The Yuck With Bulldog Bucks

Blake Trent

10/12/2009

William H. McGee’s e-mail in-box is full. Since the beginning of the fall semester, the manager of UGACard Services and Bulldog Bucks has received a flood of e-mails from students concerning recent changes to the Bulldog Bucks system.

“I get a lot of emails,” said McGee. “So, you can imagine, there’s some that are positive and some that are negative.”

“Sometimes, they are very positive and sometimes they are very negative.”

The Bulldog Bucks office drew a great deal of criticism after it removed the direct deposit option from its virtual transaction stations or VTS machines. Students are no longer allowed to deposit cash onto their student IDs via virtual transaction stations.

“The biggest complaint that we’ve had is that you can’t add cash to Bulldog Bucks via VTS machine, because that was quick and easy,” McGee said.

“If I need it right then it takes like two days or something for it to go through,” said Carlie Traylor, a sophomore from Valdosta, Ga.

McGee explained that the deposit efficiency has slowed down, but not by much. “It’s not as fast, but it is usually 15 minutes or less,” McGee said. “The average is between 10 and 12 minutes. Unfortunately, beyond our control are things like internet and network problems. So, there have been cases where it has taken an hour.”

Bulldog Bucks can no longer allow students to add money to their student IDs via VTS machine.
“It puts us in a situation where we couldn’t allow deposits into a VTS machine because that would be a direct deposit to a student account,” said McGee.

Also, students can no longer add money to their Bulldog Bucks accounts in the Bulldog Bucks office and that has forced the office to make some minor changes.

“Really, the only change is that we don’t take deposits in the office. We’ve installed two computer kiosks so students can add money to their cards,” said McGee.

The office added computer kiosks because all Bulldog Bucks deposits must now be made online through the Office of Student Accounts.

Even though direct deposit options have been eliminated, virtual transaction stations have been reset to offer a visitor card. A visitor card can be replenished using cash, but can only be used for printing, copying, and laundry. The visitor cards can be reloaded at any of the nine VTS machines distributed throughout campus.

Some UGA students like the move to online depositing.

“I like the fact that you can deposit online,” said Whitney Firth, a sophomore from Macon, Ga., who uses Bulldog Bucks at the Bulldog Café and at drink machines in the biology building.

According to McGee, the Bulldog Bucks merger with Student Accounts was not meant to create division, even if students are divided on the issue.

“The primary reason (for the merger) was to take all of the fractioned financial systems on campus and bring them together,” said McGee.

Bulldog Bucks had no problem functioning before it merged with Student Accounts, but the consolidation provided students with extra security and better account management.

“We had a system that was very safe and proven, but we had a small department that was left to manage the system. By pulling it together, the university would have a financial team to monitor things more closely,” said McGee.

McGee believes that the changes will soon be forgotten and according to Sandra Riggs, a reference and instruction librarian at the Miller Learning Center, students are already beginning to adapt to the changes.

“I think they’ve almost gotten used to it,” said Riggs. “It has actually died down quite a bit.”