Have you heard about rape in a New York apartment rented in Airbnb? Surely not

Bloomberg found out why no one will ever know about thousands of crimes in rental housing

More than 200 million reserved housing units pass through Airbnb annually. The company insists that only shares of the percentage of all armor end with serious incidents - but this still means many thousands of appeals to the security service. In it, more than 100 people worked in it against the background of coronavirus pandemia - many with experience in emergency services and the army - who dealt with the most difficult cases: rape, murders and robberies. The task of “security guards” is to ensure complete compensation to the victims - from moral support and payment of medical services and a psychologist before resettlement to an expensive hotel. But the case against Airbnb almost never reaches the court - the conditions for using the service exempt the company from liability in court, and the victims pay generous compensation in exchange for the refusal of the claim. Nevertheless, the work at the Airbnb security department did not decrease even after the number of reservations after the start of the pandemic fell by 80%. The Bloomberg Businessweek publication has issued a big investigation about the calls to which the leading international company in the hotel sphere hardly reacted.

Airbnb client was raped in New York. The company did everything so that no one would know about this case

A 29-year-old tourist from Australia with friends came to New York to meet the new 2016 year. They rented housing through Airbnb not far from Times Square, and while her fellow travelers rested in the bar, the young woman climbed into the apartment. Inside, she was not alone - but when the woman understood this, her throat was a knife. The stranger threw her to the bed and raped her, and finally grabbed the phone. The victim called the police and, when the police arrived at the place, her rapist was caught-for some reason he returned to the apartment. Among his things seized, they found the key to the apartment.

The attack in an apartment rented through Airbnb happened at the moment when the company actively sued the New York authorities: they arranged police special operations to identify cases of a lease banned by the city for a period of less than 30 days, and the company hired private detectives to collect compromising on its critics. A few months before the incident, the main PR manager of the company was the former political strategist of Barack Obama Chris Lehein. He was afraid that Airbnb opponents could use the case of rape to expel the company from the city.

To deal with this incident, an employee of the security department of the company Nika Shapiro, a former deputy head of the CIA administration and a member of the National Security Council (also under Obama). He immediately informed Airbnb, including the general director of Brian Cheski. The victim was transported to the hotel paid by the company, paid for her mother a flight from Australia to the United States, then both at the expense of the company were also sent home, and also offered to completely cover the account of the services of a therapist and other medical care.

The company was most concerned about the fact that the attacker had his own key to the apartment. Airbnb does not have any special rules about the exchange of keys between the owner of the apartment and the guest, and on the answer to the question of how the key could be at the outsider, the reputation of the company that emphasizes the safety of its service depended. Nick Shapiro - now no longer working in Airbnb - headed the internal investigation of this issue.

A week after the incident, the representative of Airbnb went to court to find out whether the company's name would be heard during the hearing. This did not happen - and the local media did not write anything about the incident. Until now, nothing was known about him, not least due to the fact that the victim received seven million dollars from Airbnb. Among the conditions of compensation, there was a requirement to refuse to blame Airbnb and the owner of the apartment. The circumstances of the incident were partially restored according to police reports and court documents, but the name of the victim in them was exhausted. She herself, through her lawyer, refused to communicate with reporters.

"It will be on your conscience"

The success of the Airbnb business model depends on the trust between strangers-and if it is violated, the company will lose customers and may be subjected to various legal restrictions on the part of the authorities. Therefore, the Airbnb security department is so important for her. But even in the company itself, few know about its device - insiders call the security department a “black box”. This is extremely intense work: the former employees of the department who agreed to speak only on anonymity conditions admitted that after some calls they could only hang up and sob from powerlessness.

Since its founding in 2008, Airbnb has turned into one of the leading world companies in the field of hotel business with a market value of $ 90 billion and 5.6 million available positions - this is more than the number of rooms in all hotels of seven largest hotel networks. But even at the early stage of the company's existence, its potential investors saw serious risks in this model. “Someone will be killed or raped, and it will be on your conscience,” Chris Sakka, who had previously managed to invest in Instagram, Twitter and Uber, told the founders of Airbnb. He refused an investment in Airbnb.

Airbnb can neither relieve themselves of responsibility for user safety, such as some technological companies, or maintain a state of security, like hotel chains. Therefore, it is more difficult for companies to maintain the safety and trust of its customers than Apple and Facebook - after all, communication occurs between real people in their real houses. And people can be unpredictable - therefore, “no matter how hard we try, rather terrible things are happening periodically,” says Tara Banch, director of the international direction Airbnb.

How is Airbnb security department - and what its employees have to face

In the early years, Airbnb management personally responded to all complaints by phone. The first large-scale crisis happened three years after the launch, when one of the owner of the apartment from San Francisco complained about guests in her blog: they defeated housing, burned her things and stole equipment and jewelry from the closed room. The scandal actively discussed on Twitter ended that the head of the company Brian Choki publicly apologized, the property owners were promised as compensation for damage to 50 thousand dollars (since then the amount was raised to a million). In addition, the company hired a security department and employees for a 24 -hour support line.

When the number of residential premises at Airbnb exceeded two million, the incidents also became more frequent - defeated apartments, hidden cameras, as well as sexual attacks, including housing owners. In October 2011, a man from Barcelona watered two guests and raped them. When the victims went to the police, the criminal began to threaten them that he would post a photo of what happened on the Internet. At home he found a whole collection with records of such incidents from a hidden camera. The man received 12 years in prison and an eternal ban on the platform.

Now Airbnb claims that incidents related to safety occur no more than 0.1% of all cases of housing through their platform - but given that more than 200 million armor passes through the company, and this is quite a lot. The most serious of them fall into the security department of about 100 employees in Dublin, Montreal, Singapore and other regional hubs. They are recruited, including from the veterans of the army and emergency services, they have very broad powers; As one of the employees said, they are engaged in "shooting from a cash gun." The victims not only pay for completely medical care, including analyzes for diseases transmitted after rape, but also remove rooms in the most expensive hotels or arrange round -the -world vacation as compensation. How much the company spends on this is definitely not known, but the internal documents that Bloomberg got acquainted with about $ 50 million paid compensation - basically, the company insists for damage to housing.

Airbnb security officers had to communicate with the guests while they hid in the closet from the owner or ran away from him from a lonely hut in the dense corner. The guests did not lag behind: they found one in bed with the seven -year -old daughter of the hostess. The “security guards” had to call a brigade for cleaning apartments from blood stains, finding holes from bullets in the walls and dealing with the owners who found the divided human remains at home. Emotionally, this is extremely hard work, and the new employees primarily explain that everything is terrible that can happen in life can happen on Airbnb.

Farm at the security department also occur with other divisions of the company. For example, with sales managers who object to removal from the platform for violating the conditions of professional dratri - after all, each of them brings the company hundreds of armor. But one of the most intense aspects of their work, Bloomberg was told by former employees of the Airbnb security department - this is a constant forced compromise between ensuring the comfort of the client and security of the company's image. Some mentioned discomfort from the fact that they had to give preference to influents with a large number of subscribers in social networks.

So where did the keys come from at the rapist?

The fate of the ill-fated keys, who found the 24-year-old Junior Lee, accused of raping Australia in New York, remained unclear, and his lawyer refused to comment. Lee was recognized as insane, now he expects further decisions about his fate. The owners of the building in which the apartment was rented changed the rental conditions - now it is impossible to rent housing in this building through Airbnb.

In the user agreement, which is signed by each Airbnb client, more than 10 thousand words in English. In particular, among them there is a rejection of court claims against the company and the provision on anonymity in case of arbitration. The interlocutors of Bloomberg of the former employees of the Airbnb Security Department say that thousands of complaints about sexual attacks, including rape, are received annually. Nevertheless, a single lawsuit against Airbnb in the case of an encroachment on sexual integrity reached the US court. The victim was the confusion, before which the owner of the apartment arranged a session of masturbation, locked it in the bathroom. Her lawyer managed to bring the case to the court due to the fact that the company did not fulfill its promise to take care of customers' safety and did not check that the owner of the apartment was detained for beating. Representatives of Airbnb paid the victim compensation in exchange for a refusal of the claim.

In this and other cases, which ended, including the murder of the corpse, the case did not reach the verdict, therefore, the legal boundaries of responsibility of the company that provides the services of short -term lease has not developed. Since Airbnb does not publish accurate addresses of apartments on its website, it is impossible to find out which of them the police went on call. But the figure can be quite significant-in 2019, the Miami Beach police went on calls to apartments rented through Internet services, more than 1000 times, of which 40 for serious incidents using violence.

The pandemic seriously hit the company's business: in the first few weeks of quarantine, more than 80% of the armor fell around the world. But this does not mean that the security department was left without work: cases of reservation of houses have become more frequent for several days under mass underground parties. Crowds of drunken party -hand people arranged Bedlam in American suburbs, took the attention of the police and caused the rage of local authorities. In addition to this, the shortations in the company also affected this department - in May 2020, Brian, literally sobbing, announced the dismissal of a quarter of the composition of the entire unit. After the internal scandal - the dismissed stated that they were donated for the sake of the company with their mental health - some managed to hire back to a reduced salary.

Airbnb has not yet adjusted some basic procedures to use the service. In New York, after the next pre-trial settlement of a potential scandal, the company finally agreed to transfer the city to the city about the owners of apartments renting out a house. But the issue with the transfer of keys is never resolved. As possible options, electronic locks were considered, on which the owner of the apartment will be able to set a new code for each new tenant. But the company cannot order the owners to use this way. If you make such a mandatory measure, many can refuse the service. Therefore, mailboxes on the castle hang at the entrance to many houses, waiting for the next Airbnb user.

Retold Alexei Kovalev