Public University Scam

[Dido]

A friend of mine decided to go back to school for her master's degree, possibly a Ph.D. She's registered at a state university on the west coast, where classes start in about a month.

Her I/D card from the university arrived in the mail. It's a Mastercard. Here's some of what she says about it on her blog:

"It begins with a hard sell to open a debit account via this thing. Lots of suggestions that I don't need to look at the fee schedule, because this is a no-fee card.

The fee schedule is chock-full of expensive fees, such as $30 for your first NSF and $35 for each NSF thereafter. Also, a $20/month inactivity fee.

More hard sell to get your financial aid and any _SU refunds sent to the debit account.

You can't just click "No, I don't want your stupid debit account", because the only buttons are "Yes, I want EasyRefund!" and "I'm not sure, tell me more!"

Spends lots of time telling you that there's no fees on the debit account (no fees in normal use that is), but you can't find out if there are fees on the other options (EFT to your real bank account, or paper check). Instead, it just emphasizes that the other methods are slow, slow, slow. Also, they involve "middle men", like the Post Office.*

Finally manage to tell it that I don't want the debit account, thank you, so it drops me into all the opt-out stuff, like "Monthly Reminders of Your Refund Preferences". Whaddaya want to bet that's "C'mon, you know you want an account with us!" under another name?"

and moreover, the main number on the card is the credit/debit account number. She *finally* noticed her student ID number in teeny tiny print in a corner.

Knowing how easily college students get led into overspending, and how many of them are graduating in financial trouble already from the amount of student loans they owe, I find this tremendously scary.

[PrincessPerky]

Oh man that sounds like a terrible idea! an ID card CC...and a lousy CC at that.

[shengmei]

What is most scary is that student ID usually serves as a backup ID everytime you have credit transations. If her student ID is stolen someone who looks like her would have easy access to her account.

Once I had a student ID stolen along with some checks. The dude who stole it got $150 out of my account before I noticed. I got the money back but it was such a hassle.