← The Clark Howard Podcast
The Clark Howard Podcast
04.04.25 Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Cruise Industry Scam Alert
00:36:12
Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Cruise Industry Scam Alert
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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [00:22]
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- [00:59]
Clark Howard
It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the Clark Clark Howard show where our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you so you make better financial decisions in your life. Before we begin today's episode, I want to remind you that the team@Clark.com has been so hard at work developing tools to help make complicated decisions easy. Trying to pick a cell phone company. Trying to pick streaming service. Just two examples of tools that we have that help you make decisions. What's your favorite of the tools we have?
- [01:43]
Krista
Krista oh my gosh, that's a hard one. The cell phone one was awesome. I used that recently. Figuring out what cell phone plan because I wanted to switch carriers was the best deal for me and I have my son on a different plan and it was an awesome tool.
- [01:56]
Clark Howard
So we do this because there's a lot of things that we just have to make seat of the pants decisions and because of marketing and advertising we may pick the wrong one. So what we're trying to do is distill it down into a clear aha moment. Hey, this is what I should do and make it quick and easy for you to do it. I'm really proud of what we've been able to develop and as best I know, these various tools we have are unique. Nobody else offers the sophistication we do with these decision making tools.
- [02:34]
Krista
And we have a ton of calculators too for everything you could think of, right?
- [02:38]
Clark Howard
The what ifs and how much you should save this week to do this, that and the other and on like that. So check them out@Clark.com today is a Day I get to learn. These are the apps, the tools, the calculators I get from you when I get to hear in Clark stinks how I've messed up. And later, if you or somebody who loves going on cruises, I've got two warnings that you need to know coming up later in Today's podcast and YouTube show. But without further ado, it's time to hear how I stink. I should have never encouraged you to speak. You almost think I'm pretty stupid. You should be ashamed of yourself. Well, maybe.
- [03:24]
Jeremy
Maybe I'm wrong.
- [03:24]
Clark Howard
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're right, pal.
- [03:34]
Krista
Dear King Clark, you stink worse than my protein shaker bottle when it's left in my car in the middle of summer. Speaking of summer, there's easier ways to save money during the summer than turning your house into a sauna and turning your family against you. Self restraint on the thermostat is key. Keep it set at a cool temperature during the summer. You always talk about taking control of your own wallet, yet you tell us to let our power companies hijack ours. I still love you, though, Jeremy.
- [04:03]
Clark Howard
This was about the programs that power companies have where they make you sweat a while during peaking times where they're paying a lot more for power and they give you a discount in return for letting them make you sweat for a while. I don't know. I mean, if. If that sounds terrible, Jeremy, I say that to somebody who feels like I do. Take the savings and sweat a little. Someone who thinks that's a crazy idea, like you don't do it.
- [04:36]
Krista
You had a caller with a 2006 Accord that needed a catalytic converter. Converter for $3,000. You ran through the whole call and recommended the caller fix the car. Good decision. But you never mentioned this price. $3,000 for a catalytic converter replacement? This person must have went to the stealership to have a quote that high.
- [04:58]
Clark Howard
Okay, I've never heard that term for car dealers. The stealership.
- [05:03]
Krista
This price should be no more than $1,000 from an independent mechanic. The part online is under $100. Three grand is robbery. Thanks for all you do, Pete.
- [05:13]
Clark Howard
Pete, thank you. You know, I. I'm totally out of date on what catalytic converters cost because I've been driving an electric car for 14 years and I just am not up to date. So I appreciate that very much.
- [05:27]
Krista
Clark commented recently on a podcast basically describing teleworking employees as over privileged. I feel that perspective misses some key realities. I work in a hybrid role, commuting an hour each way three days per week to sit at the same setup I have at home. On my remote days, I often work past my scheduled hours because I don't have to account for a long commute. My employer usually gets more productivity from me when I telework. Beyond that, commuting comes with risks. Car accidents are frequent on my route and costs gasoline, wear and tear on my vehicle. Additionally, maintaining office spaces is a significant expense for employers, from lease payments to utilities. Companies that embrace telework reduce costs while still supporting efficiency and output. The future of work isn't forcing people to be an outdated office role models. Just as we wouldn't mandate fax machines in a digital age, we shouldn't insist on commutes when technology allows us to be just as, if not more productive from home. CEOs who insist on micromanaging their employees rather than treating them like professionals are missing the bigger picture. Telework isn't about privilege. It's about progress and trust. Donna.
- [06:35]
Clark Howard
Donna, thank you. All right, so why do I call it over privilege? Referring really? I was referring to myself and other people who have the ability to work remotely or work in person for a lot of what we do is think of all the people who can't do that. They don't have the option. The thing with employers being freaks about wanting people in the office and they're all piling on saying, you know, work from home is over, that is a control freak kind of thing. On the other hand, it's not all one thing. People tend to get promoted less often if they're not physically present. People tend not to get the same raises when they work remotely, is when they work in person. And I think that companies lose a certain culture when people are not together with each other and they're working remotely. But there's a fourth thing that I think has I missed that is a clear problem, and that is that young people who are in their first, like, real office job miss so much. They'd learn if they're working remotely only. But remote work is one of the good things that came out of the bad thing of COVID And employers of a certain age, the bosses tend to be older, have not felt like they had enough control over people, and have ordered them back in the office. And I think the hybrid makes the most sense.
- [08:18]
Krista
Clark doesn't stink, but Amazon Prime Medical that he suggested does. I was ill on the weekend and needed medication. I had to go through all the signing up as a prime customer. I tried to navigate on my laptop, but you had to download the app. Then it wouldn't take my password, which I've been using for years. Then there were no virtual appointments available on a Saturday. What is the good of that? I canceled immediately and won't try this again. Maybe someone else will create one more seamless. Audrey.
- [08:44]
Clark Howard
Audrey, thank you for that feedback. I knew and I said in our show planning meeting that when I talked about Amazon Prime Medical that I was sticking my neck out and. And we'd hear from people who it was a bust. Medical is tough. That's why so many people who thought they had a better way to do it have kind of done a face plan. I will tell you, I have found Amazon, you know, one Medical to be a good alternative and I have not had a lot of hiccups with it. And so I'm really sorry that on my wreck you signed up for it and you're like, that was terrible. I have found it to be very useful. Particularly I travel a lot and if I've been sick out of town, I've been able to get appointments where I am instead of going to an urgent care or a doc in the box where they have no idea who I am. No. None of my medical history or anything like that. The one medical offices are all electronic medical records and they see everything about me. Is it perfect? Nah.
- [10:03]
Krista
This is less a case of Clark stinks than Clark sometimes gives incomplete answers. I just heard him talk about being able to store your passport on your Google wallet. I was instantly curious, but found out that that doesn't mean you should still carry your physical passport. Probably most importantly, it is only good for domestic air travel in certain airports, which Clark did not mention. You cannot use this for international travel. At this point. I wouldn't want people to just show up at the airport thinking this means they no longer need to carry their passport. And as a side note, is this the first time that an Android does something cool before the iPhone? Hmm. Just saying. Linda.
- [10:39]
Clark Howard
Linda. Thank you. You know, this came up again, and I did give the explanation about when it works, when it doesn't. And it's not yet something that we'll be able to use as a substitute for a physical passport. Although I don't think there's any doubt that that day will come.
- [10:59]
Krista
Clark missed an opportunity to give some advice to avoid being ripped off. In the past week or so, he has mentioned the new ETA requirement for the UK. He mentioned that it would cost between 10 and $15. He should warn folks to be on the lookout for websites that charge significantly more than that. I. I've been seeing posts on social media about people paying upwards of $100 from these websites. Brian.
- [11:21]
Clark Howard
Brian, thank you. So the ETA, the Electronic Travel Authority Australia has one, the United Kingdom has one, Europe has delayed theirs again till an undetermined date from July of this year to sometime in 26 undefined. But it's coming all over the world and you've got to make sure you're downloading the official government app onto your phone for whatever country it is, that you don't end up at one of these scammy third parties that will rip you off. And you know, criminals take advantage of people's unfamiliarity with any government service, local government, state government, federal government, or in this case foreign government, and know that you don't go to intermediaries, you only go to the real government website. You know, in the U.S. you know, it's a.gov as an example. So somebody's sending you to some weird thing from a Google search, all you're going to find is trouble and cost.
- [12:28]
Krista
Thanks for highlighting variability in unit pricing at the grocery store. Your advice stinks like an overripe portion of Brie cheese festering at the back of the refrigerator. Telling people to watch the unit price for various different portion sizes is great, but then you're at the grocery store. How do you do the mental math while doing the weekly grocery run? Educating us is great, but provide some advice on how to actually do this without making shopping an exercise and recalling your timetables. There is an app called Price Book for Apple devices that does the unit price comparison across multiple stores, not just at a single store.
- [13:03]
Clark Howard
That's cool.
- [13:04]
Krista
Yeah, it automates the process by scanning the product barcodes. I'm an Android user and cannot find an equivalent app for Android. Can you search and recommend digital tools that can help make the process of unit price comparison practical? At our local Publix they do this work for you on the price tag, but they're not the cheapest store. Aldi's cheap, but they don't help much with unit pricing because they have a limited selection.
- [13:26]
Clark Howard
Jp, jp thank you. And so I think the solution is you JP need to develop the app for Android users. It's funny because this is a stereotype, but the roughly half of Americans who use Androids tend to be more cost sensitive than the typical iPhone user. So it's kind of backwards that there's this app for iPhone and not one for Android. So for me, this is something I don't necessarily when I'm in a store. I'm not thinking about what you talked about about the iPhone app that compares unit pricing at different stores, but I've got a math mind so I'm doing the unit pricing calculation in my head. Most people, if it's not posted there on the shelf, have to use the calculator function of their phone to figure out which is actually the better deal.
- [14:22]
Krista
All right, and these last two are about the same Segment I love your podcast, but you stink on stating the cheapest places to live and referencing West Virginia and Mississippi, you followed that with why would anyone want to live there? Having lived in Mississippi most of my life, I said that I can tell you that we have the kindest and most hospitable people and with those low costs I can afford a 15 year mortgage, my wife can choose to be a stay at home mom, and there's still money left for vacation. There are some beautiful places in both of these states and the traffic sure beats yours in Atlanta. Thanks for all you do Andy. In Mississippi and this one you will have to start having Clark Stinks three days a week. If you give information like you did on the affordable states, you were surprised that the most affordable West Virginia borders what you say is very expensive Virginia. That may be true for the areas around Washington D.C. like Arlington, but Southern and western Virginia are different as night and day they are much less expensive. Also, why be surprised that the Rust Belt states like Michigan and Ohio are affordable?
- [15:23]
Clark Howard
Tom Tom, thank you both for these comments. I actually have no memory of dissing Mississippi or West Virginia and if I did so to my friends because I have friends in both, gosh, that was really not cool that I did it. Now I could certainly bash Ole Miss because my son goes to Auburn and so automatically I'm supposed to dis Ole Miss but to diss a whole state uncool. The biggest problem that Mississippi and West Virginia have if people move there is medical. Now I'm going to bring more post Medical care in the two is generally not overall as available as it is in other places. But your point that Tom made about Virginia Having lived in the Washington D.C. metro area for more than five years of my life at one point I know the difference in costs in southern and Western Virginia versus Tidewater, Richmond and the Washington D.C. suburbs of Virginia. And that's a very valid point and I want to thank all of you for your Clark Stinks posts. Know that it's really so helpful to me when you take the time to post these. I appreciate it so very much. All you do is go to clark.com clarkstinks and you know what I never mentioned? If you have a question for me, go to clark.com/clark and you can post that question for me.
- [17:09]
Krista
Clark.com/ oh, that was a little redundant of me.
- [17:14]
Clark Howard
Clark.comclark.com/ so go there and ask a question. Either way, the whole idea is we are a community together that empowers each other and brings knowledge to each other. That's what I love. In an era of so much misinformation, there's so much that we can do to help each other at a time that it's hard to know where to get safe information. Safe help. That's what we try to be. Coming up next, Cruises. What do you need to know that might not be safe with cruises? I'm going to tell you this podcast.
- [17:59]
Jeremy
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- [18:29]
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- [18:59]
Clark Howard
Have a scam alert for you. You need to know. It is a problem in the cruise industry affecting not generally the most loyal continuous cruise people, but people who go on cruises irregularly. You've done a number of them and you may not be able to pick up the signals of a hot scam. What's happening is is people are posting often on social media that they're booked for a cruise they can't go on. They're going to lose all their money on it, so they want to sell their booking to you at a big discount and people are doing it. There have been warnings now. First one I saw was a few months ago from Virgin Cruises. But now they're appearing as a problem from I'm seeing with other cruise lines as well where people are getting conned. It's on all the cruise blogs putting the warning out. But if you don't cruise all the time and you're not on your favorite blog or sites, you're going to miss this and you're going to think these are real money saving opportunities. They are not. Do not believe any of these posts from someone that'll appear in your social media feed saying hey, I got this cruise booked on Carnival, you know, in June and I can't get my money back and I can't go because blah blah blah and I'll sell it to you at a 40% discount and then you pay them money and they disappear because they were just crooks and people who don't go on cruises might not even know that. With cruises you can potentially depending on the cruise line, change the name. Passengers on a booking, the booking remains non refundable. You may be able to change the name on the booking. So no one would fall for that with an airline. But depending on the cruise line they might fall for that and turns out they got conned. So there is no secondary market. It's legit. Selling off reservations on a cruise, bookings on a cruise and selling them to you at a discount. It is just a big fat lie. Now the second thing is not a scam, although we had a complaint about it recently and then I saw a news story about it as well. And if you on a cruise ship are not feeling well and the cruise ship is at sea and you go to that infirmary on the ship during hours, know that the bill you may get would be so high potentially that it would make one of these big hospital systems overcharging people blush. It can be crazy expensive. So if somebody's really really sick and you're at sea, you got to be seen. But before they want to order this, test that one, the other one, the other one. If you're a loved one with somebody who's not feeling well, you ask for the priceless first and use as best discretion and judgment as you can what it is you should be doing. If you have high speed Internet on the ship, you can contact your. If you have a doctor at home, you can contact your doctor's office and say hey, this is going on. What should we be doing? They say seek emergency care right away. Then you've got your answer and you got to go to the ship infirmary. But the costs are huge. Most insurance that you might have for health insurance will turn down payment for Any kind of medical services provided on a ship. Now, the reason I kept saying at sea. At sea. At sea there are a lot of medical offices right near the port in major cruise ports because the crew tends to maybe go to those offices when they're in port. Staff may and usually the port will be near areas that vacationers to an island are going to. So you can usually get much cheaper. Decent health care at a clinic, at an emergency care facility at the port versus what you have to pay on the ship. But the main thing on the ship, unless it's somebody who's got a heart attack and they're trying to save their lives, the bill is going to be whatever. If it's something else that's not. It may be urgent, but not emergency. You want to see that price list before you say yes.
- [24:00]
Krista
Robin in Ohio says I have a credit score of 843. One of my long term credit card companies recently reduced my line of credit from 10,000 to $3,000. Their reason is because of low utilization of the card. They say if I want to hire a credit line I will need to complete a new application and have my credit unfrozen so they can pull it. I thought we already had an existing relationship with a bank that they could pull our credit anytime they wanted. A couple of years ago I got a credit card that earns rewards. So it's the main card I use now. But I have been using this card twice a year as you suggested. I'm afraid their next step will be to close the card and that they will hurt my credit score. And I think going from an available credit line from 10 to $3,000 will hurt my score as well. Why am I being treated like the same as someone who has a very low score?
- [24:47]
Clark Howard
So Robin, this goes back to 2009 in the Great Recession. We had something that the banks had never experienced. A lot of people with incredible credit scores may have lost their jobs or whatever and charged up cards that they had available. They were what are called back of the wallet cards. So they were doing cash advances against them, whatever, and then they were just straight going from not really having used the card a lot to defaulting on it so they'd use it, default on it. And there'd never been a pattern like that. So now that the economy is slowing and more people are getting laid off again, we're not in a recession yet. The odds of a recession still are 50, 50 at this point, but there's going to be more people get laid off who didn't Expect the credit card companies start getting scared. Plus delinquencies on credit cards have been rising. So when somebody has you, you have a golden credit score. 843 is so close to perfect, it's amazing. But what the credit card companies fear is someone who's got this big limit using it sparingly suddenly will say, oh well, I got to pay my mortgage. I'm pull out a big cash advance right now and use it to pay. And then they don't pay the credit card. So you are being condemned by them not having done anything wrong. They're just doing patterns. And some credit card companies will do it, most won't. So this hopefully is just an odd thing that happened to you. We're not hearing, we haven't been hearing from anybody with this like we did in the past, are we?
- [26:41]
Krista
Not as much, no.
- [26:42]
Clark Howard
Yeah. So know that my normal rule of just using a card a couple of times a year when the banks get scared may not work. They may cut your line or cut your card anyway, but hopefully it will remain an isolated thing because it's any intellectual with somebody with an 843 credit score, which I bet the CEO of the bank doesn't have a score that high to say, oh well, you're too much risk. We're cutting you from 10 to 3. That's using a poleax instead of a scalpel.
- [27:20]
Krista
Okay. Barbara in Florida says there's a Target being built near the retirement home we are about to move into. I'm considering applying for the Target credit card that pays 5% back for Target purchases. We would use it in Target only. Would this be a good move?
- [27:35]
Clark Howard
Yeah, you know, the Target card is kind of a unique thing because most times when you get a store card they give you this big discount one time and that's it. The Target is this flat 5% every time.
- [27:51]
Krista
It's not money back.
- [27:52]
Clark Howard
It's actually a discount discount at the register. It's great if you shop regularly at Target.
- [27:59]
Krista
Anonymous in Minnesota says I have money saved at a bank in a High Yield Savings account for a down payment on a house along with my emergency fund and saving for my next car purchase. I'm looking for a second HYSA account before the year is up so I can make sure all of my money saved remains FDIC insured. In looking at all the APYs for various accounts out there, I see that the bank I'm with is currently 0.6% more for new accounts only than the rate I currently have. This makes me wonder how Long on average. Do banks give a prorated APY for new accounts before they lower the APYs to where they're not as competitive? Do you have a place you go to Compare the average APYs over the last year of the bank as to compare these account options? I don't want to pick a second account that doesn't remain competitive once I'm no longer new. Thanks for the help.
- [28:50]
Clark Howard
So this is a great question. After the banks had had the big federal suit against Capital One for cheating people on the savings accounts where they came up with a second name for it and people in one 360account were getting completely hosed on interest and people in the other360 account were getting high interest rates once the Fed said, oh well, we were just kidding. You want to do that to people, go ahead. We're going to see a lot more of this kind of dirty dealing from the banks. It is uncool that a bank would say, okay, we're going to do this for you. But then somebody else who comes along, we're going to give them a much better deal. It is dishonest, it's crooked, it's unethical, and it should also be illegal now for a bank to have a temporary promotion. And they tell you up front, we're going to give you this higher savings rate if you come to us or give you this bonus cash if you come to us and open an account. That's one thing. But to use it as a really dirty dealing loss leader where they say, oh, you're going to earn 5.2% on our high yield savings account. And then next thing you know, a month later, two months later, you're earning.4%. I mean, that's just rotten. So there is no procedure yet that I know of, anonymous, for you to know what a bank is going to do unless in writing they say you get the initial teaser rate for one year, six months, three months, whatever. And most the banks know, most people open a high yield savings account at the time they know the rate is really good, but they don't monitor what the interest rate is they're earning over time. So that's the assignment each of us have to do, is to monitor these accounts and make sure we're not getting rooked. And I just wonder what is it about the culture of so many banks that they wake up every day trying to figure out how to cheat you and me? What kind of culture is that? Wow, I need to take a deep breath, good yoga breath, calm myself and say, most people most organizations, most businesses wake up each day trying to do the right thing, doing the right thing, treating people right. Unfortunately, we have people who don't. So just remember most people are good and most owners of companies are good people and we hear more about the ones who aren't. But kumbaya to all of us and this weekend know that we are trying to do right by you every moment, every day with clark.com and clarkdeals.com and while we're at it, if you don't subscribe to our free newsletters, you're missing a lot. You're missing a lot of tips, a lot of ideas, a lot of things maybe you didn't know that could make you money or save you money. You want to check them out, go to clark.comnewsletter ornewsletters and have that great, wonderful weekend ahead. And I look forward to being with you on Monday where you get more ideas of how to save more, spend less and avoid getting ripped off.