By Anthony Navarrete, Staff Writer
Students wanting to use their Scooter’s bucks need to be prepared to show their student ID after suspected fraud.
Each semester students are given $100 in Scooter’s bucks to use at the Scooter’s Coffeehouse on campus, if they are signed up for the university meal plan. In the past, students were able to give their student ID number and the cashier would charge to their account.
Previously, students were not required to show their student ID. However, after a customer showed concern over their account, manager Jordyn Taylor knew something had to be done.
“I had a customer ask to see his total and most of his bucks were gone, and a lot of it wasn’t him,” she said.
This isn’t the first time students have had their Scooter’s bucks stolen. Junior Lacey Colvin said that she went through a similar ordeal last year.
Colvin said that she was away on a softball trip when she got a message from another student asking if they could use her student ID at Scooter’s. Colvin told the student no, but the damage had already been done.
“I went to Scooter’s, like I normally do, and ordered a smoothie, like I always do, and they asked for my student ID. She wasn’t even typing it when I said it, and she said, ‘So you’re Lacey? Because we have a sticky note on our computer because there’s been people that have been using your ID,’” she said.
Colvin said that when she checked her Scooter’s bucks account, she was missing $20. She said she felt betrayed and upset that someone had been using her Scooter’s bucks without her knowledge.
“I definitely thought it was unfair that if they wanted to use it, they didn’t ask,” she said. “They probably didn’t even know who I was either, so that also makes it really worse.”
Colvin said she talked to a friend about her experience and the friend said she had gone through the same thing.
Taylor, who is in her first semester as the manager of Scooter’s, was unaware that this had been a recurring issue.
“That was the first time I heard about anybody stealing their Scooter’s bucks, and I wanted to immediately take action because it’s not fair since they paid for that. And I wanted to make sure that they’re getting what they paid for,” she said.
Taylor said that she takes this issue seriously and warned her employees about students stealing Scooter’s bucks.
“I sent out a massive text to everybody who works here saying that they need to make sure that they’re using their own ID, and if they don’t have their ID, then they’re just going to have to pay with their own money,” she said.
By requiring students to show their ID, Taylor said that she hopes the fraud will no longer be a problem.
“I want to really make sure that we stay on top of this issue,” she said.
PHOTO: SCOOTER’S EMPLOYEES are now supposed to ask to see a student’s ID. Carley Sullivan, Photography Editor
