OLX got a lot of flack after the Orekoya children got kidnapped. Do you think it’s fair? What should they have done differently? What should they do differently in the future?
Nothing.OLX already does a lot to educate users about the possible risks…so at best maybe a little more education
I thought about this really hard when we started to hear comments that seemed to place OLX in the middle of all of this.
IMHO I think OLX should have been more involved in the investigation and should have at least made a public statement regarding the case. It’s not enough that they have already done a lot to educate users about the possible risks involved in using their site. Startups need to be more involved in the communities that they operate in and I hope that other startups will be able to draw lessons from this incident.
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Agreed maybe they should have reacted differently…but i believe this could have still happened even if the nanny was hired from an “allegedly” more credible source like linkedin
If they have obvious and incessant disclaimers and warnings, I’m not sure what anyone expects OLX to have done to prevent it. For something as sensitive as the care of one’s children, a lot more discretion should be exercised. Background checks are absolutely crucial. Would you just hand over your child to someone who you’re unfamiliar with? Same thing as financial scams. If, despite countless warnings to not give out your password, and all the extra security checks, you STILL give your password to a scammer, it’s not the bank’s fault. Scammers are always going to exist.
Tons of scams go down on Craigslist fairly regularly. No one expects Craigslist to do much for the same reason. I sympathize with the parents but they’re the ones that should have approached the entire process differently.
OLX did actually issue a statement. The problem was how tepid the statement was.
Since they can only learn from hindsight, I believe there was little they could do than wish it to blow away. Unfortunately, that same syndicate had used OLX to kidnap two kids in November/December last year.
I suggest OLX shuts down its nanny vacancy service otherwise include large font caveats.
No one could have done anything to prevent bad things from happening as a result of listings on the site. In fact, there are way too many scams on OLX today and people are getting scammed everyday but the reason we are even having this debate is probably because we are emotionally involved with this incident of the kidnapping and maybe it’s because a lot of noise was made about it.
Let’s take a queue from Airbnb. There have been high profile cases of people renting their apartments to strangers only to have their houses thrashed - Man Who Rented His Home On Airbnb Returns To Find An Orgy. What did Airbnb do?
Gawker reports Airbnb has since removed Carter from their site. The company also reimbursed Teman for any damaged property and has “ensured he has a new place to stay.”
From a legal perspective, OLX has put all the right disclaimers and truth be told, it could have been any listings site but my point is that startups need to understand that building a product or service is beyond the technology.
I used Craigslist instead of say, Twitter, or Airbnb because their model is more similar. Airbnb, to list a house there are several checks they make you do, including scanning your driver’s license (I’ve tried for experimental purposes), so your identity is tied to your account, and getting rid of/punishing offenders is easier. OLX/Craigslist is not that strict. You can post things without registering. So if some random guy posted a scam tomorrow, there’s little they can do to stop him. He’ll just post something else tomorrow with some other random email address.
What’s to say that they don’t recognize this? There’s a risk associated with doing things this way, hence all the warnings. You seem to agree, but it also sounds like there’s something else you were expecting them to do.
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