Surprises

Surprises

by Mike Masnick





The Dot Com Freebie That Paid Off... For The Few Who Remembered

from the sneaky dept

In 1998 you couldn't open a browser window without finding some sort of ridiculous "free" dot com promotion - and one of the most ridiculous was a company named TravelZoo that picked up on the fact that everyone was drooling over stock options in companies, and decided to offer "free stock" in the company to anyone who signed up to use their service. It got them a ton of hype, and for about everyone was talking about them. Then, most people forgot about them - even many who signed up to get that free stock. It turns out that maybe they should have paid more attention. That free TravelZoo stock is now actually worth something - but it's too late to redeem your shares if you didn't already re-register the stock when the company moved their shares to the Nasdaq (something most people didn't do). Of course, you have to wonder why the company only seems to be so vocal about this after the date is now passed.

2 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

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  1. Free Travelzoo stock

    by Kristine R. Hudgins - Dec 27th, 2008 @ 11:19am

    I signed up for the Free Travelzoo stocks many years ago when the company was first starting up and then forgot about it. It wasn't until I received an unsolicited e-mail, from Travelzoo, that I even remembered having obtained their stock. I promptly googled Travelzoo stock only to find out that I had to re-register in order to redeem my shares. Why wasn't this information made more known? Is it really too late ?

    Thanks,
    Kris Hudgins

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. 1998 shares of stock

    by Christel Marquardt - Feb 24th, 2009 @ 1:36pm

    Whyy weren't those of us who were issued the stock notified of a deadline for the redemption? I have 3 shares of the stock and have been trying to reach the company over the years.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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