Pod Insights The Clark Howard Podcast 11.15.24 Clark Answers His Critics on Clark Stinks / Three Common Scams About this episode Friday - Clark Stinks day! Christa shares Clark Stinks posts with Clark. Submit yours at Clark.com/ClarkStinks. Also today, the percentage of people being taken by scams continues to rise. Know how to recognize the common themes in prevalent scams right now in order to better protect yourself. Clark Stinks: Segments 1 & 2 Scam Recognition-Prevention: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: Consumer Reports: Best Most Reliable Used Cars Roth vs. Traditional 401(k): What's the Difference? How To Open a Roth IRA What Is a Fiduciary Financial Advisor and Do I Need One? Should You Ever Book a Nonrefundable Hotel Room? What Is Umbrella Insurance and Do You Need It? Why You Need To Re-Shop Your Car Insurance Right Now Hang up on unwanted calls about loans Is that gift card helping your congregation or paying a scammer? Did you get a call or email saying you missed jury duty and need to pay? It’s a scam Americans can now renew passports online and bypass cumbersome paper applications Submit a complaint | Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Clark.com resources Episode transcripts Community. Clark.com 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 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.
0:12 Speaker 01 Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
0:15 Speaker 02 They're running a cover two defense. But you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go to restaurants. Or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats, order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
0:50 Speaker 03 It's my pleasure to welcome you here to the Clark Howard Show. Our mission is to serve you with advice and information that empowers you to make better financial decisions in your life. And today is a special day. Not only is it Friday, but it's also the day I get to learn more about how I have made mistakes on the show that you have shared with me in today's weekly Clark Stink segment. And later, I'm going to tell you about three common scams right now that fool people every day and steal their money every day.
1:31 Speaker 03 And what is the consistent thing that goes across all three of those scams and is common with so many others right now? I want you to avoid having somebody rip you off. And I'm going to tell you what you need to know later. But now it's time to find out how badly I smell.
1:52 Speaker 04 I should have never encouraged you to speak.
1:54 Speaker 05 You must think I'm pretty stupid.
1:55 Speaker 06 You should be ashamed of yourself. Well, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you're right, pal.
2:03 Speaker 03 Was it tough for you to stand next to somebody who smells so badly all the time?
2:08 Speaker 07 Oh my gosh. It might be time to update the prescription on those ZENI glasses. You recently read the Consumer Reports article about the five and 10-year used car reliability. The list you read for the most reliable was correct, but you read the wrong brands for the least reliable. The least reliable brands, according to Consumer Reports, are Chrysler, Dodge, your beloved Tesla, Jeep, and Ram, then Ford. I'm betting you didn't get the full list when you initially read it. Love the show, Stephen in North Carolina.
2:36 Speaker 03 Stephen, thank you if I made a mistake on that, and I apologize. Yeah, first I should address the beloved Tesla. Tesla's record of reliability has always been an issue for them. They design really incredible vehicles. They're not that reliable, and it's because Tesla had no competition for so long in electric vehicles. And now they do, and their market share is falling even as they sell more electrics. That's an area they're going to have to work on, is making them more reliable. And Chrysler, and Dodge, and Jeep, and Ram are all Stellantis vehicles.
3:19 Speaker 03 And Stellantis, as a company, which is a European company that owns them, is going through a real crisis around the world. Their sales are falling around the world, and no place more than here in the United States. And the quality issue matters.
3:39 Speaker 07 Clark, you stink like the new college athletics super conferences. I worked at a public regional university for nearly 20 years, and our state legislature, which previously funded 70% of our operational budget with 30% from tuition, dramatically cut funding and told us to raise tuition, resulting in big tuition hikes. This happened at public colleges nationwide. Also, contact college financial aid offices directly for help with financial aid, scholarships, and little-known tuition waivers, a way to reduce your tuition. Paul.
4:09 Speaker 03 Paul, thank you. And this trend started during the Great Recession. The state legislatures starve for revenue.
4:18 Speaker 03 Decided to reduce the funding formulas that legislatures had provided to state-supported colleges in many states, not all, Paul, but in many states, what you say is true. The good news today is that, something I brought up recently, is that college costs are actually declining in the United States as a percent of family income, except for the most elite schools in the United States, is more and more individuals, potential students and their families, question the value of college. Colleges, and they're playing hard to get, colleges are having to cut costs to students.
5:02 Speaker 03 It also means they're having to cut their costs of operations. In many cases, majors that are not highly sought after at that school are being eliminated, that kind of thing, in order to make college more affordable, so that people will feel more comfortable going to college.
5:21 Speaker 07 Clark, you sting like a porta potty sucker truck. Not really.
5:25 Speaker 03 Wow, that one's fun.
5:27 Speaker 07 Not really, but your man-from-Roth explanations need a little bit more thorough analysis. While it's easy to believe that tax rates will go up, they almost certainly will, deciding Roth versus traditional should involve at least two other factors to decide which to use. One, when contributing to a Roth, money goes in at a marginal tax rate. In your case, you say up to 24% Fed rate. However, one must consider that when taking money out of a traditional IRA or 401k in retirement, it would come out across multiple marginal rates, usually at lower income levels, leading to an average tax rate much lower. And two, you say nothing about state taxes. While we are guessing about future tax rates, we might as well guess about where we will retire.
6:09 Speaker 07 Roth contributions would be taxed at the state marginal rate. However, many states provide all or significant exclusions for retiree income. That must be considered when deciding at what marginal rate one would be a candidate for a Roth. Lane.
6:24 Speaker 03 Lane, thank you very much. And I love it when my wife posts.
6:28 Speaker 07 Spelled differently.
6:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, just kidding. Anyway, this is one I'm just trying to get people to look at because people by default go into traditional, particularly traditional 401ks. I find more and more people are automatically choosing Roth IRAs. But for the 401k where often people will have more money going in each year, people are still by and large doing traditional. And so I bring up the tax rates and all that so that people who are not earning a huge amount of money will consider and maybe adopt doing the Roth 401k.
7:13 Speaker 03 But the big thing that I love about the Roth IRA is that effectively you're saving a lot more money for retirement if you max out. Because if you max out a traditional, you're only saving this amount of money pre-tax and it'll eventually be taxed. In the Roth, you're putting in post-tax dollars. So effectively, every year, you're saving 20 or so percent more money for retirement, effectively than you would be otherwise.
7:43 Speaker 07 You had a caller asking what would happen to their credit balance on their card since they have a trip canceled and they were refunded. Your answer was that they would eventually be issued a check in 30 to 60 days. In my experience, most issuers, you can just call and have a check mailed for free. Why wait and loan the card company this money, Pete?
8:02 Speaker 03 Pete, that is a valid point that a lot of issuers will automatically send that check. But if you ask for it sooner, depending on the issuer, they will cut that check.
8:14 Speaker 07 You may have stepped into something. As a financial planner, you missed the mark on the differences between the way advisors are paid. On the podcast, you recommended that people should use a fiduciary fee-only advisor because they only charge a flat fee or hourly fee and no AUM fee. However, this umbrella of advice definitely does include AUM fees. This is important to mention. The vast majority of great advisors are in the AUM model. It is the simplest and most appeasing fee to clients. It's simply just a model for compensation. A 1% fee can be more than worthwhile than a 1% fee elsewhere since financial planning spans into every area of your life and hopefully you aren't getting charged that just for some of your data to get plugged into an investment portfolio.
8:56 Speaker 07 If you want to recommend fiduciaries, you might want to recommend registered investment advisory firms, RIAs, and the CFP marks since both are bound to the fiduciary standard and CFPs have at least a base level of competence. Keep on rocking, Clark. Blaine.
9:12 Speaker 03 Blaine, thank you. I don't know what that I said that AUM, that people paying 1% means they're not a fiduciary. If I said anything that made it sound like that, I obviously know that someone who's paid 1% of assets can be either a fiduciary or not, and quite often they are fiduciaries. And that versus fee only, which is an, obviously what I'm into is your, fee only is like somebody who you're paying assets under management. So this is an area we get so frustrated about explaining because the industry, financial
9:56 Speaker 03 services industry, makes it hard for people to be able to understand what a fiduciary is, when somebody's a fiduciary. Simply the term fiduciary means however they are paid, whether they're paid an hourly rate or they're paid 1% of the amount of money they're managing for you. The key thing is that they are legally bound as a fiduciary to do only what is best for you, not what might line their pockets, like happens with any insurance company you ever deal with. If there's any insurance company that's operating with its salespeople as fiduciaries, I'd love to know that that exists.
10:41 Speaker 07 I love the RIA advice, so Registered Investment Advisory Firm, so that's a good one. Clark, you recently advised people to always book a hotel room that is fully refundable. Then, just a few calls later, you reminded people what a ripoff and extended warranty is. With great wisdom, you almost always suggest people self-insure with confidence in cases where the potential repair costs wouldn't do financial harm. In my humble opinion, doing a non-refundable hotel room for a typical travel date saves me at least 10% of the room cost. So I use your self-insurance model in this hotel booking situation, and I've come out way on top in the long run. No, you don't stink, but perhaps you were inconsistent on this one. Ron?
11:18 Speaker 03 Ron, thank you. All right, so what is the reason I do not like non-refundable hotel rooms? Is because hotel rates tend to come down, in most cases, close to arrival. So if you book a hotel far in advance, yeah, you could lose all your money if your trip later cancels. And that's one reason not to book a non-refundable room. But the bigger reason is that hotel rates flex so much that if I've got a booking, and it turns out to be the best rate there is, and I'm just like, okay, yeah, I could have saved 10% if I would have booked non-refundable. But most of the time, what I'm saving is getting a
12:02 Speaker 03 much lower rate by rebooking close to arrival. I do book non-refundable rooms when I'm booking for the next day, couple of days out, or whatever, because I'm not worried about anything about finding a better deal later, or whatever. But when I'm booking further out, I want the opportunity to reshop those room nights.
12:27 Speaker 07 Clark, you really stunk it up when you told a listener to invest in a taxable account via a Fidelity Zero Funds instead of continuing to contribute to their 401k. Taxes aside, what you didn't consider is that under federal law, ERISA, Employee Retirement Income Security Act-
12:43 Speaker 03 1964, or whatever it is, yeah.
12:46 Speaker 07 401k accounts are shielded from creditors, some bankruptcy judgments, and civil law- Lawsuits such as liability claims, 1% in fees could end up being a very small price to pay compared to losing every dollar in that taxable account due to a liability claim against the listener, Logan.
13:01 Speaker 03 Logan, thank you, and I want to point out the distinction that matters in a lot of states is that money in an IRA is at risk from a lawsuit in many states where money in a 401k is not. And so liability risk exists with most money that we have, most possessions we have, most assets we have. That's why if somebody has had the success tax where you've managed to save a lot of money, invest a lot of money, I'm so into making sure you have enough liability coverage. And if you've got a lot of money, you really need to have an umbrella liability policy
13:45 Speaker 03 sitting on top of everything where you protect your assets from what could be a financially ruinous lawsuit that could destroy what you built up over the years.
13:57 Speaker 07 Clark, you stink worse than my son's full diaper pail. You gave great advice on 401ks and investing in the company-provided match, but I don't believe I've ever heard you talk about one of the most important things to consider, vesting of the employer-provided match. You recently stated that many people job hop more frequently, but you never state that the employer match is often subject to a vesting schedule. Typically, you only have access to 100% of the match during your fourth year of service with that company. If an employee is saving up to the match, then leaving that employer after two years, they could see as much as half of that match go away. This could be thousands of dollars. Daniel.
14:33 Speaker 03 Daniel, thank you, and there are a lot of things employers are doing now because of how quickly the workforce turns over today versus what it used to. They're doing things like holding back the match till the first quarter of the following year for the prior year. They're doing things like you're talking about where you're not vested in that money for a long period of time. Four years is a long period of time, in my opinion. That is all true, that you cannot necessarily count on that match. If you are someone the employer considers to be a job hopper, you could be walking away from that money.
15:14 Speaker 07 It seems like once a week, you're strongly recommending that we purchase insurance on the basis of price and that we compare and select amongst several different companies the one with the lowest price policy. Yet, a couple of weeks later, you're highly recommending insurance companies that are best in terms of consumer satisfaction, and invariably, they are not even close to the lowest price company. Let me summarize how your discussion of evaluating the two parameters individually and separately helps your listeners pick the best company. It does not help, not even one little bit.
15:43 Speaker 03 Ha, ha, ha!
15:45 Speaker 07 In fact, it stinks, as in a head-on collision with two full garbage trucks. Rather than offer the same conflicting advice again, I implore you to ponder the problem carefully, and then share with us how to use both parameters, price and consumer satisfaction, in concert together, to select an insurance company. Now, that would be useful, Clark, aka Nostradamus. Bill?
16:07 Speaker 03 Bill, thank you. You know something? This, over the years, has been a really hard thing, because I talk about, Krista and I are both with insurers that are not the cheapest. Krista's been with Amica Mutual for how long?
16:26 Speaker 07 Oh, my gosh.
16:27 Speaker 03 Good while.
16:28 Speaker 07 Yeah, at least 15 years.
16:29 Speaker 03 And I'm with USAA. In each case, we're with insurers, even though we've had those USAA customer service complaints of late, we're both with companies that historically rate at or near the top, Amica usually at the top, for customer satisfaction and claim satisfaction of insurers. And so, we have both made the decision to not focus, in our own lives, specifically on price. And then you hear me talk about shopping for price. Why so much the last two years about the price of insurance? Because people are absolutely
17:13 Speaker 03 distressed by the big run-ups and premiums.
17:20 Speaker 03 Especially for auto insurance, different thing with homeowners. That is why you hear the uncoupling, if you would, because before the last couple of years, I would talk about the caliber of the company and the cost of the company. But of late, the distress I'm hearing from people about the premiums being budget busting has made me put a huge emphasis of late on price. When the insurance industry settles down, which it seems to be settling down, then I'll go back to my traditional advice, which is the blend that you are saying I am turning a blind's eye to.
18:03 Speaker 03 The blend of the quality of the insurer and the cost of the insurer, that you do consider both of those. But right now, Bill, people are so freaked by price, and that's what they're asking me about. That's why I put an emphasis on that side of the equation over the last couple of years. And by the way, you are right. I should be doing what I used to do, which is marrying those two together in my explanation about how you pick an insurer for auto and homeowners. Now, remember I said homeowners is different right now, because in so many states, people
18:44 Speaker 03 are just trying to find someone that will insure their property, or finding out of nowhere, no claims history ever with that insurer, no claim ever made, they're getting non-renewed or canceled. The homeowners insurance market is essentially broken right now, and that one is a hard path to navigate. I want to thank all of you for taking the time to post, because I learned so much from you and what you post. And I think you also learned from me when I explained why. I give the advice I do and why there's another reason behind the curtain why I'm
19:25 Speaker 03 doing it. So, thank you. Please keep posting at Clark.com/ClarkStinks because we all learn together. And coming up ahead, I want to talk about a common theme with scams right now that you've got to be totally aware of because the percent of people being taken by scams is going up right now, not down.
19:51 Speaker 00 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.
20:03 Speaker 01 Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
20:07 Speaker 02 They're running a cover two defense, but you're running to get game day deals on Uber Eats. Keep everyone at tonight's watch party fed with deals from your go-to restaurants or stock up with deals on your favorite snacks and groceries. Whatever the occasion, get game day deals on Uber Eats all season long. It's not football without food. Uber Eats. Order now. Terms apply. Product availability varies by region. See app for details.
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21:25 Speaker 03 Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code hack. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details. I want to hit you with just three examples of scams that are being reported to our Team Clark Consumer Action Center. First, where you're getting a phone call or notice some way, and all these could be text, phone call, email, most common three things that will happen. And one that person after person has reported to us, they paid money not realizing
22:06 Speaker 03 they were being scammed, where you get notified that you have missed jury duty and you're subject to arrest and you got to pay money. Then, one that has been really hot of late, where you get a message from an organization you're a member of, could be your church, could be a charity, been very hot with churches now, where people are getting an email saying, "Hey, if you'll pay a donation to the church with this particular method, a gift card, whatever it is, we're going to get bonus money from a generous anonymous donor," or
22:46 Speaker 03 some lead like that. People are getting taken on that. And then the third one, people being told that there's a problem with their loan application. They actually didn't apply for a loan. All three of these all come under the header of what is right now the most successful scams out there are all pretexting scams. Someone pretends to be something they're not, working for the court, working for the police, a lender, a church, whatever it is,
23:24 Speaker 03 they are pretending, using the anonymity of a phone, social media, the internet, texting, whatever, to pretend they are whatever organization or entity it is they say they are part of. And then, everything is about a sense of urgency. You need to do this now. We're only getting this match on your donation for the next 24 hours.
23:52 Speaker 03 Or, "Oh, you didn't apply for that loan? Oh, there may be an identity theft going on. Let's verify you. Let's start with the last four digits of your social security number. So what's going on is a pretext or pretending to be from a bank or a lender. They're trying to get you to cough up information that then makes it possible for them to then create an identity theft profile of you and steal money as if they are you. In every case with these, it is fake who they say they're with. The urgency is just to get you before you've had a chance to think about something to act on it.
24:34 Speaker 03 Think about all the scams that involve somebody being asked, "Did you make a charge here? Did you make a charge there? Click here. Call here." Whatever. Anytime you get any kind of solicitation, notification, whatever. Number one, if they're saying, "Gotta do it now. Gotta do it now. Gotta do it now." That's when you know you absolutely step back and take your time. Anytime it's from a supposed financial institution, never, never, not ever, click on any link in a message. Never call the number listed in that message.
25:20 Speaker 03 Always go to the website of your financial institution that's involved and you sign into your own account. Or if you have the app on your phone, you go to your app, but never respond within any message. Anytime you're supposedly contacted by the police, a court, anything like that, know that this is so common now that people impersonate police officers or officers of the court, that you do not respond there. You then contact the court clerk. Or you contact the local police precinct and you will inevitably find out that you were
26:04 Speaker 03 on the verge of getting scammed. And I could give many, I could have, when we talked about this in our pre-show planning meeting, I could have talked about another 15 different pretexts that are going on right now. And we hear about them every single day. I read about them every single day. Just know that is the common, most common method of operation right now with scams. Somebody pretending to be who or with what they're not.
26:39 Speaker 07 You know what's crazy? The jury duty scam, where you get the call that you missed jury duty, happened to me a couple of years ago and I had missed jury duty. Like I-
26:48 Speaker 03 It was real?
26:49 Speaker 07 It was actually, it was a little over a year ago, I remember, because my dad was in the hospital and I missed jury duty. It wasn't real, though.
26:55 Speaker 03 Oh, but that was not real.
26:56 Speaker 07 The timing was crazy. And so I, but I did a bunch of research because, you know, they gave their name from the sheriff's office in my county. It was really nuts. And so I did realize it was a scam and the guy ended up, you know, he hung up on me when I was like, wait, this isn't right. This is a scam. Yeah, crazy. Like, you didn't miss jury duty, you're not going to be arrested. Steve in Tennessee says-
27:16 Speaker 03 I want to say something. You're a great daughter.
27:19 Speaker 07 Oh, yeah.
27:20 Speaker 03 You do so much for your aging parents. It's really, really wonderful.
27:26 Speaker 07 Oh, thanks. I love them. Steve in Tennessee says, "A question, a warning, and a tip. I went online to use the new online Passmore renewal system. I found myself on a sponsored site, which actually looked pretty official. I began to fill out the form and reached the payment portal and was asked for a massive", with a smiley face, I think he's joking about you using massive a lot, "payment of $88.83", which appears to simply fill out the form to be printed for mailing.
27:53 Speaker 03 Oh, boy.
27:53 Speaker 07 It appears to be a bit of a scam, but I'm not sure how malicious. "Question: Should I be concerned about my personal info, including my social security number? My credit is frozen." And warning, go directly to the travel.state.gov site to avoid- Unnecessary fees and stay secure with the info. And tip, the new online renewal process is great with the ability to upload digital photos and avoid snail mail. It took about 40 minutes.
28:16 Speaker 03 Okay, I want to start with the last thing first, Steve, and that is that the new passport renewal system is phenomenally great. And it eliminates so many hassles in your life. Most people with an expired passport, most are eligible for the online renewal of your passport. And you're going to be like, why wasn't it always like this? It really is great. Second, every government service just about there is, there will be sites that range from scam sites to just those like this that are just kind of underhanded, stealing money from you.
28:59 Speaker 03 And if you do a Google search or really any other search engine and you're looking for passport renewal, or you're looking for driver's license renewal, or you're looking what your property taxes on your property are, you're going to start off with a list of either sleazy or scam sites that will show up in the search results. I'm not talking about the ads. It'll be after the ads and they've all learned how to manipulate Google and others' algorithms. And they show up instead of the legit. With pretty much any government service, you're looking for a .gov.
29:40 Speaker 03 It's not going to be, except in rare cases, any kind of .com that would be legit.
29:47 Speaker 07 Brenton, Arizona says, here is an eye-opening information that led me to believe that downsizing my home is not beneficial. Similar homes on my street have sold for $960,000. Great value, right? Going through the costs of selling, including real estate commissions, which in my mind are more than surgeon's fees for my home, about $47,000. Tile insurance fees, moving fees, and other miscellaneous fees, this $960,000 has dwindled away. Imagine an investment portfolio being diminished by five To 6% for commissions when it was sold. Then we have a purchase price for a new residence. I've found suitable homes with very small lots in the $750,000 range in my area. Even though the seller pays real estate commissions, here's another $36,000 in
30:31 Speaker 07 real estate commissions and more money with closing costs. This just seems astronomical to me. The net result is that I could not obtain the downsized home with the sale of my 2,500 square foot home and get approximately $100,000 in addition to the home. Meanwhile, this transaction would cost nearly $70,000 to $80,000 in fees to those mentioned above. And all of this to have the slightly smaller utility bills and about the same property taxes. My question is, where is the equity here in this transaction help?
31:00 Speaker 03 All right, so you are completely right, Brant. And this is a story being repeated all around the country. As people get to a point, they're, let's say, empty nesters, or they've gotten older, and they want to sell the house that they have raised their kids in, whatever, house is bigger. We've got a very large percent of people in the country have a mortgage rate at 4% or below existing on a house. If you're going to have a mortgage on a new house, it's going to be higher. The cost of moving to the smaller lot, smaller house, may not save you any money. This is a problem that I've read about in the financial media for, I mean, people have
31:45 Speaker 03 been writing about this for a while, that the move, what they call the move down market, is broken right now. And I don't know how that heals, but it absolutely is broken right now. So people who, it would make sense to move to a smaller dwelling, practically, it's not working financially, at least right now.
32:10 Speaker 07 Stephanie in Indiana says, "I'm confused and frustrated. I'm trying to pay off a home improvement loan. The interest rate is 9.99%. The loan is around $10,000. I've been making extra payments monthly, but they keep going toward future payments. The monthly amount due is $144. I've been trying to figure out how to get more toward the principal and less toward interest. Last month, I paid $100 at the beginning of the month and two weeks later, paid another 100. When I saw the monthly statement, both payments went to interest only, nothing toward principal. Is this legal and what am I able to do to get more toward the principal?"
32:44 Speaker 03 So Stephanie, this is a problem that I've read about with this particular bank that you're with. It is a, what's known as a super-regional bank. They're not one of the four giant monsters, but they're a larger bank. And repeatedly, their system is set up either to be abusive, or because they just don't have well-written software, that when you make an additional principal payment, they are treating it as prepaid on your loan, instead of applying it to prepayment of principal, which is costing you effectively a lot more
33:24 Speaker 03 on your loan than it should. So what I want you to do is I want you to go into one of the branches, and you want to see if they can correct this for you and give you the back credit for the principal payment that would have reduced the interest this 10% loan has. If you get blown off at the branch, I want you to file a complaint against the bank, and they're well-known to the regulators, at consumerfinance.gov. And at Consumer Finance, it will trigger a process where the bank, within 30 days, will have to answer
34:06 Speaker 03 for itself. And what I find in a case like this, where a bank isn't behaving right... That they will say, well, as a one-time courtesy to the customer, we will do, you know, we will credit it. And then you'll get what you were supposed to get in the first place. But this is a known problem. And it's one that should be easily solved. Except it is the bank's self-interest to not solve the problem with proper application of prepayment of principal, which is what it is that you're trying to do with the extra payments you're making.
34:51 Speaker 03 And the bank's not doing it. You know, a lot of times with banks, and I pick on the banks a lot. No doubt, I pick on the banks a lot. A lot of times with banks, it is not nefarious. It's not somebody trying to rip you off. It's just their systems are not properly done in a way to comply with how they are supposed to do things. So it's up to you and me to look over their shoulder and make sure that what we intend to happen is actually happening. And in most cases, once you point it out to them on a timely basis,
35:36 Speaker 03 the error they have made or their systems have made, they will take care of. See, I said something almost nice about banks. Have an absolutely great weekend. And whatever you're doing this weekend, anything comes up, you're looking for an answer for about your wallet? Hopefully, we got a good one for you at Clark.com. And we're right in the heart. We're right at the midpoint, actually, of Black Friday month. Going to be a lot of deals this weekend. But you want to know what the real deals are? Check out Clarkdeals.com through your weekend shopping
36:21 Speaker 03 to see where the great bargains are. And you enjoy that weekend, learning ways to save more and spend less and avoid getting ripped off. We'll be back at your service on Monday.
36:39 Speaker 00 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.
36:51 Speaker 01 Pricing participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
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