There's president and CEO Jacques Nasser, replete with a crisp suit and Australian accent, telling viewers that Ford Motor Co. is working around the clock to replace recalled Bridgestone/Firestone tires on its Explorer line of SUVs.

"I want all of our owners to know that there are two things that we never take lightly: your safety and your trust," he says.

Flip the channel and you'll see United Airlines chairman and CEO James E. Goodwin, looking like a regular passenger strolling a cabin aisle in a shirt and tie, apologizing to travelers whose plans have been affected by recent flight delays and cancellations.

"To deal with the problem," he says, "we're reducing our flight schedule so we don't make promises we can't keep."

These efforts to appease consumers may be part of Public Relations 101. But do the mea culpa ads really work?

According to several advertising experts, it depends.

Section clipped for brevity.

But United's response, Bernstein said, is not nearly as effective. The spot does not address the contract dispute and pilots' refusal to work overtime, which caused the months-long mess. As well, the campaign is too late: Though the problems began in April, print ads began running in national newspapers in mid-August.

"That should have been done a long time ago," Bernstein said. "The credibility's been so undermined now that I don't think there's anything they can do."

William Berry, an associate professor of advertising at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, had a similar reaction.

"I think in the case of United, they seem to have been sluggish in getting out of the starting gate, as if they buried their heads," he said. "Ford seems to have been much more thoughtful and responsible."

United representatives did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Section clipped for brevity.

And Jeremy Cooperstock, founder of Untied.com — a Web site devoted to bashing United Airlines — said visitors have viewed the ads with "a great deal of skepticism and cynicism."

"Talk is cheap," he said. "Let's see some action: either a rapid return to improved service or some sort of cash settlement for passengers who are inconv>enienced."

Tale Winds: On-Line Travel Newsletter
August 22, 2000

Want to Complain? Airline Haters Fight Back in Cyberspace

In 1996, Jeremy Cooperstock flew United Airlines to Tokyo. He was subject to several of the indignities air travelers often face: he says his seat assignments weren't honored, a garment bag was mishandled, and a flight change almost caused him to miss a connection.

He penned a letter of complaint to United and didn't hear back. Seven weeks later he wrote another letter and received a form reply.

Cooperstock, now a professor at Montreal's McGill University, acknowledges the offenses were "trivial" and says what really irked him was United's inadequate response to his grievances.

"I offered constructive criticism, and it's like they just put my complaint in the round filing cabinet."

Concluding that writing to United was futile, Cooperstock set up a Web site called Untied ( http://www.untied.com - note the spelling - it looks like United but it's not) as a forum for disgruntled United passengers. The response has been overwhelming. Every month about 17,000 people visit the site, with 2,097 complaints logged and forwarded to United. The centerpiece of the site is a collection of appalling accounts, ranging from poor treatment for a man who suffered a heart attack to lack of consideration for disabled fliers. Most are submitted by travelers, but a few are filed anonymously by United employees.

Of course these stories are not verified. On the Net, people can say whatever they want, and claim to be anyone. But if thousands are taking the time to air their displeasure, a good number probably have legitimate gripes. And United officials are listening, or at least watching. The site logs about 100 visits a month from United employees.

United Airlines spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch says customers who have a comment should contact the airline directly. Today they can do so through the Net by visiting United.com and clicking "Contact United." The airline plans to roll out a toll-free comment line soon, he added.

Ultimately, Untied is more than a rogue Web page where angry travelers can vent. It's just one of many sites that have fundamentally altered the relationship between companies and their customers. The Internet, with its forums, chat areas, and mailing lists, has facilitated conversations that were virtually impossible a decade ago.

"There are no secrets," states the Cluetrain Manifesto ( http://www.cluetrain.com ), a Net-age blueprint for ways companies can talk to their clients. "The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone."

In other words, a few years ago an upset flier might have told 10 friends about a bad customer service experience - today that person can tell 10,000 people online.

Rest of article clipped.

The Tuscaloosa News
August 21, 2000

WEB SITES WORTH WATCHING: Airline attacks abound online
By Katherine Lee

The skies aren't as friendly as they used to be. Blame the food. Blame bad management. Blame overworked employees for contributing to the general air of discontent and outright rage in the sky these days.

Incidents of passenger rage are on the rise, as are flight delays, missed connections and lack of food.

Add a maintenance crew strike, pilots working without a contract and increased summer air travel, and you have a volatile mix just guaranteed to irritate the mildest of travelers.

United Airlines in particular is having a bad summer of it. Last week, nearly 20 percent of scheduled flights were grounded because their pilots refused to fly overtime without a contract.

According to the New York Times, United passengers have been suffering the most. Just a little over half the company's flights have arrived on time, and more than 300 United flights have been canceled since April, due to lack of pilots willing to fly overtime. A survey taken by Airline Quality Rating 200 rated United the worst in customer satisfaction (Southwest was rated the best).

Westword, a weekly paper in Denver (a United hub city) even held a "What United Did to My Summer Vacation" contest in which people were asked to tell their most horrific United Airlines story (www.westword.com/unitedairlines). The winning entry, by reader Randy Roark, was a litany of missed connections and late arrivals that would bring a frequent flyer to tears, as he recounts how he wound his way home for his father's funeral.

Although this summer is bad for United, complaints about the airline have been endemic for years, with passengers - many of them former United flyers who have vowed never again - pointing out delays and employee insensitivity as main reasons they no longer fly United, the largest U.S. carrier.

One forum for United malcontents is the Web site Untied.com (www.untied.com), which encourages United customers to lodge their complaints and horror stories.

The site has been credited with launching the online complaint industry, according to its creator, Jeremy Cooperstock, a professor of electrical engineering at McGill University in Montreal.

"People are always happy to complain about airline travel," he said. "United's not the only one that's terrible, but there is a fair share of legitimate criticism."

Ignoring customer complaints is a good example. It was the form-letter response to his suggestions that prompted Cooperstock to launch Untied.com five years ago. Now, it's possibly the most well-organized complaint site around, with stories divided up into categories such as rudeness, misinformation, incompetence and special needs (for passengers with disabilities who didn't receive service).

"There is a level of utter lack of concern for the bottom line: paying passengers, especially those with special needs," Cooperstock said.

The site has become something of a personal vendetta for Cooperstock. He tracks the number of complaints lodged with United (so far this year: 2,398) and the number of apologies they've received (41). He lists the names of company management and contact numbers for them, noting that the number for customer relations is not toll-free (although, it should be noted, the one for refunds is).

"I started the site because they couldn't read," he said, simply. "I sent them two letters in which I outlined a series of problems and suggestions, and the form letter they sent back indicated they couldn't read."

A better response would have been an acknowledgement that they'd actually read the letter. But, he claims, the company maintains a corporate arrogance in which blatant disregard for customer satisfaction prevails.

"If UAL would reply to passenger letters with more than form letter drivel, that would be nice," Cooperstock said. "But it comes from up high. The bigger you are, the more arrogant you are and the more content to let things be."

People continue to fly the company and will continue to do so because it flies to so many destinations for less money.

"I'm somewhat skeptical about anything changing at United," he said. "Right now the lowest price beats all, but some people have had it."

Unhappy employees are endemic at United, Cooperstock said, citing the numerous complaints he logs from employees.

"The emphasis I've seen is not concern for the passengers, but such an attitude towards their own employees, that my own has taken a dramatic turn. At first I was just a critic, but now I'm a critic of management. I'll fight along with the employees."

United, of course, denies it. According to company spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch, problems at the airline have been due to bad weather, increased traffic and the pilots.

"We've had extraordinary challenges for the industry, and these make a bad situation worse," he said. "We urge customers to contact us directly and try to address problems. We're frustrated, because we'd rather people come to us directly."

He said customer complaints are always taken seriously, especially those complaints that are sent online (www.united.com) and they have taken steps to improve the flight experience, including better meals, bigger seats and better entertainment.

But most customers would gladly give up all those things if they could arrive at their destinations on time (and with baggage intact).

Ebenhoch blames airport infrastructure and lack of capacity for that.

"Some problems affecting an ontime arrival are out of our control," he said.

He acknowledged that United does keep loose tabs on Untied.com, but says he doesn't know how often company management looks at the site. According to Cooperstock, who says he can tell when a hit comes from United because of the Internet provider listed, it's a lot.

Since the pilots' work-to-rule tactic has been in effect, Cooperstock estimates the number of complaints from United employees themselves has gone up proportionally.

"They can't stand management," he said. "They think we're in this together, and they want United to improve their outlook."

Of course, not all employees are so dissatisfied (or the company wouldn't have any at all).

"Any airline, when it gets negative press, gets a bad reputation," said Steven Lea Vell, a former United pilot who retired from the company three years ago.

"United does a good job, and if I hadn't had to retire, I'd still be flying with them now. United was good to me.

"One of the things that gets United in trouble is that they try to be in compliance with FAA regulations, so it's really tightly run. They police everything."

Cooperstock said that's not so.

"There's a certain bean counting with regard to safety," he said.

After five years of what amounts to a vendetta against United, what airline would Cooperstock favor?

"Um, no comment," he said, laughing.

Is United one of them?

"I think I shouldn't comment on that either."

San Francisco Examiner
July 2, 2000

Passenger Rights
Michael Shaprio

THE FOLKS who watch the airline industry noticed something strange at the end of last year: By most objective standards flight delays, lost luggage, overbooked flights service by major U.S. airlines had improved, according to U.S. Department of Transportation statistics.

And yet complaints tripled.

Blame it on that proliferating and oh-so-easy venue for griping: the Internet. From Web sites targeting specific airlines to industry-wide complaint forums to the federal government itself, disgruntled passengers can now do more than complain to everyone within earshot with a few key stroked they can share their gripes with thousands.

One who did so was Jeremy Cooperstock, a professor at Montreal's McGill University. Four years ago he suffered what he thought was shoddy service at the hands of United Airlines. His first letter of complaint drew no response; his second brought only a form letter.

Concluding that writing to United was futile, Cooperstock set up a Web site called Untied (www.untied.com -- note the spelling -- it looks like United, but it's not) as a forum for disgruntled United passengers.

The response has been overwhelming. Every month about 17,000 people visit the site, with 2,097 complaints logged and forwarded to United. The centerpiece of the site is a collection of truly appalling accounts, ranging from poor treatment for a man who suffered a heart attack to lack of consideration for disabled fliers. Most are submitted by travelers, but a few are filed anonymously by United employees.

Of course, these stories are unverified. It's important to remember that on the Net, people can say whatever they want, and can claim to be just about anyone. But if thousands are taking the time to air their displeasure, a good number probably have legitimate gripes. And United officials are listening, or at least watching. The site logs about 100 visits a month from United employees.

United Airlines spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch says customers who have a comment should contact the airline directly. Today they can do so through the Net by visiting United.com and clicking ""Contact United.'' The airline plans to roll out a toll-free comment line soon, he added.

Untied.com is one of a growing number of sites that have fundamentally altered the relationship between companies and their customers. The Internet, with its forums, chat areas and mailing lists, has facilitated conversations that were virtually impossible a decade ago.

"There are no secrets,'' states the Cluetrain Manifesto (www.cluetrain.com) a Net-age blueprint for ways companies can talk to their clients. ""The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.'' In other words, a few years ago an upset flier might have told 10 friends about a bad customer service experience; today that person can tell 10,000 people online.

Rest of article clipped.

Washington Post
May 14, 2000

Logging on your gripes
John Briley

Intro of article clipped.

While TravelProblems.com is characteristic of a growing number of sites that mediate gripes for a fee, Jarashow also points out that

Elliott maintains that the method of complaint taken most seriously by the airlines are--you were expecting this--written letters, followed by faxes. E-mails are just "easier to ignore," he says airline representatives tell him.

Jeremy Cooperstock, an industry watcher who started a United Airlines spoof site called untied.com, which does take complaints about that carrier, agreed that "airlines treat paper complaints more seriously."

Remainder of article clipped.

US News and World Report
April 3, 2000

Travelers gain allies in spats with the airlines
Anna Mulrine

Intro of article clipped.

While TravelProblems.com is characteristic of a growing number of sites that mediate gripes for a fee, Jarashow also points out that there are a number of gratis steps consumers can take. Complaint options include airline-specific sites such as Delta-Sucks.com, as well as the informative untied.com, which Jeremy Cooperstock started after his travel misadventure on United Airlines. The site is one of the best organized on the Web, offering a log of complaints by date, steps for negotiating small-claims court, and a horror story of the month. Most important, says Cooperstock: "United is our most frequent visitor."

Rest of article clipped.

Ziff Davis: Smart Business
March 2000

Smile: Your Company's Under Attack
by Jamais Cascio

Smart businesses are turning their harshest critics into allies.

You're happily ego surfing, searching the Net for the name of your business, hoping to catch the latest buzz. Then right in front of you, in big blinking text, you see, "You suck!"

If you're like presidential hopeful George W. Bush, you might sic the lawyers on the case and fume, "There ought to be limits to freedom," as he did when frustrated by the www.gwbush.com parody site. Unfortunately, this approach is liable to blow up in your face. And public perception is no less important in business than in politics.

We spoke to everyone from corporate lawyers (who wanted to remain anonymous) to disgruntled customers running anticorporate sites (who were happy to get attention), and the consensus was surprising. If you want online ridicule to disappear, grit your teeth and ignore the offending site, or�better still�grit your teeth and do what you can to pacify unhappy customers. On the other hand, if you're determined to make people on the Internet hate you with a passion�as has happened with eToys in its domain dispute with the arts group that owns eToy.com�call out the legal goon squad.

Jeremy Cooperstock is the sort of customer most businesses would love to have. Loyal to companies that provide good service, a smart shopper, and willing to spend money, Cooperstock personifies "good demographics." There's only one problem: When he feels he's been wronged, he's willing to make a lot of noise about it.

Cooperstock runs the Untied Airlines Web site at www.untied.com, a clearinghouse for complaints about United Airlines. Originally set up to document United's mishandling of his own complaint, the Untied site now includes more than 1,400 tales of woe from visitors around the Internet. Cooperstock started the site hoping to get United's attention. He was successful. But rather than dealing with his problem, Cooperstock claims, United first dismissed his complaint, then moved on to insulting him on Usenet and threatening him with legal action.

Although at press time United Airlines spokesperson Kurt Ebenhoch couldn't rule out legal action against Cooperstock, he said, "We're sorry to hear that some of our customers feel that they need to utilize this site to address their concerns with us."

Cooperstock says, "The worst way [to deal with a site like Untied] is to threaten the individual who sets up the site, attempting to make it go away through intimidation tactics. In case it's not obvious, that's what United did [to me]."

Section clipped for brevity.

Consumers often feel that sending their complaint to a company is like throwing a pebble at a black hole," Tweito says. "Companies should locate these consumers and try to placate them. If they don't try or don't succeed, that one consumer can generate a lot of ill will toward the company using the multiplying power of the Internet."

Cooperstock agrees: "[You have to] provide support and assistance to your customers and work with them to resolve complaints rather than simply dismissing them. By doing so, this encourages constructive dialogue rather than driving customers to set up such sites as a means of getting the company's attention."

Daily Herald
February 28, 2000

Wrath of Web sites:
Corporate America's protesters find forum on the Internet
By Mike Comerford

Relevant excerpt below:

"They (United Airlines officials) are dismissive of (my) site," said Jeremy Cooperstock, a professor at McGill University in Montreal and founder of untied.com. "Yet they threaten legal action against me every few months. They monitor it all the time. And about 1 percent of our visitors are from United."

The companies concede they do watch what is said about them online. Many large corporations hire services to scan the Web for references to their name and logo, or libelous comments. Cooperstock said he had to redesign his page after threat of a copyright infringement suit.

Undeterred, however, more and more such sites seem to be popping up.

Journal of Communication Management
Year 2000: Volume 5, Issue 2, pages 138-146

Stakeholder communication management on the Internet: An integrated matrix for the identification of opportunities
By Nigel M. de Bussy, Richard T. Watson, Leyland F. Pitt and Michael T. Ewing

Article unavailable.

Westword Online
November 11, 1999

Off Limits: Mission unprofitable
by Jonathan Shikes

Intro of article clipped.

While TravelProblems.com is characteristic of a growing number of sites that mediate gripes for a fee, Jarashow also points out that

But Pieper's page is a piker compared to another Web site that encourages United Airlines customers to let fly with their air rage. Www.untied.com offers an encyclopedic catalogue of passenger hell, including more than 2,000 letters that detail everything from lost luggage on a honeymoon trip to disputes over frequent-flyer miles. There's even an extensive exchange of letters between a former United pilot who criticizes the airline's safety record and several current pilots who insist United is safe. The sassy menu page mimics United's colors and logo and calls the much-ballyhooed Star Alliance between United and several international carriers the "Satan Alliance." Dissatisfaction with the airline is so high, says Jeremy Cooperstock, founder of untied.com, that he's been able to solicit contributions from fellow complainers to help fund the site.

As angry as United's customers are, though, who logs onto this site more often than anyone else? According to Cooperstock, it's United itself.

Frequent Flyer Magazine

Rant and Rave Sites: Little Relief, But You'll Feel Better
November 1999

In June 1996, when Frequent Flyer went to press with its first "How to Complain Effectively" issue, student Jeremy Cooperstock fired off a letter to then United Airlines CEO Gerald Greenwald complaining of "unpleasant incidents" on his trip to Japan and Hawaii.

He got no reply, so he sent a followup to Greenwald and United's customer relations director. In late August, Cooperstock got a form letter from United that, he said, ignored his original gripe.

Angered, he launched the "Poor Show" Web pages at the University of Toronto and invited other United passengers to carp away. Over the next seven months, some 30 e-mails were posted. The online airline complaint was born.

UNITED AIRLINES
Denise Harvill
Director, Customer Relations
Call: 847-700-6796
Fax: 847-700-2214
E-Mail: www.ual.com. Click: "Our Company." Select category: food, seat assignment, etc.
Write: to Harvill at
United Airlines
Customer Relations
Box 66100
Chicago, IL 60666
Staff: 120 in Chicago.
Turnaround Time: 24-48 hours for e-mail, telephone calls. Letters faxed or mailed by Premier Mileage Plus members get response within 2 weeks. General public: 60 days. Fastest response: 1K members.
Comment: Becoming quite aggressive in tackling customer feedback, especially for its most frequent flyers. Has a special e-mail response team. New system "images" faxed and written correspondence in its "Customer Solutions Database." Senior vps and frontline management teams get monthly stats and status reports. Anticipating complaints of elite-level Mileage Plus members, United sends letters of apology in advance and, sometimes, a mileage bonus. Elite members get customized responses, infrequent passengers get form letters aimed at specific issues. Plus, a letter-writing consultant has been hired to work with customer relations staffers. Harvill on complaining directly to an online gripe site: "We prefer customers come directly to us. We take their issues seriously. I have employees who work diligently trying to resolve a customer's complaint equitably." United has pledged to institute a toll-free number for complaints by January.

Look at the Scoreboard. As of April 27, 2000, United still does not offer a toll-free number for complaints. Regarding customers' complaints, Ms. Harvill says, "We take their issues seriously." Of course you do.

CBC Marketplace
Air Date: Oct. 26, 1999

Web Watchers
Producer: Ines Colabrese

Summary: In the last few years, we've watched as consumers have taken their complaints online. But now, the companies they're criticising are striking back. They're carefully watching the Internet and calling their lawyers.

Full story: This is how it used to be: if you had a complaint about a company or it's product you had little option other than public protest.

Today you take it on-line -- to an Internet chat group or a web site you put together late last night.

And you're not alone. Thousands of dissatisfied consumers are telling their stories in cyberspace for anyone to read. They complain about how companies treat them, about the products they sell.

Today's protesters demonstrate on consumer opinion sites. Some sites are sophisticated. Some straightforward. Some witty. Others are crude and juvenile.

One guy has a problem with the Chase Manhattan Bank.

Another is irked by Bell Canada.

Consumers visiting this site have a problem with Dunkin Donuts.

Not surprisingly, companies aren't happy with this on-line activism. Some are trying to stamp out the chat.

Jeremy Cooperstock is a professor at McGill University. He hosts a web site about United Airlines. It all started with a couple of bad flights.

"We had a garment bag that was crushed when a flight attendant put a stroller on top of it," he says. "We had seat assignments ...that were made in advance and were basically told no those seats don't exist."

So Cooperstock did what most of us would have done -- he wrote a letter.

"And the letter was ignored. I didn't get a reply back."

So he wrote another letter. "I waited another month and I think at that point I got a form letter reply which completely ignored everything I had written."

Cooperstock posted a notice on his personal web site. He was surprised how many people offered their own stories about United -- some real horror stories. So he created a web site devoted to complaints about United. And told the airline what he had done.

"And I suspect that at that point United started to pay a little attention," Cooperstock says.

Then United Airlines sent a letter, he added, containing "legal threats made against me for trademark infringement and copyright, although the word copyright was misspelled."

So Cooperstock tried a new approach: "I removed any reference to the word United Airlines, I removed their logo ... 'United' was rearranged and became 'Untied,' therefore there was no more infringement."

Untied.com includes criticism and compliments. And since Cooperstock complied with lawyers' requests, United hasn't come knocking again.

Facing legal implications, Cooperstock could have collapsed the web page. But he didn't.

"I didn't see what United stood to gain by taking me, an individual, to court and suing me," he says. "My pockets are rather shallow compared to theirs.

"I think underlying that was that they didn't like the free speech."

McGill Reporter
September 23, 1999

What began as a simple letter of complaint three years ago has mushroomed into a popular web site that goes by the name Untied -- as in United Airlines coming apart.

Electrical and computer engineering professor Jeremy Cooperstock, then a graduate student at the University of Toronto, was incensed when his "polite" letter of complaint regarding damage to his luggage and a nearly missed connecting flight due to failed communication on United's part, went ignored by the American air giant.

So he pursued the matter. First with a follow-up letter, then a web site.

Cooperstock wasn't alone among passengers -- or United employees, as it turned out -- in getting no satisfaction. To date, the web site has received hundreds of stories of bad treatment at United's hands -- 483 in the past three months alone.

Few of those complaints have been dealt with by United. In fact, only three over the past three months received responses. But the bad publicity isn't appreciated by the company. (United threatened to sue the U of T when Cooperstock's web site was on its system, so he changed servers.) What's more, www.untied.com -- described on the ABC News website as "an old online veteran" -- may have spawned other air travel complaint sites with equally evocative names. Take NorthworstAir.org or AirlinesSuck.com, for example.

Cooperstock did finally, after 14 months, get an apology for the bad service he received, but by then it was too late to close shop. Too many other people had contributed to the web site and hadn't had their complaints dealt with.

For a vast and frequently entertaining array of travel complaints, or relief in knowing you are not alone in your bad air travel experience, fasten your seat belts and direct your cursor to: www.untied.com.

Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
September, 1999

Travel Executives Stop Lurking,
Start Talking to Fliers Online
Jane Costello

Intro clipped for brevity.

There are also are sites developed by irate travelers to encourage others to air their concerns about specific airlines. Untied.com, a sounding board for United passengers with complaints, recently redesigned its site to mirror United's recently revamped home page, while a slogan on NorthWorstAir.org describes the site as being "a forum for Northwest Air customers to trade horror stories about NWA's service with an 'attitude.' "

Although these negative forums provide an opportunity for travelers to vent their frustrations, "flaming" an airline with negative comments seldom results in the rectification of a problem.

"Their credibility is weak," is how United's Mileage Plus marketing manager, Jim Davidovich, describes the consumers who voice complaints on Untied.com.

UAL's continued derision of its customers, who have grown weary of having their complaints ignored, is sad indeed. What is amusing, however, is Mr. Davidovich's ignorance of the fact that United's headquarters give enough credibility to the complaints posted here that they check them out an average of twice a day!

Chicago Tribune
Travel: Advice

August 22, 1999

THE GREAT SEARCH:
WANDERING THE WEB FOR AIR BARGAINS NOT ALL THAT FRUITFUL
Paul Grimes

Intro clipped

Untied (sic) Airlines -- The Most Unfriendly Skies (www.untied.com): As is obvious from the title, the creator of this site, computer scientist Jerome [sic] R. Cooperstock, has had problems with United Airlines. He publicizes his and others' gripes about denied boarding and a host of other problems.

ABCNews.com
Crabby Traveler: Travel Gripe Sties

July 1999

Airlines Ignore Web Whines
Christopher Elliott

It is the season of discontent for air travelers. Fares are soaring this summer, planes are flying at capacity and airport terminals are crowded, hot and uncomfortable.

Passengers are furious. They're calling their representatives and demanding new laws to keep them from being treated like cattle. They're writing the Department of Transportation with their complaints. They're even e-mailing me to vent about their last flight. In response, Web sites are appearing to field travelers' gripes. Old online veterans such as Untied.com, the ever-popular United Airlines-bashing site, are being joined by a host of newcomers ranging from the slick PassengerRights.com to the homegrown NorthworstAir.org.

Section clipped for brevity.

A look at the best-established of the consumer airline sites, Untied.com, suggests that he's right. Of 483 e-mailed complaints logged during a recent three-month period, United Airlines answered only three. Jeremy Cooperstock, an electrical and computer engineering professor at McGill University who started the site after an unpleasant flight on the Chicago airline, admits, "United isn't very good about responding."

First Class
The Magazine of the International Airline Passengers Association

June 24, 1999

Pressure Websites: Caught in the Net
What do you do when an airline has given you an appalling flight, cancelled your reservation or left you stranded between connections desperate to get home or on to your next meeting. You can, of course, complain, but the probability is that you will not get a satisfactory answer, let alone compensation. Too often airlines respond to complaints with meaningless stock answers or send a letter that basically says tough. At worst they don't bother to reply at all, safe in the knowledge that most complaints will never be heard of outside their customer services departments.

All of which leaves you incensed but with no way to vent your frustration. Until now, that is. Today, the truly incensed traveller has a way to complain to the whole world. Welcome to the beginnings of a new era of passenger power being made possible by the internet - the global network which can make any of us into personal publishers. With just a PC and a web site any disgruntled passenger can now take on the biggest airlines.

But does anybody really bother? The answer it seems is a definite yes. Take the case of frequent flyer Jeremy Cooperstock. Back in 1996 he wrote a polite letter to the president of United Airlines, copying it to the director of customer relations, with one of those lengthy traveller's tales of delays, alleged misinformation from the airline's staff and other problems that gave him what he thought was a thoroughly unpleasant trip. After six weeks he sent a follow up letter and finally received what he considered was a standard reply from United that didn't answer his problems or apologise. And he wasn't happy with the two $100 vouchers sent as compensation.

For most people that would have been the end of it. Not so for Mr Cooperstock who was so incensed at the lack of an apology and what he saw as the blatant disregarding of a serious and polite complaint that he set up a web site detailing his argument with United which soon began to attract more tales from other passengers unhappy with the airline. The result is that, two years on, there is now a huge web site, described as "the place that allows frustrated former United Airlines passengers a chance to speak out". It not only includes several hundred passenger complaints but allows you to select by type of grievance - from rudeness and misinformation to incompetence and refund problems. Called Untied Airlines, it is at www.untied.com and organised so professionally that it puts many commercial web sites to shame.

There is even a complaints form for irate passengers to fill out which automatically puts the complaint on the web site and copies it to United's director of customer relations and president. That is not all. There is a round up of employee lawsuits against the airline and links to any stories in the general media that show United in a less than favourable light. Mr Cooperstock clearly does not do things by halves. So what are passengers complaining about? These are some of the examples of bad service from passengers quoted on the web site:

Can't find your seat? Get off the plane. Ask for service? You must be drunk and disorderly. Leave behind your 10-year old. Be quiet, the crew are trying to rest. Lied to, and threatened with arrest No apology from abusive purser $377 doesn't get you into the restroom Lies about seat assignments Paid for first class? Sorry, you fly coach. Booked in advance? Too bad!

Thankfully for other airlines Untied is in a league of it's own in both scope and depth. But perhaps only for the moment. When Northwest Airlines brushed off Ronald Riley's complaints about a damaged laptop computer, he started a web-site called Northworst Air (www.northworst.org). It has only been going since January this year but Riley claims more than 6,500 people visited it in the first three months including employees from 12 airlines and of course Northwest Airlines itself. There are others. The Tower Air Parody Site, (www.idemandloyalty.com) for example, conducts a similar though more modest assault on Tower Air. And there are personal sites, for example a web page from someone called Niki asking people who have pets not to fly Turkish Airlines as, she claims, they lost one of her three cats.

But while Untied is unique in terms of anti-airline web sites, it is certainly not alone when it comes to business generally. In the USA, anti-corporate web-sites are highly advanced. From Amway to Wal Mart, Bell Atlantic to Toshiba, the Yahoo search engine now lists more than 100 companies enjoying the dubious privilege of a web site run by someone who hates them.

Some are run by disgruntled ex-employees, others by the type of people lawyers would no doubt refer to as vexatious litigants if they ever took their grievances to court. Still others are run by serious activist organisations who object to a company's activities in certain areas from dealing with the environment to selling fur products or refusing union recognition.

In that sense airlines are still getting off lightly. And do they really need to worry? Who, after all, is going to look at these sites? Those going straight to an airline site will not see them. But search for an airline using one of the many internet search engines and you may well find, if not a site dedicated to complaining about it, a whole host of grievances coming up on other travel-related web sites.

Though they are reluctant to talk airlines like United and Northwest are clearly taking notice. Cooperstock claims 145,000 people visited his Untied site in 1998 and that United Airlines itself has been to his main page more than 1500 times. If true then there is a whole new area for customer service departments to worry about. But the first thought by most companies when faced with a customer pressure site against them is that they should try to close it down.

Companies won't talk about it but those who run the sites say that such actions are nearly always to claim trade mark and copyright infringement. In the early days this was easier for companies to get away with, as pressure sites would often use company logos or trade marks but nowadays if a customer complaint site is careful about copyright and is careful not to include malicious libel, there is little a company can do. Such sites may or may not be unfair but they are unlikely to be illegal.

Sometimes companies do not help themselves. In the UK, British Telecom was so anxious to be known as BT that it never even bothered to register the web address www.british-telecom.co.uk. But an irate customer did and for several months anyone entering what would be a logical guess for the BT web-site, instead arrived at a site full of complaints about the telecom giant. Eventually BT did manage to get the site stopped because of the use of its (old) name in the web address. Others are now far wiser and Chase Manhattan Bank has reportedly registered a whole group of site names such as ihatechase.com and chasestinks.com just to make absolutely sure that no disgruntled customer or employee will ever be able to get hold of them.

Unless there is blatant libel or proof of an orchestrated campaign to denigrate an airline with fictitious complaints - and there is no evidence for either so far - airlines will just have to learn to live with this new level of passenger power and perhaps even use it to their own advantage. "If an airline values its image then should use these web sites as a tool to perform better," says IATA spokesman, Tim Goodyear. "They could even serve a useful function in crystallising particular complaints. If a lot of different people are so incensed about the same thing that they are taking the time to enter a web site and register their anger then it is worth doing something about. it." That would seem to the most sensible approach once airlines realise that, however much they would like to, they will not be able to shut down what will soon be even more customer complaint sites that are bound to spring up against them.

Dallas Morning News
Personal Technology
June 24, 1999

Online Options: Web pages can sting corporations
Robert Dodge

Intro of article clipped.

"We try and keep an eye on it, but we do have other priorities," said Joe Hopkins, a spokesman for Chicago-based United Airlines, referring to a site critical of United at www.untied.com. "We prefer that consumers approach us directly, and that is what most people do."

Clipped...

The gripes are similar to postings that are found in topic-specific Internet discussion groups. But the Web sites offer far more utility, allowing operators the ability to use colorful graphics, a database of previous complaints and critical news articles.

For instance, the rogue site about United - "Untied Airlines, the most unfriendly skies" - lists complaints in categories called rudeness, misinformation, incompetence, special needs, refund problems and premier class.

Jeremy Cooperstock, 31, a Toronto university professor, started the site after he had an unpleasant trip on United. The affiliation is incorrect. Cooperstock is not in Toronto.

"A lot of people accused me of doing this in revenge or anger," said Mr. Cooperstock. "But just because big organizations are big and wealthy, they are not entitled to ignore the public."

And some consumers said they've gotten results from the sites.

Rest of article clipped.

Trips: A Travel Journal
Spotlight Site: Untied.com
March/April 1999

Conventional wisdom dictates that it's better for companies to do right by their unhappy customers than have them tell friends how displeased they are. Well, United Airlines didn't respond to Jeremy Cooperstock's complaints, and now the airline probably wishes it had.

Three years ago, Cooperstock, a 31-year-old professor of electrical and computer engineering at Montreal's McGill University, created Untied Airlines, a website to air his displeasure with the airline and offer an online forum for other frustrated flyers. Cooperstock,, who had written to United about poor service and missed connections on trips to Hawaii and Japan, finally received a pair of $100 vouchers. But by then the site had gained momentum. Tens of thousands of people have visited the site, with hundreds posting complaints. Many have said they thought their problems were isolated incidents until they came across the site and found so many similar complaints.

When visitors arrive at the site, they're greeting with a flashing question: "What do we think of United's skies?" The question disappears and is replaced with the word "friendly" behind a red circle with a slash through it. Complaints are organized into categories, ranging from "rudeness" to "incompetence." And it's not just those flying the in the cattle-car conditions in coach who complain. Premier flyers, travel agents and even United employees (who have accessed the site 1,464 times, according to Cooperstock) have visited the site.

Andy Plews, UAL's general manager of media relations, is aware of the site but says "it's not something we generally get into a big discussion on." He says the company is happy to address grievances through its web site or by phone (847.700.6796). Plews notes that United is "one of many companies that have sites about them." Ture enough, though not many companies can claim to be the target of so many vitriolic postings.

Among the letters: A flyer wrote about a United crew's lack of preparation after a man suffered a heart attack while the plane was on the ground. According to the letter, it took 30 minutes to evacuate the stricken man, who later died. "A flight attendant did nothing but shake the man and yell 'Are you alright?' I was told later by someone that a United FA (flight attendant) said they were 'discouraged' from getting involved in medical emergencies. Well, I now live in Chicago, and am 'discouraged' from flying United."

United unveiled a new ad campaign a couple of years ago, that claims the airline is "rising" to new heights of customer service. But judging by the continued torrent of letters, Cooperstock doesn't see any noticeable improvement. He says he's not public service. A disclaimer at the bottom of the page reads: "Untied Airlines is proud to have no relation to United Airlines, which is not responsible for the contents of this web site, apart from providing the poor service that led to all of these complaints."

Of those who write Cooperstock, about 80 percent support his efforts, 10 percent are critical and another 10 percent mistake his site for the official United site and try to check flight schedules or update frequent flier accounts.

For the airlines, the Net has been a godsend, giving them a way to sell tickets directly without paying commissions to travel agents. But it could be a doubt outraged consumers the opportunity to tell more friends about shoddy service than the airlines ever imagined possible.

USA Today
Travel Section
March 18, 1999

Carrying on complaints into cyberspace
Laura Bly

While Congress and the Clinton administration wrangle over proposals aimed at boosting passenger rights, computer-savvy fliers are using cyberspace to byte back against bad trips. Once limited largely to Internet mailing lists and Usenet newsgroups (bulletin boards) such as rec.travel.air and alt.air line.class.action.lawsuit, passengers' on-line complaints are landing on a growing variety of Web sites, from "rogue" home pages devoted to dissing a particular carrier to sites emphasizing news and consumer advice. A sampling:

Clipped...

Untied Airlines (www.untied.com)

Launched two years ago as "a Web site that offers frustrated former United Airlines passengers a chance to speak out," this state-of-the-art soapbox posts an average of 100 complaints a month about everything from refund snafus to mistreatment of unaccompanied minors.

Funded by reader contributions, Untied's tide of woe includes a few success stories from mollified passengers. What's more, insists creator Jeremy Cooperstock, "we're all looking forward to that day when this Web site is no longer necessary" -- a day he reckons won't be any time soon.

Rest of article clipped.

The Globe & Mail
Report on Business Magazine
March 1999

Futuretech: Eavesdroppers
Clive Thompson

As millions flock on-line, the Net is becoming the biggest cocktail conversation in the world. Now some of the world's largest companies are starting to listen in.

Section clipped for brevity.

Ignoring consumer complaints, before the Internet, usually meant having one irate customer who might bad-mouth your product to their friends or write a letter to the local newspaper. With the Web, the process has morphed into a construct with the ability to terrify even the most powerful corporation: the "rogue site." "These things can just come out of nowhere and totally blindside you," marvels John Weinseis, president of Bowdens Media Monitoring Ltd. in Toronto, which resells eWatch services in the Canadian market.

A rogue site is a Web site devoted to attacking an individual company. Over the past few years, this colourful field has included the "I Hate McDonald's" page, the "ToysRUs Sucks" page and "The Official Packard Bell Hate Page." The popular Yahoo search site has indexed a staggering 147 such sites (classified diplomatically as "consumer opinion"). Sometimes the sites serve an activist purpose; sometimes they offer info for other consumers; sometimes they exist just because, well, it's extremely fun to torture a smug, self-satisfied company over its lousy service.

For Jeremy Cooperstock, it was probably a combination of all three. Cooperstock was a 31-year-old student at the University of Toronto in June, 1996, when he had a "flight from hell" on United Airlines. During a trip to Tokyo, he and a friend were uninformed of a change in the flight itinerary that nearly made them late for a conference; later, he had his seats mixed up, and a piece of clothing damaged. He complained by letter, but got only a form reply. So he decided to post the story on his personal Web page at the university. "I felt very disappointed," he says. "I figured if the company isn't even going to dignify me with a personal response, I ought to let the world know how they treated their customers."

To his surprise, dozens of other passengers disgruntled with United began mailing him their horror stories. He started posting them, and it snowballed. Before long, he had amassed an archive of stories, several hours worth of gruesome reading about United's allegedly bungled flights, rude staff behaviour and mistreatment of people with disabilities. One story is from a woman who, while flying home after lung surgery, says she was forced by United attendants to carry her own luggage; another passenger, debilitated by polio, says she was insulted by a flight attendant after requesting help in storing her bag. Cooperstock began putting in up to two hours a week of his free time organizing the site. "Some people say I've put more in there than anyone could ever read," he jokes. He discovered, to his delight, that when anyone did a search for "United Airlines" on the popular Altavista search engine, his site made the top of the list beating out even United's own corporate Web site. In 1997, Cooperstock even registered a domain name for it: www.untied.com.

In 1998, he clocked 145,000 discrete visitors a small number, but enough to annoy United mightily. "We're aware of the site," says Joe Hopkins, United's manager of media relations. He says it hasn't affected the company financially: United flew 87 million customers in 1998, an increase of three million over the previous year. "Our business continues to grow, and we expect it to do so in the future," he adds testily. Still, the site was clearly enough of a pain that, according to Cooperstock, United has tried unsuccessfully to shut down the site for copyright infringement. (Hopkins declined comment on this subject.)

Cooperstock argues that the rogue sites are a symptom of how the Net has given some small bit of power back to consumers. "This was fringe when I started it, but it's becoming a part of mainstream Internet culture now," he adds. "People rely on it for information about who to fly with." Indeed, when the site was temporarily off-line after Cooperstock left U of T, a fan of the site mailed him $200, in the hope of helping to get it back up.

Rest of article clipped.

PC Computing
December 1998

Liar, Liar
Taylor & Jerome

Linda Tripp has nothing on most Americans for dishing dirt when they're pissed. But who'd have thought low-life tattling would become the Internet's biggest growth industry? Cybergossip, whoppers, and slurs now move billions of bucks. Did you hear the one about the United Airlines passenger who died from a heart attack because the crew took more than 30 minutes to acknowledge he was unconscious? United Airlines sure hopes you didn't. But there it is on www.untied.com, a site dedicated to exposing customer-service horror stories about the airline. It's not the only Web site spewing vinegar. Consider a smattering of pages Yahoo pitches up when you search under consumer opinion: My Anti-Netscape Page, The Why Apple Macintosh Computers Are Worthless Homepage, Macy's Is an (Alleged) Criminal Organization, WalMartSucks.com, and Packard Bell Is Evil.

Rest of article clipped.

Mining Co. Guide to Air Travel
November 30, 1998

The Customer Bytes Back:
How some fliers state their complaints via the web
A.G. Dunham

You have to love the internet free speech is everywhere and it seems everyone has a website these days. One area that is growing are complaint sites by angry customers or employees. Yahoo has an entire directory dedicated to sites that take shots at various companies, sites that call for boycotts, sites that complain about customer service blunders, sites that publicize product defects, etc. Corporations have cringed at the very thought of their brand being subject to internet banter. Some firms like Chase Manhattan Bank have taken extreme measures to keep the corporate name from internet ridicule. Chase has gone the extra step to protect their brand by purchasing several .com addresses, also known as anti-domains, they include ihatechase.com and chasestinks.com among others. While some complaint sites can occasionally be helpful by exposing trends in customer dissatisfaction most are gripe sites with no real value other than gaining a few laughs at corporate expense. Airlines are not immune to this growing trend.

The Unfriendly Skies

Take the story of Jeremy Cooperstock. Cooperstock, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at McGill University in Montreal, just wanted to fly from Toronto to Toyko with no hassles. However, it ended up a nightmare of missed flights, rude gate agents, and having articles damaged by flight attendants. After a series of letters to United Airlines with no real tangible solutions Mr. Cooperstock took his case to the web and created Untied.com "a Web site that offers frustrated former United Airlines passengers a chance to speak out." What happened was amazing hundreds of letters poured in from readers chronicling their own misfortunes with United. Jeremy created new sections on the website dedicated to customer complaints regarding everything from rude flight attendants to messy frequent flier accounts. He states, " the need for this web site is further demonstrated when we receive letters from other travelers who went through very similar experiences. These episodes could be easily prevented if only United would pay some attention to what its passengers have been saying!" Apparently United Airlines is paying attention. Through website logs Jeremy is able to track visitor's domain addresses and according to him during the 19 months the site has been on-line, United Airlines' headquarters has accessed the main page 1501 times. His site has been getting a lot of attention. In addition to being profiled in the book Unleashing the Killer App he's also been mentioned in Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, Aviation Today, Seattle Times, The Chicago Tribune, PC World Magazine among others. Cooperstock goes on to state "we're all looking forward to that day when this web site is no longer necessary."

Rest of article clipped.

Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition
October 6, 1998

Archivist of Airline Gripes Seeks
Cybercapital From Fed-Up Fliers
Jane Costello

Untied.com is dedicated to exposing the underbelly of United Airlines. Visitors can peruse old letters under such categories as "Rudeness at United" and "Incompetence at United."

Jeremy Cooperstock thinks travelers may be willing to pay to air their complaints against United Airlines in cyberspace. As founder of Untied.com, a Web site dedicated to exposing the underbelly of the friendly skies, Mr. Cooperstock has maintained the site without advertising or financial support since it went "live" in June of 1997. He has been deluged with passengers' airline horror stories that he has posted on the site, and he also has taken pains to air United's official responses to the complaints when applicable.

Visitors to the site can peruse old letters under such categories as "Rudeness at United" and "Incompetence at United," and there is an entire section of Untied.com devoted to the problems experienced by passengers with special needs. "I started this site because of my own experience," says Mr. Cooperstock, a computer engineering professor at McGill University in Montreal who "went electronic" in response to the airline's refusal to address a complaint to his satisfaction. "But, as it turns out, my experience was trivial compared to other horror stories. Having a ripped garment bag was not such a big deal."

Mr. Cooperstock has been unable to keep up with the volume of submissions he receives, and he has started an on-site contribution drive, hoping people will be willing to help support the site. Ideally, he says, he would like to hire someone to serve as an intermediary between UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and the Untied.com community.

In the online literature, Mr. Cooperstock estimates the site costs about $340 a year to maintain and states that his request for "a token contribution of five dollars" is not an attempt to turn Untied into a money-making operation.

During the first month of the appeal, 25 people have printed out Mr. Cooperstock's plea for assistance, and loyal fans have sent more than $150 in contributions. One reader even offered to underwrite the cost of the site for an entire year, but Mr. Cooperstock declined. "I'd rather have a wide readership and base of support," he says.

After the initial burst of generosity from passengers fit to be Untied, Mr. Cooperstock is optimistic about the site's future. And the more money he gets, the more likely it is that the site will continue to remain a virtual thorn in United's side.

ABC News with Peter Jennings

The Frustrations of Flight
Who's Really Cashing in on Frequent Flier Miles
July 6, 1998

National Public Radio -- Morning Edition
July 2, 1998

[Transcript follows:]

But more and more people are complaining. The Department of Transportation says overall complaints were up 20 percent last year. And web sites collecting travel woes abound. Untied.com, a site devoted to exposing the misdeeds of United Airlines has received thousands of complaints from passengers in the year it has been operating, according to its creator, Jeremy Cooperstock:

"Recently, the one that I put up as (sort of) the 'letter of the week' deals with a 10-year old boy who was asked to get off the plane to make a seat for a priority passenger and when his mother complained, she was asked to go and speak to a manager, so she got off the plane, the doors were closed on her and the flight took off without her."

A United spokesoman dismisses the web site as "vengeful" containing stories that may or may not be true. And he says the reason customer complaints are up is because air travel is up and because as a society, we're just complaining more about everything these days.

Los Angeles Times
March 8, 1998

Effective Mouse Fights With Big Corporations
Laura Bly

When Jacob Reider's written protests about a botched family reunion at Cancun's Moon Palace hotel fell on deaf corporate ears, the Albany, N.Y., physician fought back with a mouse. He aired his gripes on the Internet.

Rest of intro clipped.

"Cruisers give a lot of weight to the fact that someone has just gotten off the ship they're considering," says Cruise Critic's moderator, Anne Campbell, "and (negative reports) can have a lot of impact." One of the most visible efforts to chastise a travel company in cyberspace is http://www.untied.com, billed by creator Jeremy Cooperstock as "a Web site that offers frustrated former United Airlines passengers a chance to speak out."

Thousands have done just that since the engineer launched the site last year, complaining about everything from rude flight attendants to snafus with frequent-flier accounts. In a section titled "Yes, United Airlines does pay attention," Cooperstock claims that United headquarters has accessed the site more than 900 times since its inception. And while most of United's comments are negative, Cooperstock lists a handful of success stories that he says prove "a polite, well-phrased letter to United can often achieve effective results."

Remainder of article clipped.

World Airline News
March 5, 1998

Unconventional Market Research: Using Rogue Sites to Improve Airlines
Heather Montgomery

For airlines, the Internet has become indispensable as a marketing tool and money-saver: carriers can communicate directly with their customers without spending a cent on postage, can sell tickets without the usual distribution costs and can market services without the cost of advertising.

However, as use of the Internet has gained momentum, airlines have entered a new era of public relations and customer service. Dissatisfied passengers now can freely air their gripes about shoddy service to more than just their neighbors they can tell the entire world about their impressions of a carrier on what have come to be called "rogue" sites.

Thats what Dr. Nick Fiddes did last year when he had a bad experience on Air Canada and, according to Fiddes, failed to receive any apology or acknowledgment of his written complaint. Jeremy Cooperstock did the same thing in June 1996 when, he said, United Airlines [UAL] sent a form letter that did not address his specific complaint two months after his initial written complaint. Cooperstock, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at McGill University in Montreal, said he identified several problems he experienced on a series of United flights to Japan and Hawaii, none of which United acknowledged in its response.

Both Cooperstock and Fiddes are now webmasters of sites critical of these airlines, providing an outlet for other passengers to air their own complaints. Fiddes said that over 2,000 people recently have been accessing his site and generating more than 50 messages daily. Of those, over 90 percent are supportive of his efforts. Cooperstock said he has logged about 1,000 letters since his current site went online at the end of April. About 80 percent of those are supportive, 10 percent are critical and 10 percent are people mistaking his site for Uniteds official site, inquiring as to how they can update frequent flyer miles or get flight schedules.

A Market Research Tool

Airlines should neither ignore nor rush to condemn the people who set up these sites, say public relations consultants. "Its a classic glass half empty/glass half full, " said Michael Teeling, a public relations professional at The Horn Group in San Francisco. "I always encourage clients to take the high road and look at these rogue web sites as market research. They allow you to tap instantaneously into your customer base; its a barometer of public opinion about your product."

United has taken that exact approach and is using the site to compile customer feedback and improve its product. Within the past three or four months, Cooperstock said that United has accessed his site about three or four times a day. "The top people [at United] are trying to deal with the problems on the site," he acknowledged. "Several individuals have had their problems solved as a result of the site."

Air Canada, on the other hand, has taken a different approach, choosing not to confront Fiddes directly. "If theres slander, we will act accordingly," said an Air Canada spokeswoman, "but people are allowed to express their views. I dont know how much credence people give to these domains."

Other rogue sites established in the past include one critical of American Airlines [AMR], set up by a frequent flyer who was consistently unable to redeem his mileage due to full flights and blackout dates, and a site calling for the boycott of Alaska Airlines [ALK] which criticized its pricing monopolies in Alaska, Cooperstock said. Other sites are likely to pop up in the future.

The bottom line? "You cant please everyone, but you can't ignore the web and its power to drive customers," Teeling concluded.

The Record Online
January 30, 1998

Word of mouth a shout as complaints go on line
Deena Yellin

Beginning of article clipped.

"There are no editors in cyberspace to make sure that what gets posted is accurate," said James Alexander, director of eWatch in White Plains, N.Y., which checks the Web for mention of companies, products, or competitors for an annual $9,500 fee. "If someone is talking about your company, it is vital to be watching." Among his 500 clients are US West Airlines, Mrs. Field's Cookies, Northwest Airlines, and Heinz, Alexander said.

But numerous other companies, recognizing the potential for a public-relations disaster, do their monitoring in-house. Often, they will take action.

When one disgruntled former United Airlines customer erected the United gripe page, the airline took notice and wrote a letter to its creator.

"Our customer relations department looks at sites like that, and if there's a problem we can fix, we try to track down the person who put it up," said Tony Molinaro, a United spokesman.

So let's look at the history. On September 6, 1996, United was informed of my initial web site. On January 8, 1997, a United representative finally contacted me to say that a letter was on its way. Did that fix the problem? Unfortunately, no. Instead of simply saying, "we're sorry," which is all we had asked for back in June 1996, the letter (written by someone who no longer worked for the airline) threatened legal action against me. Let's hope that United is better at fixing more serious problems.

The company will not use the site as a go-between but will contact the person directly by letter or phone. In this case, the site's creator, Jeremy Cooperstock, put the letter up on the site.

Sorry to disappoint Mr. Molinaro, but several noteworthy UAL employees have used the Untied.com site as a go-between to help resolve passenger problems. An interesting point: many of the letters my site receives are from former United passengers who have already complained to United but were not given the decency of a reply.

"I'm not sure why someone would go to all that effort and time to do that sort of thing," Molinaro said about the Web site. "If they had an issue where we disserviced them, we are willing to talk to them about it."

Mr. Molinaro should talk to Mr. Kiker, United's vice president for Corporate Communications. The latter would explain that I went to "all that effort" because his airline's response to my complaints was "slow, impersonal and insufficiently candid." At any rate, since Mr. Molinaro appears willing to talk to customers who were disserviced by United, I look forward to receiving his reply to my request to post his telephone number so that other passengers can contact him directly.

Stay tuned.

Newsweek
October 27, 1997

Foiling the Rogues
by Jennifer Tanaka

'Anti' Web sites are great for angry customers, but now companies are trying to fight back

Did you hear the story about the man who had a hear attack on an airplane and died because it took the flight crew 30 minutes to get help? United Airlines hopes you haven't. But the thousands of Web travelers who have visited www.untied.com, an online site dedicated to exposing customer-service horror stories, probably have seen it. Not to mention dozens of other nasty comments posted there, too. Tony Molinaro, a spokesman who says United is looking into the incident, says of the site, "I had no idea it was out there."

[remainder of article discusses other companies]

United, for its part, is monitoring its rogue site. In the meantime, it's doing what it always does to placate dissatisfied customers: offering the creator of the rogue Web site free travel vouchers. Sometimes old-fashion works best.

Tony Molinaro's remark regarding the Untied site ("I had no idea it was out there") seems to suggest dishonesty on his part, since he had previously commented on the site in the previous month's Chicago Tribune. However, in fairness to him, I followed up with Ms. Tanaka of Newsweek, who explained that Molinaro's remark was taken out of context. Molinaro had initially reported that he first learned of the site through a radio news story.

As for the travel vouchers, once again, $100 off a $1500 fare is not free travel.

Seattle Times
September 24, 1997

Business News
Compiled by Stephen H. Dunphy

A new Web page - http://www.untied.com - proudly proclaims: "Untied Airlines is proud to have no relation to United Airlines, which is not responsible for the contents of this Web site, apart from providing the poor service that led to all these complaints."

The site is a collection of dozens of complaints about what it calls rudeness, misinformation, incompetence, special-needs mistreatment and refund problems. United Airlines tries to monitor the site and answer questions.

Keep an eye on this Internet trend.

Chicago Tribune
Friday, September 19, 1997

United Airlines fit to be Untied by unfriendly web site
by John Schmeltzer

United Airlines' Internet nightmare is located at www.untied.com, a Web site that United tried to persuade its creator to shut down because of alleged trademark infringements. The site collects and prints, in detail, complaints about service on the world's biggest airline.

It's a Web page that proudly states: "Untied Airlines is proud to have no relation to United Airlines, which is not responsible for the contents of this Web site, apart from providing the poor service that led to all these complaints."

Open for a little more than four months, the site was created by Jeremy Cooperstock, an engineer who works for Sony Corp. It has collected dozens of complaints about what it calls rudeness, misinformation, incompetence, special-needs mistreatment and refund problems. It even contains complaints by United's best customers, it's Premier Class fliers.

Cooperstock says Epicurious Travel, which rates the nation's airlines on late flights, mishandled baggage, bumped passengers and consumer complaints, lists United near the bottom of its list of domestic airlines. The only airlines rated lower were Trans World Airlines and America West Airlines.

Untied.com is one of many such pages cropping up on the Web in response to what their creators believe is Corporate America's failure to deal with their complaints.

"Our customer relations department monitors the site and tries to fix bad information and answer questions when they can," said Tony Molinaro, a United spokesman. He said repeated efforts to contact Cooperstock have failed.

That news comes as quite a surprise, considering the hundreds of former United passengers who had absolutely no trouble contacting me.

PC World Magazine -- Consumer Watch
October 1997

Don't Get Mad, Get Online
by Roberta Furger

Consumers' ability to air grievances on the Net has forced companies to respond to client complaints.

Jeremy Cooperstock didn't expect much when he wrote a letter to United Airlines last spring about a problem-ridden intercontinental flight. All he wanted was a formal response to the litany of problems he encountered on a flight from Toronto to Tokyo.

But after two months (and a follow-up letter), the only reply Cooperstock had received was a form-letter apology, along with two $100 vouchers toward a future United flight. Although the coupons would come in handy later, what he really wanted was an explanation for the troubles he'd detailed in his two-page missive, including, missed connections due to flight delays (announced, oddly enough, only in Chinese); bungled seat assignments, despite having made reservations months in advance; and a wool suit that was ruined when a flight attendant placed a stroller on top of a garment bag in the cabin storage area. Frustrated by United's lack of concern, Cooperstock did what any computer-savvy consumer activist would do: He created a Web page and shared his gripes with the world.

Cooperstock's first "anti-United" site went live in August of 1996. He dubbed it "Poor Show," and promptly informed United of its existence because he wanted the airline to know the consequences of poor customer service. "It wasn't the poor treatment we received from United, but rather the subsequent disregard for a serious, polite complaint that led to the creation of the Web pages," explains Cooperstock.

In one three-month period, the site has had 1500 hits, mostly from other United customers (since the initial media attention to the Untied site, shortly after this story was written, the figure has jumped to over 14,000 hits). It's also attracted the attention of United employees. According to access logs, says Cooperstock, 227 of those 1500 hits to the site were from the United URL. He adds that he has exchanged e-mail with several United employees about issues raised on his site.

Though it's tough to estimate the site's real effect, United has since begun a new ad campaign emphasizing the airline's efforts to better its customer service. "One thing is for certain," says Cooperstock, "letters that were once ignored by United's customer relations officials are read more carefully after they are posted to my site." Some are even acted on by industrious employees: In one case, a United customer service representative happened to read about a customer's problems on Cooperstock's pages and helped to resolve them.

As for the corporate muckety-mucks, executives at United's headquarters also acknowledged the site's existence after a few months: They threatened to sue for trademark infringement. While the name "Poor Show" could have referred to any company, Cooperstock's use of United's "Friendly Skies" banner with a big red X spray-painted through it and the words "Yeah, right!" below it made him vulnerable to legal action. He's since changed the name of the site to Untied Airlines (www.untied.com) and eliminated all the United logos and slogans. The opening screen now sports an airplane bearing the name, "Untied Airlines," and a new slogan: "The most Unfriendly Skies."

Remainder of article clipped.

San Francisco Business Times
July 28, 1997

Talk of the Town
Compiled by Jim Gardner

In the interests of accuracy, I am including this news article here with a minor correction, shown in blue.

Its skies may remain friendly, but cyberspace has turned hostile for United Airlines.

The Bay Area's biggest air carrier has recently picked up an unwelcome traveling companion: "Untied Airlines, the Most Unfriendly Skies," a snippy web site aimed at dissing the airline. Com-piled by Canadian engineer Jeremy Cooperstock at Sony Corp., the site gives a forum to customers and ex-customers who say the employee-owned airline's customer service leaves a lot to be desired.

Decked with the logo for the Free Speech Online Blue Ribbon Campaign, the site includes flashing red slash-circles around the word "friendly", plus hot links to pages with labels like "rudeness", "misinformation" and "incompetence."

Those in turn lead to letters grumbling of customer disservice, unhelpfulness and general ineptitude. There's also a section that uses federal figures to take the airline to task over safety, baggage handling and on-time performance.

There seems to be an audience for United-bashing: the site claims that in its nearly three months of existence, it has had 3 million viewers (No, the PRI Marketplace program, which referenced this web site in a recent story, reaches an audience of approximately 3 million listeners.) -- among them 313 hits by United management.

The site's creator said he took to the web after letters to United about his service complaints failed to produce satisfaction.

Writes Cooperstock: "We're all looking forward to that day when this web site is no longer necessary."

Motley Fool
July 20, 1997

Aviation Column

... want to see an airline's worst nightmare? And, hey, just because there is not one out there that says www.aanightmare.com or www.deltaisawful.com don't think you are safe! Check out www.untied.com. It is a webpage that was created to publicly discuss and highlight supposed inept, surly, stupid or just plain rude service by United Airlines employees. The site got a great deal of press on a National Public Radio segment on Friday...

Public Radio International -- Marketplace
July 15, 1997

(Sorry; transcript not available.)