What to do if you get bedbugs in your Airbnb (The Daily Charge, 8/13/2019)

Today on The Daily Charge is the next iPhone, the Pro. Samsung's really, really big camera and the impact Airbnb policy has on bed bugs. [MUSIC] Good morning and welcome Cnet's Daily Charge. It's Tuesday, August RGJ. And I'm Claire Riley. Let's take a look at today's headlines. [MUSIC] Apple may finally embrace the pro name for its next series of iPhones. Apple is looking to call its higher end triple camera version the iPhone 11 pro. The other version would still be called iPhone 11 and iPhone 11R. This is according to a leaker named CoinX. But Mac rumors have previously said Apple might use this name so it's not It's not out there. What do you think pro? I think it's a lot better than the iPhone X cuz gosh that does cause a lot of confusion. [LAUGH] I mean, I don't want to get conspiratorial and say that this was leaked by a guy called coin X but I mean join the dots join the dots right there. I think it makes sense to unify the brand naming pro across the lines. Maybe it's an easy way of making your phone sound really impressive without having to do too much under the hood. That's true. You add an extra camera in there, you call it pro, all of a sudden people are salivating over it. Right? Our next episode is going big with Next camera really big. The consumer [UNKNOWN] said it develops a 108 megapixel camera in cooperation with Chinese player [UNKNOWN] who used the 108 megapixels in day time while sensors will let in more light to create a 27 megapixel image in low light settings. Now What are all these numbers mean, you think that's gonna make a big difference? I read the release from Samsung. I think for the average person it was a lot of text speak that would go over their heads>> Yeah>> But I think what you're gonna notice, is when you're taking a selfie at a bar, it's not gonna look terrible and that's what people really notice. It's>> Right>> Day to day use, so>> Right. I'm game to test it out. But I've been told time and time again more megapixels don't necessarily mean a better photo so we'll have to see how this all works. Keep in mind it also shoots in 6k and at 30 frames per second. Also, Snap is back with a third generation version of its spectacles, remember those? The original exploded out of the gate, garnering lines for its weird yellow pop-up kiosks. Only to implode as people realized they didn't want glasses with cameras in them. But snap is back and quietly launched a new third version that's supposed to add a 3D element to the photos. The original costs $100 this one costs 380 bucks. Oh,Snap. I know what what is going on. I I think this one is like, maybe it's that sunk cost fallacy. If we just keep trying people will eventually buy them. Double down, double down. Yeah, they had a slight increase in user numbers so now they're like, we can bring the glasses back. Everything's awesome again. As someone who followed that strategy at the roulette table in Vegas over this weekend and lost heavily, I would say that's a terrible strategy. Not a solution, yeah. Lastly, our main story. This sort of nightmares for anyone going on vacation. They've seen our investigations, we found numerous examples of bedbug issues for guest and hosts. And while the bedbug problem is fairly universal, we felt it's really the luck of a consistent policy for dealing with this problem. While some customers were compensated, at least one host we found didn't get hurt in terms of dressing until we contacted the company This is sort of this kind of yeah freaks me out reading the story just made me itch. You can't not HM in the story. To add credit we've done some amazing jobs with the graphics on the same story. Make you it's a little I think this is such a classic case of the share economy right. So Any time you are considering yourself a platform and you sort of absolve yourself of the sins of being responsible for the users or the hosts on your platform. Then you're kind of getting yourself into a sticky situation. Hotels might be more expensive but they've been able to unify and develop policies for bedbugs. Yeah, I think that's a big difference here, what's telling is, you know, at least with some of the guests we talk to, when they do report problems with bedbugs, the policy for AirBNB is not to book them into another AirBNB unit. It's just, have them go to a hotel. Unfortunately, you know, we talked to at least one guest who, he and her or, she and her friends Couldn't afford to stay in a hotel. They had to basically tough it out for another few days in that bedbug-infested apartment until finally they like, they I think called their parents to foot the bill for the last night, but they didn't get reimbursed for the hotel, they got reimbursed for the unit. But I mean a lot of times when you have a bedbug infestation your clothes are shot. You can't keep those things. You got to get rid of them. I had a friend who had bedbugs. I mean, we basically had to tear out all the furniture. Yeah. And you know, it was just kinda mess. It's such a mess. I mean, I got them when I was staying in literally the world's worse hostel in Paris in 2004. I remember it so well. And I had one of those inner sheets. So I was able to come back and just wash all my clothes. I was able to get rid of it pretty quickly. But imagine if this is someone's home we're talking about. This isn't a hotel room. And suddenly the hostess having to Deal with the problem. And they don't whether it's an Airbnb problem- Right. Host responsiblity, did they have the bed bugs themselves? Did the traveler bring it through? Mm-hm, mm-hm. It's such a messy situation. And when you talk about refunds, you're exactly right. I mean, I had a situation with Airbnb yesterday. And I was talking about I wanted to change my booking. So do I wanna cancel it and get a refund? If you need to get a refund It's three days to process, then 15 days, up to 15 days depending on your bank to get that money back in your account. If you wanna leave your place and rebook a hotel, you don't get that money even if you do get refunded by a band base straight away. There you go. So, you're kind of in a sticky situation. I mean, two day credit, yesterday when I was calling them, I had. The phone pick up on the second ring. So I had a really good customer service experience yesterday with airbnb, but I mean this story shows they really need to update their game when it comes to dealing with customers. Right. And if ntohign else, at least be a bit more transparent on what to do in these kind of situations. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of insane, and it's It's amazing how the, having heard the scary stories, like just how little they wanna talk about it, right? It's sort of a big thing. Yeah, well they pointed, our reporter, Dara, they pointed her towards all of these different policies. Like, yes, well to answer that question check out this, this and this. And it's like, You don't mention bed bugs anywhere in the seven policies you pointed me to. They don't seem to have a coherent strategy to address it, they don't have terms of use to address it, and they sort of just said that, I mean, this is something from the terms of service that blew me away. Air BNB says it has, quote, no control over any of it's listings, does not guarantee the rentals Existence, quality, safety, suitability or legality. Well you can't guarantee the existence of something. I think you have, like, there are bigger issues at play here. Alright, just last advice, if you get to a listing, check the bed. Flip the mattress over, just double check to see there are any bed bugs, it's for your best bet. With Daily Charg I'm Roger Cheng. I'm Claire Rylie. Thanks for listening. [MUSIC]