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CNN SATURDAY MORNING NEWS

Interview with Clark Howard

Aired November 16, 2002 - 08:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ARTHEL NEVILLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Look who's here. Howard...
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Clark.

NEVILLE: Clark Howard, you, the last time you showed up here, you were wearing a suit for, what, a dollar, because you were upset that you couldn't find one for $0.50, right?

CLARK HOWARD, CONSUMER ADVOCATE: No, it was just a great deal.

O'BRIEN: So before we...

HOWARD: But today this is a full retail shirt.

O'BRIEN: No!

HOWARD: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Oh.

NEVILLE: Don't tell me. How much did you pay for that shirt?

O'BRIEN: I'm so ashamed of you.

HOWARD: It was like a $12 shirt.

O'BRIEN: A $12 shirt.

HOWARD: Yes, sorry.

O'BRIEN: And, of course, it has, you killed a few polys for that one, right?

HOWARD: It's 70 percent cotton.

O'BRIEN: Seventy percent cotton.

HOWARD: Thirty percent polyester, so that it doesn't wrinkle.

O'BRIEN: You know, isn't that bad...

HOWARD: It doesn't have to go to the laundry.

NEVILLE: It travels well. O'BRIEN: I told him, you know, I don't like to wear the polyester shirts because they make me itch. He said, oh, I don't mind itching a little bit if it's cheap. You know, I mean...

HOWARD: Why not?

NEVILLE: Hey, you know what, priorities, right?

O'BRIEN: Why not?

HOWARD: By the way, you mentioned, you know, I don't want people to use an expensive Internet service when they send in a message.

O'BRIEN: Right. Yes.

HOWARD: Do you know about all the great deals right now on Internet service?

O'BRIEN: I even seen the billboards. It's astounding.

HOWARD: It's fantastic.

O'BRIEN: I mean, like $9.95 a month type stuff, right?

HOWARD: $6.95.

O'BRIEN: $6.95 a month?

HOWARD: Sure.

O'BRIEN: Where do you get that? Where do you get that?

HOWARD: You just search around on the Internet. Just go to a search engine, put in "cheap Internet service" or "low cost Internet service."

NEVILLE: OK.

HOWARD: You'll see so many choices. Do not sign a contract under no circumstances, because if it's no good, you want to dump it.

O'BRIEN: If you go month to month...

NEVILLE: But can you, yes, I was going to say, can you get the service even if you don't sign the contract?

HOWARD: Right. Some of them require a one year contract. Do go near any of those.

O'BRIEN: Just find one that does month to month.

HOWARD: Right.

NEVILLE: OK.

HOWARD: So, you know, you pay seven bucks and you got what you paid for, you know to go to the next one that maybe is eight or nine.

O'BRIEN: Sure.

NEVILLE: Right.

O'BRIEN: All right, well, that's, all right --

HOWARD: But I use the one that's $9.94 a month. It's been completely reliable.

O'BRIEN: All right, let's quickly before we get started here, and maybe some of the questions will be related to this, but let's give folks, it is now time to start thinking about those Christmas lists. And we all have...

HOWARD: Well, the time to start thinking about it...

O'BRIEN: And we all, you know, we get carried away.

NEVILLE: Was at the end of Christmas last year.

HOWARD: Yes, you...

NEVILLE: When stuff is on sale.

HOWARD: Right. Right. So I'm going to fast forward, OK? The times...

O'BRIEN: You listen to his show, don't you?

HOWARD: You knew that, didn't you?

NEVILLE: That's right.

HOWARD: The time to plan for Christmas is when this Christmas is over, not till after January the 5th, but right about January 5th next year, that's when everything that didn't sell gets really, really marked down, plus all the stuff people return.

NEVILLE: Right. Right.

O'BRIEN: And so go shopping January 6th...

NEVILLE: January 5th.

O'BRIEN: Fill your Christmas list.

HOWARD: Or later. Right.

O'BRIEN: And you're done with it.

HOWARD: And then you're done for next year. And you'd better hope you still like the people you bought for in January when next Christmas comes around.

NEVILLE: If not, you can give it to somebody else. O'BRIEN: A couple generic gifts that people can get.

HOWARD: Yes, yes. But if it's too late for you for that obviously for this year, what you do is you set an overall budget, whatever the total amount is you can actually afford to spend, whether it's $500, $5,000, $800, whatever the amount is you can spend on everybody. And you know who has to be on your list? You do.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

HOWARD: Cause we spend more money when we're out shopping for others on ourselves...

O'BRIEN: Oh, I no, it's pitiful.

HOWARD: ... than we do for everybody on our list.

O'BRIEN: And I feel so guilty. I become wracked with guilt when I walk away with...

NEVILLE: Sop you're saying...

HOWARD: You should be wracked with guilt.

NEVILLE: So you're saying don't put yourself on the list?

HOWARD: No, you do put yourself on the list.

NEVILLE: Oh, you do.

HOWARD: You're part of the total budget.

NEVILLE: So you'd limit yourself, I see.

HOWARD: Right.

O'BRIEN: So you keep it under control that way.

NEVILLE: Exactly.

HOWARD: You put down all the money you want to spend then you do something really cold and cruel. You go and buy each name you put down how much money they're worth to you.

O'BRIEN: Yes, yes, that's a $5 friend.

HOWARD: Right. Exactly. And then if you go out and find something you've got to have for them and it's more money, you put that down but then you've got to pull money away somewhere else.

O'BRIEN: Not from yourself, ever.

HOWARD: Oh, yes, from yourself all the time.

NEVILLE: Every budget you must pay yourself first.

You know what? Let's go to the phones now, because David is standing by here in Georgia with a question for you.

HOWARD: Good morning, David.

CALLER: Good morning. How are you Mr....

HOWARD: David, what's your question this morning?

CALLER: Thanks for taking my call.

HOWARD: Sure.

CALLER: Well, I've got a couple questions. One is what is the down side of Chapter 7 as opposed to consumer credit counseling? And the second part of my question is we were, I was embezzled in a business that I was in by a woman who stole my checkbook and wrote out several thousand dollars worth of checks.

O'BRIEN: Ouch, wow.

CALLER: And my bank forced me to sign a loan agreement to pay those checks back even though we had affidavits signed that they were forgeries on an unauthorized signature.

O'BRIEN: Ouch.

CALLER: Otherwise they threatened to take my house and everything else if I didn't sign this agreement that I would not hold them liable for paying all these checks. They paid the checks...

HOWARD: And so this was your business checking account?

CALLER: Correct.

HOWARD: OK, this is something that many people are not aware of. With a business checking account, you have far more liability than you do with a consumer checking account. With a business checking account, you are held to a much higher standard and it's up to you to make sure that you keep your checks completely secure and away from unauthorized employees.

Can you imagine, I mean if somebody gets your own checking account and they write bad checks on you, your liability is not a penny.

O'BRIEN: Well, wait, well, yes, and I guess the question is is it the responsibility of the bank to be checking signatures, isn't it?

HOWARD: Banks do not check signatures anymore.

O'BRIEN: I know. Only big checks.

HOWARD: They don't really check anything anymore. The way checks are processed, it's only the amount they look at when a check comes through. So a business is responsible and if you own a business you're hearing this right now, you need to take your business checks and lock them in a safe. O'BRIEN: Put them in a safe.

NEVILLE: That's absolutely.

HOWARD: Now, on the Chapter 7 question, Chapter 7 means that your credit is trashed for 10 years. That's when you set aside all your debt in bankruptcy court. Consumer Credit Counseling Service, the National Foundation for Credit Counseling is a much better alternative to follow with your credit. If you'll go to nfcc.org, you'll learn about the options available to you through the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, where you can meet with a counselor, you can learn about how to handle your debt. It's a great thing to do.

O'BRIEN: Let's get one e-mail in here, if we could.

HOWARD: Sure.

O'BRIEN: And good advice for Dave. I hope you're still listening there, Dave. But we'll get another call in in a second. "I've been involved in two separate car accidents" -- ouch -- "minor ones, but neither were my fault. The value of my car has clearly decreased since it will show up when you pull up the car's VIN number. When I try to sell the car I won't be able to get what it would have been worth had the car not been damaged and repaired. Both times I was offered only $100 toward the diminished value."

That's from Melissa Roberts.

What do you do in those situations to protect the value of the vehicle?

HOWARD: Well, this is something insurers hate that anybody ever hear, the words diminished value, because the concept under the law is that an insurer is required to make you whole after an accident. Your car is never worth the same, even if they fix it just fine, and you're entitled, in most states, to compensation for the loss in value. You have to fight with the insurer on what that loss of value is, because there's no standard formula for what the loss would be.

But on the question of the accident showing up on the VIN report, not necessarily.

O'BRIEN: It might not.

HOWARD: It might not. When you know something is going to show up on a VIN report is when the car has really been trashed in an accident, maybe totaled. That's why it's really important when you buy a used car to hire a mechanic to check out the condition of that car, because if you don't...

NEVILLE: Or you buy it.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

HOWARD: Right. Because if you don't, you may not know that it's been trashed in a wreck. You have to find that out for yourself.

O'BRIEN: Can you do a VIN report on your own on the Internet now?

HOWARD: Yes, you can. If you're a AAA member you can get it extra cheap at aaa.com or you can go to carfax.com. And it's about 20 bucks to pull unlimited vehicle title histories.

O'BRIEN: Good. Good.

HOWARD: So if you just want to do that for fun, you can pull them all day long.

NEVILLE: That's great.

O'BRIEN: All right...

NEVILLE: You could check out your car.

O'BRIEN: Well, it's not so pretty. Anyway, that's another story altogether.

HOWARD: Have you had a wreck recently?

O'BRIEN: Ah, it's a long story.

HOWARD: OK.

O'BRIEN: But we're glad we're still ensured, put it that way.

NEVILLE: This is true.

O'BRIEN: All right...

NEVILLE: And speaking of insurance, quickly, I mean you were just mentioning how the insurance companies, they don't want to hear a certain thing. I mean they always give you the runaround, these car insurance companies.

HOWARD: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Oh, it's a racket. Come on, it's a racket, isn't it?

HOWARD: Well, think about the business they're in. They're in the business of collecting premiums. They're not in the business of paying out claims.

O'BRIEN: You got that right. You got that right.

NEVILLE: Yes, I don't know about that.

O'BRIEN: All right, do we have time for just one more call or what?

NEVILLE: I don't think so.

O'BRIEN: No? Can we get Dean in?

HOWARD: We talk too much.

O'BRIEN: Can we get Dean in real quick?

NEVILLE: No. You had great information.

O'BRIEN: Let's get Dean on the air real quick.

HOWARD: OK.

O'BRIEN: One quick question, a quick answer. Dean, go.

CALLER: Yes, sir, I appreciate it.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

CALLER: My question for Mr. Howard is is how do you feel is it right now? Is it conducive to start a small business? And what ideas and maybe investment ideas as far as saving money for a small business?

O'BRIEN: OK, small business.

NEVILLE: That's good.

O'BRIEN: A good question.

HOWARD: OK...

O'BRIEN: Not easy for a quick answer, but give it a whirl.

HOWARD: I'll give it as quick as I can. The best time ever to start a small business is when the economy is in the toilet like it kind of is right now. Everything you need to buy to start your business is much cheaper. Think about because of all the failed businesses all the cheap office equipment you can get, the office furniture, the supply of labor that's available, office space, business space is all very cheap. The very best time to start a small business is when everybody would tell you you're crazy, you're crazy like a fox.

NEVILLE: Crazy like a fox.

O'BRIEN: I don't know.

NEVILLE: Clark Howard.

HOWARD: Yes.

O'BRIEN: A little contrarian. That Clark Howard is a contrarian.

NEVILLE: Very nice.

Thank you very much for all the good information. HOWARD: Thank you. Certainly.

NEVILLE: We do appreciate it.

O'BRIEN: Clark Howard, our cheapskate in house.

NEVILLE: That's right.

O'BRIEN: Always a pleasure. A pleasure to have you drop by.

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