August 1, 2010
I am retired and invested in mutual funds. I have always been suspicious of the fees I may be paying for my mutual funds but do not know about. Until I read the article in the newspaper I had never heard of 12b-1 fees. I am definitely in favor of more transparency when it comes to mutual funds. My monthly and annual statements do not reflect the fees I pay and it is very difficult for me to know how expensive my funds actually are. Please pass these rule changes and continue to require brokers and fund companies to reveal in understandable detail the fees we investors are paying.
When I first rolled my retirement lump sum pay out into mutual funds I was shocked to see how much of my money was missing on the initial transaction. No one advised me that there would be such steep fees and I did this with the advise of a so called financial service representative at a credit union. It took my investment over a year to recoup that cost before I began to see any returns.
More transparency and reduced fees is definitely needed in this industry.