Rebates delayed at MU bookstore

Feb. 3 is the last day to return a book.

By Shanté Fenique King

Published Jan. 27, 2009

Due to a lack of space in the new student center, the bookstore will not offer rebates on books purchased until Feb. 4, Student Auxiliaries Services spokeswoman Michelle Froese said.

These vouchers, known as rebates, give students five percent of what they paid for their textbooks back and are for use in the bookstore for all items except textbooks.

Every year since 1995 the bookstore has given rebates to students directly outside the bookstore in Brady Commons during the book buying rush at the beginning of the semester, but this year it's different, Froese said. Feb. 3 is the last day to return books and this year students must wait until the next day to receive rebates.

Missouri Students Association Senator Phyllis Williams said this might be a setback to all the work she's been doing for more than a year with MSA and Associated Students of the University of Missouri.

"Before students didn't know about the 5 percent rebates because it was not printed on their receipt," Williams said. "Then there was the issue of the nondescript tables without signs or anything."

After spreading the word throughout campus about rebates and a year of urging, the tables will finally have signs on them Feb. 4. Although these problems have been rectified, more arose with the delayed availability of rebates. Williams and MSA Academic Affairs Chairman Craig Stevenson are concerned that students will lose their receipts or assume rebates are not available this year.

"There needs to be some kind of waiver for students if they don't have their original receipt," Stevenson said.

Froese said students will keep their receipts, but bookstore personnel will be holding a meeting to address the issue of those students who might no longer have their receipts.

The bookstore will try to place the rebate table by the general book area or the dining area in the new student center.

Together University Bookstore and MBS Textbook Exchange Inc. sell and buyback books to students. In the past there has been a table located right next to the return registers that handed out vouchers.

MBS is the largest used textbook wholesaler and bookstore systems provider in the country according to the Web site.

Unlike the employees of MBS who run the buyback program outside of the bookstore at the end of the semester, the people who provide the rebates work for the MU bookstore.