Cash Stop, the check cashing service next to campus on Adams Street is expanding its 1,900 square foot building to 2,400 square feet to accommodate a cellular phone shop along with services for taxes and insurance.
Cash Stop cashes and holds checks for up to 30 days, notarizes documents, performs income tax services and allows students the opportunity to receive and send money orders through Money Gram.
It is also a licensed full service Verizon cellular phone store that sells prepaid phones.
Sperry and Associates started the construction Nov. 4. The expansion is expected to be complete by late December or January of 2003.
South Side Cellular and First Choice Taxes and Insurance will be the names of the two storefronts that are part of the expansion.
“We need more space to do taxes; we have had 30 people in this office trying to get in and out,” said Dale Sconyers, who has been the part owner and manager of Cash Stop for over seven years.
Customers will be able to file their taxes and receive their check in ten
minutes if they meet all of the computers’ requirements of having an earned
income credit.
Cash Stop, an authorized electronic fund distributor, has been offering tax
services to the Tallahassee community for three years.
“I am amazed that we don’t have more businesses on campus that focus on the students, ” said Bill Bullard, an FAMU entrepreneurship professor. Bullard said he is pleased to see more businesses developing around campus and appreciated any business that will accommodate FAMU students.
Lafaydra Collins, 22, a senior business administration student from
Gainesville, has developed a good relationship with Cash Stop through her job at
Source One Communication.
Cash Stop is an agent of Source One Communication, which is an alternate phone company that allows their customers to fill out applications for phone service.
The same check cashing and Money Gram wiring services will be available to students during and after construction.
Sconyers wants to keep the fees down since his customer base is mostly students and he knows s that students need their money.
Sarah Thermidor, 21, Miami, a FSU junior mathematics and math education student from Miami, prefers check-cashing locations because they save her money.
“My bank does not cash checks for free, or at all, unless you have the cash value in the account,” Thermidor said.
Thermidor does not like leaving money in her account because the bank will always find something to charge her for.
Some students believe that banks have more to offer them than check cashing services. “I prefer banks because they charge less money and are cheaper,” said Mickey Malone, 19, sophomore electrical engineering student from Decatur, Ga.
Sconyers is currently working on a plan for 2003 where students can pay their utility, cable and phone bill at Cash Stop after the expansion is completed.
They will also take cellular payments from pre-selected companies.
“We want to make enough money to stay here,” said Sconyers, “but we are not trying to get rich.”