A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
Rhianne Jones argued the fine was an administrative mistake and managed to negotiate the fee down to just £32.60, but still felt victimised.
She claimed the library’s computer system was down when she renewed eleven books on the weekend of July 2nd, at the end of summer term. Instead, manual records were made by library staff and paperwork shows only 6 items were noted as loaned.
Librarians presumed the other books, one of which was particularly expensive, were lost and posted invoices to Jones’ home when the student did not respond to e-mails.
Oh shit my student loan isn't going to cover that.
Jones, a third year English student, said: “When the letter came through I thought "oh shit my student loan isn’t going to cover that." I was pretty outraged but I knew I could make enough fuss that I wouldn’t have to pay that.”
“The first letter I got was the bills. The internet is ridiculously slow at home because I live in Wales on top of a mountain so I tend not to check my e-mails. It’s not really reasonable to expect; they could have sent me a letter.”
After returning the books Jones was told to pay accumulated fines of £125 but refused. The Yorker has exclusively obtained an e-mail from library lending team leader Paula Mountain Agar that states: “On this occasion only I will waive the fines of £25 [for each of] the five items, but the administration fee of £5.00 charged for the issue of the bill will be payable on each item . . . the balance owing is £32.60”
Jones again refused to pay but says she backed down due to an essay deadline:
“I realised I probably needed to use the library if I wanted to write this essay. It really annoyed me because I had to buy all the books for my course instead of getting them out of the library. When I took the books out they wrote it all down, and they say I didn’t renew half the books I had but I know I did. I carried this big bag of books all over.”
The library denied staff had made any mistake and said it was the responsibility of students to check e-mails and ensure all loans were legitimate.
A spokesman said: "The Library does not accept that this was an administrative error, as there is evidence that other transactions by Ms Jones were recorded at the time. If we had made an error there would of course be no fine to pay.
"The Library is sorry that any student is distressed by the operation of its policies on fines. These policies are however supported and endorsed collectively by the student body and they exist in order to ensure that books are available to all in as fair a way as possible.
“Irrespective of the issue of whether or not Ms Jones renewed the books as she claimed, we have reached a compromise with her over the level of fine payable. It is surprising therefore to hear that she feels pressurised into paying this amount.”
“The library has behaved reasonably throughout.”
If anything, there should be a maximum limit on fines, and a postal warning when fines exceed a certain amount...
it seems incredible to me that the library can't just admit they've made a mistake here and waiver the £30 fine - this whole situation isn't really anybody's fault by the sounds of it, and i refuse to believe that they really have to charge £5 per bill when they weren't even sent to her by post!! the library isn't some huge conglomerate that has to stick to the rules all the time - it's a local library that surely can admit a communication error and be done with it. hell, virgin even does that sometimes with its train fees. come on!
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