A sign in the window reads, "Brandeis students welcome-we accept WhoCash," and, sure enough, several Brandeis students are scattered at random tables, talking, laughing and enjoying their lunches. The scene is the Prime Deli, one of eight Waltham businesses that currently accept WhoCash, Brandeis' campus debit program. Standing behind the counter, storeowner Tasos Mitrousis explains in his rich accent, "We have regulars that come in every day from Brandeis. They come because they like the food, and many pay with WhoCash."

Not all Waltham business owners are so upbeat about the system, however, citing high startup costs and transaction fees as deterrents. Overall, businesses are split on the advantages of catering to students in this way.

The other Waltham locales that accept WhoCash are Domino's, Take Out Taxi, Cappy's, Pete's Pizza and Wings, Lena's Pizza, South Street Market and the newest addition, College Bellhop. Many students say they prefer these locations because they can pay with their campus identification cards instead of using cash or a credit card.

"It feels less like spending money when you're using WhoCash," Ashley Firestone '05 said.

For some, this is because someone else keeps the WhoCash flowing for them. Until this fall, students could bill WhoCash to their student accounts, but now they must pay up front with cash or check. Even so, students often have extra money on their cards, left over from money their parents gave them for books at the beginning of the year.

WhoCash, created in fall of 2000, was accepted only on campus until January of 2002, when Rick Dovidio arrived in the Campus Card Office. He began to implement the debit system at a few off-campus locations, starting with Domino's Pizza on Lexington Street.

Students benefit, as they can occasionally ignore the level of their cash reserves and dine out anyway. Waltham businesses also benefit because WhoCash attracts a higher volume of student patrons.

"When the WhoCash machine first got put in two or three years ago, we saw the difference in business," said Suzanne Gasparyan, the manager of Pete's Pizza and Wings on Main Street. "I think it's helping [attract students]."

"It's been good for business," the kids come down a lot," said Rob Green, manager of the South Street Market. "What's more of the issue that people don't know we accept it."

Potential WhoCash carriers usually approach Dovidio at the Campus Card Office with their initial interest stimulated by Brandeis student requests. Before a business can accept WhoCash, it must install a device called a Verifone, which costs around $300. The businesses pay for the instrument themselves, and they also need a separate phone line. Most businesses already have separate lines for credit card machines, but others pay to install a new line. The Verifones are programmed to dial up to a modem at Brandeis in a small room in the Kutz basement. Officials at the Campus Card Office note each transaction along with the business name and the amount charged.

The Verifones are usually incompatible with the databases used by ordinary cash registers, discouraging larger businesses and chains from purchasing them. According to Dovidio, these businesses consider it a hassle to track WhoCash purchases separately. He mentioned that the 99 Restaurant and Victory Supermarket-two of the original targets for off-campus WhoCash-expressed this motive for abstaining from the system.

The manager of the Waltham Victory Supermarket, Angelo Bisol, said WhoCash is unrealistic for the 20-store chain.

"We just don't have the technology to support those systems," Bisol said. He added that this could change soon, as Victory was recently purchased by the Portland, Maine-based Hannaford Bros. supermarket chain.

Dovidio mentioned that Lizzy's Ice Cream decided against accepting WhoCash because of the Verifone installation fee.

When asked about WhoCash, Lizzy's manager Nick Pappas expressed some contempt for the system.

"These programs require you to buy a piece of equipment that costs a significant amount of money. On top of that, they take out a percentage of every transaction," he said.

"Whoever I spoke to just didn't have any good answers about how much it would cost me. It just wasn't obvious what the benefits would be."

Franca's Pizza is another Waltham business that turned down the proposal for WhoCash. Owner Steve Rosenberg said, "It could be worth it except that you're paying five percent every time you make a transaction. With a MasterCard or a Visa charge, it's 10 cents, and then another two percent. [The WhoCash charge] does come out to more."

Dovidio confirmed the five percent charge per transaction. He said that the money goes back to the Campus Card Office, helping to "offset the expenses of the equipment, supplies and the maintenance agreement set up for the printers."

"We're not looking to make money off the system," he said. He said that by comparison, Northeastern University and Boston College both charge higher transaction fees for their campus cash.

Boston College uses a system called Eagle Bucks that works similarly to WhoCash. At the Angora Too Cafe in Brighton, manager Abbes Khelsa said that Boston College takes 15 percent out of each transaction using Eagle Bucks. Manager Mark Selind of Eagle's Deli gave the same statistic. At Maddie's Market, in Boston, manager Al Lishman said that he thinks the transaction fee with Eagle Bucks is seven or eight percent, though the discrepancy could be because he was guessing, or because convenience stores receive less profit and pay lower transaction fees, as Dovidio mentioned at one point.

Over at Franca's, Rosenberg also said he felt that Brandeis' system of paying vendors through weekly checks works too slowly.

"With MasterCard or Visa, the money is on my account the next day by direct deposit," he said. "[With WhoCash], I'm waiting for the money for a week, where the turnaround time on credit cards is the next day. If you're doing a lot of business, it's a lot of money you're waiting on."

At the South Street Market, Green said he wanted to make it clear that he has a "very good business relationship" with Dovidio. Even so, he mentioned that the WhoCash system is slow and breaks down too often.

If all Waltham businesses accepted WhoCash, this would actually hurt the system, according to Dovidio. He said he is reluctant to add additional sandwich or pizza vendors to the WhoCash list because this would disperse students too thinly and remove the competitive advantage for the businesses that initially invested in the Verifones.

When WhoCash first moved off-campus, the Student Union president e-mailed a survey to the student body to identify the most frequented restaurants in Waltham. Then Dovidio contacted the most popular joints, encouraging them to begin accepting WhoCash.

"I still feel this is the best way to do it," he said. "Businesses shouldn't waste money on a Verifone when only the same three students will use it."

A case in point is the Watch City Diner, a restaurant on Prospect Street that installed the system as a response to Brandeis student requests. The company rarely used the Verifone, and in fact went out of business altogether six months later. Dovidio said he suspects that the demand for WhoCash seemed larger than it really was. He maintained that a student survey remains the best way to avoid similar problems.

This fall, WhoCash merchants say they have noticed a significant decrease in students paying with WhoCash. "I've seen a very lage drop in sales, it's almost to the point where you wonder whether something was wrong with it," Green said.

Mitrousis attributed this problem to the recent policy change at Brandeis where students must pay up front for WhoCash, instead of lumping the purchase onto their overall Brandeis bill without the billpayers'-usually their parents'-approval.

"When students could charge it to parents' accounts, they would spend money like crazy. I'd say we get about 800 [fewer] dollars a week from WhoCash this year," he said.

Mike Votano, co-owner of Lena's, observed the change as well: "WhoCash has definitely been beneficial for us, but people used it more last year. Before, we'd get a lot of kids in here on Friday and Saturday nights using only WhoCash. A handful of kids still come in and use it, but a lot of others just use cash or credit cards."

Mark Collins, associate vice president for University Services, commented on probable reasons for the policy change. "My understanding was that individuals were charging money to their accounts and subsequently not paying it," he said.

At Cappy's, where students spend the most WhoCash, manager Kappiopi Koutounidou said that WhoCash business now is "about the same as last year."

She did note, however, that the Verifones were functioning very slowly. Dovidio said that this is due to the fact that there are only four phone lines leading back to Brandeis. Since most people use WhoCash at the same times of day, the lines often become tied up.

WhoCash will soon expand its available variety of services, according to Dovidio. One example is the newly launched College Bellhop, a student cleaning service that installed a Verifone even prior to opening its doors. Manager Alan Ringwald said that eventually, College Bellhop business will also allow students to use WhoCash to buy tickets to movies and nightclubs.

"We feel that it will be easier for students to use our service if they can use WhoCash. Their parents can help them out," he said.

Dovidio mentioned that CVS has shown interest in acquiring a Verifone as well. He also added that the percentage fee for such a business would probably be decreased, since they make less profit per dollar than a restaurant.

Not all students think WhoCash is worth the effort. Jen Makridakis '07 said, "I don't feel the need to bother with it anymore. I may as well use cash directly rather than going through the trouble of buying WhoCash."

Though the system is imperfect and some students and businesses choose to opt out, students like the sensation of free money and businesses appreciate customers, so WhoCash continues to expand.