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Pandemic-era mortgages have created financial handcuffs for homeowners

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

• Mortgage rates around 6% to 7% may feel high, but by historical standards, they are hardly unusual.

• The bigger distortion is the millions of homeowners still carrying pandemic-era mortgages of 2% to 4%, giving them a powerful financial incentive not to sell.

• That lock-in effect continues to restrict the supply of homes and may keep the housing market from returning to normal even as inventory slowly improves.

When mortgage rates rise above 7%, as they did again last week, it's easy to blame "high mortgage rates" for the housing market's problems.

But that description misses an important part of the story. Today's rates aren't particularly extraordinary when viewed over several decades. What's extraordinary is what came before them.

Freddie Mac reported that the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 7.28% for the week ending Oct. 1, up from 7.03% a week earlier and 6.34% a year ago.

Those rates certainly make homes less affordable than they were a few years ago because prices surged when rates were unusually low. But historically, a mortgage rate in the 6% to 7% range isn't unusual. In fact, older homeowners can remember something much worse: Freddie Mac says the 30-year mortgage rate reached a record 18.63% in 1981.

The anomaly wasn't today's 7% mortgage. It was the 3% mortgage.

The pandemic changed homeowners' expectations

During the pandemic, the Federal Reserve's ultra-low interest-rate policies and other economic forces pushed mortgage rates to levels that had never been seen before.

The average 30-year fixed rate reached a record low of 2.65% in January 2021, according to Freddie Mac. Millions of Americans bought homes or refinanced existing mortgages during that period.

That created an unusual situation when rates later returned to more historically familiar territory.

A homeowner with a 3% mortgage who sells a house and buys another one may have to replace that loan with one carrying a rate of 6%, 7%, or more. Even if the new house costs about the same, the monthly mortgage payment could rise substantially. For many homeowners, moving simply doesn't make financial sense.

Millions of homeowners remain locked in

This phenomenon has become known as the mortgage "lock-in effect," and despite the passage of several years, it hasn't disappeared.

In the first quarter of 2026, 19.5% of outstanding mortgages still carried rates of 3% or less, according to Realtor.com. Nearly half 49.9% had rates of 4% or less, while nearly four out of five mortgages were below 6%.

That creates an enormous hurdle for the housing market.

A homeowner might want a larger house because the family has grown. An empty-nester might prefer to downsize. Someone might want to move closer to children or take a new job in another city. But selling means surrendering one of the most valuable financial assets many of those homeowners possess: an exceptionally cheap mortgage.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency has attempted to quantify the impact. Its research found that for every percentage point by which prevailing mortgage rates exceed a homeowner's existing fixed rate, the probability of selling falls by 18.1%.

The agency estimated that mortgage lock-in prevented about 1.72 million home sales between the second quarter of 2022 and the second quarter of 2024.

That's a problem for buyers, too

When homeowners don't sell, would-be buyers have fewer houses to choose from. That has helped produce one of the strange features of the post-pandemic housing market: high borrowing costs have reduced demand, but they have also restrained supply.

Normally, higher mortgage rates would be expected to weaken demand and put significant downward pressure on home prices. But when potential sellers are also reluctant to enter the market, the decline in demand can be partially offset by a shortage of available homes.

A July 2026 Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia study found that mortgage lock-in continues to cause potential sellers to withdraw from the market, reducing transactions. The researchers also found that buyers are more sensitive to mortgage rates than sellers are to the lock-in effect.

In other words, lower rates could bring more buyers back faster than they persuade owners of 3% mortgages to sell.

The market is slowly changing

There are signs that the freeze is beginning to loosen.

Realtor.com reported that active listings in September totaled about 1.16 million, up 5.4% from a year earlier. Inventory was only 9.1% below typical pre-pandemic levels, the smallest gap since the pandemic.

But new listings remain subdued, and higher rates are hitting buyers. Pending sales were down 4.1% from a year earlier in September, while 20.8% of listings received a price cut.

For the week ending Sept. 26, new listings increased just 0.9% from a year earlier, another indication that homeowners aren't exactly rushing to put their properties on the market.

Time will gradually weaken the lock-in effect. People get married and divorced, have children, retire, inherit homes, relocate for jobs, and encounter other circumstances that make moving unavoidable. Mortgages are also paid off and homes change hands. But it could be a slow process.

What would really unlock the market?

A return to 3% mortgages would certainly do it, but consumers shouldn't necessarily count on that. Those rates were the product of highly unusual economic circumstances.

The more important threshold could be somewhere in the 5% range. Housing experts interviewed by Realtor.com said homeowners with very low-rate mortgages may become considerably more willing to move if prevailing rates settle in the mid-to-low 5% range for an extended period.

Giving up a 3% mortgage for a 7% loan can be difficult to justify; exchanging it for a 5% mortgage is a smaller financial sacrifice. That distinction helps explain why today's housing market isn't simply suffering from "high mortgage rates."

Rates around 6% or 7% have existed many times before and housing markets continued to function. What's different this time is that an enormous share of homeowners already have something much better.

Until enough of those ultra-low mortgages disappear or today's rates fall close enough to them that homeowners are willing to move the pandemic's 2% and 3% mortgages could continue casting a long shadow over the housing market.

Regulators say mandatory fees can double the advertised price consumers see

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

• The FTC and attorneys general in Utah and Nevada accuse Lens.com of advertising artificially low contact lens prices and adding mandatory fees late in the checkout process.

• Regulators allege the company's "Taxes & fees" charges routinely double the advertised price and have cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars.

• The lawsuit also targets Lens.com's AutoRefill subscription practices, alleging consumers aren't given clear information about added fees or how and when to cancel.

Consumers shopping online for inexpensive contact lenses may have gotten a much different price when they reached the end of the checkout process, according to a new federal lawsuit.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), joined by the attorneys general of Utah and Nevada, has sued online contact lens retailer Lens.com, accusing the company of operating what regulators describe as a long-running deceptive pricing scheme.

The complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada, also names affiliated company Speed Commerce LLC.

The central allegation is that Lens.com attracts shoppers with unusually low prices displayed in sponsored Google search results and on its website, only to add a substantial mandatory charge labeled "Taxes & fees" during checkout.

The FTC says those charges routinely double the advertised cost of the lenses and alleges the practice has cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars.

"Millions of Americans rely on contact lenses to perform their daily tasks," Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in announcing the lawsuit.

Mufarrige said the agency alleges Lens.com advertised one price but charged consumers substantially more when they checked out. As of the time of publication, the defendants had not issued a public comment.

The fee may be easy to miss

The government contends the problem isn't simply that Lens.com charges additional fees. The lawsuit alleges the company makes it difficult for consumers to see them before completing their purchases.

According to the complaint, the "Taxes & fees" line can appear below the visible portion of the checkout screen. At the same time, consumers are presented with a prominent "Continue" button.

The FTC alleges shoppers who click the button without scrolling farther down the page may never see the fee as a separate line item.

Regulators also object to the wording 'Taxes & fees'

The complaint alleges that the description can lead consumers to believe at least some of the charge represents state sales taxes. But many states exempt contact lenses from sales tax, while some states have no sales tax, the FTC said. Lens.com allegedly uses the same description regardless.

The result, regulators contend, is that consumers have difficulty comparing Lens.com's actual price with the prices charged by competing contact lens sellers.

The lawsuit goes beyond one-time purchases. Regulators allege Lens.com uses its advertised low prices to encourage consumers to sign up for its AutoRefill program, which automatically bills customers for recurring shipments.

The complaint says Lens.com fails to clearly disclose the mandatory "Taxes & fees" charge before obtaining billing information from AutoRefill customers.

It also alleges the company doesn't adequately explain how consumers can cancel the subscription or the deadline for canceling before another shipment is charged.

The FTC and the two states contend the practices violate several federal and state laws, including the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act, which regulates certain online subscription and negative-option programs. Utah and Nevada are also alleging violations of their state consumer protection laws.

The FTC voted 2-0 to authorize the lawsuit. The government is seeking a permanent injunction, monetary judgments, civil penalties, and other relief. The case remains pending, and the allegations have not been proven in court.

The scheme can start on the real ChatGPT website, making it particularly difficult to spot

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

• Cybercriminals are using fake versions of ChatGPT to trick consumers into installing malware that can give attackers remote access to their computers.

• In some cases, victims arrive at the scam through a Google-sponsored search result and initially land on the legitimate ChatGPT website.

• The biggest warning sign is a request to leave ChatGPT and run or paste a command on a Windows computer something consumers should never do to verify themselves.

Consumers searching for ChatGPT need to pay particularly close attention to where their clicks take them.

Security researchers have uncovered a malware campaign that impersonates ChatGPT and exploits some of the most familiar names on the internet including Google and ChatGPT itself to persuade victims that they're dealing with a legitimate service.

Researchers at cybersecurity firm Huntress say attackers created malicious Custom GPTs, which are user-created versions of ChatGPT hosted on the legitimate ChatGPT.com domain. One of them was named "Plus 5.6," apparently designed to look like an official version of ChatGPT.

That distinction is important. The scam does not necessarily begin on a misspelled imitation of ChatGPT.com. A consumer can actually be looking at a page hosted on the genuine ChatGPT website while interacting with content created by a third party.

Huntress said it investigated at least 40 incidents associated with the Google Sites domain used in the campaign and confirmed that two infections originated through a malicious Custom GPT.

How the scam works

In some cases, the attack begins with something millions of people do every day: a Google search.

Researchers at Island found that criminals bought sponsored search ads targeting searches such as "chatgpt." Clicking an ad could take a consumer to an attacker-created Custom GPT hosted on ChatGPT.com.

The fake ChatGPT then claims that the normal service has limited availability and directs the user to a supposed "backup domain." From there, the victim encounters what appears to be a Cloudflare human-verification or CAPTCHA page.

That's where the attack becomes dangerous. Instead of simply asking the user to click a box or identify objects in pictures, the verification page instructs Windows users to open the Run dialog, paste a command, and execute it.

Security experts call this type of attack "ClickFix." Rather than exploiting a software vulnerability, it persuades the victim to execute the attacker's command. Island researchers found that the command used in this campaign downloaded a malicious PowerShell loader and ultimately installed remote-access malware.

Huntress found a similarly elaborate infection chain in which the command downloaded an installer and ultimately deployed a remote access trojan, or RAT. Such malware can allow an attacker to maintain access to the infected computer.

Why this scam may be harder to recognize

Consumers have long been advised to inspect web addresses before trusting a website. That's still good advice, but this campaign demonstrates why it isn't always enough.

The criminals are essentially borrowing the credibility of legitimate services.

Island researchers said the campaign did not depend on a security vulnerability in ChatGPT or Google. Instead, attackers combined paid advertising, attacker-created content on trusted platforms, and social engineering to move victims toward malicious software.

Island said its investigation of the broader operation found about 850 paid-ad landings, 26 lookalike ChatGPT destinations, and 71 Google Ads campaign IDs during a three-month observation period. The company cautioned that those numbers represent campaign infrastructure and traffic, not 850 confirmed infections.

Huntress reported the original malicious Custom GPT to OpenAI, and it was removed as of Sept. 25. But researchers discovered another Custom GPT connected with the campaign two days later, suggesting the criminals were quickly rebuilding their operation.

How to protect yourself

Consumers looking for ChatGPT should avoid relying on sponsored search results when possible and go directly to the service they intend to use. OpenAI identifies openai.com, chatgpt.com, and help.openai.com among its official web properties.

More importantly, consumers should be extremely suspicious of any website or chatbot that says a CAPTCHA, security check, or account verification requires opening Windows Run, PowerShell, Command Prompt, or a Mac Terminal and pasting a command. A normal CAPTCHA doesn't require users to execute computer commands.

Also remember that being on ChatGPT.com doesn't necessarily mean every GPT found there was created by OpenAI. Custom GPTs can be created by third parties. In the Huntress case, the malicious "Plus 5.6" page identified its creator as a "community builder," an important clue that it wasn't an official ChatGPT model.

Consumers who encounter an unexpected request to visit a "backup" ChatGPT website, download software, or paste commands into their computer should close the page without following the instructions.

Anyone who has already followed such instructions should disconnect the computer from the internet, run a trusted security scan, and consider having the device professionally checked.

Because remote-access and information-stealing malware may expose passwords and other credentials, users should also change important passwords from a different, known-safe device.

Dry, breezy afternoons and damp mornings can release very different types of mold spores

By Mark Huffman of ConsumerAffairs

• Weather conditions can determine not only how much mold is in the air, but which types of mold spores are circulating.

• Some molds release spores during warm, dry, and windy afternoons, while others thrive in damp conditions and peak before dawn.

• Rain can initially send more spores into the air, but prolonged or heavy rain may eventually wash them out, providing allergy sufferers with some relief.

If your allergy symptoms seem to get worse at certain times of day or suddenly improve after a rainstorm the weather may have something to do with it.

The Weather Company reports that mold spores generally fall into two groups based on the conditions that cause them to become airborne. The distinction may help explain why someone with a mold allergy feels fine one day but develops sneezing, watery eyes or breathing problems the next.

One group of mold thrives under warm, dry, and breezy conditions. These spores are capable of surviving relatively harsh conditions and can be picked up and carried through the air by even a light breeze.

Concentrations of these dry-weather spores tend to peak during the afternoon, when humidity is lower and winds may be stronger. Their numbers generally decline when humidity reaches its highest point, often just before sunrise.

Some molds prefer moisture

A second group behaves almost exactly the opposite way.

These damp-weather molds depend on moisture to release their spores. As moisture condenses around a spore, changes in surface tension can eventually propel it into the air.

As a result, damp-weather mold counts tend to peak before dawn, when humidity is highest. Morning dew can also help send these spores into the air.

That means the time of day could matter for people with mold allergies. Depending on the specific mold that triggers their symptoms, some people may experience greater exposure during a dry afternoon while others could be more affected during humid early-morning hours.

Rain can make things better or worse

Rain has a more complicated effect on mold allergies.

The first drops of rain striking leaves and other surfaces can shake loose mold spores, temporarily increasing the amount circulating in the air. Moisture can also encourage the release of spores from damp-weather molds.

But if the rain continues, the effect can reverse. Rain can capture airborne spores and carry them to the ground. Heavy rain may therefore reduce airborne mold concentrations and ease symptoms such as watery eyes and breathing difficulties.

Mold counts don't tell the whole story

For consumers with allergies, simply knowing that the mold count is high may not provide all the information they need.

Different molds have different allergy risk thresholds. The Weather Company notes that a relatively uncommon mold may trigger allergic reactions at concentrations far below those of a much more abundant mold.

In one example, allergists set the risk threshold for a less common mold about 10 times lower than for a more prevalent variety. In other words, the mold with the highest spore count isn't necessarily the one making you miserable.

Mold allergies can cause coughing, sneezing, itchy skin, and breathing problems, and people with asthma may experience more serious symptoms. Mold commonly thrives in damp environments, including bathrooms and basements, as well as outdoors.

For allergy sufferers, paying attention to humidity, wind, rainfall, and the time of day rather than simply looking at an overall mold count may provide additional clues about when symptoms are most likely to flare.

For about $17 a month, one membership covers up to five people or pets and includes 250+ eligible medications for free

• GoodRx's new Companion Family Plan costs $24.99 a month, or $16.99 a month when paid annually, and covers a primary member plus up to four dependents, including children, adults, and pets.

• Members get access to 250-plus eligible generic medications for free, hundreds more for under $10, and discounts on dental, vision, lab, and imaging services.

• Before signing up, compare what your household actually spends on prescriptions with the roughly $204 annual membership cost.

Getting some prescriptions for free sounds like an easy way to save money. But before adding another subscription to your monthly budget, grab your prescription bottles and a calculator.

GoodRx recently launched its Companion Family Plan, which costs $24.99 a month or $16.99 a month when paid annually. One membership covers the primary account holder plus up to four dependents, which can include kids, adult family members, and even pets.

The plan includes more than 250 eligible generic medications for free and hundreds more for under $10, along with discounts on dental, vision, lab, and imaging services.

That sounds good. But the number that actually matters is how much money your family would save.

Here's how to figure that out before you subscribe.

Start with your medicine cabinet, not the 250 free drugs

The first thing worth doing is making a list of every prescription your household regularly fills.

Then look each one up through GoodRx Companion using the exact medication, dosage, and quantity you currently buy. All of those details are at your fingertips when using Companion, which makes it easy to price compare.

Next, youll then just want to compare the Companion price with what you're paying now.

The annual plan costs $203.88. So, if your family would save $25 a month on prescriptions, that's $300 a year and you've potentially come out ahead before considering any other benefits.

But if Companion only saves your household $10 a month, that's $120 a year in prescription savings for a membership costing about $204.

Pro tip: Don't stop when you see your medication on the free list. Check the dosage and quantity, too. And be sure to revisit the price occasionally as GoodRx says its list of eligible free medications and discounted prices can change.

Compare it with your insurance

Having health insurance doesn't necessarily mean your insurance price is the cheapest price for every prescription.

GoodRx discounts can be used instead of prescription insurance or Medicare when they're cheaper, but they can't be combined with insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid on the same purchase.

So don't simply ask whether Companion makes a prescription cheaper. Instead, compare these three prices: Your insurance copay vs. the regular GoodRx price vs. the Companion price.

Then use the cheapest option available to you.

Don't forget the four-legged friend

This is where the family plan gets interesting.

Your allotment of four additional members can absolutely include your pets. If your dog or cat takes a recurring prescription, be sure to add that medication to your calculations as well.

A household saving only a few dollars on its human prescriptions might discover that adding an expensive recurring pet medication changes the math considerably.

But be aware that pets don't get everything their human owners get. Specifically, GoodRx's terms say pets aren't eligible for telehealth or the plan's discounted non-insurance benefits, such as dental, vision, lab, and imaging services.

Don't count benefits you won't use

It's tempting to add up every benefit in a membership and call all of it savings. Don't do that.

A dental discount isn't worth $50 to your family if you never use it. The same goes for vision, lab, and imaging discounts.

Also, the primary Companion member gets access to $19 online care visits, but only for the primary member. So, while the plan covers up to four additional family members, they aren't eligible for discounted telehealth services.

The bottom line: When you're deciding whether the membership pays for itself, be sure to put a dollar value only on those benefits you think you're likely to use.

Run the $204 test

The easiest way to decide may be to forget all the marketing numbers and focus on one: $203.88.

That's what you'll pay for a year of the family plan at the advertised annual rate.

Run your own numbers and try to estimate what your household would save over the next 12 months on prescriptions and the other benefits. Then simply subtract $203.88 from that number.

If the number you get is comfortably positive, the annual membership could make financial sense. If it's close to zero or negative, sticking with insurance, free GoodRx discounts, or another option may leave more money in your pocket.

And don't forget that paying monthly gives you a different equation. At $24.99 per month, keeping the plan for a full year would cost nearly $300.

The word free will understandably get most of the attention with a plan offering hundreds of medications for $0 at the pharmacy counter.

But the smarter way to shop a healthcare membership is to ignore how many medications are on the list and count how many are in your medicine cabinet.

If those savings beat the membership fee, you've found a deal. If they don't, 250 free medications you never take are still worth $0 to your family.