2026 Reality Check: The Truth About “Junk Fees” in Payments & CBD Peptides MATCH News | PEP101

Ever had a $100 ticket morph into $260 at checkout and wondered who’s skimming the difference? We use that universal frustration to open a candid tour through payments in 2026—where junk fees, policy experiments, and AI-driven fraud collide with the daily realities of underwriting and merchant risk. Joining Global Legal Law Firm’s managing partner, James Huber, is Allen Kopelman of Nationwide Payment Systems (https://nationwidepaymentsystems.com/) and the B2B Vault podcast, bringing two decades of payments operator perspective and fresh stories from the field.

AI just forged near-perfect merchant docs—and AI caught them. We unpack the new fraud war, rising scrutiny for high risk verticals, and why BNPL may cost merchants more than cards. Curious how this hits your business?

We break down how fees, caps, and competition myths collide with real underwriting, rising AI fraud, and shifting risk in high risk verticals. Allen Kopelman joins us to unpack BNPL creep, CBD and peptides scrutiny, cannabis processing hurdles, and what 2026 may actually bring.

• why junk fees persist and where choice breaks down
• policy outlook on card caps and routing mandates
• how BNPL fills gaps and raises merchant costs
• AI-forged documents versus AI-driven detection
• manual underwriting returning for risk control
• stricter reviews for CBD, COAs, and labels
• peptide merchants, LegitScript, and MATCH exits
• cannabis and pay by bank under OCC pressure
• hemp and CBD in mainstream retail and risk
• practical takeaways for acquirers and merchants

We explore why capping credit card fees rarely delivers what it promises. Drawing on lessons from Europe and Australia, we show how tight caps can shrink access to credit, gut rewards, and turbocharge buy now pay later at the point of sale—often at a higher cost to merchants. Then we tackle the Credit Card Competition Act: the theory of more routing vs. the reality of building Visa/Mastercard-scale security. If a third network can’t match fraud prevention, risk gets offloaded to acquirers, ISOs, and merchants who can least afford it.

AI is the new protagonist and antagonist. Alan shares how synthetic merchant applications—complete with hijacked business profiles, fake IDs, and polished websites—slipped past first-line checks, and how AI tools helped catch them. We explain why fully automated boarding is dangerous in a world of generative forgery and why intelligent blends of machine detection and human review are becoming table stakes. From there we dive into high risk verticals: CBD and hemp tangled in COAs and label verification, peptides navigating certification via LegitScript, and the grind of MATCH remediation when merchants want a clean slate. Cannabis remains a patchwork: pay by bank experiments, wary consumers, and federal regulators who can shutter programs in a heartbeat.

If you sell regulated or gray-area products, or you underwrite them, this conversation maps the terrain you’re walking into: tougher documentation standards, more manual checks, and a premium on source authentication. For everyone else, you’ll come away with a clearer view of why fees look the way they do, what “competition” really means in card networks, and how to harden your operations against AI-native fraud. Enjoy the ride—and if this helped you see the payments world more clearly, follow, share, and leave a quick review so others can find it too.

**Matters discussed are all opinions and do not constitute legal advice. All events or likeness to real people and events is a coincidence.**

PEP Links:
https://www.globallegallawfirm.com/podcasts/
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2176695

A payments podcast of Global Legal Law Firm