Keesha Orlene Ngombo Mouelet, a Cleveland State University graduate student, wants students to know that package theft can happen anywhere and that the system to find a lost package is anything but straightforward.
Mouelet had a package containing her newly-repaired Lenovo laptop and accessories delivered on Jan. 8, but she never received the package or any compensation for her loss of $520 plus other expenses, such as a Microsoft protection plan subscription.
Looking back on her experience, she recommends that students request their packages be left at a designated pickup location instead of being delivered directly to their address.
Mouelet’s story
Mouelet, an international student, shared her story in an interview with The Cauldron.
Mouelet moved into The Edge for the fall 2023 semester. She had multiple packages delivered to The Edge and didn’t have any issues.
“It always worked for me,” Mouelet explained.
At the end of the semester, with her laptop having a screen issue, Mouelet went to the CSU Mobile Campus Tech Stop to get it repaired. Mobile Campus could not fix it and suggested sending it back to Lenovo.
After moving out of The Edge, Mouelet headed to Louisiana for the holidays and sent her laptop to Lenovo for the repairs. Once Lenovo fixed the blue screen, they notified Mouelet that it was in the mail on the way back to her. Mouelet called to confirm Lenovo had sent her laptop to The Luckman, the apartment complex she moved into when she moved back to Cleveland, and she believed they had.
Mouelet was notified by Lenovo that her laptop had been delivered, but she did not receive confirmation or pickup instructions from The Luckman. She tried to be patient with a changed shipping address at a new apartment complex, but Mouelet ended up calling Lenovo and learned that despite what she had been told, her package had been delivered to The Edge.
Unsure of how or why the delivery address was wrong, Mouelet opened a case with Lenovo. She confirmed with her FedEx tracking number that the laptop was delivered to The Edge.
She filed a police report and tried to work with The Edge to find the package, as Lenovo had instructed her to do.
However, Mouelet had not received an email from Luxor One, The Edge’s automated package delivery system, notifying her that she had a package to pick up as she had for her other deliveries during the fall. Still, she thought that she would “for sure” find her laptop at The Edge.
Mouelet went to The Edge about two weeks after the laptop was said to be delivered and worked with a Residence Life employee who helped her look through the package room and the office, but the laptop was not there.
Lenovo offered Mouelet a $200 refund, even though she had paid hundreds of dollars more for the laptop. Since she had bought it through Amazon, Lenovo informed her that she had purchased it from an “unauthorized seller,” so even though her laptop is registered at Lenovo and the repair was meant to be free, she would not receive a full refund.
Mouelet was then notified that Lenovo was seeking to close the case.
She explained, “I was so mad I was just like ‘okay do whatever,’” and Lenovo notified her that they closed the case. “I did not know that closing the case would mean that they would not even refund the $200,” she said.
Mouelet only realized that she would not be refunded when her relative who helped her purchase the laptop told Mouelet that she had not received any money.
After contacting Lenovo again, Mouelet was informed that since her case was closed, no refund would be issued.
“I just feel like [Lenovo] let me down,” she said. “I know that I might have made some mistakes, but I do not think I deserve to have, out of everything, nothing.”
Mouelet noted that a Lenovo laptop was something she had wished for long before she bought it in the first place.
“I always loved Lenovo laptops, I dreamed about it for months,” she said.
However, after the disappointing debacle, Mouelet is not sure whether she will buy a Lenovo laptop again. Though she is trying to move on with a laptop loaned from Mobile Campus, Mouelet would much prefer a laptop of her own.
“I just want a laptop,” she said. “I am a student. I want a laptop.”
Navigating the system
Reflecting on her communication with The Luckman, Lenovo, FedEx, The Edge and the police, Mouelet feels that she did not know enough about how to handle a missing package.
“I wish I would have known the system better to know how to handle it because I was on my own. I do not know how the system works here. I am an international student so I do not know how things work. Even your words can trick you here.”
After experiencing her package problems, Mouelet noted that “It’s not as safe as we think.”
“I am an international student, and The Edge was expensive… I just felt like investing so much, the least you can do guys is you know try to avoid such mistakes. And even if it happens you have to be behind people and trying to follow up… I am very sad by The Edge. They could have done better,” Mouelet said.
Mouelet wants people to be held accountable for the theft because otherwise, “people will just go as if nothing happened. That’s not okay.”
Package theft at The Edge
Over winter break, The Edge experienced an uptick in package theft that was discussed at a CSU Student Government Association meeting. The thefts were said to be a result of package carriers not using the designated locker system for deliveries.
According to the CSU Sixty Day Crime Log, reports of petty thefts at The Edge continued through the second week of classes and have since declined.
EveLynne Bruening 
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