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Today I drove over to Pittsburg and purchased all my textbooks (and when I say “all,” I mean a total of four…) at the PSU Bookstore. Since I’m in Honors College, I basically have to buy everything there, since that’s the only place my scholarship is good. Because of HC, that ending total was nice: $182.66, but the process itself wasn’t.

It all started out okay. I walked downstairs to the textbook area and someone helped me pick out my books, since I had no clue what I was doing. I was able to get three of them used, while the fourth could only be purchased new. The trouble started when I walked back upstairs to the register. 

Okay, to be fair, none of the following would have happened if I’d remembered to mention that was in Honors College, but I didn’t. Anyway, I go up to the register and casually mention to the cashier that I’m hoping the money transferred to my account, because, otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to pay for them. 

Now, it wasn’t that I had come to Pittsburg unprepared, it was more that the person on the phone wasn’t very clear. See, I  had a local scholarship check from the Oswego Alumni organization that was made out to both me and Pitt State, which meant I couldn’t just go to my bank and deposit it (which I would have preferred to do). The voice on the phone said I would need to see someone in Financial Services at the University to handle it, so I walked into Horace Mann (a building) and sat down in the department. The girl there took the check and ran it through, filled out some papers, and then basically said, “Thank you” like I was done and was supposed to leave. On the other side of that desk was me, who was thinking more like, “Okay, now where’s my money?” So, I asked when I would be able to use the money; she looked at me like I had just asked the dumbest question, “All money is disbursed on the first day of classes.” What?! That’s next Monday! I thought like the commercial, “It’s my money, and I need it now!” I’d planned on using that money to purchase my books today, and I hadn’t brought anything else with me. It’s not like I have any money in my checking account what with getting ready for college and all, so I called Dad and he transferred some money into my account, $500.

So that’s what I was dealing with at the register at the bookstore. The cashier rang up my books and told me the total was $496.99. At that point, I was just happy that I had enough to cover the books. I thanked her and walked out the door.

Now, to be fair, none of the following dilemma would have happened if I hadn’t walked out of the bookstore right then. If I had just remembered to tell her that I was part of HC, everything would have been better, but I forgot. No worries, though, right? I just walked back in and explained what happened. Since the bookstore is actually a Barnes & Noble and not part of Pitt State, she had to figure my discount by hand with a little dinky Office Depot calculator. Then she ran everything through again. She asked for my card, but it was then I got a little concerned, again. I realized that if their preauthorization had been the whole purchase total, then the hold on my checking account would prevent her from running the transaction again; the transaction would be declined because it would still be tied up by the bookstore’s hold.

I explained what I was thinking and I saw the recognition pass over her face, “Oh…” She scrambled to think of a solution. True, it was my bad that I’d forgotten to mention my HC discount, but the whole Barnes & Noble/Pitt State split had caused this mess. She couldn’t just edit the transaction because the two systems were disconnected. She had to have run the whole thing again, as a new transaction. After she worked with it for a little bit, I offered to call my bank, which I did. All they told me was to void the transaction and hope for the best, so the cashier voided it. Still no luck. I called the bank back and asked for a person I knew who worked much higher up. She offered the same advice, but then realized that I had been burned by the idiosyncrasies of the debit/credit card system. My money existed, but it was unavailable to me because the whole “hold” process didn’t work very quickly, especially for getting the money back in my account. After talking to the merchant, per policy, to verify  my situation, she told me she call me right back after talking to the higher-ups in Parsons.

The Parsons people told her that it was up to her personal judgement as to whether she trusted the customer and felt the situation was valid and what she did about it. She put what’s called a POST-MEMO on my account, which basically means I was free to spend that money again, but on a trust basis with the bank. So, I had the very gracious cashier run my card again. No dice. My friend from the back was still on the phone, and while it was running mentioned that I may have to go to the Pittsburg branch to pick up a Cashier’s Check, for which she would call ahead and explain, or use their ATM. I told her that it still hadn’t gone through, but that I would try one of the ATMs outside of the bookstore. As soon as I walked out, she realized that the reason why it hadn’t gone through this time was because she’d forgotten that I’d reached my $500 limit on my debit card and it was basically too late to lift it since she was already off the phone with Parsons and the bookstore was trying to close. Luckily, the Commerce Bank ATM worked, although I had to pay the service charge, and I was finally able to purchase my books and let those very kind people go home.

So, lessons of the day:

1. Scholarships are considered “financial aid” and are not disbursed immediately, no matter what the people on the phone tell you.
2. Remember to mention Honors College or other qualifiers the first time through the check-out line.
3. Always transfer a little more percentage-wise than you think you need (i.e. I should have transferred $700 in case of something like this happening).
4. Debit cards can be convenient, but once something goes wrong, it’s straight downhill from there.

Anyway, it wasn’t really that bad at all until the systems meltdown around me, but just be happy I learned these lessons for you…