carbon monoxide detectors and if they don't, maybe that's a property you don't want to stay in. Similarly, you could look at the listing and see if they any mention of a secure key exchange. Do they say there's a key lockbox that you have to punch in a code to get access to the key? If they tell you that you're just going to pick up the key from the local corner shop. Then that may be a safety risk to you that you're not willing to take.

From the user perspective, it's important to have a sense of what comfort level you have in the properties that you're staying in. Really read the fine print on those listings to see what they do around safety and what different services they offer when it particularly comes to that key exchange arrangement.

Brian Lehrer: Daniel, I hope that's helpful. Thank you for calling in and I hope you enjoy your trip. Daniel mentioned that Airbnb has gone up, and I'm not sure if he means up in price or up in popularity during the pandemic, but I imagine a lot of people who didn't feel comfortable staying in hotels over the last year plus may have felt more comfortable staying in a private home somewhere and that perhaps the demand has increased for Airbnbs. Did that happen?

Olivia Carville: Yes, definitely. The short-term rental industry is exploding right now. They're doing a lot better than hotels or motels and really the vast majority of the revenue that online travel companies like Expedia or Booking, which also have a lot of hotel properties, their revenue is really being carried by the short-term rental side of the business. That's because travelers right now want the sanctity and the security and the space that an entire home provides.

If you go and stay in an Airbnb, you've got the whole property. You don't have to deal with bumping into guests in the elevators or in the lobby area or around the pool. I think people right now really want to have that space and want to feel comfortable during trips. You're definitely right that short-term rentals are incredibly popular right now.

Brian Lehrer: No, shared air. Uba in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Uba.

Uba: Hi, how are you? Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Sure. You have a story I see.

Uba: In November, I had a guest coming to my apartment for a temporary stay. The guest stayed for 30 days plus and stopped paying. I came to Airbnb of course. Airbnb tried to get him to pay but he never paid. I called Airbnb and I wanted the guest to leave. The guest said he was not leaving. I called Airbnb to help me out, Airbnb said I have to deal with the local authorities. I went to the police and police said there's nothing they can do because he's been there for more than 30 days.

Brian Lehrer: That is a terrible story. The squatter who wouldn't leave or pay his Airbnb rent to you. What happened?

Uba: I went to court and unfortunately, COVID hit and the squatter is still there up to this moment.

Brian Lehrer: He's still there.

Olivia Carville: Oh my gosh.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Can you offer any advice, Olivia, to poor Uba from Brooklyn?

Olivia Carville: Wow. I didn't really handle any scenarios like this during my reporting but I had heard from the safety agents that this does happen quite a lot, that people just refuse to leave. I'd advise you to try and call the safety team at the company and raise this. I'm not really, really sure who can help you further but I do understand that the company should in this respect at least to offer you more advice than just telling you to go to the local authorities. This isn't really a case that I covered very well.

Brian Lehrer: Is there a way that he or anybody else can contact the Trust and Safety team directly rather than going to some general Airbnb customer service number?

Olivia Carville: Definitely as during a live stay, if you were within that 30-day period that he had booked, this should have been an option on the Airbnb app to allow you to go straight through to a safety team. If you call up the customer service line and explain that you feel this is a safety issue and there is a person who's staying in the property who you've been trying to remove, then the call theoretically should be transferred through to the safety team.

Brian Lehrer: Uba, I hope that's helpful. Maybe there's someone else to contact anyway.

Uba: Actually, they did transfer me to the safety team and the safety team still referred me back to the New York City Police or the local authorities, so they were not helpful.

Brian Lehrer: You're being sent around in circles.

Uba: That's correct.

Brian Lehrer: Did the police say there's nothing that they can do because he's there more than 30 days and there's an eviction moratorium in place or for some other reason?

Uba: No, just because he's been there for more than 30 days. That was actually before the eviction moratorium came into effect. That came into effect during COVID.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, God, it's really been a long time.

Uba: Yes. It's sad because it actually has impacted my ability to hold on to the property and created a very difficult financial situation for me.

Brian Lehrer: This is a terrible story. I wish either of us had something better to offer you. Let me throw this to our listeners. Uba, I don't know if you have Twitter but I'm going to invite listeners to give you advice in our Twitter feed, so tweet @BrianLehrer. What can Uba do, Uba, U-B-A, about this person who originally came as an Airbnb renter and won't leave? Any advice for Uba? Tweet @BrianLehrer, and Olivia, you were going to add something?

Olivia Carville: I was just going to say, I wonder if he's reached out to local politicians for help on this or the landlord of the building that he lives in. I wonder if they might be able to- the superintendent, provide any support in the scenario.

Brian Lehrer: You mean that the guest really lives in because he's staying in a property that the caller owns, right?

Olivia Carville: Right, but is it inside a multi-unit dwelling? Is there a landlord?

Uba: No, this is mine.

Brian Lehrer: It's yours?

Uba: It's mine, yes.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Well, I think that's, unfortunately, the best we can do for now, but listeners, tweet @BrianLehrer and give advice to Uba if you have anybody. What a terrible situation, I hope this works out for you. Thank you for calling in. This is WNYC FM, HD, and AM New York, WNJT FM, 88.1 Trenton, WNJP, 88.5 Sussex, WNJY, 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO, 90.3 Toms River. We are a New York and New Jersey public radio. A few more minutes with Olivia Carville from Bloomberg Business who has written an article about Airbnb's safety unit called Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away. Miles in Brooklyn has an interesting question. Miles, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Miles: Hi, thanks for taking my call. My question, early in the story, you mentioned that Airbnb's revenue is greater than the top seven hotel chains. I was curious, how much do those hotel chains, maybe even collectively, spend on similar things of taking care of safety issues in the hotels or possible thefts or assaults. Are they comparable at all or is Airbnb just in a league of its own on the amount of money it spends on these types of things?

Olivia Carville: That's a good question. It's not their revenue that is greater than the top seven hotel chains combined, it's actually the number of listings. They have 5.6 million properties, which is more than the top seven hotel chains have hotel rooms. There are safety issues that occur inside hotels as well. During the course of the reporting, I talked to a number of people who had raised this point and the fact that there are problems that occur inside hotels too, but hotels are able to have on-site security support, 24/7 customer service support, and there's a bit more security when it comes to the key.

If you lose your hotel room key, they deactivate it and you have to go back to the front desk and provide identification to get back into your room, whereas that's not the case in the short-term rental world. Also, with short-term rentals, a complicating factor is you have both hosts and guests, and there are safety issues on both sides of that equation. Airbnb, I know in 2019 I believe, they increase the amount they're spending on trust and safety measures by about $150 million, so they do a lot to try and prevent these cases from occurring.

I'm not sure exactly what each individual hotel company is spending in this area, but I'm not sure it will be a comparable number. It's not apples to apples, just because there are different safety measures and different safety issues from a short-term rental property where you don't have control over the actual home or what the host does with that home, to a hotel where you own the building, you own the infrastructure, and you employ the people who are there to keep the guests protected.

Brian Lehrer: Miles, thank you for your call. Here in New York City, I believe short-term rentals, anything less than 30 days is not allowed. That's not primarily a safety precaution, but a way to protect the hotel industry. I think Airbnb just this month agreed to help the city crackdown further on hosts who are in violation of that standard, right?

Olivia Carville: Yes, that's right. They have gone on to provide data to the city to allow them to find the short-term rental listings that are in breach of those regulations. The New York City law is one of the strictest in the country. It's really there to try and protect residents who are in long-term rental arrangements to keep their apartments. You're right, it also does protect the hotel industry too.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, Uba, if you're still listening, a number of people are tweeting with a similar recommendation. They say wait until the guy leaves the place to go out to do something, and then change the locks.

Olivia Carville: [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: I don't know if that would work, but sounds like it might. It's a recommendation from some listeners there for what it's worth. Let's take one more call. Lana in upstate New York, you're on WNYC. Hi, Lana.

Lana: Hi, there.

Brian Lehrer: You got a story, don't you?

Lana: I do. [laughs] Mine isn't necessarily a safety issue. I have used Airbnb a number of times in different countries and domestically. I would say that, over time, the level of service and the quality of the rentals were progressively worse. The last two experiences I had were so sketchy that I actually went on a mission to buy my own place upstate so I wouldn't have to go through that again. In the first instance, Airbnb did very little to help me and I had extensive photo documentation of the conditions. It was six months of communications, phone calls, and letters, and posting on their resolution center, and finally, my credit card just refunded me the amount.

The second incident was renting a farmhouse last summer in Hudson. It was really grossly unrepresented. [chuckles] The house was 50 feet from a very busy road and with working farmers in the backyard, which wasn't exactly revealed to us. When I complained about what I said was the disappointing level of cleanliness, I was basically told that I should have booked a luxury rental. [laughs] The place was infested with mice and we had to bring a lot of our own basics like a coffeemaker, and knives, and kitchen supplies, and we had to ask the owners to buy basics like a broom, and dish towels, and I left after two weeks. It was a month-long rental and I just took the hit and left.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. That's a- [crosstalk]

Lana: Yes. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: You gave up and bought your own, and you could afford it I guess, bought your own second home upstate.

Lana: Yes. It took eight months of looking and finding something that was affordable, and it's a hugely competitive market now. I just didn't want to go through that again and I wanted something that was my own and that wasn't going to stress me out.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your story, Lana. A couple of things before you go, Olivia, another aspect of your reporting is the emotional toll of being a safety worker at Airbnb. You described that agents have access to cool-down rooms with dim lighting to create a soothing atmosphere for answering harrowing calls and that some former agents say they suffer from vicarious trauma. It reminds me of reporting from 2019 on the harrowing experience of being a Facebook moderator. It's quite a job I guess.

Olivia Carville: Yes. That's a really similar job. Facebook content moderators deal with some pretty horrific videos and content online that they have to sift through. Similarly, the Airbnb safety agents do the same thing, but they're dealing with more real-world issues. They do liken their job to that of the Facebook content moderators. The company does support them through offering counseling sessions, offering these cool-down rooms to take these really tough calls, and are generally pretty supportive and understanding of the fact that this can take a heavy personal toll on the agents.

After you deal with a really tough case, a lot of the agents said that they just requested to take the rest of the day off or go home, and that was often granted. There is knowledge within the company that this is a really hard job and these people are really dealing with the dark side of a very public company that a lot of people around the world absolutely love. I think one of the tough things--

Brian Lehrer: What should people take away from this conversation? Should they be more wary of using Airbnb or becoming Airbnb hosts, or should they feel more confident knowing that the company thinks a lot about safety and spends a lot of money trying to solve an inevitable problem?

Olivia Carville: Well, I think that both scenarios are true. The company does do a lot to try and prevent these cases. It spends a lot of money on helping people in crisis and preventive methods. It also has an entire team internally that's focused on building and enhancing policies to prevent scenarios like what we uncovered in our reporting. At the same time, I think users have a right to know that sometimes things go wrong during listings. Sometimes horrible things happen during a stay.

I do think that when guests are booking a property, they should be thinking about this and they should be reading through the fine print of those listings to determine their own level of comfort and what they're willing to accept from a safety risk standpoint. What I was really hoping the takeaway would be is that people have a right to know what happens inside some of these properties, and the right to think about their own level of safety and what they're willing to feel comfortable with.

Brian Lehrer: Olivia Carville, Bloomberg Business reporter has an article about Airbnb's safety unit called Airbnb Is Spending Millions of Dollars to Make Nightmares Go Away. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

Olivia Carville: Thanks so much for having me, Brian.

 

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