Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 06.16.25 Kids Gone Wild Ordering Online / Rental Car Inspection Warning About this episode Today - you may have heard about the boy who ordered 70,000 lollipops on Amazon. A reminder for parents to childproof devices to protect your accounts from plundering toddlers! Also, the stakes are higher now when renting a car. There’s a new inspection practice you must be aware of to protect your wallet. Childproof your devices: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Car Rental Warning: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Prevent This $4,000 Oopsie From Happening to You Budgeting Basics: What You Need To Know To Get Started Free Budget Worksheet: The CLARK Method to Create a Monthly Budget Military and Veterans Guide: Free Resources for Your Finances How Long Should I Save Pictures of My Car Rental? How Can I Fight an Unfair Rental Car Charge? New Report: Best and Worst Car Rental Companies in America Cheapest Way to Rent a Car: Expert Tips How To Get a Free Credit Report The Best International Phone Plans TALK2ME 25 ULTRA MINI Portable PoC Walkie-Talkie Set 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 0:00 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.
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1:04 Speaker 02 I'm so glad you're with us 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. And today, you may have already heard the crazy story about the boy who ordered 70,000 dum-dums on his mom's Amazon account. Eight years old. We're going to talk about how do you protect yourself from this kind of stuff that kids do, not just on Amazon. And coming up also later, we're going to talk about something you've got to know about
1:47 Speaker 02 what car rental companies are doing to hurt your wallet.
1:53 Speaker 02 If you aren't aware of this, you don't want to find out the hard way. But this is kind of the hard way. Holly LeFaver's son, Holly lives in Lexington, Kentucky, or near Lexington, loves Dum Dums. So the eight-year-old ordered 70,000 of them on Amazon. And they show up at the house. And there's all these boxes you see in pictures that the media has published of all these Dum Dums on the front stoop of the house. And she calls Amazon customer no service. And Amazon says, life's tough and then you die.
2:37 Speaker 02 Dum Dums can't be returned. You were a Dum Dum that your kid had access to your Amazon account on your phone. So the media frenzy commences. And TV stations are there. I mean, imagine what an easy. It's like a easy layup in basketball. I mean, a reporter, go out and film this stuff and do a story about it. And big bad Amazon sticking the mom with a $4,200 bill saying the Dum Dums are yours. Tough. Okay. So parents routinely give kids their phone when they're single digits to play games or whatever.
3:22 Speaker 02 And we've had the problems over the years where the kids do end game purchases that suddenly show up on the parents' bill. Never had 70,000 lollipops, but there's been a lot of problems with kids taking a parent's phone and just having a field day buying whatever. And it shows up. Kid at eight may not know better. By the way, the kid was trying to buy, was it seven lollipops? And didn't realize bought 70,000. Anyway, after all the fuss.
3:55 Speaker 03 A likely story.
3:59 Speaker 02 Would you have ordered 70,000 Dum Dums?
4:02 Speaker 03 I mean, I might have when I was a kid. Lifetime supply.
4:06 Speaker 02 I've never been a Dum Dum fan. I was Dum Dum enough myself. Anyway. So, Amazon, after they got all the just bad publicity, says to Holly, "You keep them." So, there was a double whammy for Amazon. They got all the bad publicity and they ended up having to comp them. But what was she gonna do with 70,000 lollipops? She did something smart. She gave them all to charities that had ways to distribute them one at a time to kids. So, 70,000 to one kid. So, I'm making light of this, but with a point.
4:46 Speaker 02 Because I dealt with some stuff when my son was a single digit, where he was buying some stuff that was billing through the Apple Store. Did you ever have that?
5:00 Speaker 03 Not through Apple. I had an incident with my son and Roblox.
5:05 Speaker 02 Oh, and Roblox now has a procedure that parents have got to know to use that blocks your kid from buying stuff. If you don't want them buying stuff.
5:16 Speaker 03 That would have been nice.
5:17 Speaker 02 Yeah. How much did that end up costing you?
5:20 Speaker 03 I've blocked it out. I can't remember.
5:22 Speaker 02 Was it in the thousands?
5:23 Speaker 03 No, it was in the hundreds.
5:25 Speaker 02 Yeah, my son managed to spend hundreds of dollars I was not happy about that Apple billed. Anyway, parents, you gotta know that these electronics have a lot of power. Your laptop has a lot of power to spend money. Password protection, a really good idea.
5:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, maybe fingerprint. Yeah, definitely. All right, we'll go to questions now. Donnie in Texas says, "My employer provides health insurance through the largest health insurer in the U.S.," which is, I'm just gonna say it, United Healthcare. I mean, it's the largest one. "I contribute to an FSA and the plan allows a rollover from year to year up to $500. Last year, I had around $200 that I was not able to use and rolled it over to this year. Here's the part that annoys me. The FSA doesn't use the rolled over funds first when an auto redeeming for reimbursements to my bank account."
6:20 Speaker 02 They don't what? Really?
6:23 Speaker 02 Are they trying to cheat people out of their money?
6:26 Speaker 03 They don't even automatically redeem those funds at all. I will have to manually enter medical bills for reimbursement to get those funds back. It seems like they have designed their system so that there's a high likelihood that people will end up losing that money, which I believe is returned to the employer. I'm not that surprised by that. I'm surprised you are. Like, I know that if you use your debit card that comes with it, that's, you know, and usually have to still submit a receipt. But, I mean, our plan through the company, I have to, it's not even through our health insurance provider.
6:55 Speaker 02 He's talking about that the money that they pull from first is the current year's money, not the rollover from the prior year.
7:03 Speaker 03 Oh, is that what he's saying? Okay.
7:04 Speaker 02 And you're right. I don't know what's in it for United Healthcare, because the money goes back to your employer. So, United Healthcare is doing something that makes them a villain for not any financial benefit to United Healthcare. That's weird.
7:19 Speaker 03 That is weird. You're right.
7:20 Speaker 02 Maybe we'll hear from United Healthcare. They could use something positive, say, "Well, we fixed this." Don't you think you could do that?
7:29 Speaker 03 Craig in Texas says, "About a decade ago, when my wife and I finished school, we entered into an agreement. I would work to support us while she went to medical school, residency, and fellowship. And then, once she had completed her training and started earning the big bucks, I would take my turn to go back into grad school and get a useless degree in the humanities to pursue my love of teaching." Well, we are nearing the end of residency now, and the time is upon us. In the meantime, we've had two kids and I've-
7:59 Speaker 02 Congratulations.
8:00 Speaker 03 I've progressed in my career quite a bit to where I'm-
8:03 Speaker 02 Congratulations again.
8:04 Speaker 03 To where I, myself, am earning the big bucks. And now I'm faced with a dilemma-
8:07 Speaker 02 Oh, golden handcuffs.
8:09 Speaker 03 "I've become much more fiscally conservative because I'm old enough to know that living is expensive, and I have two kids that I want to give the best opportunity I can to. I kind of like my career, though I don't love it. And I feel like I was kind of brainwashed into liking it because I had to. I'm also world-wise enough to know that even dream jobs are jobs. I don't expect Clark to resolve all the personal decisions that go into quitting your high-paying job to follow your dream, but I wondered if he could at least lay out some ways to judge what's reasonable and not, as far as personal finance goes. We have very little student debt left to pay off. We have a high household income already, which will go higher once she earns the big bucks. And yet, I still don't feel I can afford to take the hit."
8:51 Speaker 02 So I, I kinda stepped over Chris to saying golden handcuffs. Your classic golden handcuff situation. First, I want you to think about the next time you see a doctor to appreciate how much time they spend in the grind of school, internships, residency, fellowship. Before, I mean, think about somebody, get out of undergraduate school and before they earn a real paycheck, they can be in their mid 30s already. I mean, it's a tough road to be a doctor and people just don't respect that. Okay, enough for the doctors.
9:36 Speaker 03 And teachers, and he wants to be a teacher.
9:39 Speaker 02 Right, but teachers don't spend
9:42 Speaker 03 Teachers don't make the big bucks, but we have to appreciate them.
9:45 Speaker 02 Teachers do not make big bucks.
9:46 Speaker 03 I mean, he's talking about going to graduate school to teach.
9:49 Speaker 02 Okay, so how do you resolve this? There's not an automatic, easy answer. You said you don't feel like you can afford the hit. So you can't wait forever to now do what you want to do. And at the same time, you want to make sure that you're doing a great job as a couple, being able to provide for the household and ultimately for the children. I think you gotta sit down and really work on a budget. Normally I talk about budgeting with people that are having financial difficulty paying their bills. What you've got is you've got a large income coming in.
10:33 Speaker 02 You also have probably developed a more expensive lifestyle. Look at where your money's actually going. Dig deep in it. See what would have to be sacrificed from what you're spending money on every month that would afford the opportunity for you to go into a lower paying profession and have a timeout from earning money for probably two years, one to two years, getting the master's degree. So you can do what you'd love to do, which is to teach. I'm such a believer. And doing what you love.
11:13 Speaker 02 Your wife is going to be able to provide a very large income after all those years that you provided the support to the family. And I want you to pursue it. So I want you to take that time, figure out the budget, figure out what you can cut and still provide a decent life for the family. And you go get that degree, you go teach. Your wife's doing what is about to do for her career, what she loves. You should be able to follow that original agreement and do what you love.
11:49 Speaker 03 I just want to offer some unsolicited advice. I hope this is okay. But I would also say that whether you're thinking of teaching, you know, in elementary, high school, or on the college level, I would definitely go meet with several teachers and even see if you can sort of shadow a professor if it's college and just like find out what their day-to-day life is really like and what the hard point, pain points are of the job and what the great things are, just to make sure that you're fully versed in what it's going to be. And hopefully it's still your dream. So.
12:20 Speaker 02 That is a very good suggestion.
12:22 Speaker 03 Okay. Here's a question from Matt in Nebraska. I've heard you talk about the premium travel cards with the high annual fees, but haven't heard you mention that the American Express Platinum and Chase Sapphire Reserve are offered free to military members and their dependents. This is also true for the American Express Gold Card.
12:39 Speaker 02 That's fantastic. I only knew that recently because a gentleman I know who's a Colonel in the Air Force was talking about how he got the American Express Platinum for free. And it's something I've never mentioned and never knew till he and I recently were talking about it. I'm so glad you reminded me of this and you brought it forward, being a true member of Team Clark. And I love that American Express and Chase do this for the wonderful, brave, patriotic men and women who serve in our US military.
13:21 Speaker 02 Speaking of travel, straight ahead, we're going to talk about something you gotta know when you rent a car. It's a new, higher level of stakes in the game of renting a car that you need to thoroughly hear me on or regret it later.
13:41 Speaker 00 This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs.
14:11 Speaker 04 Low energy, unfocused, foggy? You might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colors or flavors. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
14:41 Speaker 02 The rental car wars continue. What's the rental car war? It's not between the rental car companies. It's them versus us. It's probably the most adversarial relationship now in travel with rental cars. And you think about how crazy the business is. You fly somewhere, you hand them a credit card and your driver's license, and they let you drive off for so many dollars a day. Rental car rates have been going down. So let's say you're renting a car for 50 bucks a day, or 70 bucks a day, or whatever it is with all
15:19 Speaker 02 the junk fees. And they let you drive off in a vehicle that costs them $40,000. I mean, is this a great country or what? That's nuts, right? And it's been hard for companies to make money renting cars. Hertz has been bankrupt. It's been the longtime troubled Hertz Rent A Car. Anyway, we now have three companies that the industry's consolidated. We have three companies that control pretty much all the brands. So under one umbrella, like Enterprise, Alamo, National, all owned by one owner,
15:58 Speaker 02 Hertz, Payless, Thrifty, maybe, all one brand. Then you got Avis and Budget together. And then the one outsider in the game is Sixt. It's owned by a European family, S I X T. It's huge in Europe, smaller here. But it's an industry that's consolidated from where at one time it had seriously more than 10 players slugging it out. And then you and I were winning the market share wars with crazy low rates. Well, now these three big companies are playing really rough and tumble on the condition you return the car in versus
16:40 Speaker 02 what they say you returned it in. And so that's why, if you're a longtime listener or viewer, you've heard me say how important it is to pull out your smartphone and shoot a video of the vehicle before you leave the rental car plaza and shoot a video when you return it. Because the car rental agencies are using technology to your harm. They're busying locations and it will spread from there as the technology gets cheaper. They are using, what I saw an article about the Hertz system, they refer to as the Hertz
17:19 Speaker 02 AI X-Ray Tunnel. And I don't know what it's really called. But I know that Alamo and its brands, Enterprise and National, have this available to them now in more and more busy locations. I've not read anything about Avis using this for Avis and Budget locations yet. But what they do is they use AI to completely analyze every square inch of the vehicle, looking for something they can bill you for. And the allegations are they're billing more than one person, more than one rental for the same damage. Who knows? That'll wait for whatever whistleblower and lawsuit.
18:00 Speaker 02 Follow that, but know that anything that happened to that vehicle before you got in it, you need to document with a video. You don't leave the place without somebody there acknowledging in writing that there's damage to this fender, this bumper, this taillight, whatever. You do it thoroughly. When you return, you thoroughly shoot video with your phone. You hold it for, I was asked recently how long you should hold it? Minimum three months. Because when you got contacted by the loss control, or whatever they call
18:40 Speaker 02 it at the car rental agencies, they're treating you as guilty. You have to prove your innocence. And they may even just straight bill your credit card for whatever claim of damage that they say exists.
18:54 Speaker 03 All right. Speaking of such, Sandy in Georgia says, "My husband and I rented a car. We were in Colorado for a memorial service. We waited in this huge lobby and eventually somebody did pull up with the car. Nobody was standing there to have a sign off on the car. So my husband told me to videotape the outside of the car. I took my phone out, videotaped as much as I could. I didn't videotape the inside. We returned the car and once again in the rental car's garage at the airport, I videotaped the outside and we went home. Three months later, we received a bill in the mail from them for $700. I called the rental car company and asked what the charge was for. Customer service indicated it was for a broken windshield. I requested a copy of the incident report and a photo of the
19:38 Speaker 03 windshield to be sent to me. Once it was received, the photo showed a huge crack from one side of the windshield to the other, something we would have surely seen and notated. But my videos of the car, the day we returned it, clearly showed that the windshield was not broken."
19:53 Speaker 02 Ah ha! The video paid off, huh?
19:56 Speaker 03 I sent all my evidence back to the customer service rep who indicated she would send it to the team and they would be in touch with me. It's been over six months and I have not heard back from them. I've not reached back out to them either. My question is, should I reach back out to them and have them send me some kind of paperwork indicating it's closed and I'm not liable, or just leave well enough alone?
20:15 Speaker 02 So, the operational problems at Hertz have been so well documented. Hertz has been a mess. They have a new CEO who says it's not going to be a mess anymore. But this to me is a perfect example of a mess. Takes them three months to tell you that the windshield was broken and they're billing you for it. You provide documentation, you didn't do it, and it just disappears? I wouldn't trust it's disappeared. And I would get back in touch with Hertz and say, "I need something in writing saying you're done with me about this." Hertz is not to be trusted. And I can tell you that, and I do rent from Hertz,
20:57 Speaker 02 but I don't trust them. And you shouldn't either because there have been all those well documented cases where Hertz was having people arrested for supposedly having stolen a car. They turned in and people rotted in jail, had to hire lawyers to clear their name. Inexcusable, unacceptable, and understand that you have got to protect yourself when you rent a car. Yes, Hertz has been the biggest problem, but it's your money. Follow the procedure that we just heard that Sandy did and I talked about. You protect yourself. And Hertz, get your act together.
21:42 Speaker 03 All right. Michael in Georgia says, "I recently got a Chase Sapphire Preferred card, and I see that they offer primary auto rental coverage. I asked them for a letter of coverage. They have my last name correct, as well as the insurance company, Assurant. The problem is that when they send me a letter showing I have coverage, my last name is spelled wrong. I also on occasion get some solicitations in the mail with the same misspelled last name. All three credit bureaus have my correct spelling, so there must be another company that has my last name spelled wrong. How can I correct this? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I love, love, love your show and listen every day. It makes my commute to work so much better."
22:18 Speaker 02 So, Michael, I'm surprised about something because if you got the long form... Of your credit file from Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian, which you can see for free at annualcreditreport.com. Remember that website, annualcreditreport.com. It's required by federal law that they have a gateway that the credit bureaus cooperate on to make your report available to you for nothing. If you print out the long form or read the long form of each report, there will be an AKA section, also known as, you'll see the misspellings they have of your name or the various forms
23:03 Speaker 02 they show your name on the AKA part of the report. Somebody, somewhere, and I don't know that you're going to figure out who, has your name wrong and credit bureaus only are parrots. They're reporting to you and to others what's reported to them by various subscribers to their service. And so I don't think you have to worry too much, but I think you will find that on the extended credit report files from the bureaus, again for free, you'll be able to see if you've got AKAs there that match up with the misspelling that you are seeing.
23:47 Speaker 03 Okay, this is from Jeff in South Carolina. I hear you talk a lot about easy ways to stay connected with loved ones overseas. Google Fi, WhatsApp, local SIMs, Wi-Fi, et cetera. I've never heard you mention these relatively new devices. It's POC, Global Walkie Talkies. I recently bought a set and they are amazingly powerful and inexpensive and eliminate some of the downfalls of the other methods. I'm in no way affiliated, but wanted to pass it along. Keep up the great work.
24:14 Speaker 02 Okay, so let me tell you what we're talking about. Do you remember when, oh yeah, I'm familiar.
24:20 Speaker 03 Okay, I just wanted to see the one he was specifically.
24:22 Speaker 02 Yeah, I've never talked about this. Nobody's ever asked me about it. But do you remember?
24:27 Speaker 03 Look how tiny they are.
24:28 Speaker 02 Well, there's various models that you can get of walkie talkies.
24:33 Speaker 03 This guy's got one clip to his shirt.
24:36 Speaker 02 Who remembers long ago Nextel?
24:40 Speaker 03 Yes.
24:40 Speaker 02 Remember Nextel? And people would be on the walkie talkie of Nextel. It was really big in the construction industry. And everybody would have like a Nextel number. And you'd be able to talk to them over the walkie talkie. This is back in the era where you paid for every minute. Used a cellphone. And people would use Nextel walkie talkies as a way to communicate with others on the system for free. So this is that modernized. And you can buy service for different regions of the world. You can buy worldwide. I don't remember what they cost.
25:19 Speaker 03 These are 140. The one that this guy bought.
25:21 Speaker 02 I don't care about the devices.
25:22 Speaker 03 Okay.
25:23 Speaker 02 I'm talking about the service.
25:25 Speaker 03 Oh.
25:25 Speaker 02 What is the service cost? Cause that's the thing that matters is, oh, here are the rate plans. So if you get the global plan that allows you to call from most anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world, it's a hundred dollars. Oh, $79 plus whatever taxes there are.
25:47 Speaker 03 Annually.
25:47 Speaker 02 For an annual plan that allows you to talk back and forth, basically no metering of minutes, you're talking walkie talkie. And so I've never talked about it because nobody's ever asked about it. I don't know how many competitors there are for this. But when I first heard about it, I thought, oh, somebody made Nextel, son of Nextel to work worldwide. And that's what this is. So I guess there are people who, this would be a great way to save money, but I've never thought about it because the whole idea, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, over?
26:26 Speaker 03 Roger.
26:29 Speaker 03 Roger, that, I actually have, I remember, I'm not going to name names, but you and I were with a friend of yours and we were going out to dinner. We were traveling and we met up with your friend and that friend's wife. You drove in the car with his wife. I drove in the car with him and they had next to like walkie talkies. And his wife was like, I don't know if she was lost. And he was literally like screaming into the walkie talkie at her the entire car ride. I felt so trapped. It was awful. Do you know what I'm talking about?
27:01 Speaker 02 I don't remember that at all.
27:03 Speaker 03 I'll tell you, I'll tell you. Okay. It was traumatic for me.
27:07 Speaker 02 Really? Gosh, I don't remember that. Oh, that's funny.
27:11 Speaker 03 Yeah.
27:12 Speaker 02 Okay, so Jeff, I thank you so much for bringing this up because I never thought that that would be of interest to people. And as I think about it, imagine people have relatives living overseas or whatever, to have a really affordable way to stay in contact, other than all the other ways that we've talked about. That's great. Although a lot of people say, Clark, Clark, what's wrong with using WhatsApp or FaceTime? But again, you're having to be on a plan that you're able to be the one traveling and not getting your wallet clobbered by being able to communicate with people back here. So, thank you, Jeff.
27:57 Speaker 02 And I hope you have an absolutely great, great day in front of you. I had a wonderful weekend this past weekend. I hope this whole week is great for you and know that we serve you all week long, so many different ways. Clark.com, Clarkdeals.com, one-on-one free advice through the Team Clark Consumer Action Center, on air, on various TV stations around the country, radio stations, on the news each day, here to serve you every possible way for you to stretch your wallet so you can save more, spend less, and avoid getting ripped off.
28:42 Speaker 02 And see you Wednesday.
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