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Today's show featured "Best Of Clark" repeats from recent shows

There's a lawsuit in California right now that's concerned with junk fees not being revealed until after you get to the car rental counter. This makes Internet comparison shopping very difficult. The lowest price you see online may be fake because it doesn't reflect junk fees. With airfare, the actual price is usually about 20 percent higher than the advertised price. What kind of junk fees are most common? For air travel, the passenger facility charge (PFC) is a biggie. This is where the terminal charges you for walking their halls -- a completely bogus charge that they convinced Congress to approve. Then you have a charge per flight segment, a federal security service charge and others. When Clark rents a car, the junk fees are sometimes higher than the price for the car itself. Rental companies charge a fee for the rent they pay at an airport. In fact, local governments see out-of-town business travelers who rent cars as sitting ducks for being taxed without representation. On the hotel front, you need to know if there are any daily facility fees before you book. The reality is that the pricing environment is unfair, and there's not a lot you can do about it. So your job when shopping is to know what the ultimate price will be before you book. Expedia does good job at showing the base rate and then what you will really pay.

Today almost all businesses of mid to large size rely on cameras for surveillance. It's amazing how this sector of the loss-prevention industry has boomed. The cost to equip a store with camera equipment just 10 years ago was outrageous. But now the price has dropped drastically. Using the Internet, business owners can even monitor their cameras remotely from anywhere in the world. Even small businesses are poised to benefit from increasingly camera cheaper technology. AT&T is selling a system that costs around $200 for a single location. Internet monitoring for a single location will run you about $10 a month. That figure can go up to $40 for multiple locations.

Clark does not drink coffee. Yet he's fascinated by people who spend a lot of money at Starbucks. Clark's wife now has their 8 year old daughter hooked on going to Starbucks for non-caffeinated Frappuccinos. But the Seattle-based java giant is for the first time ever experiencing declining sales. Why? Are they too expensive? Not really, according to Clark. This is a classic case of imitation being the sincerest and cruelest form of flattery. Starbucks is facing competition from some unusual suspects like McDonald's! Years ago, Clark went to an experimental McD's in Raleigh, N.C. The store was divided into a McCafé and a standard McD's. The McCafé had bistro tables, a fountain and fancy coffees and pastries on the menu. Clark wondered, "Is this really going to work?" Today there are about 800 McCafés across the nation. They offer vanilla lattes, Café mochas, caramel cappuccinos, iced coffees and other frou-frou drinks -- all cheaper than Starbucks. Look for national TV advertising from Starbucks to fight back against its new competitor. Starbucks had a great infancy, but they're poised for a tough adolescence.

Even Consumer Reports says McD's coffee is the best from any chain -- better than even Starbucks. But Clark's executive producer Christa still thinks coffee from Dunkin' Donuts is tops. She's been buying big packs of D&D coffee at the warehouse clubs. If you're not a member of a warehouse club, you're better off buying your bagged D&D coffee in bulk at a D&D location, not a grocery store. Meanwhile, Christa has some homework. Clark has asked her to figure out the cost per cup when you buy it in bulk at a warehouse club vs. purchasing it cup-by-cup at a store.

People with damaged credit have a new bull's-eye on their backs. The nation's banks are doing mailings for MasterCards and Visas that are just awful. They're offering cards with low credit limits of a few hundred dollars. The catch is that they charge fees to get the card that nearly equal the credit limit they've given you. This tactic has been called "fee harvesting" by the National Consumer Law Center. That's because there's a multitude of subtle fees that they load on. These can include an annual fee, a setup fee, a program fee and a participation fee. The New York Times reports that Capital One and CompuCredit are some of the worst offenders. Except for the annual fee, all of these other fees are completely bogus. You think they're doing you a big favor by taking you on as a customer. But they eliminate all their risk by hitting you upfront with huge ridiculous fees. Clark thinks practice is diabolical but pretty clever in a sad sort of way. So beware if you're suddenly getting an offer for a card and nobody else has wanted you -- it could be a fee harvesting ploy coming your way.