It's my pleasure to welcome you to the Clark Howard Show, where our mission is to serve

you and empower you to make better financial decisions in your life.

Today's episode, I have a special warning for you about an old nasty practice that is

rearing its head again as people are facing a little more difficulty with their wallets.

And yesterday I talked about my love for prefab homes, for components of homes being built

in a factory, not necessarily the whole home, but components.

How about having an off the grid home?

This is something that was kind of like a way, way out thing 10 years ago.

It is actually becoming more common.

I'm going to tell you all the ways it's going to fit in our lives moving forward.

So debt collectors, tough job, terribly difficult job.

Who gets up in the morning and says, I can't wait to have a call from a debt collector.

A nasty tough job.

And a lot of people do that job properly with respect.

They do it ethically.

But there are also those players in the industry, both the companies and individuals that play

dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty.

And you got to know that this is one that if you meekly give in to a dirty collector,

it can really hurt you.

And I need to talk to you about something called refreshing the debt.

Let me tell you this place.

So a collector will either like a snake pretend to be your friend or will instead be various

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