In the blistering cold temperatures East Lansing is undergoing this winter, students are rushing to Capital Area Transportation Authority buses for transportation to and from classes. A semester-long bus pass costs a student $50, but with rising costs in textbooks and other expenses, students are always looking for a deal.
On Facebook, an open group within Michigan State called Free and For Sale is used by students on campus to post anything they are looking to buy or sell. The group has over 11,000 members and is flooded with posts daily with textbooks, electronics and more for sale from fellow Spartans.
Recently, however, people on campus have been selling bus passes in the group for a reduced price — some as low as $30.
Students across campus have been taking advantage of this discounted price and exchanging the bus pass for some cash.
Comparative culture and politics senior Andrea Rodriguez purchased a bus pass on the Facebook group recently and said her pass “worked perfectly” and she bought it offline because of the cheaper cost.
Some students have been selling the passes in large quantities, up to 20 at one time. This led people to question where exactly the passes have come from and how these people got them. One student who sells passes and wanted to remain anonymous, claims that his passes work perfectly and he is just trying to make extra money.
Some apartments such as Chandler Crossings offer residents a free bus pass with CATA, because of a contractual relationship. Students could have the opportunity to take these free passes and sell them to a buyer, who can resell for an even higher price.
Sherry Ochsner, the MSU ID office manager, says that the apartments should be linking the passes to the residents’ IDs, but that is between the apartments and CATA, not MSU.
In response to this, Director of Marketing at CATA Laurie Robison said that CATA “provides training and linking equipment to apartment complex managers” and that CATA emphasizes the need for linking to take place.
When passes are purchased on campus at Sparty’s, the police department, or the MSU ID Office the student must present an MSU ID to confirm enrollment in the university and the ID will then be linked to the pass. A new policy that has been implemented provides students with a free replacement pass if the pass is reported lost or stolen.
And there is another risk — students can potentially link the pass to their ID, sell the pass, then report it stolen or lost. The seller will get a new pass for free, but only once per semester, and the buyer’s pass would be voided.
Ochsner opposes this idea, saying that people would be “scamming fellow students. That’s not right.”
CATA emphasized that students should not purchase a bus pass from anyone other than an authorized vendor.
