Priceline stock value plummets in wake of complaints

 
Sept. 25, 2000

 
By JIM BROOKS

Television's hippest former starship-captain-turned-pitchman may soon be singing the blues.

William Shatner, investor and pitchman for Priceline.com, may be forced to sing another tune in his commercials after the company's recent string of bad luck.

The company has been kicked out of its home state's Better Business Bureau after more than 300 complaints were received about the company's service since it began operating some two years ago.

Almost 80 percent of the complaints were related to low-cost airline tickets purchased through Priceline's "name your own fare" system.

Priceline said it learned of the 300 complaints in June and has been making changes to try to satisfy the Connecticut BBB.

The bureau gave Priceline the boot after the BBB said the company did not "eliminate underlying causes of complaints."

Priceline's stock prices plummeted almost 10 percent last week to near-record lows after the news of the BBB action, and word that an episode of CBS-TV's "48 Hours" focused on customer dissatisfaction with the company.

Priceline's stock has dropped 64 percent in the past year.

The "48 Hours" episode also revealed that Shatner doesn't use the discount-airfare service because he always flies first class.

In a Reuters story, a Priceline spokesman said the number of complaints was a relatively low compared to the 5 million airline tickets the company has sold.

Priceline is working to fix its customer service problems; certainly investors will be watching for the improvement.

For more information, visit www.priceline.com.

TIRE RECALL INFO. You may read all about it in the news, but the Web is where you can find some extensive coverage and information about the Firestone tire recall.

For reports of what other tire owners have experienced -- complete with photos and accident reports -- visit www.firestone-tire-recall.com.

The site isn't part of either Ford or Firestone, but has some pretty extensive data collected. You'll also find online forums for discussing the recalls.

The site has links to other tire recall sites as well.

OFFLINE OLYMPIAD. Web-based news sites found themselves in a far-too-familiar situation when it came time to cover the Sydney Olympics: Locked out.

Even ESPN.com and other major sports Web sites have been blocked out from sending their own reporters to Sydney. The sites are forced to rely on wire services and other sources for their coverage of the games.

The problem is with whom controls the rights for sending the Olympics over the Web.

NBC has TV rights to the games, and they have set aside some 400 hours of coverage over the 17 days of the Olympics -- some of which ends up on the Web.

Because Sydney is so many hours ahead of U.S. time zones, no Olympic events are broadcast live in the U.S.

And that fact alone is why the Web offers much more to the Olympic fan than either TV or newspapers.

Fans can send e-mail to U.S. Olympic athletes, learn detailed rules about the events and get the results before you see the events on TV.

News hounds have reason for optimism; the Olympic Committee will meet in December and they will be reviewing their online policy then. Also, plans are underway for the 20004 Olympic Games in Athens to be Webcast using high-speed broadband connections.

Will the Olympic committee allow for e-journalists to cover the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City? I'm sure editors at Web-only sports sites are keeping their fingers crossed.

PAY ONLINE. If you haven't tried online banking or bill paying, chances are you and many other Americans will use it within the next five years.

More than 40 million U.S. households will pay at least some of their bills online, according to a recent report by Jupiter Research.

In fact, Jupiter sees electronic bill paying growing faster than either online banking or e-commerce.

The reason is simple -- electronic bill payment is a service that people will continue to use once they become familiar with it. And Jupiter predicts users will seek to use electronic payment for a greater number of their bills.

There are still kinks to be ironed out in electronic bill payment systems.

A proprietary online banking system I used with a national bank several years ago offered electronic bill payment services, and users could set up payments for all their regular monthly accounts.

One hitch then was how the system handled payments to small companies that couldn't perform the electronic funds transfers. The bank actually had to physically cut a check and send it to the company every time I sent that company a payment.

True electronic bill payment offers great savings over traditional paper billing.

At an average cost of $1.50 per bill, U.S. companies spent $18 billion a year in billing costs, the report said.

Passing along any savings to consumers would help encourage paying bills electronically, the report said.

More and more banks are offering the service; it's certainly a way to keep closer track of your money. Check with your favorite bank or credit union for details.

DANDY OF AN AUCTION. I enjoy online auctions as much as anyone does, but there's an item going on the block that only someone with very deep pockets will likely take home.

James Cagney's 1942 Oscar for best actor in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" will be the first of the golden statues auctioned online. Oscars awarded after 1949 cannot be sold.

The auction will be conducted by traditional auction house Doyle New York, where the event will be a black-tie affair. Additional bids will be solicited by Ibidlive.tv and the PAX Television network.

Previous Oscar buyers have paid upwards of $1 million for the statues.

The wartime "Yankee Doodle Dandy" was one of Cagney's most popular films. He portrayed George M. Cohan, a Broadway songwriter who wrote popular music for more than 40 years, including the patriotic standards "Grand Old Flag" and "Over There." Michael Curtiz, the man who also directed "Casablanca", directed the film.

The Oscar for "Yankee Doodle Dandy" was the only one Cagney received during his career.

The proceeds of the Oscar sale will go to a private foundation focused on blindness prevention.

Comments and questions about this column may be sent to jbrooks@myoldkentuckyhome.com, or visit www.myoldkentuckyhome.com on the World Wide Web.

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