I’ve heard so many people talk about all the hate on talk radio. Tonight I decided to see what that’s all about and tuned into a talk station from nearby Tulsa while I’m here in Arkansas at the moment. Man, was I surprised. I’ve never heard so much hate as I did from Clark Howard, the seemingly sweet guy who hates scams, hates crooks, hates rip offs, hates high prices, hates dishonesty and even hates rotten products. I can see why talk radio is such a threat. But I did learn something I had to pass on–I guess hate is infectious.

Clark spread a little of his gentle hate toward an interesting scam. Ever get a call on your cell phone from a number you don’t recognize and call it back to see who was trying to reach you? Guess what – the area code to that number may take you to a foreign phone service that can charge you a large amount for your call. That’s right – there are a number of three-digit area codes that look just like ordinary US area codes that connect you to other Western Hemisphere nations. The most popular one may be 809, for the Dominican Republic, but there are others such as 284 or 876. Snopes.com notes that there has been much hype over the threat of 809 area code calls, but does acknowledge that scams do occur with this number. Clark implied that this scam is on the rise again, using calls to cell phones to lure a victim into calling back. He offers a few suggestions on his post about this topic.

Well, that was all the hate I could handle. If you want more, you’ll have to listen yourself, while this form of hate speech is still legal. But beware: his kind of hate is infectious! I’ve know some of his regular listeners who got hooked and became super frugal just like Clark.

What’s this got to do with a Mormon blog? Uh, provident living, yeah, that’s it. Be frugal – but without too much hate.