Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 04.16.25 AI Can Cost You / Waste Not When Dining Out About this episode AI is spreading fast - too fast. Can you trust the answers you get? Clark relates how trusting AI can cost you time and money. Also, consumers are leaving money on the table when eating out. Asking for a doggy bag? No shame in that game! What’s RIGHT about leftovers. AI Warning: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 To Go Box: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Gen AI's Accuracy Problems Aren't Going Away Anytime Soon, Researchers Say Elliott Report: Home Should You Respond to Class-Action Lawsuits? Best Rewards Credit Cards: Top Picks for 2025 NYTimes: Is the Doggy Bag Dead? Should I Be Concerned That I’m Receiving Mail at Home With Someone Else’s Name? How To Save on Travel With Google Flights What Condo Owners Need To Know About Insurance Clark.com resources Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com / Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices: megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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1:21 Speaker 02 It's great to have you here on the 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. And you can't go anywhere without hearing AI, AI, AI. But can you trust the answers you get?
1:44 Speaker 02 Well, trusting AI can actually cost you time, money, or have you make bad decisions. And also, consumers are literally throwing money away right now in numbers too large to ignore. And I want to talk about that later in this podcast and YouTube show. So I love Elliot.org. It's a consumer advocacy organization that talks about individuals having specific problems with generally large companies that are not treating them right.
2:29 Speaker 02 Elliott.org recently had a post about a problem guy named Jason had with Expedia. And so Jason buys a trip and Expedia now has its own AI that is a virtual agent that's there with you as you're shopping around. Don't know if you've experienced this with Expedia. And so the virtual AI says, this AI chatbot says, you know, you can cancel this, no risk within 24 hours for a full refund. Literally, it says, you could cancel the package within 24 hours. Literally, the words it says is full refund. So he does
3:14 Speaker 02 the booking, over 3,500 bucks, and then Expedia only gives him back half the money. And they said, well, since our terms and conditions, and we don't honor what our chatbot says, it's up to you to read the terms and conditions. And the FTC, for whatever it's worth, has said, yeah, company has a chatbot that tells you something, and it conflicts with what the terms of service say, then whichever is to the favor of the consumer, that's the real story. But Expedia told him to pound sand and said, tough, you're out half your
3:56 Speaker 02 money. Now, remember, he did a booking and used that 24-hour period to decide, canceled within it. Then they said, yeah, joke's on you. We're keeping your 1,750. This is crazy. Expedia spokesperson said, we encourage travelers to review all policies before booking. Come on, come on. How corporate stupid is that? That's so far beyond mean, that gets all the way to stupid. And what's a bad combination? Mean and stupid, right? So, of course, after Elliott's advocates contacted Expedia, they gave the money back. But how
4:40 Speaker 02 do you know if somebody doesn't know effectively how to complain, what happens? And AI is horseshoes, right? And we become very reliant on it as it's more and more places.
4:55 Speaker 02 Oh man, there's a company I do work for and I was having a problem getting reimbursed for something. And so when I contacted the department where I'm supposed to get my money, I can't talk to a human and I'm talking to AI. And then they send me an email back from AI that was just gibberish. So no human ever interacted with the problem with the money. It's just crazy, right? But I've been, uh, we're all on the team, Clark, we're testing different AIs. And I have one on my phone. What's mine called? Uh, mine is
5:35 Speaker 02 called Gemini. Is Gemini a Google native? Okay. Krista told me Google native. And what are some of the others that people on the team have been testing? Do you know? I know ChatGPT.
5:50 Speaker 03 ChatGPT is the big one.
5:51 Speaker 02 But there's another one that is.
5:53 Speaker 03 James uses, I don't remember which one.
5:55 Speaker 02 It's called Gronk or something?
5:56 Speaker 03 Yep.
5:57 Speaker 02 Gronk? I think that's it. Anyway, so we're testing these different things. And what's been funny with Gemini is it gives answers verbally and written with such authority that you think, oh man, this has to be true. And you were playing with my Gemini the other day and you asked something and it was amazing how accurate it was. It was something we knew all about, completely accurate. And then other stuff you ask and it's completely wrong or incomplete. So we're in very early innings with any of this stuff. Just as Expedia
6:40 Speaker 02 lied to that customer with its chat thing, the bot, there's a lot of stuff that's being worked on. And just because it sounds so authoritative, doesn't mean you take it as actual fact. Because as we've seen in our testing of these different things, they can be so good and then so wrong. Be aware that what they say is not necessarily fact.
7:12 Speaker 03 All right. Jennifer in Michigan says, "My question is about the, this phone."
7:18 Speaker 02 Name it.
7:19 Speaker 03 The Mode Phone. The Mode Phone lets you earn money for using your phone, listening to music, playing games, et cetera, with its Earn OS operating system. Is this a legit cellphone company? It says it offers transparency and the opportunity to own a piece of the company. I'd like to know what you think. And P.S., I am proud to work at Clark's alma mater. Fire up chips.
7:39 Speaker 02 Talking about Central Michigan University, where I got my master's degree before dinosaurs were extinct on Earth.
7:47 Speaker 03 The chip-a-was, what you like to call the chip-a-was, yes.
7:52 Speaker 02 Fire up chips. So, the Mode Phone is something that I don't hear a lot about, but let me tell you what it is. You get an Android phone with them that's specially set up for their operating system, the Mode operating system. And then, they pay you money for, it's almost like when we used to do the, like, again with dinosaurs roaming the Earth, and you and I would do the freeway phone, long distance service, and you used to have to pay for long distance. And every 15-second ad we'd listen to, we'd get two free minutes of long distance. This is one, if you do different things, like, watch promotions or
8:33 Speaker 02 whatever on your phone, you get the potential to earn money. It's not a lot of money. It seems legit. And there are complaints about people saying, "I didn't get my money," whatever. But there's nothing scammy about it that I see-
8:49 Speaker 03 That we know of.
8:49 Speaker 02 That I've been able to find at all.
8:51 Speaker 03 Maybe we'll test it out, so other people don't have to. And we'll write it up on Clark.com.
8:57 Speaker 02 I like that.
8:57 Speaker 03 Yeah, we'll do that. Okay, Micah in Maine says, "I have received two class-action lawsuit settlements, each for $1, both issued with virtual credit cards. It turns out that a $1 virtual credit card is impossible to spend or redeem, as it can only be used online, and no other retailer allows for the use of two credit card payment methods on the same purchase. There is no way to contact the credit card issuer, as I did not provide an email." Address for either settlement and phone contact is impossible. I cannot retrieve the card number. This just seems like another way the class action settlements benefit the attorneys and the banks and not the consumer.
9:34 Speaker 02 Well, we could talk all day long about class actions not benefiting banks or consumers, but you have a foolproof way to use these virtual card numbers. You've done it before when you've gotten.
9:44 Speaker 03 If they allow it, I usually, if I get these gift card things or whatever, like, you know, these, these reward cards, I recently got one from my ISP, my internet service provider.
9:56 Speaker 02 And was it a virtual like this?
9:58 Speaker 03 This wasn't, it was a, it was a physical debit kind of card, like it was called a reward card and I tried to buy a gift card with it and it wouldn't let me in retailers. And so I went on to my utility company, in this case, my electric company, and they'll let you pay in smaller amounts and so using different payment methods. So I went ahead and just paid the entire amount that was on that card toward my utility.
10:20 Speaker 02 So even the $1, you can prepay on a lot of things. You might be able to prepay on your cell phone bill, on your internet service bill, your utility bill, various utility bills, and wipe out these $1 virtual cards just so you don't lose that $1. But yes, the purpose of all these different payment cards, whether they're physical or virtual, is breakage. They're hoping, they're expecting that a lot of people will never figure out how to use them or use all the value and the money just goes poof from the consumer. That's the design.
11:00 Speaker 03 James in Oklahoma says, am I generally better off collecting points to use for flights, upgrades, et cetera, or getting 2% cash back on my city double cash MasterCard?
11:11 Speaker 02 I love 2% cash back because they don't tell you there are blackout periods to get your 2% cash back. They don't tell you there's no inventory available. It's your money. Cash is king. The exception to that would be somebody who travels a ton. And you have really significant charge volume, then maybe you can make it work better in redemptions for flights potentially. But a lot of the airlines now, you take their credit card points and use them for a ticket. You're only getting seven tenths of a cent value per point now.
11:56 Speaker 02 That's why cash back at 2% is getting you roughly three times the value of what you're getting quite often now from a travel rewards card. Some of the hotel reward cards like Marriott, what a joke. The Marriott Bonvoy program has a payback that is so teensy tiny that cash back is so much better than chasing points with Marriott. The only thing that would be an exception, if you are a road warrior, you're in the Marriott or Hilton or Hyatt hotels all the time,
12:38 Speaker 02 and you're doing it for status to get room upgrades, you're getting free meals, that kind of thing, fine. But if it's really about just redeeming points, almost worthless. Coming up ahead, there's something we're no longer doing when we eat out that's throwing money away. We gotta have a talk.
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14:34 Speaker 02 Okay, what do you do when you go to a restaurant? You eat your meal, and something I used to do was I used to eat everything on my plate, even if I do it to the point that I feel bad later that I just ate too much. And I don't do that anymore. I get what used to be called a doggy bag. Now, you know, just like a leftover container, whatever. Take that home. But there's a story in the New York Times, following up on an industry report, that Americans, for some reason, don't take home leftovers from restaurants anymore at all like they used to.
15:18 Speaker 02 This is in city after city. This isn't any one place, according to the New York Times. This is all around America. Industry study finds that the average American now is leaving the table of restaurants that over the course of a year, they leave over a pound of food a week, essentially. 53 pounds of food that they just have thrown away by the restaurant. And if the food was lousy, I get that. But let's say you really liked it. Average American throwing away from restaurants, $330 a year.
15:55 Speaker 02 Who couldn't use $330 a year? If somebody goes up to you and says, hey, how'd you like three 100s and three 10s? You'd say, what's the, what's the con here? Kind of con are you running? But if somebody legit wanted to give you $330, no strings attached, you'd be pretty happy to have that, right? So why are we throwing away $330? My wife insists that a lot of food tastes better the second day, but it's also better tasting anyway because we didn't have to pay anything essentially for that second meal.
16:37 Speaker 02 So I don't know if there's some kind of pride thing that people feel like, oh, they're gonna think I don't have any money that I want to take home leftovers. I don't care what they think at the restaurant. You paid big money and restaurant meals are much more expensive than they used to be. Take those leftovers and have that follow-on bonus meal because you already paid for it.
17:06 Speaker 03 Yep, I had leftovers yesterday for lunch.
17:09 Speaker 02 What'd you have exciting?
17:11 Speaker 03 Um, I had a salad.
17:13 Speaker 02 A salad, so you make a big salad and then you?
17:16 Speaker 03 Wasn't, I didn't make it. I ate out and I spent money on it and that really makes me do a lot. I usually do leftovers multiple days a week though. If I'm cooking at home or whatever, I always make sure I have enough, you know? But yeah, if I'm gonna pay money to eat out, it's really great if I can have leftovers.
17:32 Speaker 02 We had Lane's Pasta, which is fantastic. She claims to be Italian, but she's only 7%. But the 7% she got definitely taught her how to cook fantastic pasta meals.
17:46 Speaker 03 That's great. Okay, Heather in Mississippi wrote in to you, Clark. She said, I've received a Cash App debit card to my address with errors. It had the correct street address, wrong state and correct zip code. It was also using my maiden name. I have not used my maiden name in 20 plus years, so there were some big red flags. The most obvious red flag is that I do not have, will not, and have not used Cash App. I called them and after a bit of time got a live operator. I was able to explain part of my story before they stopped me and said they would be recording the conversation. I said, I will as well. They cut the phone call and explained that they do not allow me to record them and they hung up. My question is-
18:27 Speaker 02 Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Do you realize how bad that is if that's really what happened? I mean, they always say, you know, we're recording this call. Why shouldn't the consumer, the other side of this call, be able to do the same thing? In some states, there's what's known as one-party permission, which means you don't even have to tell them you're recording. It just depends on the state if you have to, but boy, I don't like that part of the story. So-
18:55 Speaker 03 No.
18:56 Speaker 02 What else?
18:56 Speaker 03 How can I report this or cancel this account? My and my husband's credit is frozen. I've not seen any other signs of identity fraud.
19:04 Speaker 02 So if it's a debit card, it's different than a credit card. I don't know where this is gonna go and I don't know. You said your credit's frozen. A debit card is not an extension of credit, so normally there would not be a credit report pulled. But I would say very important that you monitor, you continually monitor your credit files anyway. If you have a Credit Karma dashboard, you can see what's going on with two of your reports. You want to see if suddenly there's an alias showing up involving your maiden name and stuff like that.
19:47 Speaker 02 Applications for credit that were declined, things like that. And hopefully this is a one-off. This will not be a pattern. But I think I would call back, don't even bother with, when they say you're on a recorded line, and see if you can get to the bottom of it, because they don't want- At Cash App or Venmo, they don't want somebody doing some kind of alias because at some point down the road, it's probably going to cause Cash App or Venmo a problem. So I would call back, start that call over and see where you got the second time. Don't give them a reason to say, well, you can't record, we're hanging up the phone.
20:31 Speaker 03 Bob in Georgia says, Clark, I love your podcast and I've learned so much from you and Wes and Krista over the years. Following your advice has helped us to retire with confidence. We can live out our lives with our past lifestyle and continue to travel the world. My wife and I are taking a trip to Vietnam in January. When is the best time to book our flight and try to get the best fare?
20:51 Speaker 02 So Bob, first of all, I'm so excited for you because Vietnam is really, really a wonderful country to visit.
21:01 Speaker 03 I thought you were going to say also because he's put himself in such a good position.
21:05 Speaker 02 All of it.
21:06 Speaker 03 So awesome.
21:07 Speaker 02 I just love that too. But my brother-in-law just came back from a trip to Vietnam six weeks ago and had a wonderful time. And if you're a longtime listener or viewer, you know, I took my brother who fought in Vietnam, who had always had some issues from having fought there. I took him back there and he said it was one of the greatest weeks of his life, the week we were in Vietnam, and is still to this day, 11 years later, euphoric about the experience. It buried a lot of things for him that had been hard
21:47 Speaker 02 from when he was in Vietnam. But if for you, it's just tourism. Let me tell you, it's a great country to go to. So now to your question.
21:59 Speaker 02 Fares to Vietnam from, where are you in the United States? You're on the East Coast. Tend to be very, very high. Often they'll be far cheaper from the West Coast. I'm going to get to your win question in a second. But what I want you to do is I want you to go on google.com/flights and set up fare alerts for travel next January to Vietnam from your home airport from Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle. And Google will be sending you alerts as different fares happen.
22:41 Speaker 02 For January, you're way far out and it would be an unusual fare pattern that there would be a deal already for January next year. International fares tend to have the best prices, usually about four months out mathematically, you know, historical averages. But it can be odd patterns. I've seen in the last week several deals for travel to Europe that are really good for next January. So the, the patterns, even though you can say, well, the average domestic ticket, about six weeks out is going to be your best fare. International, it might be about four months. But those are averages.
23:26 Speaker 02 So you want to track the fares starting now and see what happens. And when a really great fare happens from the West Coast or from an airport near where you live on the East Coast, then you can grab that fare. What would be a great fare to Vietnam from the West Coast? About 700 round trip. And so from the East Coast, you need to get a fare of 1,100 round trip or less to really make it worth it to go with an East Coast fare to Vietnam instead of a West Coast fare. Because a lot of people like the idea, hey, we got a bonus little side trip.
24:08 Speaker 02 We fly out a couple of days early, go to LA, San Francisco, Seattle, and enjoy having fun on the West Coast. And then we go on to Vietnam. And then it's not as much travel also all in one day.
24:21 Speaker 03 Okay, Anne in Tennessee says, "I own and live in my condo, studs out. My insurance coverage is valued at $500,000. How do I determine insurance coverage for the interior? Is there a percent of that to value the interior?"
24:35 Speaker 02 Okay, this is a great question. So, the condo association in your case says studs out is your responsibility. Everything else is theirs. So, there's a code they use at homeowners and condo insurers. H6? I'm trying to remember. Some kind of weird name they call it, which is a different process to evaluate the coverage you have to have for the portion of the home you're responsible for versus what the condominium is. And it's stated clearly in your condominium documents.
25:15 Speaker 02 Let's say a neighbor has a problem that brings damage into your unit. Who's responsible in that case? Your condo documents will say that. If you have an experienced person at your homeowners insurance provider who is an expert in condominium policies, they'll want to see the documents from your homeowner association. And they're the ones who will be able to tell you what coverage you need for the portion that you're liable for versus the association. I have relatives who live in an older condominium that was built almost 40 years ago
25:58 Speaker 02 and has had chronic water leak problems. And what happens under their documents is that each unit owner is responsible for whatever water damage happens inside their unit, even if it's an association reason, you know, an association common pipe or a leak that comes from another unit. That's why these condo documents are key to answering your question so that you know what's on you, what's on them. And that's where having somebody who knows what they're doing at your insurer is key. Your insurer is a big insurer.
26:40 Speaker 02 Of homes and condominiums, they have available to you condominium experts. They'll tell you what documents they want from your homeowner association to make sure you are in fact properly insured and that the value of that coverage is sufficient. They may not have asked you for these documents. Now it's time for you to ask them to evaluate your specific condominium and make sure you have the proper coverage. I hope that answers the question, Ann, because it is so specific to each condominium and its docs. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. You know what's coming up?
27:25 Speaker 02 Friday, we have Clark Stinks. You know, we were, when I went from five podcasts a week to three, we were only doing Clark Stinks every other week. And then by popular demand, listeners and viewers demanded that we reinstate a weekly Clark Stinks. Because I guess I'm an imperfect human being like all the rest of us. And there are things that I need to restate, rethink, or correct. And that's what Clark Stinks makes possible. So tune in to Friday's podcast, a YouTube show. Can't wait to be with you and know what we're all about.
28:08 Speaker 02 Every day, every way that we serve you is to empower you with knowledge that saves you more so you spend less and avoid getting ripped off.
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Previous 04.15.25 Ask An Advisor With Wes Moss Next 04.18.25 Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Guide: Appeal Insurance Denial Page updated November 7, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
