Tracy Press

Several from-Tracy college students were stiffed $1,000 scholarships, but the company that issued them says the misunderstanding will be put to rights.

Five college students from Tracy had a scare recently when they received unexpected $1,000 bills from their universities after scholarship checks couldn’t be cashed.

A year ago, Preferred Real Estate awarded $5,000 in scholarships to five high school graduates: Kyle Pineo from Tracy High and Daniel Arriola, Corina Chung, Christopher Lewis and Gregory Silva from West High.

The company’s owners, Marc and Natalie Shishido, said they had closed all the accounts at their bank several months ago, including their charity account, because they wanted to transfer banks. They said they assumed all the checks had been cashed.

Then they heard from two students who weren’t able to cash their checks.

"I certainly got into a panic," Marc Shishido said.

He said his company immediately gave them each new $1,000 checks.

This week, two more students, Arriola and Lewis, contacted him.

Arriola, a pre-law major at University of California, Los Angeles, works 30 hours a week at Jamba Juice to help pay his $26,000-a-year tuition. When he received an unexpected $1,000 charge from the school’s financial aid office, he called the counseling office at West High School.

"The school told me that I wouldn’t get the money," said Arriola, who then reluctantly wrote a $1,000 check to UCLA.

This week, he called the real estate office and was promised by the Shishidos that he would receive a $1,000 cashiers check by Friday.

"Hopefully, I get it," he said.

Lewis said he got the same promise.

Shishido said Tuesday he hasn’t heard from the fifth student.

"We’d love to step forward so we can take care of it," he said.

For the past 11 years, the company’s real estate agents have donated a portion of their commissions to the scholarship fund. Preferred Real Estate didn’t give out scholarships this year.

"Because everything’s been so slow in the housing market, we don’t have those donations," Natalie Shishido said.

She added that the company has given a total of $77,000 in college scholarships over 11 years.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (1)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/Hide comments

...
written by Danny Hobbs , June 05, 2008

Merely an oversight, They will make good on the 5000/Marc is also a planning commissioner and has a successful mortgage and real estate business in town located in the former Klemm building (2 story black glasss)on Grantline and Corral Hollow.