06.03.26 Enter Entrepreneurs / Facts On Finding Unclaimed Funds

Starting a business or a side hustle is easier than it used to be in terms of cost and technology. Is there an entrepreneur hiding inside you? While big corporations lay off loyal employees to please shareholders, nimble micro-businesses are thriving by doing things more efficiently. If you’re mid-career and sick of the corporate grind, Clark shares how you can mitigate your risk by starting a side hustle today that could become your full-time passion tomorrow. Also, Clark dives into the $70 billion pool of unclaimed property waiting to be returned to everyday Americans. Know how to safely search public databases for free to see if you have funds lost in space - from old retirement plans, forgotten utility deposits, or insurance policies. In fact, a member of Clark's family recovered $10k this way! Learn how to navigate the documentation, avoid the scammers, and claim what is rightfully yours. Plus, Lane (Clark’s wife!) shares your #AskClark questions and Clark gives his take. All this and more on the June 3, 2026, episode of The Clark Howard Show. Submit questions: Ask Clark Startup: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Unclaimed Money: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Axios AM Deep Dive: Small biz revival / Go start a business How to Start an LLC: A Step-by-Step Guide EQUIFAX: Employees - The Work Number Growing Number of Unfixed Mistakes on Credit Reports 14 Prefab Tiny Houses That Are Actually Stylish and So Easy to Install Unclaimed Money: How To Find and Claim Missing Funds for Free How to handle unexpected calls about unclaimed funds What Should I Do With My 401(k) at My Old Company? - Clark Howard Search: Devices that detect hidden cameras and microphones Do US Citizens Need a Visa for Europe? ETIAS is Coming in 2026 What is ETIAS–European Union / Apply for an electronic travel authorisation (ETA) 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. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:46Speaker 01

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 0:58Speaker 02

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show, where our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. In this episode, I'm going to begin with one of my favorite topics: you becoming an entrepreneur. It is an obsession of mine. And the reality is, starting a business today is so much easier than it used to be. I mean, it's shockingly easy today. The technology that's available to you. And I'll just talk about my obsession straight ahead.

• 1:48Speaker 03

  And later, we've had so much feedback about something I talked about last year. I'm going to do it again. I want to talk about you finding free money for yourself. And it's not a scam. That's coming up later. So, starting your own business.

• 2:11Speaker 03

  Is the key to American economic growth and potentially in your own life with risk. It's long been said, and it's a fact, that roughly half of the jobs in the United States are with small businesses. But listen to this, listen to this. This was reported in the business press, not really elsewhere. ADP, which is the huge payroll processor, and they tend to do larger companies. They said that 95% of the job gains for the data they had so far for 26, 95% of the job

• 2:56Speaker 03

  gains in the United States have been with small business. Think about that. Big lumbering bureaucratic companies routinely try to please Wall Street by their CFOs talking to analysts and saying, bragging, "Yeah, we're looking forward to in the next quarter laying off 7,200 people. Yay." And then the stock goes up. No thought about the harm to those loyal employees, to their families, to their wallets. Nope. It's like, "We gotta get that stock bumped up because I got those executive bonuses

• 3:40Speaker 03

  that I only get if the shares are at whatever value. So let's see how many people we can ruin their lives this quarter." Yeah, that's how, I mean, think about the announcements. The announcements you hear are always about these big company layoffs. Because companies, as they get bigger, become much less efficient. And maybe they did over-hire, who knows? But the reality, small businesses are fleet of foot. Because you wonder how anybody could start a small business with all the other businesses that are there. You drive by and you see shopping center after shopping center after shopping center.

• 4:21Speaker 03

  And when I'm at a red light, which is a pessimistic thing to never call them traffic signals, but call them red light because you just assume it's going to be red. But anyway, you're sitting at the red light and you look over to the right or the left and there's a strip center and it's got all the little stores. And you wonder, how do people find that business? How do they make a go of it in that business? Sometimes they will, sometimes they won't. But that's somebody's dream at work in that little store. But it doesn't even have to involve retail of any kind. It can be so many different things. So many businesses start as micro businesses, just that individual. And as they need services, they can get them online.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  When they need extra help for a particular thing, they hire somebody initially almost like contract worker. So the risk upfront and the resources available so much better than they were before. And if you're, let's say you're mid-career and you're just feeling like, I go to work because I gotta get my money. Hate what I do. I'm brain dead when I do it. And outside of work, you got things you really love doing? Any of those things you love, any of the skills you develop, working for the bureaucracy, whatever corporate bureaucracy it is, are there things you can go out and do better than they do?

• 5:49Speaker 03

  Do it cheaper than they do? Or a more innovative way than they do, that things you learned in that job? Think about if there's an entrepreneur in you. Because yeah, you're subject to being successful or not in that business. True. And some of us just aren't risk takers. It's not something we're going to do. But if you are somebody who has something you'd love to do, you'd love to be your own boss. Maybe it's something you can even do part-time on the side to see if it's got any legs. And if it does, that part-time on the side thing can become your thing.

• 6:32Speaker 03

  But if you're working somewhere where you get paid vacation, you get the medical from them and all that, there's additional risk involved. Because any day you don't work, there's no money coming in. Where when you work for somebody else who gives you vacation, you go take that vacation, you get paid for it.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  And health coverage, that is an issue right now. A lot of times where somebody becomes entrepreneurial, it'll be in a married couple or where people are living together and the other has domestic partner benefits and they get the health insurance and they provide you coverage. And so you know you have that if you go out on your own. You gotta think those things through and you gotta work on your business plan. The most important part of the business plan is cash flow management. How long do you have the resources to try to grow that business till the revenue ends up being positive in that business?

• 7:34Speaker 03

  And you gotta be honest with yourself. But I want you to know that every time you hit a time like, just like we're in right now, where there's a malaise, you know, Americans overwhelmingly saying we're on the wrong track and the US is going in the toilet and all that. Those are the times

• 7:55Speaker 03

  where there's opportunity as an entrepreneur, that when others feel like, why bother? That's when you bother and that's when you can make it happen. And Laine?

• 8:10Speaker 04

  Yes, hello.

• 8:12Speaker 03

  I mean, it must be funny for you, being married to somebody who is an entrepreneur through and through my entire body.

• 8:20Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. You love an entrepreneur. You light up when someone starts asking you questions about this.

• 8:28Speaker 03

  And if you missed our last few podcasts, Krista will be back next podcast. My wife Laine is filling in for Krista for several days. So thank you for that.

• 8:40Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 8:40Speaker 03

  And what are we starting with today?

• 8:43Speaker 04

  All right. We are starting with Kate in Virginia and she says, speaking of entrepreneurs, "My 18-year-old son has developed an AI business that, according to him, could really take off in the months ahead. My husband and I don't know where to start in terms of helping him set up a business. Could you please provide some advice on how to shepherd him in the process? If it helps, he thinks he could earn really big money, potentially tens of thousands per client. Wondering if the dollar amount makes a difference in how you would approach this."

• 9:17Speaker 03

  Okay, Kate. I love this. I mean, we, Lane, remember the other day, we had a 19 year old who had already saved all kinds of money and was looking to buy a house and all that. And now we've got an 18 year old. These kids are on the ball. Kate's son, yeah, who, who wants to start his own AI company. This is great. Now with AI, there's liability risk. The good thing with an 18 year old, he probably doesn't have anything to worry about. But if the business starts to establish, he does start to develop a client base, he needs to establish an LLC at that point, a limited liability company. They're

• 9:58Speaker 03

  cheap to set up online. And he needs to do business as that LLC, probably not from his first client, because he's got to get that first client. But once he gets going, you want to do business only as that LLC. Because getting involved in AI, there are obvious and not obvious liability risks. And so you need the liability shield. And your son always holds himself out as CEO of X company, never just himself, his name, always as a business

• 10:41Speaker 03

  entity. There's not a lot of setup particularly involved when you first start. I mean, once he, once he's at a point that he's got his first client, revenue is going to come in, then he goes and opens a bank account. Generally, I like for someone as entrepreneurial as your 18 year old son, to look if, if your family already does business with Fidelity or Schwab, do the business account, he should do the business account with one of them instead of with traditional banks, because they charge very high fees on business accounts.

• 11:24Speaker 03

  Schwab and Fidelity, the accounts are generally free. They're trying to capture the investment money that a successful entrepreneur eventually has in the financial house. So they

• 11:37Speaker 03

  Make these business accounts free to have and use and no minimums on them. But I want to hear back, Kate, how your son does with this because I think this is inspirational for other people that are teenagers, 20-somethings or later, who feel like, yeah, I got that idea. I really think I can do it. When you're young enough, you don't talk yourself out of something. You know, you just go and do it. When I opened my first business, I never thought about the idea that this was something I wouldn't be able to do. When we got some age on us,

• 12:20Speaker 03

  we always talk ourselves out of taking risks. He's at a point that I love it. And even if the business does not successfully launch, just the fact that he has the spirit like that is going to serve him well as he moves forward.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  All right. Karen in Texas says, hi Clark, can you please share more information about this new to me Equifax employer verification slash salary info tool? Uh oh. I see that I can freeze my account. I created an account. Okay, deep breath, deep breath. I created an account and downloaded my employment salary report and see quite a few errors and missing employers, even an employer that I worked for for five plus years. Thanks for all that you do for us.

• 13:14Speaker 03

  Well, thank you for bringing this up. This has only come up once before, and I think it's been a good while. So I talked months ago about the new study that found enormous errors on credit reports, but even more significant, the failure of the credit bureaus to properly correct incorrect information on reports. Just as you have found with an employment history verification process, all kinds of inaccurate information. That's also what we've heard from other people. So. Employers want to do a background check. They use these services.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  I use the word services loosely because of the inaccuracies involved. And so when you're looking for a job, you can see your report from Equifax or whatever service they're using. In this case, it was an Equifax employer verification. So you can, you can see the report. And then in theory, you can correct errors on it and you should do so. You can also freeze it. Krista of our crew checked hers before and found that it was mostly accurate. But she's worked for only two employers over the last quarter century. And so a media company and me.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  So, I mean, hers is pretty simple. But a lot of people have a lot of different jobs on there. People of same or similar name. The files end up messed up. So you want to know what's on your report. If you give permission for an employer to see it, you want to tell them, hey, by the way, I've looked at mine and they've got a job on there I never had. It must be somebody of a similar name. And you also can put a freeze on your report that keeps an employer from looking at it. And only if you decide to give permission, you can thaw it just like a regular credit report and you should.

• 15:19Speaker 04

  Rose in North Carolina says, hello Clark. Thank you for all you and your staff do for us. I've been thinking of downsizing and I've been watching videos about the tiny house trend. What is your opinion on purchasing a tiny home? And is it any different than buying a mobile home?

• 15:38Speaker 03

  So Rose, a lot with buying a tiny home depends on where you live. And you need to check in your county in North Carolina and find out are there any bureaucratic hurdles you have to jump through in order to buy a tiny home and put it on a piece of property? You'll need, depending on the tiny home and your property. You'll need either some form of foundation many times, or you can leave it. Tiny homes can be mobile, although it's safer if it's on some form of slab or its own foundation, but that adds a lot to the cost.

• 16:21Speaker 03

  There are a lot of prefab tiny homes. You can buy and have them trucked right to you as long as the county rules where you live allow that. The savings are fantastic. I did in my TV work, I did a tiny home story and I spent time in tiny homes. And it's really crazy how efficiently you can take a space of 250 to 450 square feet and make it livable, particularly for one person. Now, I did, one of the homes I visited, a couple was living in, and you better really

• 17:04Speaker 03

  be compatible with that person to live in that little tiny home. But the savings are phenomenal. And you really only save the big money if it is a prefab that's just dropped at your spot. If you have stick built or custom built at your property, you're not going to find the savings that you want. It versus buying a mobile home. Mobile home many times will be more square footage than a tiny home. Quality of mobile home construction varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, even factory to factory.

• 17:47Speaker 03

  And so if you know people who own a mobile home, live in one, and they're really happy with the one that they're in, you want to know the model and manufacturer as a potential alternative to a tiny home. But yes, either is a very affordable method of housing. And with a mobile home, having it properly anchored is so very important. A lot of people cheap out on that, don't have them properly anchored, and in a heavy storm, hopefully never a tornado, a not anchored mobile home.

• 18:25Speaker 03

  Can be a very dangerous place to be, but great ways to save money.

• 18:31Speaker 04

  Do you think you could live in a tiny home?

• 18:33Speaker 03

  Not a chance on earth.

• 18:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm not sure between our dogs and your cargo shorts, we would have room. Just saying.

• 18:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, tiny home is, I mean, I really enjoy visiting with people who, who had them, who lived in them and how they use space with maximum efficiency. The videos I've seen of people who live in Hong Kong, whole families in, in spaces that are under 200 square feet and how they use every square inch of the place.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  So efficient.

• 19:12Speaker 03

  Is just amazing. And so I'm really spoiled. I like a little bit of space. So not for me.

• 19:21Speaker 04

  All right.

• 19:22Speaker 03

  You couldn't do it.

• 19:23Speaker 04

  I couldn't do it. I couldn't know it.

• 19:24Speaker 03

  Not, not a chance.

• 19:25Speaker 04

  There's not a chance. No.

• 19:26Speaker 03

  No, not happening for you. Coming up ahead, how'd you like to find some free money? And have it not be a scam? I'm going to tell you about that.

• 19:38Speaker 01

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• 19:50Speaker 02

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• 19:53Speaker 05

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• 20:24Speaker 06

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• 21:36Speaker 04

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• 21:39Speaker 03

  I have free money for you. And I am not a scamster. So we did this, I think it was like back before Christmas. And we kept hearing from people, thank you, thank you. It was a Christmas gift. So for any of a number of reasons. Former job. Some kind of insurance money. Something from an employer retirement plan, whatever. There could be money of yours that got lost in space. Happened recently to a family member of mine. They believe it or not. This is crazy story.

• 22:23Speaker 03

  Got over $10,000 from an insurance policy they didn't even know was out there. From a relative who died, just sitting there unclaimed. Depending on whose estimate you believe, somewhere around 75, 80 billion dollars. Billion with a B. Sitting many times in the hands of a state. But it could be other sources too. Money for you that's just hanging out there, lost. One of the areas money's sitting now is often from retirement plans.

• 22:59Speaker 03

  Because people change jobs so often now. I mean, it's not all unusual for somebody to have one to two dozen jobs over a working lifetime. And many of those jobs may have had a 401k, long since forgotten about, and money just lost in space. Now, there are organizations that are not crooks, but are unnecessary, that might send you an email, a letter, telling you, hey, there's money we found of yours, we'll reunite you with

• 23:38Speaker 03

  it for 30% finder's fee. And yes, there are times that you'll get an email like that as a scamster trying to get your social security number and other key information. But most of the time, it's an actual legit notice you're getting from a finder fee service. But this information is on public databases and is available to you at any time for free. And I'm sure after today, just like so many other times recently, we will hear from people

• 24:16Speaker 03

  who got reunited with money. Now, my middle brother just found 50 something dollars, and he did the work to get his 50 something dollars. Good for you, Neil. I mean, why would you walk away from money? Because most of the time, it's not going to be 10 grand. It's going to be a few hundred dollars, maybe a couple of thousand, something like that. And the lift you have to do to find if there's money for you is really tiny. Most states in the country, there's only a couple of exceptions, cooperate on the missingmoney.com

• 24:56Speaker 03

  database, missingmoney.com. And you go there, and you have about a 15% chance of finding your name there. If you throw in friends and relatives, it'll go way beyond 15% chance.

• 25:16Speaker 03

  Now then the fun starts. Depending on laws in a state, you may have a little bit of work to do or a lot of documentation to provide. After my mom died years later, there was money that turned out to be there in her name and her estate. I'd been one of the executors of my mom's estate. The paperwork that had to be done, I had to go down to a county courthouse. I had to do all kinds of things to shake that money tree. Most of the time, it's not going to be that bad. But just know, follow up and follow through is going to be key.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  And a lot of times, depending on the state database, when you find yourself on missingmoney.com or you find a relative and they go to work at it, they may tell you a zone of money, maybe less than $500, less than $100, or less than $10,000, whatever. Some states do that and you can decide, well, I'm lazy. I would go after if it was, you know, less than a thousand, but I'm not going after it for less than 100. You've got to make that decision yourself. And then there's a database for employer kind of money that could be sitting out there.

• 26:37Speaker 03

  And so we have put together a really easy to use guide at Clark.com and you can click on it in our show information from today. Unclaimed Money: How to Find and Claim Missing Funds for Free. Could we make it any easier as a title? You just do that search at Clark.com and go find your money. We just updated the article again recently to guide you through the various places you can look for old 401ks, bank accounts, any of these kinds of things, insurance policies. Your money, I don't want your state to have it. I want you to have it. Lane, what you got?

• 27:22Speaker 04

  Well, my first question is, what's the smallest amount of money that you would go for? $1 I bet.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  I'm just guessing.

• 27:32Speaker 03

  All right. True story. And I don't know if you remember this. We were changing planes once in Raleigh, North Carolina.

• 27:41Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 27:42Speaker 03

  And we took a delay. And I said, I'm gonna go walk around. Left you in the terminal, had to go through security again and all that. Tell me if you remember this.

• 27:54Speaker 04

  I do remember this.

• 27:56Speaker 03

  I saw one of those luggage carts that people use. And it was a quarter you got back.

• 28:03Speaker 03

  If you returned it, and people just abandoned these all over the place. They didn't care about the quarters. And I had a couple of hours to kill.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  So he's collecting carts.

• 28:13Speaker 03

  And I'm getting these carts. And I made like $4 and something, taking these carts.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  So excited.

• 28:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:23Speaker 04

  That was great.

• 28:24Speaker 03

  So that's the answer. A 25 cent return. Now I think you got more money if you return those carts.

• 28:29Speaker 04

  Yeah. So you need to get up there immediately.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 28:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Get on a plane, go to Raleigh.

• 28:35Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  And just go around the airport.

• 28:38Speaker 04

  I think you need to do that.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  Return carts.

• 28:42Speaker 04

  I knew the answer before I asked, actually.

• 28:46Speaker 04

  I was just letting you know. Okay, you ready?

• 28:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:48Speaker 04

  Okay. Jennifer in Michigan says, question. Since you travel so much, Clark, do you travel with a camera detection device to check the places, you know, that you're staying to see if you're being recorded or checked on?

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Jennifer, I assume you're referring to the terrible stories about voyeurs who rent out Airbnbs. It's happened a couple of times in hotels. There was one years ago that happened to a female sports reporter who was being videoed in a hotel, in a hotel room. No, I've never done anything like that. I don't, I don't think anybody who's using a hidden camera is particularly interested in looking at me. I guess that's why I've never thought about it. But it does happen. And what I'm surprised about is that it keeps happening in Airbnbs. And I don't know what the owners.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  If they have a camera and tell you, they have a camera in a living room or something like that, I get that if they want to make sure the place isn't, there's not a big party going on or something like that.

• 30:03Speaker 04

  I'm still not sure I'd be comfortable with that.

• 30:05Speaker 03

  Well, I mean, people aren't. That's why Jennifer's asking the question. But no, I've never done anything like that. And Jennifer, what you and I have just done very successfully here is we've made everybody paranoid about the next time they go to a hotel or rent an Airbnb.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  How much is a device like that? I mean, is it?

• 30:24Speaker 03

  I don't, I didn't even know there was a device that sniffed out that the cameras were in use. So Jennifer, thank you for that. And I guess Sally can check later and we can put in our notes if there are simple devices like that you can get.

• 30:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, might be good to have one. Why not? Okay, John in North Carolina says, "We were cheated out of two hours of our upcoming cruise vacation so that they could slow the boat down and save on fuel. What are the best ways to inform people about this shady practice? Here is the email that we received. Dear guest, we're looking forward to welcoming you aboard the blank boat, ship, I should say, not boat, for your upcoming sailing. Before you begin to plan and pack, we want to inform you about an update to our itinerary. To ensure a timely return to Baltimore, Maryland, we will now depart Royal Navy Dockyard, Bermuda,

• 31:24Speaker 04

  at 11:59 a.m. on day four. Not to worry, you'll still enjoy an overnight visit with plenty of time to experience everything this beautiful destination has to offer. We're sorry for any inconvenience that this may cause."

• 31:38Speaker 03

  Right, John, you are gonna hate what I say here. Lane and I have been on a few dozen cruises. Routinely, they delete ports.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  They cut port stops short. A lot of people will have plans for excursions on an island that a cruise is scheduled to stop at, and then they just mysteriously, they delete that port. Two hours haircut on time in a port. You have no rights with that. Every cruise contract says clearly that they can change the itineraries, ports of call, blah, blah, blah. And when you and I were on the shipboard fire back 11 years ago.

• 32:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:26Speaker 03

  And unfortunately, people were hurt in that fire. We were just stranded at sea and took a while to resume the cruise, but we were out in the

• 32:39Speaker 04

  Floating.

• 32:40Speaker 03

  Aegean or Adrienne. We were in one of those, the Greek Isles.

• 32:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't remember.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  And we lost a stop that we were looking forward to, but that was not the big deal is the people who were hurt on the ship in the fire. And there's no compensation for that.

• 32:57Speaker 04

  No.

• 32:58Speaker 03

  It's just, it's just what it is.

• 32:59Speaker 04

  And we lost, I guess we had several engines down, no stabilizers. It was

• 33:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, you got really seasick.

• 33:06Speaker 04

  I got really seasick.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  And so I

• 33:09Speaker 04

  And I said, I'm never doing this again. And then I did.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  So the, the point is, John, this is part of, part of the deal when you go on a cruise is the ports are not guaranteed. And we were, Lane and I were booked on a cruise just to go to Egypt, Israel, Turkey, and Greece, I guess. And it was right after the Hamas thing in Israel in, I guess, was that 24? So the cruise first reoriented all the stops, all those were out. And a lot of it was sailing at sea and then they moved the ship.

• 33:53Speaker 04

  Completely.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  And so we ended up having to go on a completely different cruise. And there are no rights. The only thing they did was they didn't charge us a change fee in that case.

• 34:05Speaker 04

  They make the rules. All right. Molly in California says, I'm traveling with my mother to the UK next month and learned that we needed to get an electronic travel authorization from the UK ahead of time. Uh oh. I somehow used a third party website that charged me $282. It should have only been $13 a person. And even though I was able to dispute the charge with my credit card company, I don't feel good about a scammer website having our passport information. Please warn others to use only the official gov.uk ETA website.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  Molly, thank you very much. This is going to become a much bigger issue in just a short while as separate from the UK, the EU is coming up with a new ETA that was already supposed to be implemented, but has been delayed because they're having some technology problems. And the scammers, anytime a country comes up with an electronic travel authority, the scammers invade and the curse is a Google search or anything like that. And if you look at the Australian website for their electronic authority, I think Thailand has one, the UK, there are these scattered around the world.

• 35:26Speaker 03

  Every one of these governments at the real website says, beware, there are scam websites that you're not supposed to go to. But unfortunately, because people do a Google search or any other kind of search, they end up at these phony sites. And the least bad thing that happens is they steal your money like they tried to do from you, Molly. Thank goodness your credit card company was there for you. But the message you brought is so important because it's just like the stuff I've talked about, you never look for a company's customer note service number on a Google search because virtually everyone you'll see is phony. I saw a news story recently

• 36:09Speaker 03

  in USA Today about a customer who lost, I think it was $2,200 on, they searched on Google for United Customer Service, called the number that was there. It was a scamster who stole a couple of thousand dollars from them and they did not get it back from their credit card company. So know that this is a big criminal enterprise, not Google's fault. They've not been able to improve the algorithms enough to eliminate all these responses of scamsters who have learned to manipulate it to show up in the Google search. And that's

• 36:50Speaker 03

  probably, you didn't say so, but I'm guessing that's how you ended up at the phony ETA site. So you've got to make sure with any of these countries for the ETAs, that you're at the .gov for that, the government official site. And the worst bad, as you said, Molly, is if the criminals trade in your personal information now in addition to having stolen money from you. And I'm so glad you got your money back. Hopefully, nothing bad will ever happen with your personal information. And this is like a plague with these phony responses

• 37:34Speaker 03

  for numbers and websites. Hotel chains have been a, it's been a huge problem. Let's say you know you like to stay at blah, blah, blah Hotel Chicago and you do a search for blah, blah, blah Hotel Chicago.

• 37:53Speaker 03

  Probably at least the first six results will be phony. Could be more than six. So you gotta know how careful you have to be that you are at the actual real website you're trying to get to. Gosh, I hate having to say that.

• 38:15Speaker 04

  It's really-

• 38:15Speaker 03

  That is such a negative way to end.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  It's frustrating, I know.

• 38:19Speaker 03

  Well, Lain, thank you so much for being with us.

• 38:24Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  For podcast.

• 38:25Speaker 04

  And you get Krista back next time.

• 38:27Speaker 03

  Krista will be with us for Clark Stinks on Friday.

• 38:31Speaker 04

  That was my favorite part.

• 38:33Speaker 03

  You enjoyed doing Clark Stinks?

• 38:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, but Clark Stinks was fun.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  Do you have some repressed anger towards me you need to get out?

• 38:38Speaker 04

  No, no, it was-

• 38:39Speaker 03

  Because you can have the stage right now.

• 38:42Speaker 04

  No.

• 38:43Speaker 03

  If you want.

• 38:44Speaker 04

  I'm good, thank you.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  You're good?

• 38:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  But thank you for filling in.

• 38:48Speaker 04

  Sure, anytime.

• 38:49Speaker 03

  And appreciate it and jealous that Krista got to go play for the last 10 days.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  You never get to go anywhere.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  I know.

• 38:57Speaker 04

  I'm sorry.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  I know, it's terrible. Anyway, do I love travel? It's been great being with you today and know that everything we're about is you and your empowerment with knowledge so you can save more, spend less, and just as we were talking about with the ETA scam, don't ever get ripped off. See you Friday.

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