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My wife and I are avid couchsurfers, and we made many friends and connections while backpacking across Europe (not to mention saving a lot of money) and Asia.
While we did have mainly positive experiences and we met some really great people, I do not endorse couchsurfing wholesale.
One major drawback of the website is that feedback posts are not permanent and hidden. In other words, if you have a negative experience and post as such, the person with whom you interacted can then change their feedback to negative. Because of this system, negative feedback has become a bit of a death knell for surfers, and people will generally not post negative or neutral reviews unless something REALLY bad happened.
So the overwhelming number of positive experiences, and the tiny fraction of negative experiences is not an accurate representation of the supposed safety of couchsurfing.
While we met many great people and had wonderful experiences with other couples, there were situations where we were physically threatened, our hosts did not show up and left us stranded, and instances where we might have been in real danger were we travelling alone and unused to or unaware of the dangers of being on the road. This happened despite our careful pre-screening of hosts and guests.
Mostly, these bad situations are a reflection of the life of a traveller, but couchsurfers should not get complacent about safety or think that the high ideals of couchsurfing and their past good experiences will always translate into future positive experiences.
One perhaps not-so-surprising fact we came to realize after so many couchsurfing experiences; all of our negative and uncomfortable experiences came from staying with American hosts. Based on what we have experienced, we will not couchsurf within the United States (even though it is the most expensive country for travelling) and we would never recommend couchsurfing to someone travelling alone.
I agree that CS can be hit and miss, mixed bag, and I have mentioned that in other more recent threads. My son has had some 'misses' hosting in Paris, none involving danger or theft, just rude, inconsiderate people.
Our experiences as hosts here in the USA have been fine, but I must admit that when contacted to host, I pick and choose who to accept. This does not mean that I mistrust the human race. It just means I have a sense of self-preservation and I try to read between the lines.
In a way, Couchsurfing kind of reminds me of Craigslist.
Both started out a small but beautiful idea.
Then both became better known and far more utilized.
Both have since coped with serious growing pains.
The larger the pool of personalities, the better the odds are for complications.
Has anyone ever couchsurfed or hosted a couchsurfer before?
The CouchSurfing verification system is a scam and nothing more. It is fraud – plain and simple, and CouchSurfing should be held accountable for this. BeWelcome.org and Hostility Club provides verification of all user accounts for free, and actually verify that users are real people (although not that they are trustworthy, which is impossible). There have been many untrustworthy people on the site who use the faulty verification system to their advantage to pose as trustworthy individuals. One recent and extreme example of this is the rape incident that occurred via CouchSurfing. Now obviously this is a problem that could affect any of the sites. The difference here though is how the other sites would react to the problem and how CouchSurfing reacted to the problem. It seems that the victim reported the offender to CouchSurfing in March, who chose not to react and left the profile enabled for many months until August. That really is unacceptable, and at the least an investigation should have been conducted. I am aware that the offenders profile was not verified, however if CouchSurfing cannot bother to remove the offenders when people actually report issues then how can they be trusted to vet new members of the community? There is an interesting discussion with more links on the OpenCouchSurfing website.
The verification system is completely useless as all it does is process a credit card payment and send a postcard. There is absolutely nothing stopping me from staying at someone’s house and using a stolen credit card sent to my hosts address. Unless that $25 charge is reported as fraudulent I will have been considered verified. Otherwise I could legally use a prepaid credit card at an address I was staying at and be considered verified? The system verifies nothing and scams users, however since it makes money for CouchSurfing it is treated as a priority. To quote from a volunteer who felt he had to resign because of the dishonesty: “The push to hit up members within their first few hours of joining is an attempt to raise funds, not to make the system safer. Period. It’s for money.” Casey wrote a statement as a follow up to Bryan’s resignation letter, a copy of which and subsequent discussion can be read here. To then quote from the CouchSurfing Terms of Service : “Because user verification on the Internet is difficult, we cannot and do not confirm each user’s purported identity.”. That seems reasonable and may be fine, except for the fact that every new user is pressured after joining and logging in to pay for verification, and informed that “Getting verified means that CouchSurfing has checked your identity and confirmed your location. It allows members of the community to feel more confident hosting you or surfing with you.”. Quite different from the reality and very obviously false and misleading. This is obviously fraud, the only question is whether or not it is intentional.
This is clearly wrong as CouchSurfing is charging for this service they should actually have a responsibility to provide a service. I genuinely hope they get taken to court at some point. Their verification system is nothing more than a way to enforce a mandatory donation veiled hidden under a false sense of security to suck in new users who are excited by the idea of hospitality exchange. People who don’t know any better will assume the CouchSurfing staff have actually done some verification, when all they have done is successfully process a credit card payment. I think the vouching system CouchSurfing has is far superior to their verification system and should be expanded, rather than defrauding naive users out of their money. It costs nothing ans is far more reliable than the verification system they try to push on everyone. Unfortunately at the moment it is very limited given the amount of members CouchSurfing has. It is also interesting to note the the verification fee is charged on a sliding scale. Oddly enough this does seem to have good intentions behind it, with the only problem being it is treated exactly like a donation rather than the safety measure it purports to be. If verification is going to be charged on a sliding scale then it should be based on the incident rate of countries that would affect travelers, not the countries PPP which is meaningless to individuals.
It is also prevalent on CS that some younger people will only host people of the same sex. This can be quite frustrating when someone agrees to host you and then has to rescind that offer because their roommate won’t host people of the opposite gender. There is nothing open minded or inviting about such a backwards attitude and it has no doubt developed because of the people that try to use CouchSurfing just as a dating or sex site. If the verification or reference system were worth anything, this attitude would probably not have developed on CouchSurfing, going by the fact it seems almost non-existent on the other hospitality exchange sites.
The almighty dollar can certainly corrupt what begins as a good thing.
If travelers are worried about any possible problems, I suppose they must avoid Couchsurfing, airbnb, Crashpadders and anything else of that ilk.
Interesting, bwp.
The place/people where I'm staying in Dublin and I emailed several times before I paid.
I'll let you know my experience after next week's trip.
Please do.
Don't get me wrong, I think airbnb is a good idea. As I said before, I might use it (and/or Couchsurfing) in December. It's just that there always seem to be creepy people who take advantage of another's trust, so we must remember: Caveat emptor.
Always; weather permitting and weight allowances in compliance, I camp whenever I can.
Just got a Vango Omega 350 that I can't wait to try out. Omega 350 | Tents | Vango (http://www.vango.co.uk/tents/omega-350.html - broken link)
Extra dry space is a must in Bavaria and Tirol. I've been lusting after this tent for a while and finally found a dealer in Germany. I'll get it in 2 weeks. I'm a happy girl!
Bedbugs where? Couchsurfing?
Bedbugs can show up anywhere.
I agree that other people's cleanliness standards might not be the same as mine, but we've done okay so far--no creepy stains. As I said before, we do not host just anyone, and we are kind of picky when choosing hosts.
Couchsurfing is taking a chance, no question about it.
But with bedbugs showing up in luxury hotels, the caveat emptor advice applies to more than just Couchsurfing.
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