Fighting for Futons

December is fast-approaching, and students who stored their winter gear over the summer may find this holiday season a bit colder than usual. A large number of Kirkland House students—about two dozen, according to two Kirkland House seniors who have volunteered to gather complaints—are still without the clothing, furniture, and dorm paraphernalia that the Watertown-based company Collegeboxes promised to deliver to their doors in September. Three months later, students have had to complain repeatedly to Collegeboxes and threaten legal action against the company, and only now have they begun to recover—or at least be compensated for—the personal effects mishandled by the company.

Though Collegeboxes’ Web site boasts that their “efficient system” began as “a solution to the inadequate storage options available to students,” it is abundantly clear that the service has instead created massive problems, the resolution of which needs to be a higher priority for both the company and the university that contracted it. Not only has Collegeboxes lost numerous students’ items, many students have complained that the company has been very slow to respond to their insurance claims. It is unacceptable that students have to deal with lost items, unresponsive customer service, and slow insurance processing three months into the fall term. Collegeboxes needs to begin issuing refund checks immediately and to begin more exhaustive and urgent searches for students’ belongings.

It would be unfair to blame Harvard for the losses, given that Kirkland’s renovations necessitated the use of an outside storage service. But since Harvard hired Harvard Student Agencies (HSA), which then subcontracted Collegeboxes, to provide summer storage for students, it bears some responsibility to advocate for fair and speedy remuneration on students’ behalf. Eric P. Lesser ’07 and Paul B. Davis ’07 are leading an unofficial campaign to help students recover their belongings (or at least receive a reimbursement check or two). While the pair has done an admirable job pressuring Collegeboxes—to the point that its vice president hand-delivered Lesser’s insurance check—they should not be leading this campaign alone. Some higher body at Harvard—be it Kirkland House, the College Dean’s Office, or perhaps the general counsel—needs to help the many students who are facing impossibly slow service and real financial losses.

Collegeboxes should have fulfilled its contractual obligation as a matter of good faith and good business. Having not done so, the company should be proactively addressing each individual claim rather than waiting until student (or University) pressure accumulates. HSA needs to seriously reconsider to whom it subcontracts its storage services, and the University needs to lend Kirklanders a hand in recovering their belongings.