by Sam Bates “Scammed out of an ABP Sandwich”
Last Sunday, The Natrat spoke with first-year computer science student John Cloherty about a series of unfortunate incidents which befell him last week. Cloherty experienced multiple altercations in which he had to give up meal blocks and dozens of dollars in DineX to unsavory individuals across campus.
“It all started a week ago when I was at Scotty’s Market buying a packet of oyster crackers and one travel-size toothpaste,” Cloherty told The Natrat. “The cashier took my ID card and joked to me that with the amount of blocks and DineX I’d got, I could buy hundreds of oyster crackers and travel-size toothpastes. At that moment I noticed a young man dressed in a black knit-cap, striped shirt, and carrying a burlap sack perk up across the store. I thought nothing of it at the time.”
Cloherty told us that, on the way back to his dorm, he noticed the suspiciously-dressed character from the store was following him. “He was skittering from object to object, trying to hide behind lampposts and hedges and mailboxes and things like that.” Cloherty continued on to his dorm, but received a shock when the man jumped out from behind a stop sign in front of him. Cloherty was accosted by the man, who revealed his true intentions.
“He demanded that I hand over my ID card immediately so that he could use it to transfer 12 of my meal blocks and $36 in DineX to his account,” Cloherty said. “I was like, ‘Okay, now something is definitely weird about this guy.’”
Cloherty handed over his card to the strange man, who promptly drew a strange card-reader machine adorned with various bells, whistles, and gauges from his burlap sack. The man swiped the ID card, pressed a few buttons, returned the card, thanked Cloherty, and went on his way. Cloherty, confused and miffed, went back to his dorm to enjoy his dinner.
The situation happened all over again the next day.
“I was on my way to my favorite dining location, Stephanie’s Market C at the Mellon Institute, when I noticed that a tall man wearing a green pinstripe suit and carrying a violin case was following me. The man stopped me and started asking me if I had any meal blocks or DineX on hand, and if I had given any out before,” Cloherty told us, perplexed. He detailed how the man took his ID Card, read it through a contraption pulled from the violin case, returned it, and left. “Now I’m really confused, right? But then I remembered how I could clear up the whole shebang.”
Back in January, Cloherty heard about a self-proclaimed private detective on campus willing to solve any criminal matters for a small price of $20 to $80 in DineX. Cloherty contacted the man, named Slim Shovelle, P.I., who operates out of his Morewood E-Tower dorm. The two met in the alley between Stack’d and E-Tower and Cloherty detailed the situation to Shovelle, who agreed to take the case. Multiple days passed before Shovelle reached out again.
“When he did get back to me, he revealed that he had uncovered something big. Using masterful deduction, Slim realized that both men I had run in with were in his Crime and Justice in American Film class after he recognized students wearing the outfits I described,” Cloherty told us, excitedly. Shovelle tailed the two nefarious individuals back to the Donner Dungeon, where he discovered a small group of about five students all using stolen DineX and meal blocks to place bets on televised Carnegie Mellon sports games. Shovelle apprehended the ring, leaving the five ne’er-do-wells tied up with a note explaining the situation for campus police.
Mr. Shovelle has requested that The Natrat remind all students to be suspicious of any people demanding that you give them an ID card, and that he can be contacted at the email shovelledetective@andrew.cmu.edu in the event of any similar occurrences to the ones detailed above.
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