I’m baaaaack!

Some of you may recall me as the genial keeper of the old OC Watchdog column; others, as a “shrew” or a “whiner.” I’ve been likened to a snake, accused of “pension envy” and excoriated for participating in mass murder (for writing about COVID-19 vaccines through the lens of evidence rather than delusional paranoia).

“I enjoy your articles,” a man who landed in hot water once told me. “I’m not sure if I’m happy, or horrified, that I’m actually talking to you.”

Here’s hoping readers are more happy than horrified as I return my focus to Orange County’s local governments and how they spend your money (the water district manager makes what?!), consumer issues that violate your wallet ($35 for each overdraft?!), and public pension systems and nonprofits and wise giving and scammers.

(Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

I’ll be keeping my eye on cool research coming out of UC Irvine and other universities (sorry to report that as few as one or two alcohol drinks per day is linked to reductions in overall brain volume), and add a long-standing passion to the topic stable: how well our schools are educating our kids (31% proficient in math?!).

A couple things won’t change much: We’ve done a great deal of work over the past five years reporting on death and fraud in California’s woefully underregulated private addiction treatment centers, and we’ll continue to do that, though I’ll be freer to share my thoughts. (To wit: If you or your child struggles with addiction, please, for the sake of all that is good in heaven and on earth, start with a local doctor who specializes in addiction medicine and then find a local public or well-established non-profit program that knows how to use medication-assisted treatment, which helps a lot more than traveling thousands of miles from home on a “sober vacation” to pet horses for $3,000 a day.)

I’ll also continue reporting on the federal fiasco that has allowed millions of pounds of highly radioactive nuclear waste to pile up at scores of commercial reactors like San Onofre for the past 40 or so years. Donna Summer’s “She Works Hard for the Money” was a hit back in 1983 when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was signed, directing the U.S. Department of Energy to start accepting waste for permanent disposal in 1998. We lost Summer a decade ago, and the DOE still hasn’t accepted an ounce of waste, at enormous cost to taxpayers.

Other things that may be important: I have two daughters who fight a lot. That’s me, in the Cookie Monster onesie, helping my 11-year-old hawk Girl Scout cookies. That’s me, tearing my hair out, as my 17-year-old vacillates between UC Irvine and UC Davis for college. I’m an ardent fan of South Coast Repertory’s “A Christmas Carol” and documentaries and all things theatrical, so you’ll occasionally be subjected to human interest-type stories as well.

Tell me something interesting. Send us tips. Send us documents. Send us copies of your outrageous health bills. We want to shine light in darkness and help right wrongs where we can. So let’s kick things off with evil “junk fees.”

A recent anti-bank-fee push in New Zealand. (Photo by Sandra Mu/Getty Images)

Junk fees

Ever had a batch of payments clear and push your bank account into negative territory, generating one $35 overdraft fee after another after another? Ever used an out-of-network ATM to find it triggers not one but two fees — one from your own bank, and one from the bank that owns the ATM — which can cost $5 or $6 or $7 just to withdraw $20?

“When we shop, it’s common and prudent to compare prices. But what we don’t often factor in are the hidden or junk fees that companies – including banks and other financial services – add to the actual cost of a product or service,” says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is poised to do something about it. “These fees can take many different forms, including fees for late penalties, overdrafts, returns, using an out-of-network ATM, money transfers, inactivity, and more. Junk fees drain tens of billions of dollars per year from Americans’ budget(s).”

Everyone hates junk fees, and to that end, the CFPB wants to hear your horror stories (and so do we). Give it an earful by submitting your story online by March 31 at https://bit.ly/36Iol9E.

The CFPB — created in the aftermath of the Great Recession to protect the little guy from Big Bad Banks — will use what it learns “to inform our use of rulemaking, guidance and enforcement tools to combat junk fees.”

Nearly 2,000 comments have poured in already. A sampling: “It’s $95 a year just to have a credit card. Why?” asked Darlene Miller of Woodland Hills.

“Overdraft fees do nothing but punish people for having no money by charging them money to have no money,” wrote Aliesha Wallach. “They should be illegal.”

“I absolutely think all companies need to be more transparent about fees,” wrote an anonymous commenter. “Banks, car rental companies and hotels are some of the worst offenders. …  When it comes to banks, there needs to be some kind of grace period before an overdraft fee kicks in, especially when it’s something as little as a few cents or a dollar. Also, why $35 for the fee? That’s a steep fee for what is usually a small overdraft. It’s another way people get hit when they are already down. I’ve been in the position in the past when five dollars could make or break my day. It’s not easy and our system is set up to hurt people in that financial position.”

Consider: Banks reported $279.1 billion in profits in 2021, up $132 billion compared to 2020, the FDIC said. All by itself, JPMorgan, the country’s largest bank by assets, posted a record $48.3 billion in profit.

Fees helped. “Financially vulnerable and financially coping” Americans paid nearly $12 billion in overdraft fees in 2020 alone, according to the Financial Health Network’s 2021 report.

Joel Schwartz, founder and co-CEO officer of DoubleCheck Solutions — which offers tech to help consumers stay on top of overdrafts — said action is imperative to eliminate “predatory behavior in the financial marketplace.”

“As the Bureau considers increased consumer protections … it is critical that any new regulations in this space afford consumers the right to decide, in real time, how to manage transactions that would overdraft their accounts,” he wrote. “(I)t is critical that any new regulations empower bank and credit union customers to take control of their finances in the most up front, transparent and fair way possible. To do that, financial institutions need to look beyond overhauling overdraft fees to re-examine the value that these programs deliver, and make sure consumers truly understand what they are getting.”

Or, really, what they are losing.