How I Got my $3500 Camera Kit Stolen on KitSplit - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@yohahnko/how-i-got-my-3500-camera-kit-stolen-on-kitsplit-for-70-4530d0062e60 <comment><USER3> Band together with your new friend to take both parties to small claims court.

Argue the representations made on their website were misleading and induced you into using the service. That due to the unequal bargaining power, any ambiguities in their Terms must be resolved in your favor. Research precedent, including anything judges have said about click-wrap vs browse-wrap agreements in your jurisdiction.

Maybe you can find a sympathetic lawyer from a prestigious firm who's willing to write them on your behalf on their firm's letterhead. All this might simply scare them into settling - it's far cheaper for them than paying a lawyer to litigate (and less toxic publicity), and eliminates the risk that if you manage to win (small-claims is a bit more unpredictable than big-boy court) it sets a precedent that could come back and bite their business model.

<comment><USER4> Hi, Lisbeth Kaufman here (CoFounder and CEO of KitSplit). I feel terribly for Yohahn and the other owner who had their gear stolen. I wanted to personally respond to let you know that we are fixing this and making them whole- and then some.

We are launching a new insurance product for our owners: the KitSplit Theft Protection Owner Guarantee. It's something we've been considering for a while, and with this latest theft it's clearly time.

The Owner Guarantee means that KitSplit owners will be covered in all scenarios, whether damage, loss, or theft. To make good on this promise, we're starting by reimbursing the Yohahn and the other owner.

We are the first rental platform to offer coverage of this kind. It fills a major insurance loophole, and it's the right thing to do for our customers.

You are welcome to read more about the problem and how we're fixing it here. [https://blog.kitsplit.com/announcing-kitsplit-theft- protecti...](https://blog.kitsplit.com/announcing-kitsplit-theft-protection- owner-guarantee/)

<comment><USER5> Did you start feeling terribly for them before or after you were publicly shamed on social media?

<comment><USER6> Personal attacks and the online shaming culture are not welcome on HN. Maybe you don't owe better to the individual, but you owe better to this community if you want to keep posting here.

If you'd please review [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and use this site as intended, we'd be grateful.

<comment><USER7> What's so personal about the very legitimate question?

<comment><USER6> What makes it personal is the pronoun "you" in response to a person.

It's not a legitimate question, but plainly a rhetorical attack.

<comment><USER7> I have trouble following your line of argument. One is not allowed to ask questions using the pronoun "you" as in "How you are doing?"

And I don't see it as a rhetorical device, but effectively asking the question "Why didn't you offer the right compensation prior to being publicly shamed?" which IMHO is a very valid question for anybody dealing with the said company, as the responses can vary from "We didn't understand the damage it would do us and we want to contain it" to "We're seeing the errors in our approach and we'll do better from now on".

Right now the response in somewhere in between these two, and clarification is important.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So if KitSplit explicitly absolves itself from liability, what is the benefit of that platform over Craigslist? At least with CL you wouldn't have to pay KitSplit a fee.

Their fees certainly aren't going towards liability insurance or fraud detection, so what are they doing with those fees?

I bet the fraud rate at KitSplit is going to go up after this post. Now you have a list of people that will wake up at 7am to hand over $4k of gear to you, knowing that KitSplit won't do anything and neither will law enforcement. Just remember to cancel your credit card and you'll make a quick $2k!

In all seriousness, if KitSplit wanted to stop this just charge renters a hefty deposit (the approximate cost of resell) and it should nip this in the bud. Obviously, someone in their "Growth" team will point out that this will hurt their KPIs and their VCs might not like it, so they won't do it.

<comment><USER9> Yeah I was wondering why they don't enforce a deposit up front.

<comment><USER10> The CC is likely stolen. Any deposit or replacement fee will be disputed by the actual owner and charged back.

<comment><USER11> This is not an excuse. A company making any effort to be legitimate should use one of the several identity verification services available in combination with any sort of nontrivial fraud detection, which should easily dissuade 99.9% of thieves. At 22% rental fees, the service can _easily_ afford to cover theft that slips the net.

Given that KitSplit _doesn 't even disable the account of known thieves_, it seems pretty clearly a case of malice (or, more accurately, greed, which in this case has the same net effect), not incompetence.

<comment><USER12> > A company making any effort to be legitimate should use one of the several > identity verification services available in combination with any sort of > nontrivial fraud detection, which should easily dissuade 99.9% of thieves.

Not so. Thieves aren't stupid. They try a few times to figure out the system, then steal the identity of someone else (who is legit and passes fraud and credit checks) to do the actual theft.

The portability of the gear, combined with it's high resale value, means rentals will never work for an online business.

<comment><USER11> While this is certainly true for a few thieves, at least for other high-fraud industries, it's a case of running away from a bear - you just have to be harder to defraud then the other guy (in this case, other online marketplaces). Additionally, it's both more difficult to obtain an identity (particularly if locality is required to pass fraud checks) (whereas stolen CCs can easily be purchased in bulk) and not necessarily sufficient - <USER2> example, if the fraudster's contact number is verified against their identity, it again increases the threshold.

If the thieves have access to a local, legit person's CC, identity, and phone, then yes, you can't really stop them from stealing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Still no compensation offer from the CEO/Co-founder Lisbeth Kaufman

[https://medium.com/p/4530d0062e60/responses/show](https://medium.com/p/4530d0062e60/responses/show)

[https://medium.com/@lisbethkaufman_82625/im-one-of-the- cofou...](https://medium.com/@lisbethkaufman_82625/im-one-of-the-cofounders- of-kitsplit-and-i-wanted-to-respond-to-this-personally-29aded237f7e)

She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is _effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors and stopping millions of dollars of theft on the platform_ , almost surely an exaggeration.

<comment><USER14> >She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors and stopping millions of dollars of theft on the platform, almost surely an exaggeration.

If this is true, they should easily be able to afford to self insure against theft by charging 10 cents per thousand dollars of gear rented.

Odd that they don't do that huh.

<comment><USER15> That would be true if .01% of all rentals resulted in fraud, but that's not what that sentence says. It could be the case that such "bad actors" represent a disproportionately large share of all rentals.

Which makes sense--if you're planning on stealing the equipment, you'd probably expect to have your account banned so you'd probably try to steal as much as possible while the account is still considered legitimate. As in this case where the author alleges that the same person also stole someone else's gear on the same day.

<comment><USER16> > It could be the case that such "bad actors" represent a disproportionately > large share of all rentals.

If it's not representative of the actual risk KitSplit will face, then it's also not representative of the actual risk users will face. And if it's not representative of user risk, then it's deceptive for KitSplit to bring it up as a way to defuse the situation or suggest that consumers shouldn't be worried.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Second time an article like this has surfaced in less than a year[0].

KitSplit claims that these scenarios are extremely rare. If that was the case, I have no idea why they wouldn't include voluntary parting insurance in their service. Is the bad press worth the occasional payout they'd need to do?

Why would I or anyone else ever use KitSplit after hearing a story like this? Peace-of-mind is literally the most important feature of a service like this. It is _the only thing_ that separates them from your local [insert-location- here] Facebook rental group that just exchanges cash under the table.

[0]: [https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how-i-lent- my-4500-camera-k...](https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how-i-lent- my-4500-camera-kit-for-95-and-had-it-legally-stolen/) (HN discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918))

<comment><USER17> Just to be clear, it's a similar case, not the same case.

It would be nice to compare the unpixellated photos of the thieves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is pretty bad on KitSplit's part. How can they even advertise that the owner is covered by a full deposit if the owner doesn't get compensated with it upon theft?

That's blatant misleading advertising, hope this blows up on them.

<comment><USER19> Even worse, it sounds like this is a standard practice in the insurance industry.

Insurance always carries a steep moral hazard in the form of the temptation to sell deceptive peace of mind, fooling their client into thinking they have purchased insurance covering a scenario which the company has no intent of actually covering. Few people will ever actually discover the deception, so it's reliably profitable. I had not heard of the "voluntary parting is not theft" schtick before today and in the absence of a prominent warning about this distinction I would consider such an insurance sale fraudulent. Further, I'd want a large punitive multiplier on the fines to account for the fact that most of the time the deception will go undiscovered.

I strongly suspect our legal system would disagree, and I'd consider that an even bigger problem.

<comment><USER20> Completely unrelated but... I had a issue with lightning instead.

We were paying some rather expensive home insurance, one time a thief broke inside, and they did all they could to avoid paying us, ended paying the bare mininum they could, barely covering the stolen goods costs.

Still at the time it didn't looked like bad faith, just fraud checking...

But then this time lightning hit our house, the insurance response was that unless we can prove it was a direct strike against the house, it would count as "electrical fault" that is not covered, because it would be blamed on the electric company instead...

So we argued that yes, the lightning DID hit our house directly (because well, it did, the path the electricity did was very obvious, with the endpoint being the pointy metal end of the structure that holds our gate upright), they just flat out refused to come check, because the likelihood of this happening was so low that they were sure it was a waste of their time to check, and that we should bother the electricity company...

The electricity company in turn, said they detected zero fluctuations on the grid, and would not send a technician to check, that it wasn't their fault.

So that day I learned that "lightning coverage" only cover a strike on the hourse itself... a strike on the lamp-post right outside for example, doesn't count, even if it blows up everything inside your house, becase the "fault" then is the electric company.

<comment><USER21> Is there not law on the books that cover... gosh what's it called. When something causes something else to happen in a direct way? I know in some places, there's laws that say, "If Person A slams on their brakes for no reason, and Person B has to slam on their brakes causing Person C to go off road and hit a pole, person A could be at fault"?

<comment><USER22> I'm not a lawyer but I think it's the basis of civil law (I speak for France specifically but it's kind of a general principle): any damage must be repaired by the one who caused it, by action or lack thereof, voluntarily or not.

Then of course, the difficult part is deciding who is at fault.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The platform charged a 22% fee to allow this renting of equipment? Why charge a fee if you're not actually going to cover the buyer or seller when your marketplace messes up?

Also, just because you sign an illegal contract doesn't make that contract valid. Many companies will try to tell you "well you accepted our terms when signing up." Well those terms are not on legal grounds.

<comment><USER24> >>Why charge a fee if you're not actually going to cover the buyer or seller when your marketplace messes up?

I think we all know the answer here.

So many sites are just "hapless middle men who facilitate contact between individuals who want to engage in <activity>" when someone commits fraud/theft/terroristic threats/<crime> on their platform.

<comment><USER23> I know what KitSplit will tell you. We provide value by connecting people and allowing payments. Gee, I can give someone my number and accept cash on Craigslist too. If I'm paying 22% of the transaction to you, there'd better be some assurances.

<comment><USER25> Oh no, not at all. Now that this story is on the front page of HN, KitSplit will tell you it was all a big misunderstanding. They will pay for all of your stolen gear, send you a T-shirt, and donate to a kitten orphanage.

The next person who gets their kit stolen is still fucked though, unless they too manage to make it to the front page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> So basically, if I get a Fake ID (or just do some simple photoshop) I can become a verified buyer on KitSplit. Add in a prepaid Visa card and I can "buy" any camera/drone I want for $100?

Tech companies need to start to accept some liability for the problems they are causing.

Edit: I have a verified fake name. Now I'm waiting to see if they accept my photoshopped ID images.

Edit 2: I now also have a verified Government ID. Here is a screenshot of my totally legit verified profile. [https://i.imgur.com/dr61qN5.png](https://i.imgur.com/dr61qN5.png)

<comment><USER27> But how did you get past their current "40-point risk assessment that includes both machine learning and human review" /s

[https://medium.com/@lisbethkaufman_82625/im-one-of-the- cofou...](https://medium.com/@lisbethkaufman_82625/im-one-of-the-cofounders- of-kitsplit-and-i-wanted-to-respond-to-this-personally-29aded237f7e)

<comment><USER26> With a really poorly done photoshop of my ID to change my name and DOB to my fake information, duh. How else would you defeat such stringent review processes?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Twisted road offers person-to-person motorcycle rental.

Their stolen bike FAQ says:

</comment><comment>====

What happens if the bike is stolen?

If a motorcycle that you rented through Twisted Road is stolen, please immediately file a police report and cooperate fully with law enforcement, Twisted Road, the motorcycle owner, and any other authorities related to the investigation. If you are the owner, please immediately contact a Twisted Road representative and follow his or her instructions. Owners should be prepared to file a police report if instructed to do so. You will be able to provide law enforcement with the driver's license of the rider, the plates, and other important information needed to locate and return your bike.

If you are concerned about having your bike stolen while it is being rented, we encourage you to place a GPS tracker on your motorcycle before each rental.

</comment><comment>====

Basically, you are responsible if your motorcycle is stolen.

<comment><USER29> Which is really dumb. If you're whole company is based around being a middle man between renters and owners your answer to the inevitable issue of theft by renters had better be better than a giant shrug and "we'll keep trying to charge this fraudster (who's definitely either using a stolen card or whole identity)."

<comment><USER30> How do they protect themselves from thieves intending to steal from their insurance? I.e. thief "lends" bike to themselves (fake account) and falsely claims it was stolen? Clearly some risk (needs real identity, insurance fraud), but clearly some gain too.

The only solution is to put up a bond of approximately the street value of a similar stolen motorbike.

<comment><USER31> Is that different than somebody insuring their own car at an insurance company and then pretending it was stolen?

<comment><USER32> Insurance companies do a really good job if checking legitimate identities and for fraud when it comes time to pay out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Am I the only one who is irritated with the typos, misspellings, and grammatical errors in the KitSplit screenshots he shared? Things like _" When renters rent your gear, they're also required to use a credit card which and we use to secure payment processor that includes fraud protection services." \-- note the _"which and we"*. There are several of these. It just strikes me as a hobbled together startup; that would be a red flag to me. That said, I know it's unreasonable to expect users to comb through all of the documentation looking for such things.... Although un-hopeful, I do hope this guy gets his gear/money back.

<comment><USER34> No, I'm annoyed by it as well. To me it makes it harder not to think of KitSplit as acting in bad faith. When the company that's supposed to deal with bad actors is itself a bad actor, how likely are they to deal with bad actors effectively?

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The odd thing to me is how this is considered _voluntary parting_. Presumably you could show that, through KitSplit, the renter and owner entered into a legal contract. Maybe this is the true problem with the gig economy.

If I rented a car/phone/computer/camera directly from any legitimate company, you can bet that the police and lawyers wouldn't consider that <legitimate company> voluntarily parted with their property.

<comment><USER36> Who has been arrested for failing to return a rental?

<comment><USER37> [https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-not- retur...](https://www.wsoctv.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-not-returning- freddy-got-fingered-vhs-from-2002/177186020)

<comment><USER38> a classic of the genre

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> When I moved to the US years ago, one of the big differences I noticed (coming from Eastern Europe) was the implicit "trust" people and businesses have of "strangers", people and businesses they have never met before. Where I came from there's an implicit distrust and you have to earn your trust. Now, I thought, this implicit trust is actually great, it definitely makes so many things much easier (don't have to carry or show my ID for so many things where back in Eastern Europe you'd be required to, don't have to show up in person for almost anything, even driving license is sent over mail, etc), people take you at face value, it makes many things friction free. I generally much prefer it over the default distrust culture.

As to the security of such an approach, I always wondered what happens with bad players. Without much investigation I simply assumed that:

1\. most people are likely good players

2\. those few bad players would get caught by an actually functioning police force and the punishment would be so severe nobody wants to risk it

Naive I know :) I don't know about #1 but #2 is starting to become clear to me it's simply not true. Just look at KitSplit, plenty of bad actors and when that happens nobody seems to be caught. I'm starting to think that people trust strangers implicitly as a matter of comfort (it's more stressful to distrust everyone for sure) and culture (they grew up in it) rather than because they have rational reasons to do so (ex. the law is enforced and violations of said trust are severely punished).

<comment><USER40> >implicit "trust" people and businesses have of "strangers", people and businesses they have never met before.

The US is a pretty big and diverse place. Where I'm from it's expected that everyone screws everyone as hard as possible in any business transaction and if you don't do your due diligence then you consent to whatever screwing you receive.

For example you call ten plumbers and all ten of them will give you a "screw you" price then you call up your cousin who calls his in-law who's a GC who gives you a plumber's contact info and a name to drop and then you get a reasonable price that the plumber would offer when they're not trying to screw the other party. Then you use this info to negotiate the other guys down to reasonable prices. And that's just one example.

The state can generally be trusted to not take advantage of you but you still have to be careful. They'll play plenty of tricks that push the limits of plausible deniability in order to get their money.

Even retail transactions are suspect. About the only places I can trust to not rip me off 50% of the time are the big national chains.

It's not quite as bad as some other parts of the world but you can't enter into any business transaction without doing your due diligence. If you do you'll get burned pretty often.

Even in random day to day interactions with other people you don't trust people unless you know them or there's some alignment of interests that keeps them from screwing you.

And no, I don't come from some "backwards" rural area. I'm speaking about a relatively well off part of the northeast.

<comment><USER41> I grew up in Connecticut, and as I was reading this I had a feeling you were describing the Northeast!

I've lived and done business in New England, N. California, the Midwest and Southeast, and the attitude you described is widespread. (Though by no means practiced by everyone.)

The Southeast in fact has been the worst IME, because underhanded practices come along with a big helping of Southern "niceness", and often a lower level of competence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hi, Lisbeth Kaufman here (CoFounder and CEO of KitSplit). This is a shitty situation, I feel terribly for Yohahn and the other owner who had their gear stolen. I wanted to personally respond to let you all know that we are fixing this and making them whole- and then some.

Since we launched in 2015, tens of thousands of filmmakers and creators have safely rented gear to and from each other on KitSplit with incredibly positive experiences.

Recently, however, someone stole $3,500 cameras from two of our owners. To put it mildly, this was an awful experience for the owners. One of them wrote about it on the internet, as you know. At first, we reacted by basically telling him "sorry, you knew the risks (or should have). It's all in our terms of service!" And technically speaking, it's true. Traditional gear rental insurance that we (and all rental platforms) offer doesn't cover theft by the renter.

But traditional gear rental insurance is inadequate. And so is our policy.

We've been pondering this problem for a while. With this recent theft, it is clearly time to solve this problem.

So we've decided to create a new insurance product for our owners: the KitSplit Theft Protection Owner Guarantee.

The Owner Guarantee means that KitSplit owners will be covered in all scenarios, whether damage, loss, or theft. To make good on this promise, we're starting by reimbursing the two owners who's gear was recently stolen.

We are the first rental platform to offer coverage of this kind. It fills a major insurance loophole, and it's the right thing to do for our customers.

You are welcome to read more about the problem and how we are fixing it here. [https://blog.kitsplit.com/announcing-kitsplit-theft- protecti...](https://blog.kitsplit.com/announcing-kitsplit-theft-protection- owner-guarantee/)

<comment><USER42> Thanks for the information. Next time I want someone to split with my kit, I'll definitely check out your service. One thing - how do you keep a straight face when using bone-headed marketese like "voluntary parting" when writing your T&C's and communicating with the customers who fall for it?

<comment><USER6> Personal attacks are not ok on HN. New users with expertise or knowledge about a topic are welcome here. If existing users harass them and hound them away, does that benefit this community? No it does not.

This comment was so far beyond the pale (plus you posted so many unsubstantive comments elsewhere today) that we've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, we'll happily reinstate you; just email firstname.lastname@example.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

<comment><USER42> Why did the community upvote it then? Haven't you heard of irony?

<comment><USER6> Alas, the community regularly upvotes snark, rage, and indignation. HN can't live by upvotes alone. The guidelines are there to correct what the voting system can't.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm immensely just surprised someone would give away their $3500 to a stranger to make a rent of $70. Even if the theft was covered, I would worry about the potential abuse of such sensitive gear. I would worry about the person leaving things in sun or dropping on floor or get water on it and so on. It is insane to me that people want to do this.

But then again folks are renting out their apartment with fully loaded furniture and appliances to complete strangers. It is infinitely surprising to me that scammers haven't made business out of this. AirBnB doesn't require real background check and with just fake FB profile, pre-loaded visa card any scammer can be in business to steal thousands of dollars of valuables. People are effectively giving away keys to their home for just few 10s of dollars and scammers are just passing this opportunity up. This wouldn't have made sense to any economist and it still doesn't. How is this possible?

<comment><USER44> > I'm immensely just surprised someone would give away their $3500 to a > stranger to make a rent of $70.

turo.com facilitates giving _cars_ worth tens of thousands to strangers for less (per day). They do claim to be insured, though - but I'm not going to be putting them to the test.

<comment><USER45> I almost used Turo once, but the whole thing seemed very ambiguous wrt liability, exact condition of the vehicle, etc. I don't drive normally, so am I even insured? The car owner's insurance likely covers lending the car out, but probably not renting it out, and they likely aren't even aware of that.

The information asymmetry and friction with these niche p2p sharing services just isn't worth it. You're basically learning the rules of an entirely new industry with each one - a significant amount of mental bandwidth to discover whether or not it will even work for what you need.

Sharegrid reached out to me once (because I was selling a camera on Craigslist). I looked over the site for about an hour and still would have had no idea about this "voluntary parting" issue.

<comment><USER30> > Sharegrid reached out to me once (because I was selling a camera on > Craigslist).

Are you saying Sharegrid was suggesting you should instead keep the camera and rent it using Sharegrid?

Quite some sales technique if so...

<comment><USER45> Yes, I think so. Or they just assumed someone selling a pro video camera might be in production and have more equipment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I can't really even explain how upset this makes me. I live in Brooklyn (where Kristina lives, and from where KitSplit operates). What can I do to help this situation? I'll do anything I can to help shine light on this company and fraud that their platform is facilitating.

I'm not a fan of the call out culture, but I really want to see KitSplit take some action and fix this problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> What I found most shocking is that if KitSplit claims that less than 0.1% of rentals result in voluntary parting, why not cover this person's losses?

Maybe covering voluntary parting would result in too many fraudulent claims. If that's the case, they should clearly explain that theft is not covered and perhaps offer an insurance supplement.

<comment><USER13> [https://medium.com/p/4530d0062e60/responses/show](https://medium.com/p/4530d0062e60/responses/show)

Read the CEO's comment above. She states their assessment has been _effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors and stopping millions of dollars of theft on the platform_

She's almost surely exaggerating and pulling those numbers out of thin air.

<comment><USER7> From the reply:

> I want to be clear that there are no insurance providers or rental platforms > that we know of that do offer coverage for voluntary parting.

It takes some guts to put this in the reply when the article specifically mentions the insurance solution of their competitor. It's like they didn't even read the piece they're replying to.

<comment><USER47> That's astounding on another level, too — they encourage owners to get their own insurance policy! And yet they aren't aware of any such providers. Insane.

> A) On our insurance page kitsplit.com/insurance We explain in underlined > terms that "we recommend that owners need to get their own annual policy > with voluntary parting coverage in addition to the insurance provided by the > renter."

> The sad reality is that insurance companies simply do not cover voluntary > parting. As a result we are, as of now, unable to offer voluntary parting > because there are no insurance partners who provide it.

Now I'm sure there's a difference between ensuring a business as a whole like that and insuring yourself, but seriously?

<comment><USER48> I do hate playing devil's advocate because I totally disagree with the position of the devil in this case. Keep in mind that it's possible to be technically correct and also completely misleading.

In this case, she's arguing that their insurance partners do not provide voluntary parting insurance. This may be technically correct. However, the way insurance works is you can always go to an insurer of last resort and ask for exceptions. Lloyd's of London will cover race cars while racing or space vessels for accidents, for example, even though those are hardly standard policies. Nearly anything can be covered if you set the premium and deductibles high enough. They have billing codes for some pretty bizarre insured cases.

An entire sharing economy of companies could easily devise an insurance product that meets these needs if they worked to make it to happen. It would be trivial to scare consumers away from competitors that do not provide this.

<comment><USER47> You're missing my point. She's simultaneously saying:

* Get your own coverage

* Insurance companies don't cover it. Full stop. It's not that it's unavailable "at a reasonable price." It's "woe is us, we would if we could, but those damn insurance partners won't let us."

I know her last point isn't accurate, but that's what she's saying and she's phrasing it that way intentionally to shift responsibility. It's abhorrent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> In this case, I feel like KitSplit's "minimum viable product" is too minimum. Of course renters are going to steal stuff. The only value you can really provide as a middleman in this transaction is "well if they do take your camera, we'll buy you a new one".

If the fraud rate is too high for that to be a viable business, so be it. You should close your business or do better vetting. Otherwise this is just Craigslist with a 22% commission, a deal nobody would take. (Do you ever see posts on Craigslist that say "use my $3500 camera for a day for $70"? No? That's because it's _crazy_ and nobody would ever do that. A company has the power to have contracts and vetting; and yet KitSplit cheaped out and does nothing. It makes me mad and I just heard about them five minutes ago.)

</comment><comment><USER50> "If a renter does not return equipment, and it has not been stolen or lost, it's called voluntary parting."

I just don't understand this line of thinking at all. You rent something out for a specific and agreed upon period of time. The person decides to keep the thing you rented out. And it's not theft? Also how is it not lost?

<comment><USER51> Well, let's consider a not-ridiculously-fraudulent situation:

I rent a camera from you for $70 a day, ostensibly for one day. My shoot doesn't work out, so I keep it for three days. Did I commit theft?

Obviously, when I return it three days later, it is not theft. We can argue whether I owe you $70, $210, or much more, but to the police, that is very much a civil argument.

Now consider the situation between when I agreed to return it and when I actually returned it, like the day after it was due back.

Have I stolen the camera? No, we just disagree on the terms of a transaction where you voluntarily rented me a camera.

This "Mark" individual seemed to use fraud (photoshopping id?) to rent the camera, and that ought to be a crime in itself. But if he rented it in his own name, and the police showed up at his door, and he returned the camera, he could argue that he was renting it for a year, and how much he owes is a civil matter.

I don't like this line of reasoning myself, but I can see why the police and insurance companies take the line that if you voluntarily give something to someone, it is not theft if they don't return it, it is a dispute over the terms and conditions of your giving them the chattel.

<comment><USER52> Agreed, it's a good thing that police generally don't get involved in contract disputes. There's still avenues for bringing criminal charges I assume.

<comment><USER53> Well they do when you are renting from a large company, such as a car rental company.[0]

[0]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20277134](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20277134)

<comment><USER52> I think property with a title is handled differently, which makes sense. Also, in this case, the car was simply reported as stolen and got pulled over in a public space - it's not like they hunted down an allegedly delinquent renter. Fortunately the rental company had to pay damages for their incompetence.

I'm actually curious as to what happens in the cases of delinquent renters - but I assume it involves things like court orders, or perhaps they just try to find the car and tow it away under existing repo laws, then send the account to collections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This seems to be a general problem across the peer-to-peer rental industry. My friend had her car stolen while renting it out on Getaround and ended up in a similar situation.

These things seem to come and go in cycles. Airbnb and Uber faced several similar trust & safety issues of their own before they started building in much stronger safety and insurance protections and, crucially, convincing their customer base to continue trusting them. Now that their hard work has once again given people confidence in the P2P rental model, these upstarts are swooping in with none of the protections and reaping the benefits.

<comment><USER55> The same kind of issues can't possibly apply to Airbnb, because no one can steal your house and run away with it. "Voluntary Parting" is the unfortunate case that is difficult to cover with insurance, unless Kitsplit decides to put aside money in the bank to cover these costs themselves. And Uber doesn't rent, so I don't think it's a 1:1 comparison here.

<comment><USER56> To add to what others have said re: AirBNB, there have also been at least a few cases where renters refuse to leave the property and turn a mid-term rental into a sort of "squatting" situation, creating tremendous legal hassle for the owner. (Though I'm not aware of any cases where the squatter has actually managed to wrest ownership from the actual owner!)

<comment><USER57> Though not related to Airbnb, in Sweden there was a guy who couldn't use his own apartment for one or two years since it was occupied by fraudsters. What a hellish situation that must be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> The text on the trust page linked in the article [https://kitsplit.com/trust](https://kitsplit.com/trust), does not specifically protect the equipment lender:

 _> KitSplit Short Term Insurance and Damage Coverage Options:_

 _> Accidents happen, but on KitSplit you are always covered. Owners: rest assured that we require renters to purchase insurance, a damage waiver, or leave a full deposit. Renters: you have the choice of three kinds of coverage: you can purchase short-term coverage through our site, you can upload a certificate of insurance, or you can leave a deposit for the value of the equipment. Read more about coverage here._

<comment><USER19> > Owners: rest assured that we require renters to purchase insurance, a damage > waiver, or leave a full deposit.

I'm sure they have their loopholes in order, but damn this is deceptive.

<comment><USER59> So they have one of the following:

1\. Certification of renters insurance with the renters information, which if fake is fraud.

2\. A waiver of some kind covering damage to the item, probably out of pocket I-accept-all-risk type signed by the renter, which if fake is fraud.

3\. Full deposit of the rented gear to payout to the owner if lost/stolen/damaged, which if declined may be fraud or at least grounds to stop the transaction and protect the owner.

Meaning there is either enough info to find the renter at least for a civil suite or there is fraud. Who is liable for fraud here? Legally I'm not sure but based on the reply and posturing from KitSplit I'd say they are. Based on this info I'm not going to use or advocate their platform.

It looks like the renter went for the deposit option but the transaction was declined. Kitsplit should have stopped the transaction there, minimum. One can't claim to be 99.99% perfect then do nothing in response to the .01% where clients lose thousands from theft on a a technicality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> This is horrible. Hopefully KitSplit goes out of business soon. What's the use of the company? Might as well lend out gear through Craigslist. Too many companies relying on the honour system.

<comment><USER61> These kinds of sites are exactly that: niche Craigslists. Since they are marketplaces, they see their job as connecting two groups that want to engage with each other (in this case, camera owners and people who want to rent a camera), and anything beyond connecting people has nothing to do with them.

It's best to think of these kind of sites as digital telephone poles with flyers and act accordingly, but it's hard when, in an attempt to grow their user base, they exaggerate the value they offer and make people think they're safer or getting more out of them than they really offer. Those kind of tactics deserve to be called out

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I'd never give out expensive gear on a rental site like this. If they can't really deal with people not returning / stealing cameras, what happens if they return the camera damaged? Or scratch the lens up? Sure you get money for someone to use your unused camera for a day, but how do you know that they'll treat your equipment as you would? What if they switch your camera out for one in worse condition?

The risk to reward ratio for this doesn't work for me.

<comment><USER63> It seems pretty clear that they _do_ have insurance for accidental damage, and that's exactly where they're trying to hide the fact that they _don 't_ have insurance against fraudulent renters.

The risk profile for fraud is very different from accidents, which is why it's harder to insure against fraud, but also why you really need that insurance (or a deposit, or whatever).

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I wouldn't be surprised if KitSplit knew all along about all the loopholes and are as a matter of fact acting on it themselves. Find gullible victims, send someone to pick equipment, and you know the rest. When the image becomes really bad they close shop. If the insurance was paying they would be investigated eventually but they do know legally nobody can get them.

And I expect to see all kinds of modern ways of theft popping up everywhere.

<comment><USER65> You wouldn't be surprised if KitSplit was a criminal enterprise from the bottom up???

<comment><USER64> I wouldnt be. Im not surprised by anything anymore. But here I'm just speculating. Today I heard of KitSplit for the first time and will not touch them with a ten foot pole.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Sue first and sue often. Really.

You've already done most of the legwork on this. Now all you need to do is get this into small claims court.

Trust me: once KitSplit gets that notification from the court that they're being hauled into court and are going to need to hire a lawyer to defend themselves, you're gonna be working with a whole different level of people at Kitsplit. That's your best chance to get compensated.

SUE THE BASTARDS.

<comment><USER67> EDIT: In some small claims courts, including CA, you can't have a lawyer represent you.

<comment><USER68> How would this work for businesses? The owner or CEO gets dragged in? Seems unlikely, otherwise you could just DoS a business by keeping their leadership embroiled in small claims issues.

I imagine you can't have outside counsel represent you, but the business can probably send their own lawyer and delegate authority to them.

<comment><USER69> When suing a corporation in small claims court in the state of California, an attorney may only be present if they are an officer or director of the corporation and all other officers and directors are attorneys.

[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=116.530.&lawCode=CCP)

The corporation doesn't need to be represented by an officer or director, however, they can also be represented by a non-attorney employee: "a corporation may appear and participate in a small claims action only through a regular employee, or a duly appointed or elected officer or director, who is employed, appointed, or elected for purposes other than solely representing the corporation in small claims court."

[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CCP&sectionNum=116.540).

<comment><USER68> Looks like this is a per state thing. If my googling is accurate, this is only true in California, Michigan, and Nebraska. New York, where KitSplit is based, definitely allows a lawyer to represent you in small claims court.

<comment><USER69> I can't find an authoritative source right now, but some random legal advise websites mention that some states allow you to sue an out-of-state business in small claims court as long as you are a resident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is what small claims court is for.

The contract might not be enforceable if they have other text on their website saying otherwise. Worth trying to get a judge to agree with you for $3500.

</comment><comment><USER70> When Pro Camera Rental still existed in SF, you left a deposit of the full value of the hardware you were renting.

<comment><USER40> This is how all the free specialty tools rentals at the auto parts stores works.

You don't have to bring it back unless you want your money back.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Another interesting discussion thread: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918)

<comment><USER72> The person in that thread was compensated, hopefully that happens here too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I'm founder of a similar 2 sided marketplace addressing the same market, but for buying and selling ([https://gearoffer.com](https://gearoffer.com)).

KitSplit likely has a fraud problem that's much larger than they admit. Even at our small scale, we often get fraud attempts. The key is to adapt the platform once you find a hole. Otherwise, these fraudsters will come back, frequently. If KitSplit tout their ability to prevent fraud in the first place, but this person was able to find a long list of other victims, I'm guessing KitSplit isn't plugging the holes and this type of scam will continue.

</comment><comment><USER74> This sounds familiar: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18340552](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18340552)

"... They've also assured me they are making improvements to their policies and will have additional updates soon..."

So in the 7 months since that last article, they have seemingly made deteriorations as now they won't even offer to pay for the OPs equipment.

<comment><USER75> While reading this article I had the same thought, read something similar on HN before. Sounds like nothing's changed on KitSplit. Looks like they found their profit/payment line - continue to screw the 0.01% and leave them in the dark and only pay up the the even smaller % that decide to pursue them in court.

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I had an analogous experience with another service Omni [https://omni.co](https://omni.co) not too long ago. I rented out my drone as I wasn't using it too regularly. I had confidence that their insurance policy would cover any damage by renters.

I recently had my drone returned to me as I was planning to use it on an upcoming vacation. I did not bother to inspect the drone when they sent it back to me. A few weeks later, I decided to use it and realized there was scuffs, damage to the propellers, and that the camera gimbal was broken.

A renter had crashed my drone. I contacted Omni to request details on filing an insurance claim. I got an email stating that I only had 48 hours after the item was returned to me to file a claim. Quite frustrating. I will definitely will be reading the details of these insurance policies in the future.

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems the distinction of "voluntary parting" completely diffuses the responsibility of theft from KitSplit, since every exchange is voluntary through their service. My question is why they haven't received a cease and desist from legal enforcement since their platform is aiding and abetting crime...

<comment><USER9> And according to Wiki they've been around for 5 years: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KitSplit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KitSplit)

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> > If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. For this reason, don't > trust a company with a trust page.

A true sign of what the Web has become

<comment><USER78> It's a corollary of the common line, "at $COMPANY, we take $ISSUE very seriously."

A phrase that usually means they don't take $ISSUE seriously at all! Or at least, they didn't. Which is why they're saying it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> Treat it as anything stolen. Go to the police with the serial number of your camera and any proof of your property like photos, videos or so. Exiftool is your friend. They probably will discover a vault of many other stolen objects in the same place.

<comment><USER80> He did. The cops don't care because it's only $3,500 in equipment.

<comment><USER81> Varies based on the police department, but once it showed up on craigslist that might have been enough to get them to act. They're not going to waste a bunch of resources investigating, but they might get involved if they can just show up at the thief's house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> Interesting bit about the other person who had stuff stolen receiving the exact same emails from KitSplit. If they bothered to have created a script for this it means that they're probably dealing with this stuff frequently, more than one in 10'000 times as they claim. They also are probably shamelessly lying when they say that they discussed the case in length with "Kristina" but that she ultimately decided to deny the claim. Makes it sound like they're really trying to help while in reality they're only deploying diversion tactics. They've been misleading him all along.

</comment><comment><USER83> "Additionally, a lawyer friend of mine has pointed out that the terms of use that we've agreed upon with KitSplit is a contract set up to devoid them of liability for serious potential crimes, like theft."

Do you really need a lawyer to tell you that ToS are designed to absolve the service of liability?

</comment><comment><USER84> See also [https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how-i-lent- my-4500-camera-k...](https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how-i-lent- my-4500-camera-kit-for-95-and-had-it-legally-stolen/)

<comment><USER7> The difference there is that in that case KitSplit compensated the owner.

They declined to compensate here presumably because they didn't think that he can raise a stink - the original piece was on petapixel which is really popular with photographers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Good lord, look at the response from one of the founders. Even with the absolutely sane and calm response from the author (I would be burning their fucking offices down), the company still comes back with bullshit lines and offers no recompense.

Whoever's funding this, I'm holding them to account. Boycotts for all.

</comment><comment><USER85> Unethical, but the best course of action for someone is to simply find a smashed up piece of equipment and claim it was returned damaged and not stolen. Sounds like they would insure damaged equipment but not stolen equipment. However, that also would be fraud.

</comment><comment><USER86> If you write KitSplit on Google and scroll a few lines, you see: "How I Lent My $4,500 Camera Kit for $95 and Had It Stolen - PetaPixel" That's a huge red flag. If I were you I would go full TrustPilot on these folks!

</comment><comment><USER87> I'm curious at what point it makes sense for them to just pay out the $3430 difference to make this story have a happy ending. I'm a photographer that would love to make a little extra cash or to rent a lens from someone else through this service but I never will because of how poorly they handled this whereas if they had owned up and made it right instead of hiding behind legalese I probably would be more likely to use it.

At what point it how many lost users like me does it take to make paying out cheaper than loss of business?

<comment><USER74> There is absolutely no way the bad press they're getting is worth saving a measly 3430. HOWEVER, from this 1 point alone (and the thread from last year about the same issue with kitsplit), we can deduce that kitsplit probably has enough thefts that they can't afford to "pay off" all the people being stolen from.

Their claim that "99.99% of people aren't scammed" seems awfully smelly, as they could use their _modest_ 20% cut from rentings to pay off all the people who are stolen from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER88> Now that the medium post and this HN response (and possibly others) have gained traction, the author and other similarly affected parties may be interested to communicate this shift in momentum to investors, conveniently listed on kitsplit's website: [https://angel.co/company/kitsplit/jobs](https://angel.co/company/kitsplit/jobs)

Mostly individuals (and perhaps this is not the complete picture) through AngelList, perhaps AngelList (angel.co) itself might be interested to know in more detail the actual policies and communications of one of its listed companies.

Deciding to not cover this claim and claims like it seems to be a short- sighted and heavily financially-motivated decision. Perhaps if the financial stakes of that decision were more clear, the author could pursue a different result.

Perhaps, though, this momentum has come too late. Food for thought as I haven't seen it discussed here so far.

</comment><comment> the-pigeon Wow. So basically KitSplit tricks people into thinking they will cover your equipment if something happens to it but then doesn't at all.

That's super scummy. I think the author of this is way too nice to them. Take them to small claims court as others suggested. Having a loophole buried in the terms of service does not allow you to lie about your service.

</comment><comment><USER89> A great example of why tech needs regulation. Normal people get hurt when risks aren't disclosed in an effective manner. You should absolutely file a class action lawsuit and I bet they'll settle just to avoid the bad press.

If this crappy, unethical business practice becomes widely known I doubt people will keep using them.

</comment><comment><USER90> This is absolutely fucked. Surely they can be sued for something. If you setup a go fund me I'll put some cash in.

</comment><comment><USER91> > Because in the end, I genuinely do think that KitSplit is a great idea on > paper

Is it..‽

> Additionally, I watched my stolen property being sold on Craigslist — that > was the sweet icing on the cake.

Why not use that opportunity to arrange a "purchase"? Either identify the thief by surveillance (follow to their home e.g.) or attempt a retrieval via brute force (hired guard etc)? At least with the thief's identity it might be possible to pursue a legal way to get back the gear or be compensated.

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1l16cq/a_friend_found...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1l16cq/a_friend_found_her_stolen_bike_on_craigslist_and/)

<comment><USER92> >attempt a retrieval via brute force (hired guard etc)

This can be a very bad idea, especially if the seller isn't a thief but someone who unknowingly purchased the stolen property.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_robbery_case](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._J._Simpson_robbery_case)

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> As a fellow photographer (even the same gear), I understand the author's pain in losing it. I really hope they can get it back and the thief is held liable. What I truly admire is how professional the blog entry is written after being badly ripped off like that.

</comment><comment><USER94> From KitSplit Q&A post [1]:

> "they appreciate the peace of mind they get because KitSplit vets everyone > who joins, and assures that everything on the platform is covered."

> However, we know that sometimes things go wrong, and we're not taking any > chances with expensive camera gear. That's why we vet everyone on the > platform to make sure they are who they say they are, and make sure that > every piece of gear rented via KitSplit is fully insured.

[1] - [https://medium.com/@VeriduHQ/a-short-q-a-with-kitsplit- and-s...](https://medium.com/@VeriduHQ/a-short-q-a-with-kitsplit-and-some- puppies-187ff7311541)

</comment><comment><USER90> Hope the founders get inundated with questions about this on Twitter where they are very vocal. Anyone using their services need to be made aware that you're basically donating your camera gear to anyone who might rob you.

</comment><comment><USER95> Would Checkr be a possible solution to "Vet" people that join.

I just joined on a whim, and the verification process is a joke. I'm already "verified" with the fancy check logo next to my name, INSTANTLY.

</comment><comment><USER96> Try that "voluntary parting" with a rental car and see what happens.

</comment><comment><USER97> To the CEO Lizbeth:

Replace vague suggestions like "recommend" with "must have voluntary parting coverage on your own insurance policy". Collect the policy number. Require confirmation that policy is active before every listing goes live.

Long-term solution: work with a carrier to underwrite this risk for your lenders so they don't need to involve their insurance.

It's clear that the platform is forcing its paying customers to shoulder all risk. Theft by not returning is the primary risk for which the customers are paying a premium.

</comment><comment><USER98> If you rent to someone and they don't give it back, the easy thing to do is call it theft, but legally its a breach of contract known in the rental world as "voluntary parting".

I used to work for kitsplits biggest competitor, we had the same problems. AirBnb has similar issues.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=voluntary+parting+coverage](https://www.google.com/search?q=voluntary+parting+coverage)

The gear owner could/should have bought their own insurance to cover this.

</comment><comment><USER99> This happened to someone else in a writeup in November of last year. There's no "peace of mind" when renting on KitSplit. They say "We've got you covered" but this can happen easily. How can they have you "covered" when your stuff can be stolen by "voluntary parting".

I put forth that KitSplit is a middleman which provides nothing to the experience and their percentage carries no value. It is not in your interest to rent anything through them vs craigslist.

</comment><comment><USER100> There should be a fund to pay Google Ads to make this the top search for KiKsplit on Google. Then they'd take you all seriously.

</comment><comment><USER101> Small claims court is your only option.

BTW: if the OP had done some Googling: [https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how- i-lent-my-4500-camera-k...](https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how-i-lent- my-4500-camera-kit-for-95-and-had-it-legally-stolen/)

</comment><comment><USER102> This is not the first time something like this happens - [https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how-i-lent- my-4500-camera-k...](https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how-i-lent- my-4500-camera-kit-for-95-and-had-it-legally-stolen/)

</comment><comment><USER103> At least it seems clear how they came up with the name. Someone gets your kit, and they split.

</comment><comment><USER104> See also the comments to this article form 8 months ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918)

</comment><comment><USER105> How many defrauded owners to we need to start a class-action lawsuit?

</comment><comment><USER106> Somehow the name makes sense. KitSplit - Split from your kit.

</comment><comment><USER107> Seems borderline fraudulent on kitsplits part. Clearly they know this is a major issue and are putting people's livelihood at risk yet they continue anyway.

</comment><comment><USER108> Renting is a profession. Strange world nowadays, where everybody thinks he can make anything, just because "There is an application for that".

</comment><comment><USER109> Seems like KitSplit's provided you with false information as they actually hadn't verified the user's identity.

Seems like a nice base for your claim.

</comment><comment><USER110> Goodness me! Here in Germany we have insurance on most of our goods - I don't think most other societies use insurance as much as Germans do

</comment><comment><USER111> They should really hold the full amount in escrow, with something like Bitcoin so they don't have to worry about transaction denials.

</comment><comment><USER12> Best to just put a little GPS tag in every bit of equipment.

Anything expensive ships in a case - just cut an extra slot in the back of the foam and put a tag in. Make sure you get the tags that have more than 3 days battery life!

Then, when it goes missing, wait a few weeks for it to end up resold to someone, then go pick it up. Since they bought it from some shady guy, the loss is on them. If they won't give it back, call the police while standing outside their front door.

</comment><comment><USER112> I been thinking of starting a "renting" company but figured out that it would basically be an insurance company.

<comment><USER59> Which wouldn't be a terrible idea. Insurance is just another way to crowdsource money for stable/safe investments where the front is peace of mind. One could probably operate under a pure risk assessment model but why not put the extra cash into short term T bills then maybe once more cushion is established low risk mutual funds?

Hopefully I'm missing some major regulatory issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> Should have taken a photo of the guy and got his license plate number. Maybe even asked to check his ID.

<comment><USER114> KitSplit is a New York company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER115> Sharing economy, all right. Some refuse to acknowledge the issues that are well known.

</comment><comment><USER116> Free publicity for KitSplit, which I hope it won't lead to explosive growth.

</comment><comment><USER117> How is kitsplit different from renting out your gear to random people on the street? They seem to provide no actual service and definitely not the most important one: security of your gear. What a waste of a company.

<comment><USER14> A marketplace for connecting renters and owners is valuable. Their real issue is that their marketing essentially says they cover stolen gear, but their fine print says they don't. That's no bueno.

<comment> munk-a They might be pursuable under false advertising - if you got a good lawyer you might even get them in conspiracy to commit theft via their poor vetting system. These guys really need to be held accountable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER118> How much more does this "voluntary parting insurance" cost?

Back-of-envelope for a $3500 replacement cost @ .1% chance of loss, the nominal insurance cost is $3.50. Double that for the insurance premium, so maybe $7. That's 10% of the owner's cut, which definitely seems worth it in hindsight.

<comment><USER119> Except that if you were actually in the voluntary parting insurance business, you'd find: fraud is a lot more than 0.1%, and fraud to take advantage of your insurance would be very real (Bill and Dave are buddies, Bill claims Dave didn't return his camera, Bill and Dave end up with the reimbursement AND the camera). You'd have to do a ton of legwork to try to keep your fraud losses low, and your insurance would be expensive as hell.

I mean, what's the proper premium charge for a $1000 camera loaned out to "random Craigslist guy", a premium where, overall, you end up making money exceeding your losses due to payouts? $500? $999? At least one in a thousand transactions WON'T be fraudulent, right?

<comment><USER118> Not sure why I got downvoted there, I'm just using the information provided by KitSplit:

 _These instances are extremely rare on KitSplit and happen less than 0.1% of the time_ [https://kitsplit.com/insurance](https://kitsplit.com/insurance)

If the actual rate of fraud is higher than 0.1% as you suggest then KitSplit is liable for losses; they are the ones perpetrating a fraud.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER120> KitSplit, pay us to get split away from your equipment kit

</comment><comment><USER121> Looks like Medium is down right now.

<comment><USER70> The amazing part is how they serve you the full content of the article but then fail to serve their javascript that would allow you to SCROLL DOWN and read it.

<comment><USER122> What a sad world that you need javascript to scroll down a page now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER123> how about learning to respect the dangers of the sharing economy? cheap-for- me-not-for-thee

</comment><comment><USER124> The silicon valley of today is nothing more than a haven for fly-by-night, under-regulated capitalism. Usually there's a bit of software sprinkled on top. Most of these companies aren't innovating in technology at all, they're innovating in gaming the economy for their own enrichment.

</comment><comment><USER64> They seem legit because they have a public facing, and are bamboozling the owners, make them feel safe (who reads the find print and the legalese anyway) when in fact they are just like any random guy on the street. Who knows, maybe that was the whole business plan, make profits, when image becomes really bad close shop. Crazy profits. They are setup legally quite well, they basically risk nothing.

<comment><USER125> I think the worst part is, even reading all the legalese, one can come under the impression it's a legit company that tried to cover their users and will genuinely help in case of trouble.

<comment><USER126> "Please note, however, that the insurance accepted on KitSplit is industry standard equipment rental insurance and does not cover some rare instances, such as if a renter commits fraud. These instances are extremely rare on KitSplit and happen less than 0.1% of the time, but we recommend that owners get their own annual policy with voluntary parting coverage in addition to the insurance provided by the renter."

Seems pretty clear to me that you are not in fact covered.

<comment><USER47> > some rare instances, such as if a renter commits fraud

That's still super weasely. Why not say: "if the renter fails to return your equipment?"

Oh, because that's horrifying and will scare everyone away.

<comment><USER127> For the same reason they call getting robbed "voluntary parting"

What a laugh, hopefully I don't get "involuntarily punctured" during a "voluntary parting" gone wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER128> KitSplit - we'll split you from your kit!

</comment><comment><USER129> How come a company doesn't require enough enough from the scammers to track them down and get the camera back?

This company is literally doing nothing to help them. I feel so sad looking at this entire thing, not only he lost his camera but also wasted so much time with zero support offered by the company.

<comment><USER57> I'm not sure it would help in this case; seems like the fraudster used a stolen identity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER130> KitSplit is a marketplace for connecting owners of expensive items with people who want to steal those expensive items.

It's very technical in nature, you see.

<comment><USER131> No, Kitsplit is a site that facilitates the theft of your equipment for a small fee.

<comment><USER132> And in just such a way as to prevent your insurance company from paying a claim!

<comment><USER133> Professional equipment thieves love it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> There's a traditional idiom where I come from:

"The fool and his camera equipment are easily parted."

</comment><comment><USER134> I can guarantee you that if I saw something stolen from me on CL I'd be certain to reclaim my gear. One way or another.

<comment><USER135> FYI, OJ Simpson went to prison for stealing back memorabilia he claimed was stolen from him, just in case you're insinuating you'd do the same.

<comment><USER136> Guns were involved, that is why OJ went to jail.

If OJ walked in to the room without guns or "muscle", saw his stuff, then walked out and called the police, he would have been okay.

<comment><USER137> I'm in Las Vegas and followed it fairly closely because I have friends in the DA's office.

It was even worse than that, OJ is truly beyond redemption. Every effort has been made to protect him from the system and his brain just can't process decisions correctly.

I'd bet everything I own that his autopsy will show serious CTE issues, and that he will be back in prison within the year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER138> So you rented out your gear on what amounts to craigs list and now your shocked that someone split with your kit (hence the aptly named site.) Did you stop to think about how the service is supposed to protect you from theft?

> One specific area that KitSplit talks about in-depth is their proprietary > vetting system ...

That should have been where you stopped reading and walked away. From my experience, let me tell you what "proprietary" means: A. we have no process OR B. we use what everyone else is but want to stand out from the rest so we lied to you.

How do you vet trust on the internet? Think about how hard it is to steal a rental car. Do they have a magical proprietary process? No. They take all of your personal info and use that as collateral against you should you decide not to return the car.

Bottom line, and I'll happily take the karma hit: you're a sucker. And I'm not being mean, but driving the point home. You believed some rent seekers bland promises of magic fairies and pixie dust in order to secure a quick buck. You know the old saying: If it sound too good to be true...

<comment><USER139> They may be a sucker, but there is still value in warning people and/or litigating to recover losses. We afford people the ability to make mistakes so that we can effectively learn from them, not simply to punish people for being imperfect.</comment></comment>


Apple allows hot code push for JS downloaded and run by WebKit - <AUTHOR> https://www.meteor.com/blog/2014/10/02/Apple-hot-code-push-mobile

<comment><USER2> I once worked for Pyxis Mobile (now Verivo Inc.) which touted a platform which would provide you with native iOS, Android, and BlackBerry (years ago..) apps, which would _build themselves_ at run time based on a database/app meta data. This allowed apps to completely change themselves without a resubmission, while being in-line with Apple's guidelines, and technically be purely native. Between lazy loading and the fact that the interfaces were simple, the system worked well. Point being - I've thought a lot about and seen the result of the "avoid app store submission" value proposition.

After all these years, I find the aforementioned value proposition...not that valuable. In my experience it's fine to only be able to push iOS updates on something like a once/week cadence. Of course on Android, you can push daily if you really want to.

Ultimately, my thought is that with all of the complications and hard work required to create and maintain a mobile app, this is a tiny piece, and should play little into your decision when choosing to develope natively vs. w/ Meteor/phonegap vs. something else. Of course, the geek in me and the Android fanboy in me loves skirting Apple's "guidelines". :)

<comment><USER3> Have you ever done A/B testing?

That's the real value if you want to actually measure things and improve them. Maybe doing so can even minimize spectacular bugs when you push. And how would you accomplish this A/B iteration with weekly pushes to everyone?

<comment><USER4> You could code both views and show one or the other based on a server-side flag.

<comment><USER3> And that is rudimentary "code push" isn't it?

<comment><USER5> I don't think that it is. You include both views in the submitted app and decide to show only one. There's no code push being done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This doesn't come as news to me. Every website can be shown via WK/UIWebViews as a "mobile app". Each javascript therefore is "hot code" being pushed. But I don't think Apple ever disallowed that, on the contrary it was the only way to develop for iPhone 1.

<comment><USER7> [i work at meteor]

After we announced 0.9.2 and hot code push for mobile apps, many of our users wanted to be sure it was kosher. It's easy to get confused about this because the App Store review guidelines suggest that downloading code isn't okay. And many Meteor developers don't have a deep background in the iOS ecosystem. The cool part about 0.9.2 is you can build mobile apps with just your basic Meteor/JS/HTML5 knowledge.

Apple's formal developer agreement is both controlling and clarifying, and since it's a bit harder to find we thought it would be good to point Meteor developers at the key part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In other words: webpages function as expected on iOS.

... Not to blame the meteor folks for writing it, if they were getting asked it... But wow.

I personally think the title is a bit click-baity, but that's because it's not really hot code push. It's loading a web view. If this was hot loading new native code that'd be newsworthy or at least interesting.

<comment><USER7> [i work at meteor]

Meteor's hot code push on mobile is more sophisticated than this. When you deploy a new version of a Meteor app, clients fetch and save the new client JavaScript bundle along with its static assets. Future launches of the installed app immediately run new code (even offline) without first requiring a round trip to a server.

<comment><USER9> How can something that is offline somehow get new code? Besides that it sounds exactly like a website.

<comment><USER10> He's saying it caches the JS and all assets when online so that they can continue to function offline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This sounds great. It bears noting that this form of code push is routinely implemented in native apps too - I know at least that the Quora and Facebook iOS apps make liberal use of web views (and code push). Native apps can take the opposite hybrid approach - sprinkle in web views where needed inside a native codebase, as opposed to sprinkling in native plugins (and a native wrapper) in a web codebase.

<comment><USER12> (I work at Meteor)

There's a small point to make here that many iOS apps that use WebViews just do the easy thing and load the content over the Internet, rather than storing it on the phone and fetching updates in the background. This makes sense for dynamic content that requires an Internet connection, but if you want to be able to push changes to the entire UI of your app and have it work offline, you need to do the more complicated thing and figure out how to serve the files from app storage into a WebView.

Meteor isn't the first to do this by any means, but it sure makes it easy!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is probably the only feature that gives hybrid apps an actual upper-hand vs their native counterparts.

So now I could instantly push an update to my apps by hot-swapping the js code, while a native version would be stuck in a a multi-day approval process.

I can imaging there are some scenarios where getting a feature to market before a competitor would make this feature really valuable.

One question, it specifically mentions using the WebKit framework, does that mean that this is not allowed under the old UIWebView class?

<comment><USER14> > One question, it specifically mentions using the WebKit framework, does that > mean that this is not allowed under the old UIWebView class?

This is nothing new. We have been using UIWebView to download JS code in our App Store apps since iOS 3. You can use UIWebView or WKWebView. I don't understand why this is on the front page of HN except that someone over at Meteor is doing a good job at drawing attention to their framework.

edit: I do understand that App Store rules can be confusing and Meteor may need to have this PSA to ensure their developers feel comfortable using their framework. But ultimately it's still nothing new, not news, and probably doesn't belong the HN front page – I'm sure I wasn't the only one who clicked the link thinking it was for native apps only to be disappointed.

<comment><USER15> I see at least 3 commenters in this thread work at Meteor. It would be interesting to see exactly who upvoted it.

On a separate note: you can get away with downloading interpreted code in an iOS app, as long as you don't broadcast the fact to Apple :)

<comment><AUTHOR> (blog post author)

We actually never upvote our own stories or ask others to. It's hard not be curious about the comments, though, and we make a point to identify ourselves in our replies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Unless I'm mistaken, two primary restrictions are:

1\. script must be downloaded only within UIWebView. 2\. script must be excuted only within UIWebView.

Not sure why #1 is important to Apple but #2 makes perfect sense. I'm assuming Meteor is downloading scripts then passing them as 'data' to native-side to be cached somewhere until it needs to be injected back into UIWebView for execution.

<comment><USER17> Hmm, 1 at least isn't entirely enforced. (Chrome has its own network layer, and quite obviously supports scripting.)

<comment><USER16> Very good point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been using Trigger.io like this for years, it's very useful.

But don't forget that the app download from the AppStore will have old code which may or may not be a problem when you first open the app.

</comment><comment><USER19> Don't see the point a blog requiring javascript enabled to load.

<comment><USER20> You don't see the point of the blog of a javascript web framework requiring javascript?

<comment><USER21> I guess OP doesn't see the point of using a JavaScript framework for, per [0], "what should be text communicating a fucking message".

[0] - [http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/](http://motherfuckingwebsite.com/)

<comment><USER22> Probably because it would look odd if Meteor's own web site wasn't build on their own framework.

Plus if they fix a typo the page updates in your browser without reloading. Which is at least kind of neat. :)

<comment><USER21> Fair enough :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Last I read, Apple was limiting javascript performance in UIWebViews compared to what was available in Safari, is this still the case?

<comment><USER24> No. In iOS 8 apps can use WKWebView, which is accelerated.

<comment><USER23> Wow, thanks, I can't believe I missed reading about this until now. This framework looks really promising

<comment><USER25> Unfortunately, due to sandboxing rules added around beta4, WKWebView doesn't allow access to any local files, making it nearly worthless for hybrid apps, ebook viewers, etc.

The only workaround that I know of is to run a webserver on a background thread and point the WKWebView at it. Hopefully Apple fixes this in a future release.

Also, WKWebView doesn't work with NSURLProtocol, which a lot of companies use to implement encryption and dynamic (e.g. database-sourced) web pages.

<comment><USER26> My distant but intense interest in the future of hybrid apps just took a nosedive. Do you know if any of the major players (Phonegap, CocoonJS, etc) implement the web server approach? It doesn't seem too difficult, but it sure must be a hassle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Nothing new here, anyone who has written a hybrid app or a mobile web application knew about this day1. One of the advantages over native application development. It has nothing to do with meteor or anything like that.

</comment><comment><USER28> Does this count for technologies like Appcelerator?

Or can I work around the standard way Appcelerator works for example by making more Javascript code available through a webkit Ti.UI.Webview or something?

</comment><comment><USER29> Many games are constantly downloading multi-megabyte "updates". I bet some of that stuff is Lua.

<comment><USER30> No, they catch that kind of stuff in app review. Lua code updates would be a small part of that. They're asset and IAP content, that is why it's multi- megabyte. It comes from experience.

<comment><USER31> Can they? For instance in love2d the mechanism for distributing a blob of assets after the fact is the same as the mechanism for distributing a blob of code after the fact. I'm not sure I can rewrite my app to be incapable of loading code from mounted archives, though I could rewrite it to not mount any archives until it's done loading code.

<comment><USER30> Well they detected it my company when we did it. We had little lua mini-games that you could download, and they rejected the app for it.

If you work really hard to hide it, then you could do it possibly. Like most private API calls are not detected by their tool if you execute it with a composed string based peformSelector: style action for example. And they can't really detect private view manipulation either.

But they can also use plain deduction in using your app. As in, 'this wouldn't be possible unless they are downloading code'. They also don't like finding out about hidden shit that is only revealed once the app is approved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Yet another site that does not load without JS.

</comment><comment><USER33> Ultimate linkbait title for HN

<comment><USER34> I don't see it? In cases of misleading or linkbait titles we're glad to hear suggestions for a better title. There are too many posts here for us to correct everything correctly, so help is welcome.

<comment><USER14> While the title isn't necessarily false, it's misleading link bait because people click on it thinking that Apple is now allowing us to push out Swift/Objective-C updates in-app. It's more feasible than ever that this could happen now since they've added the ability to include frameworks inside of your apps where previously you couldn't.

The link is referring to using HTML/JS/CSS to update apps, which has been possible since the UIWebView in 2.0 - literally for years and years. You download those files and view them in a web view – technically it's running javascript "hot code" but this isn't news, it's been around since we could develop apps for iOS. A better title might be "Apple allows you to download and view HTML in a web browser inside of your app" but that wouldn't generate many clicks.

<comment><USER34> Ok, we changed the title to something close to that but with more language from the article itself.

If that's not good enough we can edit it again.

<comment><USER33> I would make it say 'Apple allows hot code push for JS downloaded and run by WebKit'

<comment><USER34> Ok, let's try that.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can I update to Xcode 9.2 without updating to macOS High Sierra? - <AUTHOR> I was going to update to Xcode 9.2, released on Dec 4th, but noticed that macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 is stealthily included in this update. Screenshot:(https://njarboe.com/images/Xcode9.2UpdateMessage.png). I had read about Apple tricking people into updating to High Sierra, a la Windows 10, but it was still a bit of surprise to see it myself. Does installing this update really install High Sierra (I would guess it does) and is there any way to just get the Xcode update? <comment><USER2> I haven't run the update myself yet, but I see that the description says that the update includes SDKs for High Sierra, not High Sierra itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. My prior of fearing an update to macOS High Sierra by accident had me misreading the update blurb.</comment></comment>


Memory Layouts for Binary Search – V2 - <AUTHOR> http://cglab.ca/~morin/misc/arraylayout-v2/ <comment><USER2> For those who want a bit more than "we trade bandwidth for latency" and a bit less than a 43-page paper (not to discourage anyone, it's very well-written):

In a binary-heap ("Eytzinger") layout, the next node to consider is at either index (2i + 1) or (2i + 2). That means you can perfectly predict the next cache line to load. This continues to be true up to four iterations in advance (assuming proper alignment, for 4-byte data with 64-byte cache lines, holding 16 values each). Speculative execution will begin these loads early, regardless of whether the branch prediction is ultimately successful. A branch-free algorithm can do the same with explicit prefetch instructions to avoid the pipeline stalls of mis-prediction. However, in each cache line, you only look at one value (1/16th of the data transferred).

You can attempt to pack the data for several iterations into a single cache line to increase utilization. However, because a complete binary tree has 2^n - 1 values (i.e., because it is odd), there are some small inefficiencies. For example, four iterations of a binary search require (1 + 2 + 4 + 8) = 15 possible values, of which you will look at four (1/4 of the data transferred, given the same 16-element cache line size). But either you include an extra element and thus sometimes need 5 comparisons instead of 4 (B-tree algorithm), or you mis-align the subtrees with cache line boundaries (van Emde Boas algorithm), or you waste space by only putting 15 values in a cache line (not tested). And you can't issue the load for the next cache line until the current subtree search completes.

Even though the latter approaches have up to four times better utilization of the data they load, as long as the bandwidth-delay product is at least 4 cache lines (i.e., you can issue 4 requests in parallel without slowing any of them down), the Eytzinger approach will win. They measured the bandwidth-delay product at 4.7 on their machine, and overall algorithm comparisons seem to be consistent across over 100 different CPUs.

If the data fits in L2 cache (2^16 values), a branchless prefetching algorithm on a simple sorted array is still slightly faster than using the Eytzinger ordering, just because of constant factors. The difference is small (15%ish on average, estimating from the plots).

Some broken CPUs (Phenom II, Celeron J1900, E3-1230) seem to cause large slowdowns when prefetching invalid addresses. Masking the address fixes the problem with no measurable performance impact on non-broken CPUs.

</comment><comment><USER3> The graphs are extremely interesting - there's a significant qualitative difference between what works best: in-cache, "least branches, least work" works best. out-of-cache, "least fetches" works best. Not at all surprising, of course, but a reminder that there's no point discussing these issues independent of the cache size. Also, no point optimizing without knowing the approximate cache size and memory footprint of your real data.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Spoiler: It has to do do with hiding latency by overusing bandwidth

Not a perfect win, but probably a good trade off given that hardware bandwidth has been much easier to improve compared to the cost of developing hardware with better latency (and will likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future).

</comment><comment><USER5> See also "Optimal Hierarchical Layouts for Cache-Oblivious Search Trees", by Peter Lindstrom and Deepak Rajan: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.5899](http://arxiv.org/abs/1307.5899).

<comment><USER6> The layout is definitely interesting, but the experiments in that paper are of questionable usefulness. The numbers are for simulated caches (cachegrind), and don't take TLBs into account. They also only consider complete binary trees, and that is a worst case for binary search. I pointed out that issue to the authors and using ternary search cuts L1 and L2 misses by about 40-60% (VS binary search), without any change in layout.

If I want to evaluate the Min-WEP layout for a real application, I have to run my own experiment to weigh the impact of reducing cache misses versus constant factors _knowing that even the cache miss numbers are way off for the simplest layout (sorted array)_. The performance information in the paper can't help me make even an educated guess.

That's why I really liked Pat Morin's approach of going for real time on a variety of microarchitectures… which helped us realise that cache misses aren't that good of a metric these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The OP asks for people to try the code, but the provided C++ code requires a fairly recent g++. I could have tried a couple of targets, but I don't want to waste my time porting it. What about this requires C++?

<comment><USER6> Convenience stuff in the test harness.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Does anyone know if there are any similar studies for hash tables (e.g. algorithm, bucket layouts, probe sequences)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Not quite what you are asking for, but I think this is a similarly smart paper about Cuckoo Hashes that takes the right approach for modern processors, and includes some background on how other approaches fare: [http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~orestis/sigmod15.pdf](http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~orestis/sigmod15.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Interesting results. Thanks, I'll have to take a deeper look through the paper.

Cuckoo hashing seems to be the standard, but I still haven't seen concrete numbers comparing different variations or other schemes like hopscotch particularly for latency and throughput. Hopscotch seems like it might give better latency. For simple stuff, I've found that a good hash and linear probe generally outperforms other simple schemes up to roughly 50% load, but I honestly haven't really had a need to dig further into other schemes so far.</comment></comment></comment>


Intel: Fighting with Nvidia a Wrong Strategy - <AUTHOR> http://seekingalpha.com/article/4025638-intel-fighting-nvidia-wrong-strategy <comment><USER2> As much as I'd love Intel to produce a competitive GPU, they've proven time and time again that they can't compete with Nvidia or AMD. This is kind of like saying Intel should have just made the iPhone CPU. If they can make gains in AI with CPUs without having to worry about building a competitive graphics pipeline, it could be a huge market boost for them.</comment>


Web 2.0 names that were stolen from my 4 year old - <AUTHOR> http://tracksuitceo.com/2008/07/17/web-20-names-that-were-stolen-from-my-4-year-old/ Jaiku, that was just bought by Google and Joomla are both names invented by the author's 4 year old. He wants her to get some credit... <comment><USER2> Cute :)

You could use the Web 2.0 Domain Name Generator if you don't want to pay those steep, 4yo consulting rates :)

<http://www.dotomator.com/web20.html></comment>