Consumer Issues
The Great Recession made us hyper-vigilant as consumers. In this new economy, people have put their spending on a crash diet. But we’re still being plagued by the same old problems like “customer no-service” from uncaring companies, big banks that take tax dollars and then fee you to death, or bill collectors who just won’t leave you alone—even if the debt isn’t yours.
In this chapter, I’ll show you how to hold the collectors at bay, stretch your purchasing power at dollar stores and hard discounters, and use the Internet to both score deals and bring misbehaving banks and corporations to heel. Being an empowered consumer who packs a real punch in the wallet begins here.
“CLARK SMART” CONSUMERISM
Be a “freegan”
I’ve been called a lot of things over the years, from “thrifty” to “frugal” to “cheap”—the latter being my personal favorite. But when I read about the “freegan” movement, I began thinking that I might actually be one of the last of the big time spenders!
Freegans are people who live off society’s cast-offs and get all their possessions for nothing. They take what’s considered trash and turn it into treasure, not unlike Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch! Some folks do it to further a political agenda and some do it just for the free discarded furniture, stereos, TVs, food(!), and more.
The New York Times recently ran an article about freegans showing up at New York University residence halls when it was time for students to move out at the end of the school year. Some of the goods the freegans found in dumpsters included artwork, iPods, and desk lamps. Wow!
Now, don’t get me wrong; some of the more extreme dumpster-diving practices like getting discarded food from behind a supermarket or out of the garbage (“urban foraging” in freegan lingo) really gross me out. But you could save a bundle by trying out some of the more sanitary approaches to this lifestyle.
As for me, I’ll fess up to having dumpster-dived only once in my life, when my wife threw away a box from something I’d purchased. I dove right into the trash when I needed the UPC code in order to get a $100 rebate!
Visit Trashwiki.org for general info on freegans and DumpsterDiversParadise.com for a message board dedicated to this lifestyle.
Meanwhile, you can be a virtual freegan by going to FreeCycle.org or Yoink.com, where you can arrange to gift or receive free stuff from the comfort of your own computer.
Shop local “one-deal-a-day” sites
I bought my two youngest children the chance to go on a helicopter ride for a mere $39 each. If you know anything about helicopters, you know the cost of putting one in the air is enormously expensive—certainly much greater than $39.
I was alerted to this great deal by Groupon.com. The function of Groupon is implied in its name, which is a marriage of the words “group” and “coupon.”
Once you join this free website, you and every other member essentially leverage group-buying power to get one deal per day for extra cheap in select metro areas across the country. Each daily deal must attract a certain minimum number of buyers—set by the business offering the deal—or else it gets canceled.
Groupon is available in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and other large cities. Many of the daily deals are half-price offers for services, restaurants, and activities.
Unlike other deal-a-day sites such as Woot, you have to specifically live in or have access to a metro area to take advantage of Groupon deals. It’s also different from Woot because the voucher you receive for your money can be redeemed only at a later date—not the day of the purchase. It would be too disruptive to the restaurants and other clients who advertise their businesses on Groupon if everyone rushed in to redeem their voucher on the same day.
The success of Groupon has spawned competitors like MyDailyThread.com and Living Social.com. Each service targets certain large cities, with an eye toward rolling out into more markets. If they’re not in your area yet, setup an e-mail notification so you’ll know when they are.
Groupon has gone a step beyond by making highly targeted offers to people in each city. You fill out a questionnaire online and then they’re able to feed deals to you based on your responses.
As long as you don’t spend money on things you wouldn’t normally, this can be a really fun way to save! The only risk with these kinds of sites is the possibility that a business goes bust before you can use your voucher.
One other recent entrant into the “deal a day” field that I like is called ScoutMob.com. This one doesn’t require you to buy a deal ahead of time and then find a time to redeem it as the others do. With ScoutMob, you simply get a text message with a 50-percent-off coupon, for example, and then save it until you decide you want to redeem it with the issuing merchant. That keeps you from possibly losing money for a deal you spring on but never get around to redeeming.
New e-commerce site Glyde promises eBay for dummies
Get ready for eBay for dummies, courtesy of a new e-commerce site that’s in beta called Glyde.com.
Launched by a former eBay insider, Glyde promises to take all the hassle out of buying and selling online. Sellers can list an item—a CD, DVD, or video game, for example—by typing in its title and making a notation about the condition.
If it has a UPC code, Glyde will upload a picture of the item for you and even suggest a market value, which can be changed any way you see fit. No mess, no fuss.
If there’s an interested buyer, Glyde mails you a preaddressed, prestamped bubble-wrapped mailer and you simply drop your item in the mail within twenty-four hours. You can then request a check in the mail from Glyde once the buyer is happy, or donate all or part of your money to select charities.
The service takes 10 percent for facilitating a transaction. You as the seller are also responsible for an additional $1.25 for the price of the mailer.
Think of Glyde as Netflix meets eBay. It takes the complexity out of the whole process. As Glyde creator Simon Rothman told The New York Times: “We want the middle-aged Midwestern soccer mom to easily be able to buy and sell her stuff. It’s a pretty straightforward ambition.”
ENTERTAINMENT
Get $1 DVD rentals
We’re in an era in which consumers won’t spend on entertainment without really thinking about it. Some of the clear winners that have emerged in the quest for cheap entertainment during the recession include Redbox and Blockbuster Express. Both services offer automated kiosks—usually found in stores such as Walmart, fast-food restaurants such as McDonald’s, and a variety of grocery chains—where you can rent new movies for $1.
Contrast that with the average of $14 for two discount movie tickets at a theater. Add in some refreshments at the movies and your bill could easily be $30! Which would you rather pay: $30 or $1?
Redbox allows you to reserve your movie online and then go pick it up at one of its 25,000 locations. When you’re done, you can return the DVD to any Redbox kiosk nationwide. Now the company is experimenting with Blu-ray DVD rentals for $1 at select locations. Hey, at this price, you might even decide to dump pay-movie channels like HBO and Showtime!
The popularity of the $1 DVD rental kiosks has really hurt the traditional DVD rental stores. In fact, both Blockbuster and Hollywood Video have had to file for bankruptcy. The marketplace has decided that a DVD should rent for $1 a night, and the traditional rental stores are quickly becoming fossils.
The $1 rental kiosks branded as Blockbuster Express (BE) at grocery and convenience stores aren’t owned by Blockbuster per se but by a company called NCR. Again, you can reserve your movie online before picking it up and return it to any of the 10,000 BE locations. BE is even edging out the dominant Redbox by having select kiosks download movies in digital form to SD cards.
The major Hollywood studios have had difficulty adjusting to this new, cheaper price point in entertainment. They hate the $1 DVD rental kiosks because they’re demolishing studio profit margins. Why would anyone pay $15 for a new release in a store when you can rent it fifteen times over for the same price?
Visit Redbox.com or BlockbusterExpress.com to find a kiosk near you.
Get cheap sporting and concert tickets online at auction
Don’t blow all your cash on expensive tickets for concerts or sporting events. There’s a new website that uses predictive analysis to let you know when prices will be at their lowest.
Too often, fans will overpay for an event because they simply must see that concert or that sports team. But imagine if someone could crunch the numbers for you to let you know the peak moment to buy. That’s exactly what SeatGeek.com promises to do.
SeatGeek claims to use an algorithm that is more than 85 percent accurate. Their goal is to let you know whether prices are likely to be going up or down and if you should buy now or wait. If you choose to wait, you can sign up for e-mail alerts to let you know when prices take that plunge you were hoping they would.
The site displays real-time seat availability on a venue map for all tickets currently available for purchase. And if you decide it’s the right time, you can buy the desired tickets right there on the site.
Keep in mind that this service will not work for every venue, every event, and every team or artist.
Several years ago, Madonna decided to allow the marketplace to set the price for tickets to her Sticky and Sweet tour. She teamed up with StubHub.com to allow fan-to-fan resale for those who couldn’t otherwise get tickets. Sellers on StubHub were able to charge whatever price the market would bear. Zigabid.com is another site that is built on similar market principles.
Don’t forget about Craigslist.org for tickets, either. Just beware of buying counterfeit ducats. If you use Craigslist, meet at the venue and verify the tickets at the box office before handing over your money to the seller.
Sometimes I miss the old days before the Internet. Whenever I used to want cheap tickets, I would go to a venue’s season ticket holder parking lot and talk to people on the way in. The season ticket holders were usually corporate types who wanted to sell me their extra tickets for face value. But I would usually start out by offering $5 on a $50 ticket and let them haggle me up to $10.
The price would really drop if you waited until after the event started. A few years ago, I was at my thirty-fifth high school reunion, where a former classmate reminded me about how I bought tickets to a Notre Dame game for a scant $5!
Get public domain books for free on e-reader devices
Have a bookworm on your shopping list? E-readers like Apple’s iPad, Amazon’s Kindle, and Barnes & Noble’s Nook are all reshaping the book business. And while tiny netbook computers have been the hot holiday item of the past few years, I think e-readers are going to be what’s popular for the next couple of Christmases.
With the book readers settling at a street price of around $100, the difference from one to another will be the features, and it will take a lot to convince you to pay more.
E-readers allow you to digitally download books and take them with you on the go. You can store up to 1,500 full books on these devices at once, which means you’ll never be at a loss for something to read!
A big benefit to e-readers is that they will make huge numbers of public domain books—including many classics—available digitally for free. The book business is poised for the kind of shift that the music industry underwent with the advent of the MP3 and the iPod—minus the Internet piracy, I hope!
Get thousands of free stations with an Internet radio
A few years ago, I bought an Internet clock radio for my wife Lane’s birthday ... and she was underwhelmed to say the least. At first glance, the gadget I bought her looked like a very boring and traditional clock radio. But when she plugged it in, she was getting 11,000 stations for free!
That included virtually any commercial station in the United States and all the Internet-only broadcasters. She got every format of music, talk, sports, and so much more, from the most obscure to the most mainstream with hundreds of choices in each category.
The one I bought was called the Aluratek Internet radio alarm clock with built-in Wi-Fi, and I paid $99 for it on Amazon. But there are a lot out there in the marketplace now for under $100.
It’s no wonder satellite giant Sirius XM—a paid subscription service—is suffering. Internet radio is the future of radio. Soon, Internet radios will be in cars and offer the same kind of access that Sirius XM does now but for free. (You may pay a connection fee for the Wi-Fi, but the programming itself will be free.)
Internet radios have one substantial advantage over simply listening to a free radio stream on your computer: You don’t have to be tech-savvy or computer-minded to use an Internet radio. It works just like a traditional radio if you have Wi-Fi at your home.
Get free streaming music online
One thing you never want me to do is sing for you. Years ago, I appeared on an FM morning show’s version of American Idol and was asked to sing a Britney Spears song. My rendition was so awful that I actually wound up making it to the final rounds of the mock competition.
Needless to say, I didn’t win! But when it comes to helping you get connected with free music online, well, I’m your guy.
It’s been so difficult to get people to pay for music after they’ve become accustomed to stealing it online. But a lot of promising initiatives have been launched in the last few years.
One of the early entrants was Pandora.com, which has long offered a free legal alternative to stealing music. The website uses artificial intelligence to play an endless stream of music suited to your personal tastes. You just enter a song or an artist and Pandora creates an Internet radio station for you. There’s no downloading of music, however.
Another option comes from Grooveshark.com, a service introduced to me by one of my producers, Kimberly Drobes. Unlike Pandora, Grooveshark also gives you the option to download free music via a credit system.
For every song you upload, Grooveshark gives you credits that can be used to “pay” for downloading songs that others might have available. The rarer the track you upload, the more credits you’ll receive. You get to own everything you download. Grooveshark handles all the compensation for artists, labels, and uploaders.
If that business model sounds a little suspect to you, consider this: EMI Records sued Grooveshark in 2009 but then reached a licensing deal out of court in a matter of months. As I write this, Universal Music is now suing over licensing issues. We’ll see what happens, but I hope a licensing deal can be struck just as it was with EMI.
For those who just want to listen to music online and not own it, there’s what’s called Grooveshark Lite. This jukebox-style option allows you to stream music on your computer for free, similar to Pandora.
The main limitation to both Grooveshark and Pandora is that you can’t download to an MP3 player. Pandora is available on the iPhone, the Android platforms, BlackBerrys, and probably a phone near you soon. As technology advances and new devices become more affordable, anything is possible.
GROCERIES
CLARK’S GREATEST HITS
Save on your grocery bill at a hard discounter
I love traveling to Europe but am often taken aback by the high cost of food. My solution? Shopping at any of the ultra-cheap grocery chains that in industry lingo are called “hard discounters.”
Hard discounters—whether in Europe or the United States—are infamous for their limited selection, emphasis on store brands, and dirt-cheap prices. They typically offer a very polarizing shopping experience that is loved by some and hated by others who are more comfortable in traditional supermarkets.
Germany’s leading hard discounter, ALDI, has been making great inroads in the United States with about 1,080 stores in thirty-one states and growing. Save-A-Lot is another hard discounter that has its roots in the United States. Visit ALDI.com and Save-A-Lot.com to find a store near you.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Americans spend only 1 percent of their grocery dollars in hard discounters. Europeans, however, spend a full 11 percent. Europeans also choose store brands for one out of every four items they buy.
Here at home, however, we’re so influenced by advertising that many people won’t touch a store brand. Yet the store-brand food at ALDI and Save-A-Lot is just as tasty as that of a name brand but costs you up to 40 percent less than a traditional supermarket’s prices.
When I shop at ALDI, I’ll try their brand one time in each category. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Their version of Oreos failed a Howard family test. But when it does work, we save that typical 40 percent.
As I mentioned earlier, beware that the shopping experience might not be for everyone. ALDI stores, for example, are about the size of a neighborhood chain drugstore; they have limited hours; there are no grocery bags; many take only cash, while others might accept select debit cards—but no credit cards; and you can usually count on long lines, small aisles, and limited selection.
I think the small selection can actually work to your benefit—there’s no need to compare five brands of the same item because you have only one or two choices. What a time-saver!
I buy my produce and fruits by bulk from a group of local produce warehouses. There are 5 families—all neighbors sharing the bounty. We are enjoying locally grown, inexpensive and fresh produce every day for a fraction of the cost of supermarket produce. All fruits and vegetables come in at least 50-pound boxes or cases and we split them. For example, we pay only 25 cents a pound for the biggest, sweetest Fuji apples. Also, the warehouses are right next to my son’s school, so there’s no extra gas for me to pay for, either. Check out your own local produce warehouses and form your own neighborhood co-op. Boycott the huge supermarket chains forever!
May T., CA
Buy nonperishable groceries only once a month
If you’re watching your budget, try to limit the amount of time you’re in a store—even for groceries. Go to a strict shopping-list system to avoid impulse purchases and buy your nonperishables only once a month. When it comes to perishables, you should get them only on an as-needed basis.
You can save by not being in the grocery aisle. Also, try Amazon.com or Alice.com as a place to buy your nonperishables. I haven’t been thrilled by the prices at the latter, but you might find a deal.
I once interviewed a couple for a TV story who agreed to go to the supermarket for perishables only once every other week and to get nonperishable food items only once every six weeks. They paid off a mountain of debt in a very short time using this method.
Get coupons on your cell phone
Okay, El Cheapo Man has a confession to make—I’m not that great with couponing. I really don’t like going through the Sunday fliers and clipping coupons. I’d rather just go to a hard discounter like ALDI (see page 70) and buy groceries at great savings without the extra hassle!
Even when I do clip coupons, I’m such a flake that I’m more apt to lose them than use them. I once had a coupon to get the oil changed on my car, but it took me two days to find the coupon before I could use it!
On the other hand, my TV producer is so obsessed with coupon clipping that she has a big notebook sorted by categories like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When she’s in the breakfast aisle at the grocery store, she simply looks in her notebook and there’s a battery of savings at her fingertips. That’s so not me!
That’s why I’m pleased with free services like Cellfire.com that allow you to get coupons sent directly to your smartphone, which is much more my style. The coupons can be scanned at the register straight from your phone, or else the cashier can type in the bar code. This definitely helps address the flake factor of losing those loose clippings. While Cellfire.com itself is free, your wireless carrier might charge a fee when you use the service. See the company’s terms of service for more information.
If you want to take one step further into the realm of e-couponing, one new free smartphone app called Shopkick.com has partnered with Simon Malls, Best Buy, Macy’s, and others to feed real-time deals to customers on their smartphones as they wander around participating stores.
It was enough to remind my executive radio producer, Christa DiBiase, of what we saw in 2002’s Minority Report. The prescience of this Tom Cruise flick is eerie. In the film, Cruise is implanted with a new pair of eyes obtained on the black market that effectively change his identity in a world where everything is done by retinal scan. As Cruise walks into a Gap store, he’s addressed with a “Hello, Mr. Yakamoto” by a saleswoman’s hologram ... because that’s the name of the person whose eyes he got in the retinal transplant!
Putting the scare factor aside, if you’re willing to trade some privacy for savings like I am, there are great deals to be had.
RESOLVING DISPUTES
Use guerrilla tactics when you have a company beef
There’s no one silver bullet for dealing with customer no-service. Most of modern corporate America has decided to put customers with complaints on mute and that’s really unfortunate for both customer and company alike.
Sometimes I tell people it’s not even worth it to waste their time calling a company’s general customer service number to complain because you can’t get a live person on the other end of the line! If you still prefer that approach, there are two sister websites called GetHuman.com and Get2Human.com that tell you how to get a live person on the phone at a variety of big companies. Try searching the company you need to contact at both sites.
Often, however, you’re better off going guerrilla. That means going to a company’s website and identifying “C list” executives who are three rungs below the top brass. Look under the investor relations part of their website, or read press releases and other financial filings to find the names you need. Then call the company headquarters and ask for those individuals by name. You’ll usually be able to speak to them or someone on their team who can resolve your problem. If your timing is right, December can be a great month to do this. The “gatekeeper” corporate secretary types are away and the real decision makers are more likely to answer their own phones.
I want to remind you that most businesses still really do want to serve their customers. It’s not like they wake up in the morning and think, “Hmm. What new way can I use to rip off customers today?” But as companies get bigger, they tend to get dumber and lose the ability to connect. You’ve got to make them reconnect.
Take your gripes online with the power of the Internet
If you’re having trouble dealing with a noncompliant company or getting the customer no-service runaround from a major corporation, I have a new weapon to add to your arsenal: Try taking your gripes online with the power of the Internet.
It’s become very important to companies to stage-manage their online image. If they’re not doing it, a story can get away from them. The classic example of this has become the popular United Breaks Guitars viral campaign. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s a humorous, low-budget You Tube video for an original song created by a customer to protest how United Airlines broke his guitar on a flight and refused to pay for it.
This clever man was able to use the online orbit to bring a major airline to heel, in a classic case of a David felling a massive corporate Goliath. United eventually came back with its tail between its legs and offered compensation. But the disgruntled musician refused and told United to donate the money to a charity of his choice.
In the aftermath of the fight, 10 million people learned about United’s rotten customer no-service. Just do an Internet search for “United Breaks Guitars” and you’ll see what I mean.
In a similar way, USA Today recently spotlighted a couple whose honeymoon was botched after Expedia told them they didn’t need visas to enter Russia. Expedia denied that one of its representatives gave out such advice and at first wanted to pony up a mere $100 hotel credit for its mistake.
That’s when the couple started blogging while stranded in Frankfurt, Germany, because of the visa issue. The couple’s friends made their compelling story viral via Twitter and Facebook. Soon enough, everybody around the world knew all about the honeymooners.
That’s when the outrage grew so loud that Expedia couldn’t ignore it any longer. The company suddenly produced a record of the conversation and fessed up to its wrongdoing. The online travel agency eventually offered a full refund and threw in a $3,000 credit for future travel!
Of course, not everyone who Tweets or blogs or makes a gripe video will get results. But it can be a great strategy if you do it with humor or have a compelling story like the honeymooners or the guy with the broken guitar. One word of advice: Don’t rant like a madman. Do it with humor and satire to make your point. If it goes viral, not only will you get your problem resolved, but you’ll expose to all how much the company you’ve been dealing with stinks.
Get your right to return TV infomercial products for a refund in writing
I probably appeared to be the most clueless man in America when someone mentioned the Snuggie to me and I had no idea what he was talking about. How could I have missed out on this pop culture phenomenon?
I finally saw an ad on TV for the Snuggie and later saw Snuggies for sale in a store. And just like that I got hip to the marketing allure of this wearable blanket.
But shortly after that, Consumer Reports took a closer look at the Snuggie . . . and the results were anything but warm and fuzzy. The magazine found that Snuggies don’t hold up well to repeated washings, among other complaints.
Faring better in the Consumer Reports investigation of TV infomercial products was the magicJack, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) device that I routinely use when traveling. The magicJack lets you use your high-speed Internet as your connection to make and receive unlimited calls at a rock-bottom price: $40 for the first year of service and $20 annually for every year after that.
Well, the magazine found magicJack delivered a calling experience that is second only to a regular corded phone. I think that’s high praise considering Consumer Reports won’t accept lower quality for a lower price like I will! My audience, however, has given magicJack mixed reviews in the feedback they’ve shared with me.
One of the hot TV infomercial items a few years back was the Awesome Auger, a gardening tool designed to eliminate the backbreaking labor of digging holes in your garden.
While Consumer Reports didn’t review this one, a Cincinnati TV station did. Unfortunately, the reporter said that the only thing “awesome” about the product was the extra charge you might find on your bill once you ordered it. The Awesome Auger was advertised at $19.99, but the “shipping and handling” charges totaled $140! The reporter went on to list all the complaints the Better Business Bureau had received on the product.
When you see something advertised on a commercial or an infomercial, the sales pitch is designed to create a sense of urgency before you come to your senses. (“But wait! There’s more!”) Know that you can never be sure what you’re going to get. If you do buy something, make sure that you have—in writing—your right to return the product for a refund. Pay only by credit card so you can dispute the charge within sixty days if necessary.
RETAIL
CLARK’S GREATEST HITS
Know what’s a deal and what’s not at the dollar store and warehouse clubs
During the Great Recession, dollar stores and other discounters were king. Everyone was looking for ways to cut their budget, and, hey, who could pass up the chance to pick up toiletries and household goods for a buck?
Well, Consumer Reports took a close look at dollar stores in their Money Adviser publication and revealed what’s a deal and what’s not.
Cotton rounds, gift wrap, birthday candles, paper bags, composition notebooks, plastic cups, security envelopes, napkins, foam plates, and tissue paper are all named as being among the best deals.
However, Money Adviser warns against buying jewelry (too much lead content); electrical products (possibly fake UL labels); medication (expired products); and vitamins (not from reputable sellers) at the dollar stores.
Now, I routinely buy medication like ibuprofen at dollar stores and have not found it to be past its expiration date. Sure, I could get a better deal on ibuprofen in bulk at a warehouse club. But unless you’re in constant pain, who can use all those 12 million pills before they expire?
One word about how to spot discounts at the major warehouse club chains. At Sam’s Club, look for anything that ends in a penny—such as $24.41—or anything marked with a “C” for clearance. At Costco, look for anything that ends in 97 cents. BJ’s Wholesale, meanwhile, will clearly tell you on the label when they mark down.
My friends and fellow consumer advocates Ken and Daria Dolan recently identified some product categories they believe are not deals at warehouse clubs. These include produce and jewelry.
I completely disagree with them on the latter because the markup on any item at Costco, for example, can be no more than 14 percent. But I have to go with them on the former. If your produce goes bad before you can finish it, then it’s no deal indeed.
Buy gently used clothing at secondhand stores
Some sectors of the economy actually benefited from people’s wallets getting pinched during the recession. Thrift stores are one perfect example. That includes giants such as Goodwill and the Salvation Army, along with smaller boutique-style shops like Plato’s Closet.
I’m fond of picking up dress clothes at secondhand shops and have bought a few pieces of used formal menswear for between $1 and $7 apiece. They’re usually in great shape because few men dress up for work anymore. Instead, today’s standard office outfit usually includes khaki pants and a golf shirt.
On the other hand, I typically won’t buy casual men’s clothing at a thrift shop because guys tend to wear what they really like until it’s threadbare!
One major impediment that some people have to buying used clothing is the pride issue. If you think it’s beneath you to buy used, that’s fine; there are others who love snatching up the savings of 75 percent to 90 percent!
Finally, it’s always advisable to have your purchases professionally laundered or dry-cleaned for hygiene reasons, even though many secondhand stores say they already do it for you.
Take advantage of automatic price-protection policies
In the Travel chapter, I’ll tell you about a service called Yapta.com that will track airfares online and help you get a refund if the fares drop after you’ve purchased your ticket. Fortunately, there are a couple of free websites that take the basic idea of Yapta and apply it to consumer goods.
Many stores and some online retailers offer a price-protection policy. So if you buy something and the price drops within thirty days, the retailer might give you a refund. But who’s really combing circulars and online ads after you’ve made your purchase? Enter the magic of the Internet.
PriceProtectr.com is a free website that does all the work for you. You simply enter the URL of what you bought and they’ll begin tracking the price and send you an e-mail if it drops. The e-mail has specific instructions on how to request your refund, but it’s up to you to pursue the money.
It can even be used for purchases made in traditional brick-and-mortar stores, so long as the item you buy has an associated URL on the store’s website.
PriceProtectr.com claims to have so far saved consumers more than $3 million. Go out and get your chunk of change back!
Buy from a well-regarded online retailer
If you’ve ever shopped online, you know the Big Three online merchandising sites are Amazon. com, eBay.com, and Walmart.com. The Wall Street Journal periodically tries out all three to determine who is tops in the world of e-commerce.
In their testing, they found Amazon delivered the best overall shopping experience—though not necessarily always the lowest price. eBay came in second with cheaper prices, especially on used or reconditioned goods. Walmart.com, meanwhile, lagged way behind, with a far inferior user experience.
I buy on eBay several times a year. The key criterion I look for is a seller rating of 99 percent or above. I don’t even consider someone who has an approval rating below 99 percent. Because eBay doesn’t ultimately stand behind its sales, the best way to avoid potential problems is to see what your peers have to say about a particular seller.
I had an experience where I ordered a charger for a new cell phone. And I thought I was ordering the right one. Including shipping it cost $4, which is funny considering how much you’d pay in a cell phone store. When it came in the mail, I realized I had gotten the wrong one. It was my fault.
Well, the seller has a policy that it wants everybody to be happy. Even if you make the mistake, the seller will replace it for free with the right stuff. I just couldn’t do it. I could not take advantage of somebody who has such a generous policy in how they treat customers. So I lost $4.
But that shows you how high the stakes are right now in the world of making sure that people have a good buying experience online.
Online shopping is morphing, and you can even find competition if you’re looking for ultra-fancy luxury items. There are a slew of members-only websites—iDeeli.com, Beyond-theRack.com, EditorsCloset.com, Gilt.com, HauteLook.com, RueLaLa.com, and Totsy .com—that promise up to 70 or 80 percent off exclusive boutique-style clothing.
The neat thing is these sites offer free membership. In some instances you might have to be referred by an existing member. It’s not my cup of tea, but I know some people love this kind of stuff.
Open your electronics purchases before leaving the store
During a recent Christmas selling season, Nintendo DS rocked one consumer in a very unexpected way, according to something I read in The Dallas Morning News.
The paper’s technology blog featured a story about a woman who bought the extremely popular video game system from Walmart as a gift for her sixteen-year-old son. But when the young man opened the box, he discovered that it contained nothing but rocks and scraps of Chinese newspaper.
This kind of thing happens a lot in the electronics business—either from internal theft or at the hands of devious customers. People will buy an item, bring it home, open the box, put in an equivalent weight of rocks or other material, and shrink-wrap it back together. Then they’ll return the box to the store as an “unopened” item.
Most retailers don’t take responsibility in cases like these. Walmart certainly didn’t at first. It took a reporter’s calling the store to make them check their records. It turned out the particular unit in question had already been bought and returned once, so Walmart was able to make the customer whole with another unit.
Not everyone can have a newspaper reporter as their advocate. So be sure you have the merchandise you paid for before you actually leave the store!
SEASONAL
Buy seasonal clothes the day after the season begins
The calendar is your best ally when you want to beat the clothing retailers at their own game. Retailers work one season ahead all year round when it comes to clothing. So they put spring clothes on the racks during winter, summer clothes out during spring, and so on. If you buy according to their cycle, you’re probably going to overpay.
But if you’ll just watch the calendar and wait until the day each new season starts, you’ll get clothing you can wear today at a deeply discounted price. For example, light jackets and spring dresses usually go on discount beginning March 20 or 21—whenever the first day of spring comes around on the calendar. The retailers are already on to summer fashions at that point.
Black Friday websites scoop the holiday deals early
A decade ago, nobody outside the retail world was really familiar with Black Friday. Then suddenly it became the thing to do to camp out on the night of Thanksgiving and hang out until stores open Friday with their door-buster deals at 4:00, 5:00, or 6:00 a.m.
Talk about inefficiency. The crowds that waited so long would thin out by 9:00 a.m. and stores were like ghost towns the rest of the day. And retailers probably didn’t make any money on the stuff they were selling for deep discounts anyway!
Then there have been the actual physical dangers of having large crowds of people mill around and dash like mad to snatch up deals. During Black Friday 2008, a Walmart employee was actually trampled to death by a mob of shoppers in New York.
Fortunately, you can now monitor the best deals out there on any number of websites dedicated to Black Friday deals. BlackFriday.info, GottaDeal.com, and BFAds.net are some of the ones I’ve checked in the past. They begin posting the Black Friday deals that leak out about a month before the actual day.
One of my best deals came when I learned about a laptop at Best Buy for $249 on November 11. It was part of a one-day sale that the electronics retailer was having to kick off a recent holiday shopping season.
For the past few years, retailers have been worried about shoppers feeling pinched in the wallet and dialing back on spending. That’s led them to really make the idea of Black Friday something that starts early and lasts late. So there’s no longer the same need to rush out on that exact day for the best deals.
Another way to beat the crowds is to skip Black Friday altogether and wait for what’s called “Cyber Monday.” That’s the Monday following Black Friday, when online retailers offer promotional pricing on their products. When it comes to tracking the best deals on the Web, DealNews.com is my “go-to” website. DealNews ranks deals by “hotness” level to let you know when a real winner comes along. You order from the comfort of your own home and save big in the process. Now that’s the “Clark Smart” way to beat the crowds!
Vet charities before donating to them
Whenever the holidays approach, we’re susceptible to being taken advantage of by our generosity. Anytime a solicitor calls seeking funds, your standard answer should be, “I don’t give money over the phone. If you’d like, you can send me some literature on your organization so I can make an informed decision.”
If you say that to scammers, you’ll probably hear Mr. Buzz—the dial tone—because they’ll be on to the next caller. One area that’s been full of rip-offs has to do with phony solicitors seeking money for fire departments, police departments, and the military.
I recently heard about one group raising money for soldiers. But it turned out that only one-third of 1 percent of the money was actually going to soldiers. That means 99.7 percent was being stolen from people like you with false promises!
The state of California recently cracked down on more than a dozen bogus telemarketing firms working in this area that were pocketing the money themselves.
The seventeen telemarketing organizations targeted by the Golden State had completely legit-sounding names, such as the Disabled Firefighters Fund and the American Veterans Relief Foundation.
One of these operations called itself the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs. They had collected $30 million from people across the country. The money was intended to buy bulletproof vests for police and provide funds to surviving families of slain cops, among other things. So how much actually went for those two purposes? Zero dollars, according to the state’s attorney general. It was essentially stolen under false pretenses.
Here’s my rule of thumb when it comes to donating: You should have firsthand knowledge of any group you’re considering funding. Give your money to organizations you know you can trust and believe in. The best organizations for this are ones you’re involved in yourself.
You can also use websites like Give.org (a service of the Better Business Bureau), CharityWatch. org (a service of the American Institute of Philanthropy), and CharityNavigator.com to vet charities. Finally, established charities register with the Internal Revenue Service. You can search for specific nonprofit organizations at IRS.gov. Report any suspected instances of fraud to the nearest Better Business Bureau and the attorney general’s office in your state.
CLARK’S GREATEST HITS
Don’t buy gift cards
Gift cards are a holiday season favorite for a lot of people. But they are vastly inferior to cash.
Why would anyone want to take real U.S. money and turn it into fake money that’s good only at a certain retailer or restaurant? And what happens if that restaurant or retailer goes bust? Consumers have been burned too often when there’s no one around to make good on unredeemed gift cards.
That’s part of the reason why gift cards are loved so much and pushed so hard by retailers. Gift cards offer the lure of “breakage,” which is the amount of money an issuing business makes from cards that go totally unredeemed or are used only in part.
Recently, the Federal Reserve issued new rules on gift cards that have made these much-maligned holiday favorites slightly more consumer friendly.
The new rules pertain mainly to dormancy fees, service fees, and inactivity fees. Under the new terms, you’d have to forget about a card for an entire year before any inactivity or balance inquiry fees or other fees go into effect. Best of all, the fees must be clearly disclosed—not printed in mice-type by some lawyers spewing out legal hieroglyphics. In addition, all gift cards issued from August 2010 forward are valid for a full five years from the date of issue. Only after five years do any unused funds go back to the merchant who issued the gift card.
One thing the new rules did not do, however, is put in place a bonding or reserve requirement on gift cards that would safeguard the money in the event a gift card issuer goes out of business. So I still think giving a nice note with cash is preferable to giving a gift card.
There’s only one exception to my “no gift cards” rule, and that has to do with cards for which you get goods or services in excess of what you pay. Then it’s worth the risk that the issuing merchant might go bust. For example, you might pay $100 for a gift card at a restaurant and get a $120 food credit in return. That’s great, but even then you want to be sure to use that gift card as soon as possible.
If you’re on the receiving end of a gift card, treat it like a hot potato. Both holiday clearance sales and white sales in January offer great ways to use up gift cards you might receive during the Christmas season. Last January I bought new giant bath towels for $2.50 each and washcloths for 25 cents each at a white sale. Wow!
Buy an artificial Christmas tree
One of the best bargains of the Christmas season is an artificial tree. Many people prefer a real tree for sentimental reasons and because they like the smell of it. But over time, artificial trees will save you a lot of money.
Sure, real trees are less expensive as a onetime purchase. But an artificial tree can deliver payback in just two seasons and you will have it for years to come. The best day to buy an artificial tree is December 26, when the price has been marked down, of course!
One word about what you put under that tree. If you’ve had a rough year financially, you shouldn’t let guilt drive you to buy loads of presents for your children. When I was growing up, most children would receive just one gift. The notion of giving piles and piles of gifts and toys is a very modern one.
A few years ago, my youngest child, Grant, who was then two years old, was given too many presents. He wound up being more interested in playing with some Tupperware we had lying around because it really stimulated his imagination and motor skills. He didn’t need an official toy to engage in play!
Remember, your kids don’t love you based on what material goods you give them; they love you based on how much of your heart you share.
A CLARK FAVORITE
Buy roses for Valentine’s Day at grocery stores and hand deliver
Every year on February 14, I see those guys who haven’t planned ahead for Valentine’s Day making a mad dash for last-minute purchases at the end of the business day. I just know they’re getting fleeced on whatever they’re buying for their sweethearts.
If you are into romance and saving money, you’ve got to plan ahead. I often buy flowers for my wife from the warehouse clubs throughout the year, so there’s no mandate in my house for flowers on Valentine’s Day. But I buy them anyway in advance of the big day just to show that I’m thinking of her before the fact.
When it comes to the price of roses, even Costco marks them up around Valentine’s Day. Normally you can get two dozen for $15 there. But during peak season, the warehouse club sells one dozen for $15.
Supermarkets are a great place to buy roses. The chain stores that have floral departments will often have multiple staffers on hand to accommodate people dashing in for last-minute bouquets. Another great place to go is a nursery. It’s a very quiet time of the year for nurseries, and they usually sell flowers very affordably.
Delivery costs are another area that can really eat up your wallet. They can be as much as five times the cost of buying the roses yourself at a warehouse club! That’s why I suggest picking up some roses and delivering them yourself to your sweetie’s workplace. You’ll save big and score a lot of brownie points in the process.
Holidays are mostly market-driven these days; you shouldn’t feel like you have to spend a fortune on flowers or jewelry. Many times the woman you love would be more interested in your thinking up something romantic than blowing a wad of cash.
Handwriting a declaration of love is likely to be appreciated, even if you get the card at a dollar store. You should also consider eating out the night before Valentine’s Day to avoid the crowds.
Around Valentine’s Day, local dating services that use commissioned salespeople are heavily advertised. The Better Business Bureau often gets a lot of complaints about online dating sites, but no more so than soon before Valentine’s Day
The complaints include lies about the pool of dating candidates available; high-pressure sales tactics; and bad customer service. In my TV work, the station once sent hidden cameras to expose what potential clients face at dating services. One very tough woman who went in undercover came out in tears because of the ordeal.
Online dating services have proven to be very popular, but they typically cost money to join. OKCupid.com and PlentyOfFish.com are two of the newer players in the market offering free online dating services that I’ve heard praised by my listeners.
I won’t buy a thing without getting a deal on it. I’m single because Match.com does not offer discounts, and no one likes it when I whip out a 2-for-1 coupon at Chili’s. I don’t know why they don’t like being picked up in my 8-year-old fully paid for Suzuki Aero . . . with my ideas of taking a walk as romance. If it wasn’t for my absolute joy and pleasure in being so economical, I would have no love . . . but I love myself! Where is my lady version of Clark Howard . . . minus the glasses?! :)
Tony R., CA