FIGHT BACK : VIDEO RENTER SHOULDN'T BE BENT OUT OF SHAPE.

Byline: David Horowitz 

A woman in Colorado stocked up on videos during the record-setting heat wave to pass the evenings in her air-conditioned home. After she finished viewing the movies, she put them in her car so as not to forget to return them to the local video store.

She contacted me at FightBack.com when the store charged her $98 because a tape she dropped in the return box had apparently melted, not in the box in an air-conditioned store, but while it was in her car waiting to be returned.

She owned up to her carelessness and paid the store, but needless to say, she wasn't happy about it. She e-mailed FightBack.com to warn our site users. A video store owner I talked to in Chicago told me some renters who return cooked videos claim the tapes melted in the return box or were melted when they took them home. They pay the full price or lose their renting rights, he said.

He charges them the full price for the tape on their credit cards. He explained it's their problem. He expects a customer to either call immediately or return the tape in person if there is a problem. Otherwise, he expects them to pay for what others can't play.

Stock buybacks 

Investors who are jolted and distrusting because of the stock market's wild gyrations had another investment balloon break. Many investors think they can make profits on issues where companies announce they are buying back a chunk of stock.

A survey recently published by the University of Texas says that many companies offer to buy back stock to increase the stock's value and viability, but less than half of the buybacks ever take place.

Thirty-eight percent of the buybacks never happened last year, according to the study. Is this an illegal ploy by companies to artificially boost prices of shares? Wall Street experts point out when the buybacks are announced, the companies are careful not to announce a date or a firm purchase price for the buy-back stock.

The Federal Security and Exchange Commission, which regulates such transactions, would become interested only in companies that frequently announce buybacks and then fail to buy any shares. Our investment analyst told me the key, however, is not to call your broker and buy any issue simply because a buyback has been announced. Call the company and try to find out the date and target price of the buyback. If the information is not forthcoming, consider why you would want to invest in that company.