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The Clark Howard Podcast

2.28.20 Don't put your tax refund on a gift card; Clark Stinks

The Clark Howard Podcast

Clark Howard

Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.65.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 February 2020

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Recently Clark discussed how AT&T issues refunds on stored value cards. These cards are intentionally tricky to spend down – disallowing partial payments by design to keep some of your money through ‘breakage’. Several tax preparation services are now trying to sell customers on accepting their refunds on stored value cards or even Amazon gift cards. These cards have ridiculous junk fees – monthly fees, per transaction fees etc. Putting a tax refund on any kind of spending card is a bad idea. The best use of a tax refund is to pay down debt or contribute to a Roth. Don’t fall for these pitches. They’re all about you spending, paying fees, and giving them the ‘breakage’ money left on the card that you end up forfeiting. It’s your money!  Christa reads listener posts about how Clark has missed the mark in his advice this week. If you have a "Clark Stinks" to share you can leave it here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, here itch it's here and I'm here to tell you all about Gardina.

0:05.4

As someone who is passionate about gardening and growing my own food, it is so important

0:09.9

that I have reliable quality tools by my side. Whether you're pruning, sewing seeds,

0:16.1

or watering your outdoor space, Gardina has everything you need to keep your garden blooming.

0:21.6

Gardina is a brand that keeps passionate gardeners in the heart of everything they do.

0:26.8

To find out more, head to Gardina.com forward slash UK.

0:36.3

Thanks for taking time out of your day to join us here on the Clark Howard Show, where it's

0:41.0

about you learning ways to save more and spend less. And don't let anyone ever rip you off.

0:48.2

Clark.com and ClarkDeals.com are our websites. And coming up later, it's time for Clark

0:55.2

Stinks on the air. We have ClarkStinks on Clark.com where you can post where you feel advice,

1:01.7

guidance, or information I've given is misguided or wrong. And people can read your posts.

1:08.9

They can add to them. They can agree, disagree with you. Check out Clark.com slash ClarkStinks.

1:15.9

And coming up later, you get to hear the on the show version of ClarkStinks.

1:23.3

So recently, I shared a story with you about deceptive practice by AT&T, where if you've been

1:32.1

a customer of theirs, and they owe you a refund, a partial refund for month service or something like

1:38.4

that, that they give you these trashy debit card things. There are stored value cards that are very

1:46.4

difficult to use all the money on. And that is the intention of the design of these things.

1:53.3

Instead of sending you a check, is to try to keep some of your money through what's called

2:01.7

breakage in the industry. So it's a really end thing to try to con you that it's better to get

2:11.3

a refund or get money that's owed to you in a card. In the case of AT&T, they don't even give

2:17.2

you a choice. They just send you the trashy card. So it really had my attention big time

2:25.0

that several of the tax preparation services this year are trying to get you if you do a tax

...

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