Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 05.07.25 Protect Your Home Title / What Job Seekers Should Know About this episode In today’s episode - you may have heard ads for services that allegedly lock your home’s title. Are they worth it? Clark talks about how best to guard your greatest asset - your home. Also, as the economy goes into lower gear with layoffs more frequent, Clark has important new info for today’s job seekers. Home Title Protection: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 AI & Your Resume: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: CBS News: FBI Boston warns property owners, real estate agents about "title pirates" after I-Team reports How To Freeze and Unfreeze Your Credit With Experian, Equifax and TransUnion 4 Signs You’re a Victim of Deed Theft (and How To Avoid It) 4 Insurance Policies You Actually Need (And 4 You Don't) Should You Buy an Extended Warranty on Your Car? Best Resume Template: 9 Ways To Update Your Resume CRASH Network - Insurer Report Card How to Shop for Lower Car Insurance Fidelity - Spending & Saving Money | Take Control of Your Money Best Online Banks: Free Checking and High-Interest Savings Accounts 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
Transcript 0:05 Speaker 00 It's great to have you here on the Clark Howard Show. You know, our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. In today's episode, you may have heard ads or seen them online for services that provide Title Lock coverage. If you're a homeowner, does that work? Is it worth paying a subscription for Title Lock? And also, you know, the economy is going into a lower gear. We're experiencing more layoffs, more people looking for work. There's something you need to know if you suddenly are thrust out there having to look
0:49 Speaker 00 for a new job. So, new warning from the FBI about the problems people are having with title theft. I want to explain what this is. I don't want to make you paranoid, I want to make you aware, and I want to put you in charge and in control. So criminals are taking advantage of the fact that there are roughly a third of American homeowners who own their homes free and clear. What a deal, right? Owning it free and clear. So what criminals are doing, and the most common thing they're doing against your title,
1:32 Speaker 00 is they are setting up a false identity, as if they're you, identity theft, and then applying for a home equity line of credit or a mortgage against your home. First thing you know is you might have bills start showing up from a bank or credit union or mortgage company saying you owe your mortgage or home equity line of credit. The fake borrower is...
2:04 Speaker 00 Gone with the wind, having borrowed money against your title. That's the most common thing. I'll get the second one in a minute. So this is happening because if you think about how property records are handled so haphazardly and differently in all 50 states and all jurisdictions responsible for title records in all the states. There's not a national system of any kind. It's part of federalism. So the systems were set up based on trust. They were set up long ago with various levels of sophistication today and how counties have records and update those records.
2:48 Speaker 00 So it's left it wide open for criminals to impersonate you and get that cash out from under you. And then you've got such a hassle you can't imagine getting that all cleared up, getting it off your title and all the rest. Because now there's a lien against your house, a secured debt against your house that's not yours, that you didn't benefit from just some crook. Okay, the simplest, lowest hanging fruit, if you're a homeowner, is freeze your credit files now, yesterday, last year, 10 years ago.
3:30 Speaker 00 I mean, I've been yapping about doing a credit freeze for so long, I can't even remember when I started talking about that. And still, very few Americans do it. All a credit freeze is, is you set up a procedure with the credit bureaus where if a criminal goes to apply for credit as if they're you, and a lender does a credit inquiry, it's rejected because your credit is frozen, has no effect on credit you already have. And when you need to apply for new credit, you temporarily thaw your credit freeze. Then you're set after a period of time when it locks back and you decide what that period of time is.
4:11 Speaker 00 It's so simple to do a credit freeze. It's amazing. If you don't know how to do this, I've got a very simple guide, because it is simple, at Clark.com/creditfreeze. So that's number one, is people more often than not going after you to just get debt against your home, and then they vanish. The other thing that is more rare, but more critical and more serious, is where somebody impersonates you, pretends to be you, and does an illegal sale of your property to someone who's an unsuspecting buyer, and
4:54 Speaker 00 suddenly you don't own your home anymore, and the crook who impersonated you has run off with the money. This is what freaks the FBI out, and would freak any of us out. If we work hard our whole lives, we end up owning a place free and clear, and then bam, it's not ours anymore. And unwinding that is so difficult, you can't imagine. So how do you deal with that? I know your first thought is, well, title insurance, doesn't that cover me? Generally not. Title insurance is a look back, not a look forward. There's a lot of legal work that's involved to try to redress you being thrown out of your own house. Because
5:39 Speaker 00 remember, you got an innocent party that in good faith bought your home, not from you. It's bad, ugly. So now, most counties around the United States, or equivalent jurisdiction, and whatever it would be in your state, have registries where you register with your county, and any stuff goes on with your title, they send you an email. And time is so critical here, because there will be notices you get that are core to you stopping this activity or unwinding it.
6:18 Speaker 00 The title lock services have only been able to tell you after something has gone bad. The county registries have been a very effective tool. Another thing you should look for, you start having mail come in inquiring about your application for a HELOC or your application for a mortgage or anything like that, that's when you have an early tip off, something is going on nasty here. So if you've not done so, check with your county, see if there is a title registry service available. They're free. Get those notifications. If you have not frozen your credit, get it done.
7:03 Speaker 00 I know it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'll get around to it when I get around to it, which is never getting around to it. Make this a priority.
7:12 Speaker 01 Okay, we'll go to questions. Gretchen in Missouri says, my husband and I both have level term life insurance policies.
7:20 Speaker 00 Good for you.
7:21 Speaker 01 But do we also need accidental death and dismemberment insurance?
7:24 Speaker 00 Nope. Nope. So I'm really into broad kind of insurance coverages. I'm not into narrow. That's why you always hear me go off against extended warranties on televisions and appliances and all that stuff. You insure the big things in your life, the things that are more likely to happen. And yeah, accidental death and dismemberment insurance is really cheap, a fraction of the cost of your level term insurance. But what is more important? Having disability insurance that pays in the event you can't work?
8:05 Speaker 00 Or having the level term insurance you have, things that cover wide circumstances? Imagine how awful it is if somebody dies accidentally. But that's why you have life insurance. There are a lot of people who have accidental death insurance, but don't have life insurance. Most of the time, it's not going to be an accident that takes you out. So buy the big stuff like you've already done.
8:33 Speaker 00 And ignore the kind of gimmicky kind of insurance.
8:37 Speaker 01 Koyida in Georgia says, she's asking about a couple of insurances that are basically car.
8:43 Speaker 00 Extended warranties.
8:44 Speaker 01 Extended warranties. Yeah, a couple of the big companies that she's hearing ads about.
8:48 Speaker 00 Yeah, they're, um, apparently they advertise on TV, uh, every 30 seconds.
8:56 Speaker 00 I don't see them on football, so I, I only know this from hearing from people and the questions people ask. So as a general rule, any independent third party selling a, a service contract or extended warranty on a car is going to be a bunch of junk. If you look online at reviews, you'll see that generally when people go to make a claim, if it's anything major, forget about it. These companies tend to pay minor claims so that they get a good rep. But when it comes to when the chips are really down, why do you have this?
9:38 Speaker 00 When there's a major problem wrong with your vehicle, generally engine or transmission. Those are the big money things. And when it comes to those, they don't pay as a general rule. So know that the advertising you see for this stuff makes it sound like this is complete peace of mind. It's not. And by the way, at a car dealer, when they sell you a third party warranty, they're selling them because it's a pack. You know what a pack is? That's a made up fee that generates enormous profit for the dealer. So they may retail out an extended warranty on a vehicle for a few thousand dollars
10:20 Speaker 00 that the dealer may have paid 150 or 200 dollars for. It appears to have great value to it. But it's rubbish. And the problem is, these independent sellers of warranties often go through what are known as bustouts. They sell a bunch of these warranties, and then they vanish in the middle of the night with your money. And the dealer's like, "What? What? You looking at us? I mean, what do we have to do with this?" So if you ever want to buy an extension of a warranty on a vehicle, the place you buy it from is from the manufacturer of that vehicle.
10:59 Speaker 00 Their actual branded warranty from Toyota, or Honda, or GM, or Ford, or whoever it is, you buy theirs. Don't buy the independents, because they're usually not worth the paper they're written on.
11:16 Speaker 01 Christopher in Florida says, "I ordered an item on an online auction site. I received a tracking number and was able to track it. I saw daily updates via the post office through informed delivery. The item stated it was delivered to the front desk/mailroom. I live in a house where mail would be delivered to my door, and no package arrived. I received a call the next day from the post office. They had an image of the package with a different address and different name, but could see that the original address was mine."
11:46 Speaker 00 Oh, boy.
11:47 Speaker 01 "The local postmaster let me know this appears to be a scam they've been working against recently. The scammer purchased tracking via the auction site, then they adjust the label, replacing the buyer's name and address with a new one in the same city and likely to have a mailroom. The scammers are hoping, in the confusion, they can get to the 48 hours after the tracking is confirmed delivery, where they can then get paid out."
12:10 Speaker 00 Okay, so the implication is that the seller on eBay is, or any other site selling...
12:19 Speaker 01 This was eBay, yeah.
12:20 Speaker 00 This was eBay. That the seller is actually running a con on the buyer.
12:28 Speaker 00 That the seller reroutes the package to an associate or just a mail drop that they actually have the, they probably use a third party, but anyway.
12:42 Speaker 01 And it's probably got nothing in it. I bet they send the package in it, you know?
12:46 Speaker 00 No, they'd have to have some weight in it because there'd be a way.
12:48 Speaker 01 I know, but probably not the actual product is my guess.
12:51 Speaker 00 Who knows? It could even be the actual product. It's just being diverted.
12:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:55 Speaker 00 And so they get their money, the implication of this. And what's most interesting about this is that the postal service is aware that this is an active scam going on. And this is the first we've heard of this, right?
13:11 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, I never would buy anything on eBay from anyone who doesn't have like thousands of sales and reviews. That's one thing. Like I bet you these people are just setting up different eBay accounts with like a few sales and then doing this.
13:25 Speaker 00 Trying to steal your money.
13:26 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's a great warning.
13:27 Speaker 00 So I don't buy a lot of stuff online, as you know. So what is eBay's position? Cause there are eBay sellers that have a buyer's assurance thing with eBay.
13:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, that would be different. Like I would, I mean, just like Airbnb, I won't rent from someone that's like got a new listing. I think that's what we can do, you know? It's pretty apparently, I haven't looked through eBay's policy on this, but from what this person's saying, like once it's been confirmed delivery for two days, the seller gets paid out.
14:01 Speaker 00 The seller. Wow.
14:03 Speaker 01 It's a great warning.
14:04 Speaker 00 You know what's weird? All these things we talk about, about scams, and it's been said, I'm not the first one to say this, it's been said a million times. Usually you gotta be bright enough to come up with one of these scams. Why not just do something positive?
14:19 Speaker 01 I know.
14:20 Speaker 00 With that candle power. Why are you always looking for the shortcut in life that harms somebody else? Ah, well. Coming up ahead, I want to talk about the job market. And we're going through a shift in the job market. And if you suddenly find yourself a job seeker, I need to talk about not undermining your confidence in yourself and the effective way to use your time looking for a new job.
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15:32 Speaker 00 The first reports were, I guess about a year, 18 months ago, that large employers, when you submit an application to them, are no longer having them looked at in an initial application by a human, that they're using AI tools to read it and send you the reject letter. Think about what I just said. They have AI tools to read it so they know what to write in the reject letter. And the only thing that's changed about looking for a job with most employers is if they're using an AI tool to send the reject instead of a human having to do it. Because if you've been busy looking for a job and you've submitted applications for
16:17 Speaker 00 hundreds of job postings, and you either get a reject or don't hear anything from all of them, what does that do to your self-confidence and self-esteem? Understand that employers are playing games with us on job openings. And it's an ugly game. And you know, we are in a time, there's going to be more layoffs, and it's going to take more effort to find a new job. But the job market, I talked about a month ago about the possibility of the job market being frozen. So far, not. There are still people hiring in the midst of more people being laid off.
16:56 Speaker 00 Job market's not robust like it was a few years ago, but it's still okay. But what's not okay is taking job listings at their word. Because it's just a fact that most job postings you see...
17:16 Speaker 00 The employer already knows exactly who they want to hire, or they have a good idea who they're going to hire. But they have to go through this job posting process. They may even do pretend interviews with some candidates where you think you're actually being really considered for that job. And there are times that would be true, but not most of the time. Most of the time, they're just playing a game because they have to show that they considered many candidates, internal and external, for a job they already know who they're hiring, most often internally. Or if it is an external candidate, they were wired for it.
17:58 Speaker 00 That's an old expression, meaning they already know who they're hiring for it before they post the job listing. So what does this mean to you when you're out of work? Or you're unhappy where you work? Or you can see there's likely to be layoffs and you're out there prospecting for a new job? You have to network. Blind applications almost never lead anywhere but to a dead end. Networking is an old term for it. And there are different ways you do it now. But you work your network. What is your network? Friends, family, former work colleagues,
18:43 Speaker 00 community groups, volunteer organizations you're members of, your church, religious organization, whatever. Everywhere you come into contact with people who you know don't have to be a lifelong friend. They can be an acquaintance. That's where the jobs are found. When it is an acquaintance level person, you don't say, hey, you know who's hiring. You ask them for advice. People hate being asked for just about anything except for advice. People love giving advice and then they get invested in you a little bit. The more you network, whichever way you do it, whatever way it's done in your situation
19:28 Speaker 00 and in the industry where you're seeking work, the more you can do it, particularly with former work colleagues who went somewhere else. I just heard this morning at breakfast from someone who had been out of work and got a new job from someone who used to work for them, who then hired them at the place they're now at. How about that for a turn of the table? So the point is what I want you to know. It doesn't matter to me if it's some AI tool or if it's some flunky in HR whose job it is to send out all the rejects.
20:06 Speaker 00 Know that you are not a serious candidate almost anywhere unless you're already known and in the know.
20:16 Speaker 01 All right. Curtis in Missouri says, I recently applied for a credit card. It's an airline credit card. All three of my credit scores are greater than 825. My credit is frozen. I got an email asking me to thaw one of the bureaus and call an 800 number. I was approved over the phone and told a card would be in the mail in seven to 10 days. A few days later, I got a letter in the mail telling me I had to submit Form Social Security SSA 89, a W-2 and/or a signed tax return. I called to see if this was correct and yes, I was told you have to do it to get the card. You have to send your tax return or W-2. Needless to say, that is not going to happen.
20:57 Speaker 00 Okay. When you're retired and the credit card companies don't see a clear, demonstrable, regular source of income, they're going to ask you for a lot of extra stuff. That's why anytime you're approaching retirement or you have a family member who is, whatever credit they want, you want to apply for it before you retire. Otherwise, they're going to want so much stuff from you. And you know all the questions we've had from people about wanting validation of income from cards you already have? That's accelerating right now because the credit card issuers are starting to freak
21:39 Speaker 00 out about the economy because credit card delinquencies are rising again by leaps and bounds right now. So they're really starting to freak that they're going to go through another default wave on credit cards. So you're going to have a lot of UFO kind of requests from credit cards you already have. And Curtis, unfortunately, this is not unusual with a credit card when you apply to give you an initial approval and then say, wait, wait, wait, what, what job does this person have? What source of income? And then they, they want to put you under the microscope. And that's exactly why, because they're worried
22:20 Speaker 00 you don't have the ability with a steady income to be able to, to pay the bills on that card even with a score over 800.
22:32 Speaker 01 Jeff in Florida says, I've recently been receiving ads on social media showing car insurance rates starting at $40. The advertisement states that they eliminate the broker fees and pass on the savings to the consumer, but I never see a company name associated with this. Is this legit? Or do I hear warning alarms blaring in the background telling me to run away?
22:52 Speaker 00 So likely not a scam just to come on, offering premiums that may not really exist. You're in Florida, which has extremely high auto insurance premiums. So the chance you're finding something, I guess the 40 is 40 a month, that you're finding that very, very unlikely. It's just to try to get you to respond. And these are referral services, quotation services.
23:24 Speaker 00 There no longer are actually real legit tools that I've found for shopping for auto insurance. What happened was the major car insurers bought up all these independent shopping services for auto insurance and they treat them as a captive as a way of getting new leads for that insurer. So we put together a briefing on Clark.com, how to go shop for auto insurance today, where it involves a lot of work on your part. You have to go website by website of different insurers, shopping for quotes today, rather
24:05 Speaker 00 than being able to use some kind of magical third party. Now, this thing talked about cutting agents out. I'd say the opposite is where you want to look, particularly at a pretty obscure breed, but fantastic one, independent agents. Independent agents know the market. They tend to be very experienced at it and they will shop insurers, depending on your situation, you may not have even heard of. Remember, like a year or two ago, I gave that list of the highest rated insurers in the country and virtually not a one on that list was one that anybody had ever heard of. There are a lot of smaller insurers,
24:50 Speaker 00 maybe local or regional insurers, that are really high quality. And guess what that survey's done of each year?
24:59 Speaker 01 What?
25:00 Speaker 00 Body shop owners.
25:01 Speaker 01 Oh.
25:02 Speaker 00 Because body shop owners know more than anybody that when the chips are down, you've been in that accident, which insurers actually are there for the customer and which ones are like just trying to cheap out on a repair and do substandard parts and not fixing things they should because the insurer is only interested in them. No matter what their TV ads say, they're interested in themselves, not the insured.
25:30 Speaker 00 And so I should find an update.
25:33 Speaker 01 Yes.
25:34 Speaker 00 To that list. Because it's an inside industry kind of thing that is really useful. But an independent agent is going to know a lot of those no name insurers that don't advertise all over the place that actually year in and year out do a good job for the customer.
25:55 Speaker 01 Jeff in Michigan wrote in with this. I saw a video for Fidelity Cash Management Accounts. It sounds like a great alternative to a regular bank account. What do you think of it?
26:05 Speaker 00 Fidelity has been doing different versions. Originally it was called, in the 1970s, it was called Fidelity Cash Reserves. I forget what they call it now. But these accounts are very good and overwhelmingly superior to what's offered by a big bank. If you think about Fidelity, one of the biggest financial houses out there in the United States, one of the bigs in the world, they offer a product like banking as far as superior to what's available from a traditional bank without all the junk fees and all the rest and paying really nice interest on the money you have in it.
26:50 Speaker 01 It is the Fidelity Cash Management Account.
26:53 Speaker 00 Okay. I knew it originally as Fidelity Cash Reserves. Thank you. And so it is a viable alternative. Vanguard, which had gotten out of this business, is tiptoeing back in to it and is not offering all the features that the Fidelity Cash Management Account does, but the Vanguard one pays higher interest. And then Schwab has been at this forever with a product that they labeled long, long ago as the Schwab One. The disadvantage of Schwab One that can make it Schwab Minus One. Is they play games on the interest you earn on your idle cash in the account that
27:38 Speaker 00 requires extra steps on your part to get a decent rate of interest. But doing your banking type activities with one of my three favorite investment children is a vastly superior choice to you ever being with one of the giant monster mega banks. Hands down, not even close. I want to thank you so much for joining us on today's podcast. And I want to tell you what's coming up on our next one. Clark Stinks, where you get to hear how I'm really stinking up the joint. And by the way, if you have a question about your money, Clark.com, we're working hard
28:23 Speaker 00 at it for you. And then Clark deals helping you save money on things you buy. And then we have our free newsletters tied in with both. You can sign up for it Clark.com/newsletters or newsletter, either will get you there. Our newsletters are free. And if you decide they're not useful to you, no problem. It's as easy to dump your subscription as it is originally to sign up for it. Everything we do here on our YouTube show, our podcast, TV, on radio, that many of you see or hear every day, our social media, everything we're about is about your empowerment with
29:04 Speaker 00 knowledge so you can save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off. And see ya Clark Stinks time.
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