weekend and thank you, all, for being a loyal and engaged viewership. we appreciate that very much. gerri: hello, everyone, i am gerri willis. welcome to a special edition of "the willis report." we will answer the question how do you do that from avoiding airline fees to tapping your home equity. with today being black friday, many if you braved long lines to snag the hottest deals and many of you will spend the weekend and this monday shopping online for more savings. make sure you do it safely. cybercrime replays were reported to the fbi did here's how to make you are not a victim. consumer advocate and consumer advocate adam levine.

gerri: at them, thank you for coming on the show. great to see you. so we were talking in the break the numbers are far higher than what i just said. he said something like 200 million americans may have been hit in some of these attacks had major american retailers. >> the credit cards were compromised and contained names, phone numbers and e-mail addresses. gerri: let's go down to some real hard-core advice for people worried, concerned they are unsafe this holiday season. what is step number one to make sure will not have some of my identity stolen? >> use a credit card, not a debit card. zero liability, even though some give you zero liability, you get much stronger fraud protection. and remember, you were talking about price protection, you get warranty protection, credit cards are a better bet, a safer bet and you can even get what is

called virtual credit cards where it switches the number each time you do a transaction, banks can arrange that for you. gerri: great idea be at some they get ripped off because not just credit card number but haven't card number and pass code, is at risk. one of the big things we have seen this holiday season and consumers are not pay attention to this and they should, people have had their e-mail address stolen. it is a threat, why? >> you will get --dash when you get a message three e-mail that looks like it is coming from an official institution like a bank or from the retailer, with some a retailers having been hacked and so many e-mail addresses and names out there, you could get something that says your bank account has been frozen, and click on this link, take you to a site, we need you to reaffirm certain information and we can

authorize your account again. you have to stay away from lengths, stay away from anything that looks emotional coming from a retailer. go directly to the retailer if you have a mobile device, use the app, goat the retailer directly on that, beware of links and if you use something other than an app, make sure you spell the name correctly. people collecting misspellings. gerri: quickly before you go, people got caught up in some of these scams last year. target, neiman marcus, all of these involved in a scam. some have not been reissued credit cards. they want to shop, they want to get everybody presence, what do they do? >> check your account on a daily basis, make sure every charge you see is yours. as to give you a new debit card.

some ma mayhem and talk, but thy will do it. >> if you are on the wrong end of that activity. gerri: if you don't ask, you don't get. be bold, this is your life, you are protected. gerri: always great to have you here, thank you. gerri: if you are a shopper, you know what i'm talking about. you walk up a store cashier to pay for your items and asked to donate items to charity. and that is how they get you. with $358 million for charities into 12 by by asking for donations at the register. why do companies do this and how can you make sure your donation is on you wanted? joining me now with this tip. great to have you on the show. these are not fly-by-night companies getting mcdonald's, walmart, safeway, costco, ebay. why are these companies doing this? >> they know 90% of the research

shows people will come back more often to those companies affiliated with a charity. it is a very good marketing for them as well as hopefully doing some good. gerri: it is long those lines trying to get people back in the door and this is one of those things that do it. it makes me feel so guilty, there i am in the line, a public place and the question is will you give my to starving children, you can't say no. >> you going to be generous and help or not? guilt-based charity has been effective for many generations. it is not the best way to give, but the strategy -- gerri: you don't like it, why? >> you don't know what you are going to get if it is a good charity or a bad charity. it may not be the kind of cause you are most passionate about so there's a lot of risk involved.

thdepending upon this corporatin to select an effective charity it may not even be something. gerri: something google is doing right now asking to help fight ebola on their website. you don't know where the money is going. help fight ebola. for every dollar you give, google will give to come. but who am i giving the money to. >> again, that is another thing, you don't know what charity it is going to come you don't know how much money. gerri: it can be an icon, claim collection, a round up. your bill is for $2.50, wouldn't you like to give another $0.50 to charity, they get you a lot of different ways. if you make so much sense, give to people who do good things and use the money wisely. take a look at what you say are some of the best charities in the country.

>> i think we have provided you a list. midwest food bank is providing millions of people i think 550 million people per month with needed food, poor people in the midwest area and number of states, and the billings food bank also doing the same sort of thing very focused in montana. the vast majority of the money goes to the right place, having great results. some of those additional groups, the books for africa. gerri: step up for students, heart to heart international. you have looked for the critical things good charities need to be doing. tell us what the checklist is. >> that they are financially well-managed and the majority is going to the program and not to lining somebody's pocket. the second is good, strong governance and the board is in charge, not some ceo doing what

they want, they are independent and ethical. and they have real strong evidence of results like we mentioned here. meeting the mission in a measurable way. the golden components, the three pillars of finding the best charities. gerri: the website, thank you for being on. great stuff, great information. gerri: coming up, more of the answer to the question how do you do that with advice on tapping your home equity. next line if you are sure to travel this holiday season and we all know the airlines nickel and dime us to death that will help you avoid some of those fees. stay with us.

gerri: surprise surprise, airlines cashing in on all those skyrocketing fees that have been charging you. estimated to make a record $50 billion this year in additional fees. gerri: here with more on this and tips to avoid the fees, senior editor for travelocity.com. welcome to the show, great to have you again.

looking at this entry, 17%, who gets a 17% increase? >> it is a large increase, but given that we are seeing more travelers in the past several years get out there and travel. and more types of fees than ever. some baggage fees kind of kicked off in 2008, now we are seeing fees for reservation fees, priority boarding, there are really so many opportunities. gerri: the average the average traveler is $15 in extra fees, that is not nothing. your great ideas on how to reduce those costs. >> first of all, it is really important, checking your bag is $25 off the top on most airlines domestically. carry-on baggage at all cost is quite easy to pack for an average vacation with a little

practice. gerri: one of the things you say that makes sense is building loyalty with airline because you can get personal rewards. >> frequent fliers get a lot of perks avoiding fees others are faced with. priority boarding, you get access to preferred seating which can be up to $99 for the average traveler. gerri: a thing that gets me is what they charge for food on these flights. it is ridiculous. >> it would behoove you to hit the grocery before you hit the airport. stack up on snacks and he will save some money there. gerri: don't do the reservation by telephone. that cost you money, how much. >> an average of $10 up, another additional cost all these combined are going to get you to that $15. gerri: the worst i of all is changing your ticket.

>> before you hit the book tickets button know your plans in advance. you're going to pay $150 up for a change fee plus the cost of the difference in the fair. gerri: it is great to see you, great information. coming up, we answer the question how do you do that with advice for terri's how to avoid common real estate mistakes, and next as home prices rise slightly, many are tapping into home equities but what is the right way to do it?

gerri: home prices are back on the rise in mortgage rates dip dipping to the lowest level in a year.

somso homeowners may be asking themselves if now is the time to tap their home equity to pay off an unexpected bill or even to buy a new home. this is the right move for you and how do you do that. asking senior vice president for auction.com which recently teamed up with google to offer real-time housing data. welcome to the show, great to have you here. stir with his idea of when you tap your equity. i thought that is something everybody got in trouble with, people are doing it again, why? >> got a little bit out of control the early part of the first decade looking at $8 billion in home equity being tapped in a quarter, now 8 billion. people typically use it to pay down higher interest rates that, they will use it to do home improvements especially if you sell the house and to your earlier segment sometimes using it to pay for college instead of taking out student loans.

there are legitimate reasons are tapping into your equity. gerri: but then you have to pay it back. what do people need to know if they are trying to tap this equity, what is the right way to do it? >> the right answer for a lot of people is don't do it, it is a trap. particularly if you are not a discipline spender. a home equity loan or take out a second mortgage and pay down your credit card debt, unfortunately a lot of those people run their credit card debt backup now they are in plactwice as much trouble becaue they leveraged equity and back in debt with a higher interest rate. there are different tools, home equity loans, home equity lines of credit, refinancing mortgages, taking cash out, all of them have different criteria and they vary a little bit for the interest rates you get, tax advantages you might have been certain circumstances probably makes sense to talk your financial advisor to get a

little be tell if you haven't done something like this before. gerri: the devil is in the details. they rewrote the mortgage rules, now people can barely get the first mortgage. is it harder to get one of these reifies as well? >> yes. we see very little in the way of 100% refinance loans or home equity lines of credit getting 125% of the value of your property. lot of the excess got people into trouble in the first place are not there anymore. it does make sense to take a look at a refinance maybe not with cash out, but if it will help them get a lower interest rate than what we currently have. one of the catches is if you don't want to get a refi, get cash out of it means you're going to go up from your current interest rate and a lot of people are looking at historically low interest rates. the other thing to watch out for is if you get a home equity line of credit keep in mind the

lender can cancel it at any time, reduce the amount available at any time and often come with variable interest rates so you could pay more in the future then you pay right now. gerri: i know people say they have been lower and that is true, but you and i both know that have been far higher. you are doing it deal with google now, offering real-time housing market data. something really missing in the equation about housing research and something that can help homeowners. will it be available to consumers? >> we have the real estate now cash build on some theories put together by google chief economist basically lets us take a look at google search trend data, anonymous data publicly available information, we layer that on top of our real-time auction results and what we're getting for publicly available housing data and what we are

able to do is predict what is going on in the housing market three to four weeks before the traditional report comes out. available on the website and on the blog. gerri: give us the url please. >> auction.com. we will usually have some blog post about it. the next one out november 24, we will make sure we get some information out on specific urls people can find the information. gerri: thank you for coming on. >> my pleasure. gerri: coming up, how do you do that, keeping property insurance from skyrocketing after a single claim, and next advice for retirees. how to avoid common real estate mistakes. stay with us, we will be right back.

gerri: at one point or another many retirees downside relocates home but these real estate decisions open you up to big mistakes. here is larry luxenberg. welcome to the show, good to have you here. what is the most common mistake folks who want that ideal second home make as they are retiring? >> people get too emotional and don't look at the big picture, they don't look at the total life in retirement and don't consider the financial aspects as part of their overall financial interests. gerri: they don't realize the cost of that home because they have a first home, they should know. the travel to the house, the upkeep can be more expensive taking care of the second home then the first home. >> everything about her house is

more expensive than people expect. gerri: let's talk about snowbirds. if you are trying to get a smaller home, what do you want to avoid, what mistakes do you want to make sure you don't make. >> particularly somebody from the new york area or maybe northern california selling an expensive house and have a lot of money extra after they buy a house in the retirement area and have to invest it carefully where it can vanish very carefully with no trace. gerri: if you get a pot of cash and you don't take care of it right away no doubt it will go to things you don't intend it to. and even bigger thing about a third of homeowners 65 and older have a mortgage up from .2% in 2001. this is not the ideal situation to be in. what should you do if you are at that age still paying off your house. >> pay the mortgage down fast if you can.

you may have to consider relocating, downsizing sooner, anything you can do, you definitely don't want to carry that into retirement. gerri: it is happening tomorrow and more people because of what happened in 2007, 2008, 2009, people were forced to stay in houses maybe they didn't want to. give us an idea because you know all about this real estate market, what are the trends people who are trying to go to an area that might be more attractive, what do they need to know about? >> once you saw your house and buy another house, you are really locked in, so you want to be careful and don't be panicked or too emotional. make sure you really want to go into that area, and then try it out and only then jump in and

make a purchase. gerri: thank you so much for coming on the show tonight, a pleasure to have you here. >> thank you so much. gerri: if you're a homeowner, do some serious thinking before filing an insurance claim because at the end of the day it could cost you a whole lot more down the road. here to explain his senior analyst laura adams. most homeowners know if you make a claim on your homeowner insurance they will raise your premiums at some point. you have some interesting details about how it doesn't really matter what you are making the claim four, you will pay at any rate. tell us what you found in your survey. >> a recent survey found interesting information. we are seeing rates increase across the united states 9%, but this really varies depend on where you live. states like wyoming rates increasing over 30% for just one claim.

gerri: talking with and i% average increase for any kind of a filing and yet you have even more details on this. you can break it down for the type of claim, the ones that really hurt. explain. >> liabilities claims costs the most good on average about 14% because we typically have a lot of liability coverage. the low that we have fire claims. gerri: i just want to explain liability. they somebody is hurt on your property and they want money from you, you would file liability claim and that is what that means. >> exactly. gerri: so fire uses the next biggest. right-click mark >> we're seeing that really costing consumer and below that seeing things like theft, vandalism, expensive claims to be making.

gerri: people making claims for a lot of different things. what is your advice to consumers? you want to use it, right? >> that is right. in a perfect world every claim would be something we recommend you file, but actually consumers need to really be careful. you have heard the saying don't sweat the small stuff. my advice is don't claim the small stuff. really be careful what you are claiming. raise your deductible, have a larger deductible means you are going to pay more out of pocket helping you from smiling small claims i could cost you in the long run. gerri: one thing i think a smart is don't your homeowners insurance as a maintenance tool. some just don't want to have to pay for upkeep. you say shop around. it other quotes from other companies. >> a they are not looking at the market on an annual basis, they

are leaving money on the table. rates are changing all the time. use a site to get free quotes, look at everything available to you and send it to make a wise decision based on what you are finding to see if you are overpaying or underpaying. gerri: some of them represent many companies and can give you lots of quotes. thank you for coming on tonight. >> thank you for having me. gerri: keeping your information safe on apple's health app. see what is done to protect your privacy of how the government is getting involved.

gerri: the federal trade commission wants answers from apple. reuters reported the federal trade commission wants details on how the tech giant will

protect health data corrected by the smart watch. mashable tech editor joins us on how you can protect your information. welcome to the show, good to see you. i think everybody has on their christmas list smart watch or possibly all kinds of imitators in the marketplace all collecting a ton of information, health information. what does the ftc want? what are they after? >> all of them tote ability to tote your steps, your sleep, some have potential to track other things like your heart rate. this is getting more personal in terms of the data these devices are collecting about us. apple has done a brilliant thing, they built a system if you have job own fitness tracker and want to use the nike app, they can share the same data, the thing is this sharing

breaking down the walls between things, kind of a potential vector for losing privacy. that said, apple security designed with security might miss but why the nature of this beast you are putting your data in more places than you were before. gerri: so it is apple software bringing everything together and presumably i can see it, they would want to know what i was doing, all kinds of people who do research into different cancer might want this information. i can see a lot of people wanting it, it would be very valuable. people are not comfortable with sharing this, how do you make sure apple is not selling it off to everybody? >> it has to be opt in. there are very real benefits. you brought up insurance companies, that is correct. my insurance company will give me sort of a discounted rate if

i go to the gym and if i prove that by showing the gym records but if i go for a run on my own, that doesn't count, but the erratically with these trackers that would count if it was taken into account. the key thing is that has to be my choice if i want to share this with them and it should not be out there for consumption in some way. gerri: i thought all this information was supposed to be super secret. >> this is a very interesting gray area with these trackers. microsoft and google and others set a big example with their health initiative as a developer conferences week, all of these skirt it because they are recreational at this point, tracking your fitness in a consumer kind of a way not a device a doctor is giving you.

gerri: i want to get you to advice for people concerned about sharing their information on these platforms, what do you do? >> you start from the outside in. if you are only mildly concerned i would say stick with the platform you trust whether it is bigger companies by and large tend to be more secure, not that it doesn't have good securities, just a generality. the other thing is only share that data i was talking about, only sharing casual fitness stuff, not a ton of damage you can do to yourself, and if you don't want to share nothing at all, you can opt out, turn it off and even turn off location will keep you very safe. gerri: i know this year in particular with the holiday season coming up a lot of people are going to have it in the back of their mind. the you think they will take one more step toward regulation. they may change their colors.

>> at some point regulation and these crackers are going to hit each other head-on, this is kind of the first signs of it. most of these platforms have taken this into account and will comply with whatever emerges, but there is so much data and so much of it is personal and can really change lives, i think we are inevitably heading to a point this gray area of trackers will get some more oversight. gerri: for government, let's security, less privacy. thank you for coming on, have a great weekend. gerri: still to come, you and your money with bond funds as a special edition of "the willis report" continues. plus, yelp for doctors, a new system allowing you to rate and check on your doctors. find out how to do that next.

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gerri: when it comes to finding the right doctor and hospital for your health needs, the choices can be overwhelming no caps it was have access to a website comparing and even ranking professionals in their area of specialization. the how do you put this site to use. ask is to get advisor for health grades.com and a doctor in her own right. thank you for coming in. let's start with broad picture, what does it do and how are the rankings that help? >> it is a new com copperheads f site that gives patient information they have a head ever before. information about it doctors level of expertise.

how much is the and say have treating certain conditions and procedures. gerri: c can find the right doctor, the right hospital, the right care. what you need and what your issue is which i think is great because these guys specialize so much, it can really be difficult to find someone who may be it is the shoulder, maybe it is your knee. >> 70% of consumers from our research say if they had information about a doctor specific experience, that would be the most important factor they would consider picking a physician but up until now the only information people have really had to choose a physician was their address, and they take their insurance and may be what they in. >gerri: so where do you this data? >> health grades has data 500 million claims that it uses a the information from the

government to private sources as well and combines it all the it gerri: let's walk out, work through find the right doctor in the kind of things this website might help you with. what will you learn about individual physicians? >> it really comes down to three important categories. the level of experience of a particular physician. we have 600 different conditions and procedures. the degree of patient satisfaction those who have seen the physician have had, and the quality of care at the hospital where those doctors practice and those are important to consumers, but what is even more important is the way that we selected those three categories as we went to doctors themselves and said to doctors how do you decide where to refer your patience and those are the three criteria they highlighted for us, experience, satisfaction and quality of the hospital.

gerri: you help choose the hospital, tell us important elements to that. >> what you want to do is come out safe and alive and without complications. what we really look at is what is the mortality rate, specific conditions, 31 different conditions, the complications rate and frankly not all hospitals are created equal. gerri: it is absolutely true. how much will this cost me as a consumer to use the service which mark >> it is absolutely free. gerri: i understand the government has their own website, shouldn't we just use the government's website? >> it is a little difficult to navigate. this is much more comprehensive than the government's site. the government parsons the data up into three different websites so with physician data, a hospital compare site with hospital data and all of these

other websites as well about how much getting paid from drug companies and device companies all scattered, so this is a one-stop shop where people can get all that information in one. gerri: and information with of your physician is. >> it really drives down to the detail level because at the end of the day what matters to you is whether or not your physician has treated other patients just like you. gerri: thank you for coming on. a place to go if you want information on providers. gerri: we continue to look out for you and your wallet as we break down the offers and advertisements many of you had home no doubt receive all the time. life insurance, do you need it and how should you go about picking the right policy. aasking editor-in-chief for credit.com. great to have you here. so there are all kinds of insurance policies and they all work different ways.

what is the first thing people should consider? >> consider what you want to get out of life insurance. for a lot of people it is about paying for a specific thing. the funeral i don't want to leave anybody burdened by funeral expenses were a bunch of credit card debt you don't want anybody to inherit that were if you want to leave them in a state and not pay taxes on the estate. some people want peace of mind, they want to take care of their family and that is where it gets more complicated. gerri: i think the rule of thumb is people try to replace five to seven years of incomes of people can get over that hurdle. let's talk about the type of policies that are out there. many have some kind of investment component, there is all life insurance, term, most people i know recommend term because it is not an investment product. tell us a difference between the two. >> it is a set amount of

coverage you get that last for a certain amount of time. say you pay $500 per month or a million dollars of coverage april stay $500 per month for 20 years and if you die in that period of time, you will get paid. whole life insurance is a bit different. in that case you are paying into an investment fund and usually much more expensive at the beginning. paying into this investment fund and overtime -- gerri: maybe 10 times more expensive. isn't it because you are buying an investment i incentive just life insurance? insurance? >> that is right. at some point it will grow and interest on that investment will be able to pay for the life insurance coverage basically. gerri: what i understand is a lot of commissions for eager insurance agents to sell these policies so they get pushed hard. a lot of people end up with those policies when it is not the best fit for them.

>> there could be an ira that is a much better retirement plan for you that has less fees, just a better idea in general but important to speak to somebody who knows her situation. gerri: who should have coverage, how much should you buy? >> it depends on your situation. if you are the main breadwinner for your family, if you were to die your family would be left without a way to survive, you have got to plan for that. it could be you have a kid or more than one kid that will go to college, you need to plan for that. perhaps you want to pay off the house and you don't plan to be saddled with a mortgage. all of these things play into it and you have to plug it into a calculator. gerri: it is really up to you but pretty much baseline if you have a family, if you have kids

you want to buy life insurance and maybe through work, but you have to have something. great stuff, thank you for coming on, appreciate your time. gerri: up next, cutting fees on bond funds so how do you get your hands on the cheaper investments? answers coming after the break.?

gerri: the biggest names in the mutual fund industry slashing fees on the flagship fund putting more of your money to work for you instead of into their pockets, so should you invest in this and how do you do that? the head of research, thomson reuters company here to crush the numbers. thank you for coming in, appreciate your time. is this just an effort of lunch going on here?

>> it is an aggressive move by one of the largest asset managers but generally not considered while the top names in bond fund management so to put this in front of investors to get the media talking about i think they moved to steal market share but probably not a huge expectation they will take the majority of the assets and go. gerri: pimco is founded by bill gross, he left not too long ago to go to work, and we have seen a lot of outflow already. i wanted to focus on what these companies are offering and what they're doing for for their fees. starting with black rock. let's dive into what they are doing here. >> from 75 basis points down to 45, so i very aggressive cut. 40% loss of fees on that, they are definitely trying to get in under the radar to encourage gatekeepers and others to make decisions about 401(k) plan and

think about black rock return product if they are deciding if they need a new total return bond product in their portfolio. gerri: and cutting fees on the core bond fund institutional shares, low duration, kind of across the board. some people may look at these lists and say institutional, it doesn't matter to me, but it does, right? >> this is how a lot get access to these managers through 401(k) plans and often if you have a good size 401(k) plan, you are already into the institutional share classes. not for somebody like that, these are mutual funds for the retail investor with enough people, you get that. gerri: what are they doing? >> they are another one aggressively looking at the investors leadin leaving pimco y we have products very well. a short duration product soaking

up assess the last couple of years. little less aggressive than the total return, but that works well for investors concerned about where inflation and interest rates may be headed shortly. gerri: total return fund institutional shares, let's talk about the bond fund, what are they doing? >> they are looking at fees and definitely positioning this product to be a market share. lining up to see who is going to be left after a few more months of outflows and who is going to be the recipient of the greatest. >> there charging 46 basis points for his additional shares, what is interesting is janice because this is where he went to work but that is expensive. >> talking about the janice

fund, it is really not a very big fund. a couple billion dollars behind it. one he is talking about is unconstrained bond fund, it is definitely not something that people would turn to once they left total returns unless they were a big bill gross fan. gerri: what are you hearing from money managers talking about these issues, are they leaving in droves, what is the sentiment out there? >> we have heard a lot of varying opinions. some are real fans, they have been with the firm and they know the managers, they feel comfortable with the process that has been left in place, others have said this is too much drama for me. they of cores are voting with their wallet. gerri: that is it for tonight's special edition of "the willis

report." thank you for joining us. don't forget to dvr the show if you cannot catch us live. "making money" with charles payne is tonight on "cavuto," forget businesses not anyone to start up, will more just close up? john ratsenberger says not only is it harder for companies to launch today, it's even harder to stay open today. why he says the job market is getting rocked. rocker w. k. the guy famous on partying hard. why it is so hard for political parties to simply get along. later, champs of twitter. how the financial factor is teaming up with the former wwe world champ john sena. the champ is