Current Events in October 2022

As Amazon prepares for its second Prime Day of the year next week, the company is now rolling out Amazon Access – a new shopping hub that will help customers save more money. With Amazon Access, shoppers will have new ways to pay, more savings for consumers who receive SNAP EBT, and discounts on Prime memberships for those who qualify for government assistance. 

“Amazon launched a grassroots program to listen and learn from customers in communities across the country,” the company wrote. “In fact, this customer feedback is central to the design of our products and services. We found that many of our customers are looking for ways to save money and time, now more than ever. We know that online shopping is a big part of how they save, and that’s why we’re introducing Amazon Access, a hub to make shopping easier for all customers.” 

More savings are now possible

With the holidays approaching, Amazon Access offers customers options for greater savings. For starters, the company is offering Prime memberships to those who qualify for government assistance for half the price.

Eligible customers can pay just $6.99 per month and receive all the benefits of having a Prime membership. 

“Millions of households that receive benefits from one of 10 government assistance programs can join Prime Access to enjoy all that Prime offers while saving more than 50% on their membership costs,” Amazon said. “And customers have responded, expanding program membership by more than 300% from 2019 to the end of 2021. By launching a new name, we’re excited to bring customers more visibility on how they can access Prime’s valuable benefits, exclusive perks, and savings.” 

Consumers with a SNAP EBT card can now save on groceries and use their card to pay on Amazon. Customers don’t need to be Prime members but do need to create an Amazon account, and delivery on their grocery orders is free. Savings are available on everything from fruits, vegetables, meat, and poultry, to bread, cereals, snacks, and nonalcoholic beverages.  

Layaway option

Amazon Access will also offer customers the option to pay with layaway. Twenty percent of the total cost must be paid at the time of purchase to secure the items, and then the rest can be paid over time.

Amazon says that thousands of items will be available for layaway, and shoppers won’t need to worry about fees, interest, or credit checks to select this payment option. 

Additionally, paying with Amazon Cash remains an option at checkout, as does picking up items at a self-service Amazon locker or counter location. Amazon will also continue to offer discounts and coupons on items, as well as the Subscribe and Save option. 

Scammers have moved many of their schemes from the internet to consumers' phones, using texts to trick their victims. Recently, they’ve discovered the anonymity of texts works to their advantage.

For example, in the grandparent scam, the trickster has to disguise their voice, making someone believe they are talking to a grandchild who is in trouble and needs money. With a text, the pitch is even more effective – and dangerous.

Law enforcement officials and consumer advocates report a sharp increase in these types of imposter scams that show up on a victim’s phone as a text. A new favorite is a text that appears to be from your mom.

The phone’s Caller ID may display the word “Mom,” which is how many people have recorded a parent’s phone number in their contacts. The message is brief and to the point – “Mom” is out shopping and forgot her credit card. Could she borrow $150?

Who can refuse their mother? But wait – has your mother ever sent you a text in the past? If not, the message probably isn’t from her.

If you and your mother exchange texts fairly often, then the new message should be included in the thread of previous messages. If it isn’t, then the message is not coming from her number.

Just to make sure, check the sender’s phone number. That should confirm that the message isn’t coming from your mother.

As a final precaution, call your mother and ask her if she does, indeed, need a loan.

Just the beginning

Chances are, these kinds of scams will multiply in the months ahead. Now that telcoms have, at the government’s prodding, taken steps to block robocalls, scammers have moved to so-called “smishing” schemes. They might actually be more dangerous.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently warned of an increase in smishing schemes that claim to be from the tax agency.  The scam messages often look like they’re actually coming from the IRS, complete with come-ons like fake COVID relief money, tax credits, or help setting up an IRS online account. 

The IRS says all are scams because the agency never sends texts to taxpayers.

Home prices are dropping like a rock.  The most recent data from the Black Knight Home Price Index, a national measure of home prices, show the median home price declined in August for the second straight month.

But it’s the size of those price declines that’s worth noting. July and August's month-over-month declines mark the sharpest contractions seen in more than 13 years. Black Knight Data & Analytics President Ben Graboske says the market entered September with the median price down 2% just since the June peak.

"Only marginally better than July's revised 1.05% monthly decline, home prices were down an additional 0.98% in August,” Graboske said. “Either one of them would have been the largest single-month price decline since January 2009. Together they represent two straight months of significant pullbacks after more than two years of record-breaking growth.”

That is likely music to the ears of would-be home buyers who have been priced out of the housing market by high prices and mortgage rates that are approaching 7%. But celebrations may be premature.

Affordability is still falling

Even though home prices are falling from their all-time high, the experts at Black Knight say housing remains historically unaffordable, all because of rising mortgage rates. 

After improving slightly in July and early August, surging 30-year mortgage rates have pushed home affordability to its worst point in 38 years.

With rates at 6.7% as of Sept. 29, 38.2% of the median household income is needed to make the principal and interest (P&I) payment on the median-priced home purchase, the largest share since December 1984, when mortgage rates were at 13.2%. 

The monthly P&I payment on the median home is up $930 from the same time last year – a 73% increase. The situation is geographically widespread as well, with 84 of the 100 largest U.S. markets now at more than three-decade lows in terms of home affordability.

Black Knight also suggests there is a limit to how far home prices will fall, even in a rising interest rate environment. Analysts note inventory levels are still near historic lows as many sellers are now waiting for lower interest rates before listing their homes.

What about the huge inventory of unsold newly constructed homes? Won't those prices be slashed to the bone?

Yes and no. The Wall Street Journal reports some builders are offering entire subdivisions to investors at a discount. Those homes won’t be sold to owner occupants but will be maintained as single-family rentals.

If your phone is acting a little sluggish, it may be because spyware has wormed its way into your phone’s system -- tracking every click you make, every step you take, and anything and everything you do. And the situation could get worse before it gets better, too. 

Like the rest of the world, malware took 2020 off, but now it’s back with a vengeance. In 2021, Malwarebytes detected 77% more malicious software than in 2020. The study said that malware threats made on consumers last year eclipsed 150 million. 

Consumers have their work cut out for them

Before you go pointing fingers at Google or Apple or your carrier, they’re doing all they can. For its part, Apple unleashed Lockdown Mode to protect iPhone owners.

Google’s been busy protecting its Play Store from Potentially Harmful Applications (PHAs), too. It’s gotten the number of PHAs down to less than 1% of the total apps installed, but spyware accounts for 48% of those. 

Still, when you look at how many apps installed from Google Play, that sub-1% still adds up to the possibility that hundreds of millions of spyware-laden apps are winding up on people’s phones.

How do you know if spyware is on your phone? Cybersecurity experts from VPNOverview have collected the top five warning signs that could indicate that hackers are using your phone to spy on you. The study also details how you can prevent and remove spyware that hackers may have installed onto your phone.  

The Top 5 signs you’re being spied on

1. Slow performance 

The number one indication that spyware is on your phone is that your device is constantly slow – slow because it’s running rampant in the background uploading your personal data, your photos, your documents, and other files to an external server.

The VPNOverview experts say you can make sure this isn’t happening by checking your phone for any unfamiliar apps and scanning any hidden apps using an antivirus program. If you find an app that seems suspicious, deleting it may improve the performance of your device.

“Whilst some spyware is hidden by hackers, some spyware programs will appear amongst your apps," the VPNConnect cybersecurity team told ConsumerAffairs.

"These apps may show up as parental control apps intended to be used to monitor a child’s cyber safety, however, they could have been installed by a jealous ex-partner to spy on you," 

What are some apps that you should look for? The analysts singled out these: mSpy, Spyera, Flexispy, Umobix, Ikey Monitor, and Clevguard.

2. Random reboots 

Another tell-tale sign that spyware is on the loose is that your phone reboots without your authorization or because it overheated or is doing a typical system update. 

“This can indicate that someone has remote, administrator-level access to your phone. The hacker can do whatever they want with your device if this is the case,” VPNConnect analysts said. “To rule out the presence of spyware, you can update your phone’s operating system, and delete any malfunctioning apps. If neither of these solutions solves the random reboots, you may have spyware on your phone.”

3. Strange text messages 

With robocalls being throttled thanks to new rules from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), smishing has taken its place and, with that, hackers are employing text messages to take a screenshot, detect your location or even gain control of your phone. 

“You should be not only vigilant of incoming texts but also outgoing texts as a hacker can send text messages from your phone to communicate with their own server," VPNConnect warned. 

"Any message that looks unfamiliar, sounds like gibberish, or appears outright strange should be ignored. This is especially the case for unfamiliar texts containing links; these links can allow a hacker access to your phone if clicked on.” 

4. Overheating 

Summer is pretty much gone so a phone being overheated naturally from the elements should be dwindling. However, if your phone is still overheating, it’s possible that the heat is coming from a malicious app running in the background, especially if the overheating occurs when the phone is on standby. 

How can you make sure if it’s spyware or not? First, make sure that your phone doesn’t have a hardware issue or check that the apps you have installed are not large resource consumers.

To do that, the VPNConnect folks suggest going into your phone’s settings and checking your app list to see which apps use the most resources (apps are usually presented in order of most resource use, by the way).

“Some apps will have legitimate reasons for taking up energy on your phone, but any that use more than they should (may) be the culprit and should be deleted,” the analysts said.

5. Unusually high data usage 

If you’re not a big data hog – like watching a ton of videos – but still see your data usage higher than you think it should be, it may be a cause for concern. 

“A hacker’s primary goal is to harvest your data, to sell it to the black market, or use it to blackmail you. To gather this information, a hacker will remotely access your phone and transfer your files to their server, which requires data usage on your end,” VPNConnect privacy pros said.

“Therefore, if your cellular data usage seems unusually high, this could indicate that something suspicious is going on with your phone. It is a good idea to keep track of your monthly data use to identify any unexpected spikes.”

In a normal housing market, people shopping for their first home have a lot of choices. There are many neighborhoods, mostly older, with modest houses of between 1,000 and 1,500 square feet that sell for well below the median home price.

These homes still exist but in recent years fewer of them have come up for sale. When they do they are quickly snatched up, sometimes by investors who turn them into rental properties.

In its 2022 survey of more than 1,000 real estate agents in the U.S., real estate firm HomeLight found first-time homebuyers are now budgeting an average of $410,000 for their first home – a price many entry-level buyers simply can’t afford.

“There are several reasons for the shortage of starter homes,” Alex Shekhtman, CEO and founder of LBC Mortgage, told ConsumerAffairs. “One is that the construction of new homes has lagged behind population growth. Another is that many existing homes are being snapped up by investors, who then rent them out rather than selling them at an affordable price.”

At the turn of the 20th century, the Greater Heights area of Houston developed as an area dotted with small bungalows. Over the decades, it turned into an area of rental homes that were not very well kept but were affordable. In the last decade, Greater Heights has turned into a real estate investor’s dream.

“When you removed the chain-link fence, pulled back the carpet, and painted the walls back to white, these are charming homes which today we sell for $600,000 to $800,000,” Bill Baldwin, a local broker and city planning commissioner, told the New York Times.

The real estate industry classifies any home under 1,850 as a starter home. Using that definition, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported there were only 300,000 starter homes listed for sale in September 2021. Thanks to last year’s booming real estate market, the median list price for a starter home reached $260,000, about 11% higher than in September 2020.

Not much profit in building starter homes

If there is such a big market for starter homes, why don’t contractors build more of them? Daniel Blatman, associate broker at The Agency, a national brokerage firm, says building small homes presents a challenge for contractors. For example, the cost of the land to build a $250,000 home is the same as for a house that might sell for $750,000.

“They (builders) need to sell at higher prices to make the margins work for the amount of effort put into place,” Blatman told us. “It's more economical to purchase a lower-priced home and fix it up than to build ground-up new construction.”

That appears to be the crux of the issue. With the cost of materials, labor, and land, builders go where the money is – larger homes that sell for more.  Daniel Smith, CEO and founder at Keepingly, a home management platform, tells us a typical starter home should list for around $200,000.

“Yet, land costs, construction materials, state and (local) government fees have all risen over the last few decades,” Smith said. “Additionally, rules and regulations around the starter home requirements have shifted. Combined, all these factors have impacted the cost of construction for today’s entry-level home compared to those on the market in previous years.”

Can governments help?

All of the industry experts we consulted agreed that local, state, and federal governments could take action to encourage more entry-level home construction. Shekhtman says the government can offer incentives to builders and expand programs to financially help first-time buyers.

“Zoning laws could be reformed to allow for more density, which would make it easier and more profitable for builders to construct smaller homes,” he said.

Blatman said governments could reward buying and owning "unimproved land", as well as creating opportunity zone style benefits for certain parcels. They could also provide a benefit to investors who renovate and flip homes.

The government could also offer more creative benefits for housing creation that fit these criteria, which Blatman said would also benefit the developers' other higher-end products. 

“This can be similar to what is done in New York City by building high-end condos on the upper floors of a building and more economical options on the lower floors in order to get a tax abatement, among other benefits," Blatman said.

Relief in the form of these types of innovations and reforms could boost affordable housing the experts say. And with mortgage rates making homes even less affordable, relief can’t come too soon.

The HomeLight survey shows that, while some Midwestern housing markets feature entry-level homes for around $236,000, buyers in West Coast markets are facing list prices of nearly $900,000 for their first home.