RateMDs.com - Rate your doctor online.
Clarkhoward.com - Clark's list of work-at-home opportunities

Today's topics are "Best Of Clark" repeats from recent shows

Clark's Consumer Action Center has been receiving a lot of questions about accelerated mortgage offers. People are wondering if these offers are a new kind of scam. Clark thinks "scam" is too strong of a word, but he does think this is a serious rip-off -- and he wants to show you how to avoid it! First, let's take a look at the offer. It arrives as a friendly letter inviting you to pay off your mortgage years quicker than you normally would. The deal is that you have to pay your bank or an appointed marketing company $200-$400 to set you up on a bi-weekly payment plan. It also stipulates that you'll be billed another couple bucks each time you make a payment, or alternately that you'll pay nothing up front but every bi-weekly payment will be assessed a fee. This plan will have you paying half your monthly mortgage payment every two weeks. That's equivalent to 26 half-payments in a year. At the end of year, the marketing company on behalf of your bank makes one additional payment toward your mortgage. So the end result is that you pay 13 months in a 12-month period. But because you probably paid an initial fee to set this up, the bank held some of your money all year long and got rich off the interest.

Here's what you should do instead. Clark wants you to keep making monthly mortgage payments and add one-twelfth extra in the additional principal box on your monthly coupon. So if your monthly payment is $1,200, pay $1,300 instead. That way you'll do for free what your bank wants to charge you for -- and you'll bring your principal down quicker. There's one more possible bank rip-off related to your mortgage that you should avoid. They're going to try to sell you "croak and choke" insurance -- otherwise known as mortgage life and disability insurance. It states that if you buy their policy and die, they'll pay your mortgage. But Clark sees two problems here. First, you're paying an insurance premium to protect the bank. At the time of your death, there may be better uses of your money for your heirs. So you're better off with a standard term life insurance policy. Second, the bank charges a premium that's about 10 times as much as your plain old life insurance policy. Sometimes Clark wonders where the ethics in banking have gone!

The cost of prescriptions has been in the news a lot lately. Regional supermarket chain Publix is now giving away select generic antibiotics to drum up business for its in-store pharmacies. Clark recently had a funny prescription story related to his ongoing sinus infection. The doctor first put him on a generic antibiotic that cost $8 for 20 pills. But when the infection didn't go away, the doctor wrote a new prescription that cost more than $120 for 10 pills at a warehouse club -- and he's still not cured! Meanwhile, his 8-year-old daughter needed a liquid prescription that ran $225. Clark jokes that he had it filled and then didn't eat for four days! The best advice here is to ask your pharmacist what your prescription is going to cost before you buy it. If it's too expensive, call your doctor's office and see if they can write a prescription for an alternate drug that's more affordable.

Clark recently read that 60 percent of all prescriptions being filled are generic now. The New York Times reported that a number of brand name drugs are going generic in the next two years, which is throwing BigPharma into a tailspin. One company is laying off 5,000 people because a blockbuster brand name drug is set to go generic. The consumer is set to save a bundle when this trend heats up. Discount stores have already been getting into the action with Kmart doing a three-month supply of some medicines for $15, and Wal Mart doing its own $4 deal. Other consumer-driven shifts in the medical field can be seen in new websites that let you rate a doctor online. Forbes reports that RateMDs.com is one of the most popular. Some doctors who have bad bedside manner are getting their feelings hurt because patients are acting as consumers and rating them. Clark loves that patients are seizing the power to rate their medical providers, and he thinks it's especially important to vet your doctor when you get a referral to a specialist.

How should you deal with a builder who doesn't honor the terms of your warranty after you close on your home? For the past 15 years, Clark has been advising people to picket the builder at their developments. You used to have to call your jurisdiction to find out how to go about picketing, and make sure that you never said slanderous things about the builder's character. But today instead of physically picketing, people take their ire online. Business Week did a report on homeowners who have set up gripe websites. Some builders have even fought back by trying to put clauses in their contracts that aim to silence you if you do business with them. That's an infringement of free speech. A builder who is afraid of the truth is not someone you want as a business partner.

Clark knows that building a house is difficult and involves a lot of micro-management with all the day laborers and subcontractors. He advises people not to close on their home until all the contractual items are complete. If you're getting pressure to close anyway, consider hiring a lawyer to withhold money in escrow to cover any outstanding issues. This practice, known as retainage, is a standard set at 10 percent in the commercial market. Just remember that once a builder completes your house, you're yesterday's news. The only reason they have to care about you is their reputation. So consider taking your battle online if need be.

One of Clark's staffers was recently on vacation for four days. While in San Diego, she spoke to some Europeans who laughed at her meager "holiday" time -- they were abroad for eight weeks! The Wall Street Journal recently reported that only one in seven American workers takes a "long" vacation of two weeks at a time. In fact, people don't even use all the vacation that they've accrued. More than one in three forfeits vacation days. Then there's also the working vacation trend, where you go away but spend most of your time working remotely. Clark thinks people are better as workers and family members when they take some time to chill out. He sees a lot of people with "emperor syndrome," where they think that the company can't survive without them. "Impostor syndrome" is also common. That's when people become afraid that the company will realize they're not necessary if they're out on vacation. These kinds of insecurities can really drain your productivity over time. Clark advises people to get away when they have the chance and turn off their "Crackberry" devices. The world won't collapse if you take a few days to enjoy yourself. Yahoo! recently sent around an internal e-mail trying to compel staffers to take their vacations. The employees were outraged by the move, and the company had to back down and make vacation a voluntary thing. There is, however, a ray of hope on the horizon; members of Generation X (those born between 1965-1978) tend to take 100 percent of their vacation time. When's the last time you took a week off from work?