When the acid green numbers appeared on the screen, Leora Litwin (SCW ‘16) thought her caf card’s remaining balance was impossible. “I was shocked that two-hundred plus of my dollars had disappeared,” she says. With over two weeks left before the semester completes, her balance was suddenly under $50.
Where did Litwin’s dwindled funds go? The answer is surprising. Unbeknownst to students and the store’s staff alike until recently, the register of Milner’s Mart, the convenience store at Brookdale Residence Hall, is at fault. No, the money’s not missing or stolen, but a technical mistake meant the machine was offline for over a month, if not longer. Once the error was corrected late last week, each transaction was simultaneously charged to user’s accounts. With the instantaneous charges, some balances drastically dropped and a few even descended into negative numbers.
How did this happen? While the store’s manager declined to comment, a student who works there explains the shocking mistake. When a card is swiped to make a purchase, the charge is sent to its owner’s account. As these transactions occurred on screen, staff were unaware of the online and offline feature to notice the error. With the register not connected to the Internet, any charges made during that time failed to go through.
Staff say they were not trained to notice the small box that said “Offline” in the right, bottom-hand corner. Once the feature was activated the machine sent this information at once, causing Litwin’s precipitous drop and affecting the hundreds of Stern girls who shop in the highly populated dorm’s convenience store.
For the numerous undergraduates who carefully budget their cafeteria spending throughout the semester, the sudden charge can have a huge impact. Litwin is left to borrow friends’ cards and plans to stay by family during reading week to save the little she has left.
“I feel very slighted that I wasn’t informed immediately when the situation was discovered,” she declares, “It’s not that I felt the school stole any money from me, but I felt they robbed me of my right to monitor my spending.” At the caf store, one cashier, who requests not to be named because of her job, is visibly agitated. She feels there should be some kind of restitution for those affected by the incident.
Daniella Penn (SCW ‘15), co-chair of the Beren Campus Student Life Committee was notified of the incident yesterday in an e-mail from the Director of Student Life and Jewish Service Learning, Aliza Abrams. She says the committee “offers moral support” and wants students to avoid panic. “It’s obviously really unfortunate that it happened,” Penn states, “It’s one of those things that isn’t anybody’s fault.” The Student Life Committee intends to update the campus via posters and social media, and will address the matter at their upcoming meeting this Friday.
As reading week and finals encroach, accompanied by the hunger of late night studying and paper writing, remaining money on caf cards run dangerously low for most. Heated debate on how to address depleting funds is evident merely from roaming the caf, or glancing at the widely used, student Facebook group, Stern College: In the Know. Posts there are constant throughout the day, and many address caf-related concerns with women complaining of low balances, searching for sponsors for Shabbos, or offering available funds to peers.
Unanswered questions remain for students like Litwin and this reporter. Why did Dining Services fail to promptly notify Beren Campus of the situation? Why were the store staff unaware of the online feature to ensure the register properly functioned? Does Yeshiva intend to help those who were unaware of their correct account balance and possibly affected by this occurrence? For now, students should be aware of this incident and recognize that if they’ve experienced a suspicious drop in funds on their cards, this may be why.