So Who Paid Their Damage Charges?
Comments(10)
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to brighten your day with a little story about graduating from Babson and never having to go back again. Fellow graduates, congrats. Everyone still there, just pray that it will be over soon.
On to the story…
May 19, 2007 was a wonderful day. Not just because I graduated, but because I graduated before Babson ever applied a damage charge to my bill. If you lived in Map Hill, you were probably dreading a $95 minimum charge, just for the elevator BS we went through. But for some reason, I got my diploma before I ever saw the damage charges!
Maybe it was an oversight by Babson, or just that they can’t get the damage charges ready until the end of May (when every student would get their damage charge, not just graduating seniors.) Either way, close to 400 students seemingly escaped the damage charge.
I did get an email about the $95 bill at the end of May, though. And so did my friends. But hell, who’s going to pay the bill once they’ve graduated?
Before I got too deep into thought about whether or not Babson would send out a collection agency to track down its own alums, I decided to actually look at my bill. And I liked what I saw!
On that day, the damage charge had not yet gone from OCL and through SFS to actually get applied to my bill. However, I somehow got a $200 credit on my bill – turns out they reversed that bogus $200 “senior fee” they stuck us with at the beginning of the year! So Babson owed me $200.
What did I do? The only logical thing, of course.
I submitted a refund request through the Babson portal for $200. I was expecting it to get canceled or adjusted, so I just sat back and waited.
Then the next day, which I think was June 1st, that $95 got slapped on my bill. But I never had a problem with the refund request…
So I sat back and laughed about how I might have just screwed Babson out of my $95 bill. And sure enough, a few days later, I got a spiffy check from Babson for $200!!
You read that right. Babson sent me $200 and left the $95 charge on my bill! Talk about a disconnect between their admin offices…
Best of all, I didn’t bother paying the $95, and eventually Babson just took it off! So in the end, I got off scott free!
It was probably some gesture to get me to stop posting rude stuff on this site, but there’s no way I’ll give up for such a minuscule amount (after about $170k for tuition…)
I had to keep this on the down low for a while, but I’m hoping that all the other seniors spotted this exploit and took advantage of it. It’s the least we could do after Babson screwed us on the shitty Map Hill elevator!
Graduates, please share your stories in the comments.
And current students – be sure to keep an eye on your bill in the days after graduation! 
This entry was posted on Monday, August 20th, 2007 at 5:11 pm and is filed under Olidammara. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Have you tried getting a transcript? You may find that while it appears that one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing a debt might put you on a stop list. The diploma is just decoration, the transcript is proof that you graduated.
Read the story a bit closer – they canceled the debt.
Unfortunately, The finance offices (or at least payroll) are currently under the surgical blade of some consultant and their firing a lot of the fuckups who made things like this oh so much fun for us to write about. Damn it, Dean Hanno and the Babson reformers are catching on! hahhahaha. At least we’re seeing some changes that should help get this place back on track.
So, since the college paid almost $12,000 to repair a new elevator that was severely damaged by some intoxicated student on a binge, it seems to make no difference to you that everyone else paid for it as long as you didn’t. Since the college does not print money, every dollar that gets spent is either supplied by student’s payments for tuition, room and board, or by gifts and donations to the college from alumni and friends. Perhaps you might want to contribute the $95 to the alumni fund as your gift this year to the college?
Hahaha. Wonder who the consultants are – that would be sweet if it was recent alums.
Shelley Kaplan,
i think this article is heralding the accomplishment that those that had nothing to do with the damage to the elevator were charged for it’s repair. you say we are glorifying “stealing” from the babson community, i say you were ripping me off in the first place.
this “elevator repair” could have been dealt with in a better manner. options have been clearly pointed out (you had plenty of free consultants working for you but you never bothered to use their input.) babson was simply unable to repair the elevator in a efficient and satisfactory manner.
(and yes, i googled your name and i know this directly concerns your job as vice president of facilities management. congrats on reducing energy usage and thanks for posting here.)
we choose not to donate that $95 because we believe that it would be put to waste. i mean, if you can’t fix an elevator to our requirements why would we have the confidence in you to give you another chance? do you give the carpenter another chance when he drives his truck through your dining room?
i know things go wrong and life in the real world is different, whatever and ever, but it just comes down to the service. it’s not good enough for the perceived cost.
You miss my point, if you are not paying your $95, other students are paying it for you. Second, why are you not complaining about the foolish and inconsiderate student who poured beer into the elevator control panel frying 27 boards. Finally, Babson staff does not repair elevators, elevator companies (outside contractors) repair elevators in this state and this elevator was on warranty so we had no choice but to go to the company that manufactured it – Kone. We were very unhappy with their service, met with them three times and we understand they were having sufficient problems with their Boston operation that they fired their manager and service manager in the middle of these discussions. Were we happy with their service, absolutely not, we even had them reduce the bill by almost $5,000. But we were at their mercy in getting the elevator fixed.
as for your first point, i don’t care if someone else has to pay for this – my connection to babson thus far is so superficial and shallow that i’m just counting the credits until i’m released. that’s not entirely your fault, of course, but that’s my state of mind.
additionally, i don’t care because i don’t think that the majority of the students, do-nothing trustees and ill-informed alumni with their porsches, mercedes and bmws care about paying for a botched elevator repair/installation. charge ‘em, i don’t give a fuck.
the very few of us from less fortunate backgrounds, yeah, those are the people i feel bad that they have to pay for this (indirectly.) but the fact that these kids don’t have to pay (directly) for this mishandled situation is something that makes me quite proud.
after all the charge to each student is about 7 dollars, far less if you include the graduate students. at least then innocent students are not penalized $100 for choosing to live in the brand new map hill.
as for your second point about complaining about the douchebag that did this in the first place, what good would that do? first, the kid was probably black out. or they had some grievance to settle with babson which i’d probably agree with in the first place. or both. granted, it was an asshole thing to do to your peers. but fuck i’m so disappointed with my babson education i empathize with this crime – not to mention the babo tire slashings. i wish they would have written a crapcampus post instead of fucking up the elevator, but hey, shit happens. it shouldn’t be my fault if your team lacked the foresight to be able to properly catch the individual.
seriously, if you work in facilities you should have known that this type of shit would go down. this behavior is not new at all to babson students. we get drunk and we destroy shit – fuck, we’re quite innovative in how we do it. it’s foolish to think that we wouldn’t do it to a new dorm. no camera was ever installed to prevent this shit from happening and your gestapo attempt to figure out who did it backfired in your face.
now you try to get us to feel bad because you made the wrong choice and outsourced a terrible company. just like barefoot is responsible for sodexho’s service you are responsible for kone. if this such a terrible operation that the manager and “service manager” were both fired then a few calls to recent kone elevator repair/installation references should have uncovered such a terrible operation.
was that done? or did you just take the lowest bid? or maybe you just got screwed. hey, it happens. i have no idea, you guys tell us nothing.
but one thing i know is that you are never “at their mercy.” isn’t that the gem of babson’s business ideology – in a business deal someone is fucking and someone’s getting fucked. excuse my language – but please don’t blame me or charge me or patronize me or my peers because you got fucked.
Thanks for the good response, elliott. That reminds me of something…
“Second, why are you not complaining about the foolish and inconsiderate student who poured beer into the elevator control panel frying 27 boards.”
Want me to forward you 100 or so ‘reply-all’ emails we had going around between the Map Hill residents complaining about this and trying to figure out how to find the person responsible and prevent it from happening again?
On second thought, a lot of it is already chronicled online:
http://oclruinedmycampuslife.com/articles/maphillelevatorsaga.php
Hi,
As someone who lived in Map Hill last year, I completely agree with Shelly’s comments. Also, I’m not a executive and have a decent job, but it is sad to read how our students talk to people in high positions on the campus. At least when I was there, I actually talked with people rather than simply writing in this blog. If this blog helps a situation, great – I’m all for it. But in the interest of getting anything positive accomplished, why don’t you go and talk with someone about it. I had several good conversations with great results by talking with people in OCL, I’ll leave out the names.
Now that I graduated and stay in touch with other friends still at Babo, I understand why we have a stereotype – we think we’re better and above everything that happens, truth is, we need to take control of each of our lives, be accountable for what we do (both stupid drunken’ nights and academically) and respect a place that for all the crap that is said, did a pretty damn good job of providing a great education. Hey, whatever happens outside the classroom, that’s up to you.
Enjoy the year & Miss Map Hill – try working each day for a living and you’ll miss it too!