Students cannot use debit card to rent books
Kurt Oberriether
-News Editor-
This semester the STLCC-Meramec bookstore only accepts credit as a payment option when students rent books.
Fall was the first semester STLCC allowed students to check out books with a debit card. Bookstore Manager Kevin Metzler said the book store lost approximately $6,192 because some students did not return their books. He said the numbers are not final because some books may still be returned.
“We are trying to figure out what we need to be doing to make this work for everybody,” Metzler said. “Universities have a different way to card, their own card. I was surprised to see that a lot of students didn’t give back their book they rented. It’s like a renting a movie.”
According to Metzler, only allowing the students to rent a book with a credit card allows the bookstore to charge the student if they did not return the books.
“The problem with taking a debit card is the money may be in the student’s account when renting the book, [but] after a whole semester the money might not be there,” Metzler said.
Metzler said he thinks students did not realize they had to return their books. Right before the students were eligible to buy back their books, the bookstore sent out an email stating that their books were to be returned to the book store by Dec. 16.
If the students did not meet their deadline, the students were sent another email stating they did not meet the deadline and to return the books by Dec. 19. Metzler said some students received phone calls after they did not meet the return deadline.
“With three emails, somewhere the information [the students] gave us is an email they do not check,” Metzler said.
There were no signs notifying the students for the spring semester that they are only accepting credit cards for rentals.
“I know we had upset students which is not our intent at all,” Metzler said.
