A few weeks ago, a group of DePauw students' identities were stolen after using personal credit cards to purchase items at one of Greencastle's liquor stores, Kork and Keg.
There is currently an ongoing investigation at Kork and Keg. The city police have met with and alerted those employed at the liquor store of precautionary measures to take in the meantime. Since the incident, though, the university has not been in contact with the managers of Kork and Keg. According to Angela Nally, director of Public Safety, it would be the individual banks' fraudulent use programs that would contact businesses, not DePauw.
After his credit card was declined, junior Johnny McGinness discovered that he was one of the incident's victims.
"I called my bank and they said that someone had tried to make a purchase from my account from a liquor store in New Jersey," McGinness said. "After cancelling my card and replacing it with a new one, my bank fortunately worked everything out and took care of the charges."
The Kork and Keg could not be reached for comment.
According to Nally, apparently someone was using a DePauw check and duplicating it. A number of cases have been reported to the DePauw Public Safety Office, but there is no way of telling how many students were actually victims of credit card theft.
"Unfortunately the individuals report to their banks and the banks [handle it]," Nally said.
Junior Kristine Ruhl was another DePauw student who experienced similar issues with credit card theft after making purchases at Kork and Keg.
"My bank called me and alerted me of three random charges on my account from a French bookstore that equaled up to about 500 dollars," Ruhl said. "Eventually I got a new debit card and my money was credited back to me."
In spite of the drama surrounding this incident, Nally is insistent on withholding blame.
"It's not necessarily the fault of the business owner that someone hacked into their system," Nally said."That is the nature of our economy."
Yet despite this reality, Ruhl plans on taking extra precautions from now on.
"Now I guess I'm just more careful about where I use my debit card, but it's impossible to tell if I'm going to get scammed again," Ruhl said. "I will always only use cash at the liquor store from now on, for sure."