a g.

Enterprise has an interesting sell. They will pick you up so you can come to their offices. That works if all else works. In this case, I confirmed to be picked up at 5:15. Gave the address. 5:15 rolls around and no Enterprise so I call and find out they will be 30 minutes late. Issue? Well I was outside on the sidewalk after an office meeting (office closed) and had no interest in standing on the sidewalk of a busy street for 30 minutes so told then to meet me some where else. I wait there and the time rolls around so I eventually call. Get voicemail they are closed for the day! They call me back even though I could not reach them and tell me they messed up and did not realize the 2nd location was out of their pickup range in town. I said so what now? They said we can pick you up next morning. So they neglected to call as requested to give an eta and that in fact they were running more than 30 minutes late. Then when they are supposed to show up a 2nd time, they don't call as well. Their offices closed so I had no way of how to reach them ( no virtual or real helpers in line). They called me and told me the location was in a diff part of town.

So I finally signed up for Airbnb because my family was gathering in NYC and I wanted a nice place near by. I went through the process of setting up an ID. Check. Then got to the ID verification. Makes sense. However, 1st it could not verify even though my info was in fact accurate. Finally resolved the site said the glitches were due to what they said was site server issues. Check. It then asked to check via access to either facebook, google or LikedIn as an additional verification. I thought ok that seems fair. Looked at what they wanted access to and know enough about data delivery and value of big data accumulation for investor valuations and saw they wanted access to my contacts. Bingo.
For those who do not know, there is no way that is of any verification or security value. That is simply a fake and ineffective excuse for a pure DATA grab. It is heavily frowned upon and there is a stark division between so Internet based companies that do this kind of data grab cloaked usually in security or verification and those who do not insist on getting access to contacts.
Let's be clear what that means and why it is such a NONO in the internet business etiquette. It is basically saying you have to give a 3rd party access to the contact info of a friend or business contact of yours WITHOUT their agreement. That is the ethical issue here.
So I paid for the place that said it was available. Hours later and only one day before I had to arrive, I get a note late at night saying the place was not in fact available so had no other options in time. Hotel started to seem really good...
Regardless of their current valuation as a company, these two points will eventually cause the company to lose market share. There is no need to require access to contacts. It's a fluff argument giving false sense of security. Second the turn around process is deeply flawed and unprofessional. I have used VRBO often and am used to professional and streamlined businesses in the hospitality sector and have even worked in it at one point and this was very unconvincing, arbitrary, open to total discrimination (other real issue), and in need of a real overhaul. Better models are sure to arrive soon. Let's hope.