Leslie goes on to say that Jay's idea of letting us name our own prices forjust about everything is having a chilling effect in supermarkets,frightening foodmakers about its potential to deflate prices and underminebranding-reducing Charmin to just another roll of toilet paper.

Many consumers, on the other hand, seem to like it. More than 350,000 havesigned up for the wacky Internet grocery service since it debuted in theNortheast in November (including 42,000 in the Baltimore-Washington regionin the past six weeks). When Priceline brings a similar ordering system togas stations nationwide in May, look out, says Leslie.

It all started with Priceline's ``name your price'' approach to buyingairline tickets. Says Leslie: ``I doubted I had enough wiggle room in myschedule to play the name-your-price game for flights (you must letPriceline pick your exact departure time). Never mind doing it for food Ibuy at the supermarket.''

She adds: ``Now I'm not so sure. My trial of Priceline's airline systemsaved me several hundred dollars last year. And lately I've been testing theInternet grocery service that Priceline has brought to the Washington area.While the concept struck me as nutty, the reality seems quite sane. It tookfar less time than I feared to haggle for orange juice, and the savingsdefinitely grabbed my attention-42 per cent on my first basket ofgroceries.''

Initial orders often generate higher savings because Priceline is mostgenerous with price breaks your first time around, explains Leslie. Still,Priceline reports that the average shopper is consistently saving one-thirdoff retail-or $13 on a basket with a retail price of $35. For this,participants pay $3 a month after their 90-day free trial expires.

Leslie continues: ``You've probably seen `Star Trek' hero William Shatnerhawking Priceline's WebHouse Club on TV. The way it works is this: You visitthe Web site and select at least two brands of detergent, say, or peanutbutter, then check off the price you're willing to pay and print out a listof all the items for which your price is accepted. After paying on the spotby credit card, you take the list to a grocery store and pick your purchasesoff the shelves. The biggest catch, of course, is that Priceline chooseswhich brand you will buy.

Another catch is that stores don't always have your items in stock. SaysLeslie: ``I was lucky to get everything on my list, even though I had tosubstitute Dole mixed fruit for Dole canned peaches. A friend was not sofortunate; she couldn't find two items she had bought, which meant she getsa credit and must try again later.''

The system feels like a cross between coupons and instant lottery tickets,the latter because you don't know what your savings will be until you enterall your bids and click ``get my prices''. To bid, you scan a list ofdescending prices for each item and check one. The system shows the storeprice range for comparison and rates your chance of getting each priceaccepted as ``great'', ``good'', ``fair'' or ``low''.

Says Leslie: ``Of course, I loved the bottom line. I saved $19.63 on 13items. Only three of my bids were rejected. (Two of my eight bids wererejected my second time around.)''

Mortgage reform
Concerned about unfair and deceptive lending practices in the mortgageindustry, Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan has said that he hascalled on a group of federal law enforcers and bank regulators to examineways to solve the problem, writes Washington Post.

Greenspan said officials from the Justice Department, the Department ofHousing and Urban Development, the Federal Trade Commission, and six bankingand credit-union regulatory agencies, including the Fed, have been meetinginformally since October to tackle the practice, called predatory lending.Such lending is believed to be mostly targeted at poor, underservedconsumers, especially blacks, Hispanics and other minorities.

Sources involved with the group said that so far its meetings have focusedon gauging the scope of the problem and how best to grapple with it. Thegroup hopes to have some recommendations for its members as well as forCongress by year's end.

North Carolina last year enacted a law to curb predatory lending, andseveral other states, including New York, are considering similar steps. Butthe federal government has been criticised for not doing more.

For example, according to participants in the group, the Fed itself has notwritten rules describing what constitutes ``unfair and deceptive'' mortgagelending practices, even though Congress gave it the authority to do so sixyears ago in legislation aimed at curbing predatory lending. Some members ofCongress think that law has not worked as intended and needs to bestrengthened.

Sources said that Fed officials have found it too hard to issue the rulesbecause, they say, few mortgage transactions can be considered ``unfair anddeceptive'' in all circumstances. Fed officials believe that existing lawsagainst fraud would suffice to curb abusive mortgage lending practices ifthose laws are properly enforced. They concede, however, that the federalgovernment may lack the personnel to do so.

Other bank regulators complain, however, that they have lost a valuable toolin the 1994 law, the Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act, because theycan't enforce its provisions until the Fed writes regulations detailing howit should be implemented.

``We're aware of the law and the fact that regulations have not beenissued,'' said House Banking Committee spokesman David Runkel.

``We also know there's a growing concern about predatory lending amongmembers of Congress,'' he said. ``But we're not sure how big a problem it isyet among lower-income people, who have more difficulty obtaining credit,and we're not sure yet whether this is an issue that Congress needs to dealwith or whether regulators can step in using existing law.''

Greenspan said discrimination hurts the economy in the long run but is noteasy to eliminate.