Caller/Listener (8:11)

Okay. Mike in Colorado sent you this one. I recently joined what I guess you might call class action arbitration with T Mobile's reneging on price locks. I'm not sure if it'll do any good. I've also got a message from my Internet provider saying they're changing their terms to exclude class action arbitration and allowing me to opt out of that. This, this seems to be trending. Can you tell us about it?

Clark Howard (8:34)

Okay, so first of all, what did I do about T Mobile? If you've seen our article on clark.com when T Mobile broke its promise to me and millions of other people about once you were in a plan, if you didn't change it, you were price locked. And T Mobile said, well, we didn't really mean that and just raise prices. What did I do? I did what when I had the power of my wallet to walk and I fired T Mobile and I'd had 14 lines with T mobile, now zero. They got what they deserve from me. They lost my business because they lied to me and many other people. You know, the class action, I don't know what people are going to get. It won't be a lot. And T Mobile will still make out like a bandit for having lied to people. So to me, the real power of the marketplace in a competitive market is if a company doesn't behave, you go somewhere else. And so that's what I did. Now, the thing about companies, first banning your ability to sue them and now banning the ability for you to be part of a class action arbitration, it's because companies want to be able to do whatever they want to do and your choice is do you stay with them or not? And so with your Internet provider saying, well, yeah, if we do something that turns out it leads to a class action arbitration that could hurt us. So we're not going to allow those anymore. You can only act individually in arbitration. They're telling you they want the power to do whatever they want, and you're just going to have to live with it. Even Internet now we've got so much competition every single year in the home Internet space. You don't have to be with cable monster. You don't have to be with a monopoly. Local phone company is your only choice or choices. We've got more and more and more coming along. So use the power of the marketplace. Instead of hoping to get your $4.12 from a class action settlement or whatever it is, after the lawyers get their part, you and I get whatever instead. If a company doesn't treat you right, can them.

Caller/Listener (11:12)

But you probably would if, if you were staying with this Internet provider for whatever reason, you would opt out of that. You know, the option.

Clark Howard (11:18)

And, and so the percent of people that opt out of one of these notices is. I mean, it's a minuscule fraction of 1%. The reality is most of us are busy in our lives. We don't have time to do things like that. So I don't even mess with class actions. That's just not my thing.

Caller/Listener (11:40)

Ed in Oklahoma says, I recently purchased an item advertised on one of the social media sites. I appeared to come from overseas. I purchased it using the PayPal option, which has my PayPal credit card associated with it. After receiving confirmation of the purchase in the amount of 59.99 with free shipping, the merchant added another $18.90 to what they charge PayPal, calling it a tax. This amounts to a tax rate of 31.5%. At no time did the merchant inform me of this charge. Had I known, I would not have completed the transaction. Can a merchant actually add charges to a transaction after the fact? I disputed the charge with PayPal and they denied my dispute and appeal, saying it didn't meet their criteria. How can this be? Do I have any recourse so as.

Clark Howard (12:26)

To why PayPal didn't think it met their criteria? I. I don't know what that would mean. I don't know if you disputed the 5999 plus the 1890. To me, it'd be reasonable to dispute the 1890. What this almost certainly is is an overseas seller that now has been hit with tariffs. And the reality is tariffs are nothing other than a tax on consumers. And so when a company oversees or a seller overseas is selling an item, they are going to charge you tax, which is what this is for, what the cost is. They're just passing on. This is a very messy time we're in because of the imposition of the tariffs. So there's going to be a lot of things like this, including something that we had on TV where someone was having something delivered and they were being billed by the delivery service for the tariffs that had been collected from them for sending the item to the individual. And so they're there with the package delivery person who says, and you owe this additional money. That's the first they knew of it. And so this is something that will normalize. However, the tariffs all settle down and whatever the courts decide, Supreme Court now. And so this is something that is just ugly, messy right now. And it is part of what we're going to see in the future, that product prices will have them embedded in them. Not this ad hoc kind of thing that out of nowhere you're getting this weird charge is for PayPal saying it didn't fit their criteria. I don't get that.

Caller/Listener (14:27)

Roman in New York says, I have all three of my credit reports frozen, and I recently went to Lowe's to purchase an appliance, forgetting that my credit was frozen. I ended up applying for a Lowe's store card. Yeah, I hate them, too. But hey, $100 off. Surprisingly, the card was approved even though my credit is frozen. I did get an email notification that TransUnion blocked a hard inquiry. Yet. Yet within a day, the new card and hard inquiry appeared on all three of my credit reports. How is that possible if my credit was frozen to begin with?

Clark Howard (14:57)

So this is an area I can only speculate on. The most common way this could happen is if you already have an existing credit relationship with whoever Lowe's uses for their credit program. If you do, then they have access to your credit file already because of the existing credit relationships you have with other lending products or other credit cards or other store cards that you have with others. And that would be how this could happen where the credit for you already is available. You may not know this, but. But virtually every credit card company in the country checks your credit every single month, at least, because once you have that existing relationship, their ability to check your current credit status does not freeze. So that would be number one. Number two, and it's the weirdest of all the credit bureaus, acknowledge, I don't think they necessarily do officially, that sometimes they just mess up and somebody's able to do an inquiry for new credit. Even when somebody's credit is frozen, that would be a rare occurrence, but it does happen, apparently with all three credit bureaus.

Caller/Listener (16:27)

And the Lowe's card, just FYI is managed by Synchrony bank, which so many store cards are actually synchrony.

Clark Howard (16:34)

So if you have any other store cards, that's how Synchrony could go ahead and establish a you're a good credit risk for having a Lowe's card, and even though your credit's frozen, they could still issue that credit. So that is my number one possible guess. Coming up ahead, in the confusion about the economy and interest rates for your money that you're parking what I call parking space money, which is what goes into savings accounts and into CDs or into money market accounts with a discount broker. There's a strategy I want you to consider right now because the future picture is much fuzzier than normal. I'm going to tell you about it straight ahead.

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Clark Howard (18:03)

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Clark Howard (18:32)

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Clark Howard (19:36)

There's an old strategy for savers that suddenly is very relevant again. And it's known as the ladder or CD ladder. It's where money that you need to park in savings, money you're not choosing to invest, that you can take the money and split it into five equal piles. Let's just keep it simple, keep the math as simple as possible. Let's say you got $5,000. You put 1,000 of it into a one year CD, thousand into a two year thousand in a three year thousand into a four year and a thousand into a five year CD. The reason you do this is knowing the crystal ball of what interest rates are going to be two, three, four, five years out is unknowable right now. Too much economic disruption right now in the United States. So if you buy the latter, you're taking your money and you're splitting it out with the risk of interest rates being spread out to lower the overall risk. And in a classic ladder situation, one year from now you would take the money that now is yours from the one year CD and you put it in a new five year CD. The whole thinking with a CD parking space is that you would have 20% of that pile thousand dollars plus the interest earns available to you in no more than 12 months at any point. And at the same time historically a longer CD earns higher interest than a shorter cd. Right now that may not be the case, but over time it generally is. That's why every 12 months when the one year comes due, then the two year, then three, whatever, you buy a new five year CD. Ultimately all your money is in five year term CDs which again over time traditionally has been what earns the highest interest rate. Why? Well, because people demand more interest if they're going to tie up their money longer. But market conditions can actually make a longer term one earn less than a shorter term one. Potentially right now it's still a valid strategy. Where should you buy these? Best place to buy them is at a discount broker disc. Discount brokers can buy CDs of various lengths and the whole buying them from the wholesale side of a bank or credit union, earning you a higher rate of interest than you as little old you or me can earn directly. So you buy it through the discount broker and you buy your ladder and then you rebuy gotta have it on your calendar that when you rebuy each of those over the years. And that is a way that you don't have to try to figure out which way interest rates are going to go over a time period that is more unknowable right now than it even normally is. And this is again, just for parking space money. Long term money needs to be invested, Christa.

Caller/Listener (23:11)

And also we have some resources@clark.com we have a great article on the CD ladder and we also have a CD ladder calculator, which is pretty cool.

Clark Howard (23:22)

So what does the calculator do? Just tell you how much money your money will be worth at later date. Okay.

Caller/Listener (23:29)

Pretty cool. All right. Questions came in from all over the country as usual. And if you want to ask a question again, clark.com ask and you can indicate if you want to ask a question to Clark or to Wes. If you listen to Ask an Advisor that airs every Tuesday. This one was written by Tim in Pennsylvania. I make $90,000 a year and I have the first two years of my daughter's college paid for. I will need.

Clark Howard (23:51)

Fantastic.

Caller/Listener (23:52)

Yeah, I will need to come up with another two years, which will be $18,000. I pay $9,000 a year in property taxes.

Clark Howard (23:59)

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. $9,000 a year for the tuition and property taxes?

Caller/Listener (24:05)

Yep.

Clark Howard (24:06)

You and I would love having tuition that low for our kids.

Caller/Listener (24:10)

I have two car payments at $510 a month. I also have an $8,000 in credit card debt. My retirement is pretty good. Should I take money out of my Roth to pay off the credit cards and use some for my daughter's college? My wife has a Mercedes and she won't part with it.

Clark Howard (24:29)

Now. Wait, wait. You don't say what you drive and whether you part with what you've got. Yeah. And buy a, you know, a junker and. And not have a monthly payment anymore. Sorry, just picking on you, Tim, is. You pick it on your way. All right, so I'm going to surprise you. You have managed to save enough to pay for the first two years. I think it's fine for your daughter. That's a very small loan amount versus what she will earn in a career to take out federal student loans for the two years that you don't have the money saved. Because the last thing I want you doing is using Roth money to liquidate the credit cards, free up money for college. You need that money for your retirement. There's no scholarship plan, no grants, nothing for retirement, no student loans. Yeah. So you know, you're not talking about. I mean there are people whose kids are going to colleges that are 100 grand per year now, all in 9,000. Your daughter can handle that. And if she takes out $18,000 in student loan debt and you then over time after college want to help her with the payments or even make the payments, that's fine. But I don't want you stealing from the future for her college. You've already done so much paying for the first two years.

Caller/Listener (26:14)

And the credit cards, you just say pay them down as quickly.

Clark Howard (26:16)

Yeah, the credit cards. Thank you. Credit cards definitely do not pull money out of a Roth to pay credit card debt. That Roth money is golden because it continues to grow tax free and will be spent tax free later in life. The credit cards, having that debt and coming up with a plan of how much you're going to pay every month to get it paid off in whatever period of time. 30 months. I really like 30 month payment plans. If you can do it in 30 months, do that. And calculating what you have to pay per month based on the interest rate the cards is really easy to do. And the goal should be to get that to zero. And by the way, you can't use the credit cards at all now if the goal is to pay them off.

Caller/Listener (27:06)

Catherine in Florida says we had planned to use our 2% cash back credit card to pay for our bathroom renovation. However, the company we hired to do the renovation would have charged us the 3% transaction fee they get hit with by their processor. The math isn't mathing. So we paid each installment by check or cash. We didn't really have any other option at the time. And the bathroom was in serious need of repair and an upgrade.

Clark Howard (27:30)

Oh, it's beautiful.

Caller/Listener (27:31)

Now should we get a home equity line of credit to have available for future home projects?

Clark Howard (27:36)

Katherine, you know, if you're a member of a credit union, a lot of credit unions with no closing costs allow you to set up a standby home equity line of credit. They usually charge a significantly lower interest rate on them. It's a floating rate than banks charge. And having one available if you have the, the discipline that it will only be used for improvement to your houses, to your house, or a major repair to your house. That's a great idea.

Caller/Listener (28:09)

All right. Lynn in Delaware says, I know that you've long advocated having a dedicated computer on which you do only financial activities. That got me wondering, what do you think about using a dedicated phone that never left your home to receive two factor authentication codes? When could get a phone plan with unlimited text from Tello for $5 a month. Do you know of any cheaper plans for tax that might also be available?

Clark Howard (28:32)

Yeah, there's. Gosh, who is it? Somebody's got a plan that's free that actually has a little bit of data included every month. Is it helium?

Caller/Listener (28:43)

TextNow.

Clark Howard (28:44)

Oh, TextNow. That's right, TextNow. And I think there's one called Helium that has a base plan that's free to introduce them. And you never know with these things if they're going to survive. But being able to have a two factor line is actually a very clever idea that I haven't thought of. And that way you never have to worry about your phone falling into the wrong hands being stolen from you.

Caller/Listener (29:16)

But I don't understand. Well, I guess because you're two, you.

Clark Howard (29:19)

Only do your two FA at home, right? And by the way, the whole thing about the two fa that was looked at as silver bullet, it's not quite working that way. We wouldn't be talking about all the problems with people intercepting your two factor authentication, but know that that's the Achilles heel right now, that what criminals are after through conning you or through stealing your service or whatever, they're after your two factor authentication. And if you've heard me say it but didn't do it, please do the SEM lock with your provider for your cell phone service so that a criminal, when you least expect it, usually in the middle of the night, doesn't steal your cell phone service and use it as a way to get the authorization codes for your bank, your brokerage, your retirement account, you name a key account, you want to protect your two factor authentication from the crooks. And thank you so much for joining us today. I hope that something we've talked about today is something you can put to work in your life to protect your money, to save your money. Better to build more money for your future, to build more financial security overall in your life. And know that's what we're about is being there to empower you so many different ways. And this week, like most every other week of the year except holiday weeks, we are available to serve you with free one on one advice. If you've got a problem, a question, a concern, you don't know how to fix a problem, you can talk with our Team Clark Consumer Action center for nothing. But this service is invaluable. You see how to get that free one on one guidance, go to clark.com cac and along with everything else we do, the empowerment we're about is so that you learn ways to save more, spend less, and don't ever, ever, not ever allow somebody to rip you off. See you on.