06.29.26 Travel Booking Basics / Online Shopping: Spotlight On Dark Patterns

Summary

The Clark Howard Podcast — Episode Summary
Date: June 29, 2026
Episode Title: Travel Booking Basics / Online Shopping: Spotlight On Dark Patterns
Host: Clark Howard

---

Episode Overview

This episode of The Clark Howard Podcast dives into two core subjects:

1. Travel Booking Basics — Clark shares his time-tested, wallet-friendly strategies for booking travel and answers listener questions about maximizing rewards, protecting personal data, and scoring great travel deals.
2. Online Shopping & Dark Patterns — Clark shines a light on manipulative digital design tactics (“dark patterns”) that aim to trick or pressure online consumers, offering advice on how to stay vigilant and protect your privacy in an increasingly sneaky online ecosystem.

The tone is practical, energetic, and guided by Clark’s mission: “save more, spend less, and avoid ripoffs.”

---

Travel Booking Basics

(Main Segment: 01:05–18:00)

Navigating High Travel Costs

• Background: Airline and travel costs have skyrocketed, partly due to current world events disrupting oil supply (e.g., Strait of Hormuz closure), resulting in higher fuel prices and, consequently, ticket prices.
  • Clark: “It's been stunning how expensive airfares are this summer. I mean, crazy numbers. That's before all the junk fees.” [03:05]

Clark’s Top Travel Rules

1. Let the Deals Dictate Destination

   • Instead of chasing a set location/date, start with wherever the bargains are.
   • Clark: “Fares have no relationship to distance traveled... New routes are always your friend. When an airline establishes a new route... there's always introductory fares.” [05:45]
   • Clark’s team trip example: Chose Croatia due to a new United Airlines route with discounted fares.

2. Be Flexible on Everything

   • Use fare calendars (e.g., Google Flights) to see wide pricing differences by date.
   • Compare one-way and roundtrip prices; sometimes mixing airlines saves significantly.
   • Clark: “If you are only into American's metal or United's metal or Delta's metal... you will pay too much.” [09:43]

3. Travel Calendar Awareness

   • Summer “shoulder pricing” starts after mid-August when demand drops, leading to reduced fares.
   • Clark: “Fares go into shoulder pricing instead of peak pricing... the more you are an opportunist and go where the bargain is...” [07:25]

Listener Q&A Highlights

• Credit Card Travel Portals vs. Direct Booking
  Q (Todd in Florida): Is it worth booking through credit card travel portals for perks, or is it usually best to book direct or via Costco? [10:04]

  • Clark’s A: Usually, portals offer extra points or cash-back perks, but often cost more. Always comparison-shop. Use the portal only if price matches direct offers and you can cash in perks.
  • Clark: “Most often people use them to get extra reward points... Often the special is not a special.” [10:29]
  • For car rentals and Hawaii travel, Costco Travel usually wins on price.
  • Rewards points are most powerful when transferred to airline programs during promos, rather than spent directly through portals.

• Using Miles/Points Strategic Tips

  • Transfer reward points when there's a bonus and redeem for the best international deals — sometimes book one-way flights outbound and inbound with different airlines for maximum value.
  • Clark: “A lot of times internationally, the points are per direction. Your best ticket price is going to be using points one way on one airline and points for another airline coming back.” [12:29]

• Cruise Passenger Data Breach (Carnival)
  Q (Jacob in Pennsylvania): Should I take further steps if my data was part of a cruise line breach? [13:31]

  • Clark’s A: Freezing credit is the #1 protective step. No system is perfect, but freezing blocks many forms of identity theft.

• When to Book Flights/Hotels for Big Trips
  Q (Mike in Delaware): When to snag best business class deals and hotels for a trip to London? [14:46]

  • Clark’s A:
    • Book points seats ASAP; recheck as date approaches, as last-minute reward seats often open up. If those points are fully redepositable, you can always rebook.
    • Compare NYC airports with Philadelphia for better deals.
    • Hotels: Always book fully refundable rates, then reshop closer to travel. Use your initial booking only as a backup if rates don’t drop.
    • Clark: “My initial hotel booking I use less than 10% of the time... I want the bird in the hand and then I want the better deal as I get closer to travel.” [16:37]

---

Online Shopping: Spotlight on Dark Patterns

(Main Segment: 20:08–32:48)

What Are Dark Patterns?

Clark passionately addresses manipulative online tactics that frustrate and sometimes trick consumers:

• Examples:
  • Frequent, hard-to-dismiss pop-ups after purchases (e.g., Southwest Airlines' 4 consecutive pop-ups post-booking).
  • Ads or subscription offers with hard-to-find “X” buttons or misleading clickable areas.
  • Sudden screen takeovers, especially on news/media sites.
  • Clark: “The biggest problem though... is the ones where people are trying to trick you to subscribe to something... you don't even realize by clicking you've said yes.” [22:57]

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• Clark’s Pet Peeve:

  • “I can't stand it when I'm on my phone or on a laptop and suddenly the content I'm looking at vanishes in a blink... the screen is full with some kind of pop up and the pop up is trying to get me to buy something.” [20:08]
  • “If you ever buy a ticket on Southwest Airlines... now you have to endure not one, not two, not three, but four pop ups.” [20:50]

• On the Ethics and Legality:

  • Clark: “You know what's funny about this stuff? It's not illegal, at least not anywhere I know yet. But it's out of a desperation... looking for any way of creating revenue.” [21:38]

• On “Creepy” E-commerce Email Spam
  Q (Chris in Wyoming): Why am I getting emails from sites I never gave info to, just browsed? [26:33]

  • Clark’s A: Data brokers and sophisticated ad tech scrape your cookies and ID info, selling you as a “lead” even just for browsing. Use incognito/private browsing to minimize exposure.
  • Clark: “A lot of sites... pay data brokers who capture information from your cookies... they’re able to personally identify who you are... Creepy, creepy, creepy.” [26:54]

• On Password Security
  Q (Lynn in California): Should I change all my passwords if Google says some were found online? [24:59]

  • Clark’s A: Prioritize financial accounts (banks, investments, credit cards). Use Google’s secure password manager or, if available, adopt passkeys (biometrics-based login).

• Account Consolidation & Record-Keeping
  Q (Casey in North Carolina): Should I spread accounts across institutions to avoid a Fidelity-style data loss? [29:00]

  • Clark’s A: There’s value in consolidating for simplicity, but always keep solid records (statements/PDFs), so you can prove account existence if ever needed.

---

Key Timestamps

• [03:05] — Airline price surges, fuel costs, seasonal tips
• [05:45] — Clark’s “follow the deal” travel philosophy
• [07:25] — When fare drops typically occur (“shoulder pricing”)
• [10:29] — Booking through credit cards vs directly/Costco
• [12:29] — Best ways to use transferable points
• [13:56] — Carnival data breach advice (credit freeze)
• [15:04] — Booking hotels flights for best London deals
• [20:08] — Dark patterns introduction and pop-up frustrations
• [22:57] — How dark patterns can trick people into unintended subscriptions
• [24:59] — Password compromise: prioritize financial account security
• [26:54] — How “lead generation” companies scrape your identity
• [29:54] — Account safety vs. consolidation and keeping your own records

---

Final Thoughts and Takeaways

• Empowerment is Key:

  • Clark ends by reiterating the show’s mission: Knowledge and vigilance help you save money, avoid scams, and stay independent.
  • Clark: “I want you to be empowered so you can save more, spend less, and don't let anyone ever, ever, ever, not ever rip you off.” [32:48]

• Collaboration for Solutions:

  • Issues like digital privacy require ongoing input from experts and the public—a spirit of “all in this together.”

---

For more actionable tips and to ask questions, listeners are encouraged to visit Clark.com and ClarkDeals.com.

---

Transcript

[Windows 11 College Deal Announcer]

Study and play come together on a Windows 11 PC and for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal college Deal everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass ultimate with a custom color Xbox wireless controller. Learn [e-mail] studentoffer while supplies last ends June 30th terms at aka mscollegepc

[Indeed Sponsored Jobs Announcer]

when you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job posts the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast that's Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs Foreign.

[Clark Howard]

It's great to have you here on the Clark Howard Show. Our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. You've listened for a long time or watch me for a long time. You know I love to travel. I'll tell you something funny about that in a second. My first business was a travel agency chain and my whole specialty was saving people money. That's a shock, right? So today I'm going to do a back to basics on how I book travel, which I've discovered because of the massive run up in airline costs over the last year, that people are really suffering sticker shocks. I want you to think about traveling my way. I'm going to fill you on what that is in a little while. And later I want to talk about something that is driving me bonkers. Maybe you too. It's something that is under the generic kind of umbrella term dark patterns. When you're on your phone or you're on a laptop, they're all designed to trick you. And I want to talk about them and how you should handle them. So travel Travel industry is going through a crazy, weird time right now. All started by the war in Iran, the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, the attacks on refineries and storage facilities. And so 20% of the world's oil has been really cramped. It's led to enormous disruption. I mean, gosh, I feel so bad for truck drivers, I can't even tell you. People who are independent over the road, truck drivers, the cost of diesel fuel, brutal for them. And just like a truck driver, where the number one expense is fuel, for many airlines, that's the number one expense. So airlines are doing everything they can to push up fares. And it's been stunning how expensive airfares are this summer. I mean, crazy numbers. That's before all the junk fees. So there are people like me who just love to travel. And this is a time that, that's tough to do when you're going just for fun. You're like, wait a minute, last year I paid X dollars. This year they want X 60%. I'm not going to do it. So how do you do it? So here we are at the very end of June, and I want to tell you there is some relief on pricing that comes up in about six weeks. And this is about the calendar, not about the straight of horror moos or the price of jet fuel or anything. But travel has certain cycles to it and demand periods. And there's something that about summer that is just crazy to think about because five weeks before summer ends, you know, the real end of summer, which is September 2024, something like that, airfares go down a notch. And depending on the airline, sometime around August 15 or so, fares go into shoulder pricing instead of peak pricing. And it's not like there's an official calendar like it used to be forever ago when I was in the travel business, there were specific dates that were peak, that were shoulder, that were off season, all that. Now it's more just a general trend that can be your friend or your wallet's foe. So going back to basics, I want to talk about the ways I save money. All right? So every year I take the staff on a reward trip. And also we meet there and talk about what's working, what's not working with the company and stuff like that. But it's a reward trip based on where in the world is on sale. And that is my number one rule for you. If travel is a joyous thing, if you love travel, it's what you want to do, whether the cost of tickets is higher or lower or in between. You start with the fact that fares have no relationship to distance traveled. The airfares are based on competition between airlines. New routes, new routes are always your friend. When an airline establishes a new route, nobody knows they fly there, so there's always introductory fares. And we as a staff had this year's staff trip to Croatia. Why Croatia? Because it was a new route from the United States on United, and they offered great introductory specials. And so that's where we went off to. And so every year, that's the deal. Wherever the bargain is, that's where we go. And we have been to every continent except Antarctica. By following the deal, you follow the deal and eventually you will see the whole world. You just may not see it in the order you intended. By following the bargains. That's rule number one is you let the deal dictate where you go. Completely an abnormal kind of huh to probably 90% of people taking a trip. Historically, people pick where they want to go, when they want to go, and then they look for the price to go where and when they decided. That's the enemy of your wallet. If you want to save money, you follow the deal and then you use the pricing matrix. The pricing matrix is where you're flexible, what airline you fly, when you go, when you return. And you also shop one way versus round trip because often the lowest fare will be going domestic, not necessarily international, going one way on one airline the other way on another. If you care about money, you want to be a free agent. You don't want to say, well, I only fly on American and I'm only going to go on Friday, the 17th of whatever, and I'm going to return nine days later on that following Sunday and I'm going to go to whatever. That's the enemy of your wallet. You always want to be following wherever the bargain is. And that's, hey, it would be really neat to go there. And then you bring up one of these fair calendars like you can do on Google flights. You see who's the cheapest round trip. Then you look at it one way, you look at different days, because with the fair calendar, you'll see there are enormous differences, day to day going and returning. So the more you are an opportunist and go where the bargain is, it's funny because this morning I woke up to a new deal to Japan. I love Japan. Been five times and it's not enough. And I don't know that we can make it work right now, which kills me to say. But anyway, the idea is that my impulse is to go everywhere again and again, but only in the order of what's a deal. You want to save money even in a time of higher prices, use the calendar as your friend, use the destination as your friend and use flying whoever's best is your friend. If you are only into American's metal or United's metal or Delta's metal, and that's all you look at, and that's all you Fly. Well, you are a really generous person helping the stockholders of that company. Because by you being a prisoner to one company, I guarantee you will pay too much.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

All right, let's get to some travel questions. Todd in Florida says Clark always talks about the cheapest ways to book travel. But then he talks so much about travel cards like the Chase Sapphire card with the travel benefits. The thing is, those benefits are if you book through the card issuer, but it's so often cheaper. Book directly or through Costco. Is there some benefit to booking through a credit card travel service that I'm missing that makes it a better deal?

[Clark Howard]

All right, so, Todd. Oh, man. People get exhausted just hearing how I book, like a hotel or a flight. Because if you, if you sat with me and watch me do something like that, you'd say, you're more dull, Clark, than I thought. Because, yeah, you're right. You got the Chase portal for travel, Capital One portal, the Amex portal, and the City portal. Through these, most often people use them to get extra reward points, booking a flight or to get a special deal in a hotel. And often the special is not a special. You're paying more through the card portals than you would otherwise. But not always. So what I do, because you get these, you know, you get $300 for booking hotels through this portal or that one or whatever. I check every time. And when there's a deal that's the same price or equivalent through one of the credit card portals, that's when I use that as a way to book a hotel. So I get back the 150 or 300 or whatever money it is I'm getting. But for a rental car, you will find that not quite 100% of the time, but close to it. Costco Travel for car rentals, nobody comes close if you're going to Hawaii. Costco Travel is almost always cheaper than any other way to book a stay in the Hawaiian Islands.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

And a lot of times the points, what they're really good for are transferring them when there's a special to airline rewards programs if you find a deal on redeeming miles somewhere. So I've never booked a flight through. I use the Chase card through their portal, but I have transferred points when there's a special to one of the airlines, so you can do it that way.

[Clark Howard]

And by the way, the advantage of having free agent points that can be transferred to multiple airlines, it's not at all unusual for travel somewhere outside the United States that one of the airlines and it's not always consistent who that airline is will be far more points for a flight than the next airline. So you want to check to see what I'm. I'm registered for every airline frequent flyer program there probably is in the world. And so I'll look and I'll see. Okay, this is the best use of points for this trip is going on, blah, blah, blah, airline. And that's how I do it, by the way, booking points. A lot of times internationally, the points are per direction. And you'll find that your best ticket price is going to be using points one way on one airline and points for another airline coming back. People generally use their points round trip normally. That's a big mistake.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

Jacob in Pennsylvania says, my family has been cruising together for nearly 20 years, with my first cruise being in kindergarten. To date, I have been on nine cruises with Carnival. With the recent data breach of Carnival passenger data, including passport and driver's license numbers, is there anything I should do to further protect myself? I already have my credit frozen and I've been reminding my family to freeze theirs for a while.

[Clark Howard]

Jacob, you bring up such a good point with the data breach. You know about the Carnival breach. Who knows how many other data breaches there have been that the companies don't know they've been breached and their customers don't know there's been a breach. So you've done the right thing. A credit freeze doesn't solve all problems, but it solves many of them in what people can do with the data they find in a deep dive breach. Because travel industry data breaches are like gold to hackers because there's so much information you have to provide to travel suppliers. But you've done the most important thing, which is the credit freeze. And your family needs to listen to you and get the credit freeze in place as well.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

Mike in Delaware says, I'm planning a trip to London from Philadelphia in January of 27. I'd like to travel business class and stay in the city for sightseeing, museums and maybe a show or two. I'm wondering what the best time to book flights and hotels would be and if you have any information on cheap theater tickets.

[Clark Howard]

Okay. Theater's a lot cheaper in London than it is in New York. It's the same quality of performance. I know that because my wife. Anyway, so Philadelphia is such an interesting question you asked because you are so close to the three New York airports for international, that significant is Newark and jfk, but especially Newark. The fares using points are much more competitive out of the New York airports than they are out of Philadelphia going in January. So there's a school of thought with points. And that is remember, points can be redeposited for free. You go ahead now six months out and you book the best deal you can find on business class using points. And as long as those points are fully redepositable at no cost, you've got your bird in the hand. Then go through the months, keep checking prices on points. And then when you get closer, a lot of times points open up for business class the two weeks leading up to departure. So as long as you can redeposit, no big deal. You rebook your points with whatever is the better deal you find at the last minute. And being willing to go out of Newark or JFK instead of just Philadelphia may in fact get you a better deal. So as far as hotels, my rule on hotels, always book a refundable hotel, even if you have to pay upfront, but the money is fully refundable. What I do with any trip, not just international, when I book my airfare, that's are my initial airfare. That's when I go ahead and book a hotel. And then closer to travel, I reshopped the hotel. And most of the time hotel prices go down closer to travel, just like car rentals do. But occasionally demand will be stronger than they anticipated and rates won't have dropped. No problem because you still have a booking. They do drop. No problem because you booked a fully refundable rate and you just cancel it and rebook. I'm a nightmare for the hotel business because my initial hotel booking I use less than 10% of the time. I wouldn't say it's 0% of the time, but it's less than 10% of the time because I want the bird in the hand and then I want the better deal as I got closer to travel. Yeah, I do have a problem with wanting the best deal all the time.

[Advertisement Announcer]

Sorry.

[Clark Howard]

Coming up ahead, what's the deal with dark patterns? What does that even mean? Sounds pretty sinister, doesn't it? We're gonna talk about it.

[Advertisement Announcer]

Self directed investing, trading, full service wealth management, Automated investing, financial planning, thematic investing, retirement planning, Few. And to think that's just a small taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, the choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life, stage or experience, Schwab has everything you need all in one place so you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by AT&T business. For business owners, connectivity is key. If you are starting your business today, that would be your first concern and your first decision. Reliable connectivity is essential to launching whether you're local or national. For a business owner, it's a decision that pays benefits every day and in every aspect of your operation. Make the right decision. Choose AT and T Business AT and T Business is a reliable provider for business owners. Powered by AT&T Business built to work. Get AT AND t [e-mail] tomorrow morning is knocking.

[Clark Howard]

Stock your fridge now.

[Starbucks Frappuccino Announcer]

How about a Creamy Mocha Frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe?

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

Or white chocolate mocha? Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits.

[Starbucks Frappuccino Announcer]

Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. Do you find it hard to sleep at night? Then the Sleep Cove Podcast can help you. Hi, I'm Christopher Fitton, the voice and clinical hypnotherapist behind Sleep Cove. Sleep Cove features sleep hypnosis, meditations and bedtime stories, all designed to help those of you who struggle at night to achieve a restful and peaceful night's sleep. Search for Sleep Cove on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and see why Sleep Cove helps millions of people sleep deeply all night long.

[Clark Howard]

Leave it to marketeers to be able to figure out a way to to annoy us all. All right, I have a pet peeve. I'm sorry, this is really a pet peeve of mine. I can't stand it when I'm on my phone or on a laptop and suddenly the content I'm looking at vanishes in a blink. I don't even realize what happened. And what it is is suddenly the screen is full with some kind of pop up and the pop up is trying to get me to buy something or something like that. If you ever buy a ticket on Southwest Airlines after you get your confirmation for a ticket, now you have to endure not one, not two, not three, but four pop ups.

[Advertisement Announcer]

Four.

[Clark Howard]

They're trying to sell you other junk after you already bought your ticket and think about how often you'll be looking at something on a laptop or a phone and suddenly you're looking at something, whatever it is, an ad or trying to get you to buy an add on or something, and you're looking around and you want to X out of it and there's no X. It sits there seems like forever, but really it seems like 10 seconds it sits there and then you got to hunt around for the X and then the sneakiest ones of all may have two X's there Have you seen this yet? Be one in the left corner, one the right corner and you guess wrong and you click the wrong one. It then takes you to sell you whatever was blocking what you're looking at. You know what's funny about this stuff? It's not illegal, at least not anywhere I know yet. But it's out of a desperation for so many, particularly any information site looking for any way of creating revenue. And one of the newspapers, the New York Post now does this dark pattern stuff where you'll be looking at a story and all of a sudden that screen is completely covered by an ad of some kind of. And again, there is no X to get out of it. You have to just sit there and count to 10 or whatever, wait for the X to appear and X out. And truly you think about newspapers. So there are newspapers that are so successful, like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, they can just put everything behind a paywall. You got to pay them. Then there are others that can't make money enough money from any kind of subscription. And so this is part of their desperation to try to get you to pay not through paying a subscription, but pay indirectly by saying, oh, well, that's interesting, maybe I'll buy one of those. That's what it's about. The biggest problem though are not the ones like that. It's the ones where people are trying to trick you to subscribe to something through one of these pop up type of things that you don't even realize by clicking you've said yes. So you can't just mindlessly do something when something pops up and covers up your screen. Every time. To protect yourself, you gotta look, see what you're doing and make sure, most importantly, you're not agreeing to something by clicking wherever you click on it. Is this a beef of mine? That's not a beef of yours?

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

No, I don't like it at all.

[Clark Howard]

How much are you having this?

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

I don't go to sites that do that once I see they do it so I don't get it that often, but when I get to it, I immediately just X out of the whole tab just annoys me.

[Clark Howard]

I wonder. I'm thinking about the Southwest Airlines thing. Their image is already a little shaky from all the changes they make. Why would they do those four pop ups?

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

Well, and I was thinking when you were talking about that, you're probably focused on that a little more because you're so bitter about the whole I'm over my bitterness. No, you're not. Not one bit, are you sure. You just said to me the other day, I can't believe what Southwest did to me. Like you were saying, so upset. I don't blame you. Okay, we'll go to questions. Lynn in California says, I just received an email seemingly from Google saying that some of my passwords were found on the web and I should change them. I have dozens of passwords for many things like credit cards, bank accounts, investment accounts, etc. Does this mean I'm supposed to change all my current passwords? I'm totally stressed just thinking about it. What should I do?

[Clark Howard]

Okay, so, Lynn, there are a lot of things we've signed up for that don't have a financial angle to them, where we probably are kind of lazy with the password we use. And those things end up showing up when Google is searching the dark web. So they send you a thing with the Google password Manager saying 44 of your passwords have been compromised. So a lot of those are ones that are not going to matter. The ones that matter and the ones you should spend some serious time on are the ones you named investment accounts, bank accounts, brokerage, retirement, credit cards. Yeah. So those, if you're using Google, Google has password manager. And they will create the most crazy, ridiculous password for you and they'll save it for you. Password protected. Also, a lot of financial sites you can now go to pass keys. We have an explanation ofpasskeys on clark.com that explains that the techno stuff in simple English. But pass keys for your financial accounts are fantastic. That's where access is granted not by a password that could easily be hacked at some point, but instead by biometrics, your eyes, your fingerprint, things like that.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

Chris in Wyoming says, hello, Clark, the past week I've been getting emails from websites that I visited. I did not sign up for accounts nor provide my email address. I just browsed their products. This is creepy. Can you explain what is going on? I've been watching and listening to you for decades and I appreciate all the hard work you and your team do. You guys, guys are the best.

[Clark Howard]

So, Chris. Chris, thank you. And you're making a perfect case for doing incognito browsing or private browsing when you're shopping because a lot of sites you go to, e commerce sites pay, let's call them data brokers who capture information from your cookies on your computer or your phone. And they're able to personally identify who you are, your email address and the rest. Creepy, creepy, creepy. No doubt you use the word creepy and you talked about it because you go Somewhere you think you're just you anonymously at this site. But because of all the sophistication of the Internet, data brokers, they know who you are and they can make money selling off what's called lead generation. A lot of these are what are called lead generators. And so they personally identify you, supply your email address, charge whatever e commerce site it is for giving you as a qualified lead to them because you've already shopped there, even though you didn't buy anything. And that's why you're finding this happening. One thing, and I'll ask you, if you clear your cache, does that help if you regularly do that?

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

I don't know, honestly.

[Clark Howard]

Okay.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

Not an expert on that stuff, Right?

[Clark Howard]

So somebody who is in data security or whatever, clear all your cookies.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

But then you're not. But then if you want things to remember, you like sites and stuff, you won't have that. So you have to just keep that in mind.

[Clark Howard]

Privacy is a tough thing right now. So if you use a vpn, that doesn't help with that. Right. Okay. We need an expert, so we want to know. But I think this is a valid question.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

I do, too. I do, too. I'm just saying, like, we don't.

[Clark Howard]

I mean, what is the way you cloak yourself so you don't have that happen?

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

Casey in North Carolina says. Dear Clark and team, your recent story about a failure with Fidelity's customer service and a lost account scares me. We got a few of these, by the way. You have mentioned before that we should just have credit cards from varying institutions. But what about our accounts? I thought my life was compromising. Complicated enough after having my high yield savings account with one bank, a TSP and a Roth IRA and a taxable brokerage account at different places. For a while, I was thinking about consolidating and simplifying, especially for my husband or family in the event of my untimely passing. I can't help but to want to avoid doing that in case everything disappears or there's a serious cybersecurity incident. I have my Roth and taxable brokerage with the same firm. They. This almost makes me feel I should limit this to just one account per institution. I would love to hear your thoughts and thank you and everyone else behind the scenes for what you do on the show. That's very nice.

[Clark Howard]

That is very nice of you to say. And Casey, we can't prevent every last thing in life. I believe that there's a real benefit to consolidating accounts, not having accounts all over the place. I think about people now, they're losing track of old 401ks as often as people change jobs and may lose access to that money forever. I mean, it's crazy to say so I don't want you to add additional complexity to your life. The whole purpose of talking about the Fidelity investments, misadventure and how poorly I thought they handled it, the aftermath and the media in the aftermath of what went wrong. The woman involved did have her money restored. Don't know about other people that were affected as well. But the point is, you want to have some kind of documented record of the accounts you have. So it could be the most recent statement you keep. That could be that if you don't get paper statements, when the notification comes that the monthly statement is there, you add a copy as a PDF so you have access to it. Because for those of you who didn't hear the Fidelity story, the money was just lost in space to the point that Fidelity said the woman profiled never had had an account with Fidelity and actually had multiple accounts with Fidelity. And Fidelity never has really come clean about this. Our money was eventually restored, but the problem for her was she had no record of her accounts because everything she was doing was electronic. She wasn't getting paper statements. She wasn't keeping PDFs of her statements. And she was left just terrified that all her hard work saving money over the decades was going up in smoke. So that is really the warning is that you keep good records. Having to have an additional multiple accounts of all different kinds, all different places, that's more work than I want you to do in life.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

Okay, I want to add a little to the prior question. Clearing your cookies does not completely prevent websites from tracking you. It resets your identity on a website, so it treats you like a new visitor. But companies can still follow you across the Internet using your device details, IP address and login profiles. So IP address that gets blocked with a vpn. So that may be helpful. Someone I'm sure will tell us. And then the cache is just like you're stored. Like, websites may slow down for you when they load because it might store in images and things like that in a website, so it quickly loads. So that's not going to.

[Clark Howard]

That's not going to help really.

[Clark Howard Show Caller/Guest]

So, yeah, that's what we know. For now, we'll try to get an update on that.

[Clark Howard]

I'm sure we will get some very good suggestions from people. This is one of those areas. We know there's a problem. We don't know the best solution. And that's what it's all about, us working as a team, all of us together, listeners, viewers, readers, all helping each other. This is an area I hope we can help people because what a, what a creep out thing. You just decide, oh, I'm going to look at this website, I'm interested in potentially buying something like that. And then you bail from that website. You don't buy anything. You have no contact with them other than you looked. Next thing you know, they're emailing you. That's really creepy. Well, anyway, I want to thank you so much for joining us on our last podcast of the first half of the year. I mean, we'll broadcast again on Wednesday, but it's the second half of the year, July 1st coming up. So I hope that we've served you well these first six months of the year, that you have learned things that have been helpful to you, that have empowered you. And I also want to tell you I mentioned this every once in a while. We hear a lot of stuff and you hear some from me of companies behaving badly. And I don't want you to surrender to cynicism or alienation and know that it's all about trying to get organizations to do better, to be better, to tell you how to protect yourself when a company or an organization is not behaving well. And most important, what we're really about is you taking knowledge you can act on here to improve your life, improve your finances, and ultimately create more freedom and independence for yourself, your friends, your family. I want you to be empowered so you can save more, spend less, and don't let anyone ever, ever, ever, not ever rip you off. And we'll see you July 1st.