10.01.25 Warning: Sports Gambling / Assignment: Your Credit Report

In this episode, football is in full swing, and so is something very troubling. People are losing enormous amounts of money on electronic gambling. Clark discusses how the nature of modern gambling can increase the risk of gambling addiction, and steps to take if this is a concern. Also - How accurate are credit reports by the 3 credit bureaus? What you don’t know about your credit report can hurt you. A Clark assignment. Sports Gambling: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Credit Report Accuracy: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Resource: Pause Before You Play Best Online Banks: Free Checking and High-Interest Savings Accounts How To Buy a Used Car How To Get a Free Credit Report Credit Karma Review: Free Credit Score and More at Your Fingertips How To Freeze and Unfreeze Your Credit With Experian, Equifax and TransUnion Why Clark Howard Wants You to Set Up a 'Financial Chromebook' How To Bring an Old Laptop Back to Life for Free 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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:30Speaker 01

  LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot stop your new clients from emailing you at 3 a.m.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  We can help you sell, market, and hire in one place. We cannot help you be in three places at once.

• 0:47Speaker 01

  And while we can't help you organize your calendar, LinkedIn can help you land more clients so you have a calendar to organize. Grow your small business on LinkedIn. Learn more at LinkedIn.com/smallbusiness.

• 1:05Speaker 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 I hope you're getting something out of every podcast or YouTube show we do. If so, why don't you spread the word? Share an invite with a friend to listen or to watch. In this episode, talk about watching football is my life. But there's something that is happening now to teens and heavily 20-somethings where gambling is really messing them up.

• 1:49Speaker 02

  And it's not gambling like you and I are used to. I'll talk about that ahead. And also, I've got a really important assignment for you. If you haven't looked at your credit report recently, what you don't know can hurt you.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Speaking of hurting you for certain, the addictions to gambling, especially football, are really causing so much angst for overwhelmingly boys and young men. And people are losing enormous amounts of money on electronic gambling. You know, computers have done so many things, obviously, computers and computing have done that so wonderful for ourselves, for society, the world, blah, blah, blah.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  But in gambling, it has made it possible to lure people into these obscure bets with long odds, one after another after another. And people are getting in trouble like nobody's business. And there's always been people with gambling addictions. That's why every commercial you see on TV for gambling talks about help available for people with a gambling problem. But what's different is the micro bets and the ease with a cellphone to place bet after bet after bet after bet.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  And then the gambler addiction where, well, I'm going to make it back. My luck's going to turn and I'm going to be okay. If you are hearing me right now and you know I'm talking to you, that you're getting deeper and deeper into sports gambling, the first thing is for you to acknowledge it. And then the second is for you to get help because it doesn't get better with time. I mean, come on, the bets that you can place now on the most obscure things that happen in a sporting event? It's all about, I mean, we're so far past point spreads.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  It's just nuts. And if you're a parent of a teenager, and I said, boys and men, it's possible that girls and women can be addicted too, but overwhelmingly, sports gambling has been a male oriented thing. If you've got teenagers or 20-somethings in your household, you as a parent need to be paying attention because this is a real deal. And person after person talks about how it ruined their lives. Now, I want to talk about that for a second. You can feel like a mess up like this. I'm talking to you if you have an addiction problem.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  But mess up and you've blown all this money, it can feel like the end of the world. It's not. You rebuild step by step. You get the help you need, but it's not the end of the world if you messed up. And it's no different than people who get into weird trading strategies in stocks, another form of gambling addiction. You acknowledge it, you get the help you need, you learn from it and you rebuild. And you do the best you can to tell others that have this problem about your experience and try to help them.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  When they're ready to be helped, because you're only going to have deaf ears from someone who's not willing to acknowledge that they have a problem. But this is real and it's an escape, but then you can be trapped.

• 5:54Speaker 03

  All right.

• 5:55Speaker 02

  You ever known a gambling addict?

• 5:57Speaker 03

  I'm sure we all have, but I don't, not that they've told me.

• 6:00Speaker 02

  You don't know anybody specifically?

• 6:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  I do.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Okay, questions. Mike in Florida says, "My credit union offers a high-rate checking account which offers 5% for up to $10,000. The rate can adjust up or down depending on the prime rate. They require monthly direct deposits and a $1,500 minimum balance, which is fine, but they also require you to make 10 debit card transactions per month to avoid a $20 fee. Do you think it's worth the risk having to use a debit card 10 times a month? I currently only use my debit card at the ATM for cash. I like the 5%, but I just don't know if it's worth the risk."

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Okay, so I love this question because you have the certainty of earning 5% or whatever it would adjust to based on movements in the prime rate, but still a decent return on a checking account, obviously, in return for bringing a risk into your life of using a piece of trash fake Visa or fake MasterCard 10 times or more a month. So I would weigh the risk worth it for the reward. Yes, there is a chance that bad things are going to happen to you because of the lack of consumer protections with a debit card. But you weigh

• 7:19Speaker 02

  that against the positive reward you're earning, and I would be comfortable with you doing it. For many people, though, the problem is jumping through all the hoops. Having the minimum balance, having the direct deposit, remembering to do the 10 transactions on the debit card, as long as you can jump through all three hoops and you're willing to deal with the possibility, not probability, but possibility, somebody makes your life miserable through a debit card breach.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Then go for the 5%.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  And then you recently said, just if you're using it, do contactless. Like do the, because that way it's

• 8:01Speaker 02

  Tap to Pay.

• 8:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, Tap to Pay.

• 8:02Speaker 02

  Tap to Pay is a much safer technology, at least for now, till criminals come up with a way to defeat that. Hopefully, they can't. Tap to Pay versus the one thing you don't want to do, you don't want to swipe a debit card. You swipe it through and that is like a 1960s technology. It's like setting a buffet platter for crooks.

• 8:29Speaker 03

  So I have to confess something. I did the dumbest thing and cost myself $600 a month ago. I signed up for a new checking and savings account combo and it had a huge incentive. And I was jumping through the hoops. I jumped through them on the checking. I got that. The savings account, I had to maintain a balance through, I thought it was September 1st. So September 4th, I moved the money back into my high interest savings account that I have with Schwab. And so this bank then, and this is the account I use for my, this new account, I'm using it now for my Venmo and stuff. So I wanted to keep minimal money. It was September 7th.

• 9:10Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 9:10Speaker 03

  I missed it by three days. I held the money there for 90 days, almost, for 87 days.

• 9:17Speaker 02

  And you lost 600 bucks as a result?

• 9:19Speaker 03

  Yes. Okay. Elliot in Georgia says, what is your opinion on fractional ownership of a beach condo where you own and are deeded 1/13 of ownership? And get four weeks a year to spend there?

• 9:34Speaker 02

  So Elliot, this is an appealing thing for people who would love to have a place at the beach or a place at the mountains or whatever it is, but don't want to have the responsibility for all year. The problem is this is timeshare lite. They are having to sell each property 13 times. Lot more sales expenses, commissions, the maintenance expenses. And so this Is not the bargain it appears to be. It's obviously cheaper than you owning a place for all 52 weeks.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  But one of the things you have to consider, what happens at the beach? Hurricane risk. Are you perpetually liable for the fees and expenses going forward? If the condo is rendered unusable by a hurricane? This is not a walk in the park. When you buy a fractional ownership, even of a shorter period of time. There are now some of them that are divided by four. And the expenses are not as large proportionally. Because it's four instead of 52 or 50 weeks, whichever the traditional timeshare would be.

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Or you're 13th. The documents, I can guarantee you, will be very one-sided. Not in your favor on a lot of different criteria. Including who has control of how the fees are set? That you're required to pay. So before you would ever do this, this is, you're moving from what is just complete baloney, a traditional timeshare, to something that's kind of like a waystation between. You would want to have the contract thoroughly reviewed by a real estate lawyer.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Who would be able to point out to you, what are the things that are your obligations? That could harm you later in the property? And know that the ability to sell your 13th share is very difficult.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  Oh, man. I mean, this sounds, I would never touch that. Even ownership with like relatives or something of a place? I've heard so many nightmare stories.

• 12:03Speaker 02

  There are nightmare stories.

• 12:05Speaker 03

  Okay, Dolores in New Mexico says, "What is your take on this new way to purchase used cars? I took Clark's advice and purchased a used car that was in my budget and I financed it for two years. The issue was that no one ever told me the cars were not sitting on the dealer's lot. I would see one I was interested in and before I could look at it, it was gone. When I finally found a car I wanted that was available and wanted to take it for a drive, I was told the car would have to be transported from a neighboring state. Big surprise." This was a chain auto dealership. Is this what we have to look forward to?

• 12:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, so inventory is going, although I guess in a technical sense nationwide, it's more region-wide usually. And if you're looking at CarMax inventory, Carvana inventory, or competitors of either of them, the vehicles are moving around a region all the time. So the idea is that their inventory is so deep for a buyer in one place. Let's say you're looking for a vehicle, you're in New Mexico, so let's say you live near Albuquerque and you're looking and you think the car's in Albuquerque, but it could just

• 13:21Speaker 02

  as easily be in El Paso, or Denver, or Colorado Springs, or something like that. And you see these truck transports, moving vehicles, all over America that are being relocated. Depending on the distance from where you are, a relocation fee will be free within a certain zone of miles, or they'll say, "Well, if you want us to bring this vehicle, we're going to charge you X or Y." And the problem is, you don't want to buy a used vehicle sight unseen because of the problems it might have. So what's happened now with the consumer-oriented sellers is you will have a period of time,

• 14:06Speaker 02

  usually seven days, or even all the way up to 30 days, to return it for any reason, or no reason at all, for a full refund. So you use that period essentially for a test drive. And if the vehicle doesn't check out with your mechanic, it goes right back and you get your money back. Now, know this, most dealers do not have customer-friendly policies. The only acceptable policy when you're buying a used vehicle is that you have the right to return it for a refund, not a store credit against some other vehicle.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  It must be for a refund. Because you're being asked to do the second most expensive purchase in your life, buying something that could be junk. And that's why you have to have the right to return for a full refund. Period. I know dealers don't like that. That's the fact. Speaking of facts, something that's not our friend, the snooping Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian do on us and don't even pay us for building these dossiers on us. There's something you need to know to protect yourself.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot make your email response time faster. We can help you sell, market, and hire in one place. We cannot help you find space for your three desk drinks. Why do you have three? And while we can't help you find the perfect volume for your presentation video, LinkedIn can help you find the perfect audience for your business. Grow your small business on LinkedIn. Learn more at LinkedIn.com/smallbusiness.

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• 17:29Speaker 02

  When's the last time you looked at your credit report? If you can't remember what decade it was, what year it was, we gotta have a talk. Because what's on your credit file can hurt you. Understand Equifax, TransUnion and Experian are playing horseshoes. They're playing just close enough in their opinion. They don't at all profess that credit reports are accurate. They're not. They are haphazard. They are maybe close. But it's not at all unusual for a large percent of Americans, depending on which

• 18:14Speaker 02

  study you believe, somewhere between a third and more than half of us, if we look at our credit reports from the three bureaus, we will find errors on there. And a meaningful number of us will have errors on our credit report that could lead to denial for a job, lead to denial for insurance, lead to higher premiums for insurance, or lead to you ending up paying much higher interest rates for various things you might borrow money for. So the credit bureaus are contemptuous of you and me. We are not the customer. We're just data points.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Who's the customer of the credit bureaus? Follow the money. Credit bureaus are a perfect example of when capitalism is broken. Because you and me, the data points, don't matter. Because we are, if we have a problem, we're a cost center. We're not a revenue producer. All the people that pay the credit bureaus to build these dossiers on us, which are companies, lenders, companies of all different kinds, especially insurance loves looking at our dossiers. These companies pay. They're the customer. You and I have an inaccuracy on our credit report.

• 19:44Speaker 02

  The number of complaints against credit bureaus has been skyrocketing. Absolutely going up like a rocket. Because the credit bureaus don't respect the requirements of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. They don't respect that they have a duty to not harm us. And we don't even have the right to keep the credit bureaus from building these dossiers. So when should you be looking at your credit report? Not after you mysteriously don't get the job offer you were expecting. Not when you were declined for a loan. Not when the auto or homeowner's insurer doesn't want to write you

• 20:28Speaker 02

  and it's because of something that may be inaccurate on your credit file. Very often, there'll be what are known as married files, which is where somebody of a same or similar name to you, their issues with credit, that are negative, end up on your file. And you're guilty till proven innocent. So you want to check your reports, which is free, at annualcreditreport.com. Don't buy any garbage Equifax, TransUnion, or Experian try to trick you into subscribing to when you go to annualcreditreport.com.

• 21:10Speaker 02

  All you want to see is you want your free credit report from there. Remember, the only real site

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Is annualcreditreport.com. That's the government sanctioned site to see your report. And so if you haven't done it since who knows when, get the files, go through them. And when you see things that aren't right, challenge them. That's number one. Number two, Credit Karma, I think is a very useful tool. And what are they getting out of giving you access to all kinds of stuff about your credit files for free? They're getting data on you that they use to then solicit and get commissions from people

• 21:58Speaker 02

  trying to sell you different lending products. It is a worthwhile trade off because, let's face it, your information's already out there. So Credit Karma will give you the ability to see a facsimile of your credit scores from two of the three bureaus, whenever you want to see them, has a monitoring service for free and is very, very useful as a tool. And so I recommend that. If your credit is frozen, which I absolutely recommend, you have to temporarily thaw it just to set up a Credit Karma dashboard that goes back

• 22:38Speaker 02

  frozen and you're good. And I get, I track this stuff so closely. And my credit scores go all over the place. I mean, in a decent range, but I mean, up, down, up, down, up, down. And lately, for reasons that are kind of a mystery to me, my credit score on the FICO scale is higher than it's normally been. But when I look at the Credit Karma, it goes, I mean, not quite an EKG up and down, but it does move up and down as much as 50 or

• 23:17Speaker 02

  so points, depending on when I look. So being on top of this is really useful in your life.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Okay, Ron in Tennessee says, my dad bought a house in 1965 and the interest rate was 6%. So aren't the rates today pretty good? The 1% to 4% rates aren't realistic anymore because of the circumstances at the time. Is that right?

• 23:40Speaker 02

  Okay, Ron, I remember when mortgage rates were over 20%. And I assumed

• 23:48Speaker 02

  A loan that was such a deal, people would say, how did you get that loan? When rates were over 20%, I assumed an eight and a half percent loan. I thought, man, I'm the luckiest person alive that I have an eight and a half percent mortgage.

• 24:07Speaker 03

  And you were?

• 24:07Speaker 02

  I was at that time. So, yeah, I mean, rates can only be looked at as a snapshot in time. And the rates we had as a result of the banking scandals, leading to the Great Recession, and the foreclosure waves and all that, the government did what's known as rate suppression, which is an extreme tactic that forced down mortgage rates and had all kinds of weird effects on the housing market, including now tens of millions of people being in housing lock, where they feel like they can't move, even if the house they're in isn't really

• 24:49Speaker 02

  where they want to be, or maybe the city they don't want to be, they can't give up their 1%, 2%, 3% mortgage. And so this will correct over time. And the best would be if mortgage rates are not subject to rate suppression, and they go in the marketplace as they should. We would not be in such an odd situation, the housing market, if we hadn't had the rate suppression during the aftermath of the banking scandals. But the thing is, at the time, we were worried about a worldwide depression.

• 25:28Speaker 02

  So, the cure may have been necessary to deal with the disease, but it created the disease we're in right now, which is not as serious as what we were facing 15 years ago, but is still quite disruptive in the marketplace.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  Greg in California says, "Hi Clark, this may be a question on a lot of your listeners' minds. What do we do when our Windows 10 computer is not Windows 11 compatible? I was wondering if converting my Windows computer to a Chromebook is a good option? It seems I only have two other options. One, continue to use Windows 10 and not get critical security updates. Or two, use my computer as a paperweight."

• 26:11Speaker 02

  What was that show called? Do You Want What's Behind Door Number One, Door Number Two? We only have Door Number One, Door Number Two, but on that show, what was that called?

• 26:19Speaker 03

  The Price is Right? Oh, I don't know.

• 26:22Speaker 02

  There was the third door. So I want you to look in the third door, which is, Microsoft is making available a security update subscription that will carry you for another year through October of 26, and it's 30 bucks. And rather than your computer, if your computer's still working fine, pay the 30 bucks and get one more year out of it, knowing that the security updates will be done. And then at that point, yeah, your computer could be, if you're really into cool stuff, it could become a Linux computer, it could become potentially a Chromebook.

• 27:06Speaker 02

  We have information about that on Clark.com. You can, at that point, choose to buy another computer. My middle daughter just got a Chromebook Plus as a replacement for her old Windows computer. And she said, "I'm obsessed with this thing." And it's so funny because my whole family's always made fun of me for being a Chromebook guy. And now she's like, "This thing is really awesome."

• 27:36Speaker 03

  All right, Ed in Massachusetts wrote in with this one. "You recently mentioned the services your local library can offer, and I wanted to add a service my local library provides that wasn't mentioned. My library offers 3D printing at no charge, as long as you provide them with the files, which can be found on various sites on the web. I've used this service in the past and received my print within a week or so. So inform your listeners to check all of the services their library can provide. You may be surprised."

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm dumbfounded. I never, that would never, ever occur to me.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  Me either.

• 28:12Speaker 02

  That a library would be offering free 3D printing. Just imagine you have an old classic vehicle and you need a part and you can't find it. And you go to the library to get it 3D printed.

• 28:27Speaker 02

  That's funny.

• 28:29Speaker 03

  I don't know if the material is what you would need for that, right? Like, they may just have plastic or whatever.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  So I read something on one of the air industry blogs that airlines are now able to 3D print parts that they need in one part of the country that are in a warehouse somewhere else in the country. Get a plane back in the air quicker.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  Next time I talk to an aircraft mechanic, I need to ask him or her, is that really something, is that news of the weird or is that really going on? But 3D printing is something, how long have we been talking about 3D printing? And it's still kind of at the edges. And it's not.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  My dentist 3D prints crowns.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, which, which we talked about on the podcast years ago when that was first coming around. So do you have a 3D printed crown?

• 29:23Speaker 03

  I do have one.

• 29:24Speaker 02

  Really?

• 29:25Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  And has it behaved like?

• 29:27Speaker 03

  It's fine.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Any other crown?

• 29:28Speaker 03

  Got it years ago.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  So you get to do it one visit instead of two?

• 29:31Speaker 03

  Exactly, yeah.

• 29:33Speaker 02

  Oh, I like that.

• 29:34Speaker 03

  No temporary, it's nice.

• 29:36Speaker 02

  How long have you been royalty? When did you get?

• 29:38Speaker 03

  It's gotta be at least six or seven years ago. I think she printed it.

• 29:42Speaker 02

  Well, thank you so much for joining us today. And I want you to know, appreciate that tip on 3D. The library, that we have all kinds of info for you that comes to you if you want it, every single day for your empowerment with knowledge to either make you money or save you money. Because we have daily newsletters totally free that are available for Clark.com and Clarkdeals.com. And our open rate, what's known as open rate is when do people actually look at the email? Our open rate is unbelievably high, very, very, very rare.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  And it's because we make it just as easy to can us as to get us as a newsletter. And if you keep getting it, you're doing it because you're finding it useful in your life. And of course, it's priceless, free, which is, if it's free, it's for me. So if you want to see or try one of our newsletters, go to Clark.com/newsletter or newsletters. Check it out because the idea is to give you up to the minute information that again will save you money or help you preserve your money or make money. That's what it's about, for you to be in control.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  And everything we do is about you learning ways to save more and spend less. And of course, on the Clark newsletter, you'll get information to avoid the latest, ugliest, hottest scams out there because they morph all the time. So this is for you to be in more control in your life and not waste your time. So with that having been said, have a great day and I look forward to being with you on our next podcast and YouTube show.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  LinkedIn is pretty amazing at helping you grow your small business. We cannot stop your new clients from emailing you at 3 a.m. We can help you sell, market, and hire in one place. We cannot help you be in three places at once. And while we can't help you organize your calendar, LinkedIn can help you land more clients so you have a calendar to organize. Grow your small business on LinkedIn. Learn more at LinkedIn.com/smallbusiness.