My wife and I tore up a $1,000 donation check we made out to NIU for its Rockford education center.

We had written the check but left it undated and unmailed depending on how we were treated after NIU slapped us with an undeserved $20 parking ticket.

The ticket was based on inconspicuous, false, misleading, and nonexistent signs and markings.

Even after we appealed five times over a nine-month period, from the Parking Appeals Committee all the way to NIU President John La Tourette, NIU still refused to revoke the wrongful ticket.

NIU continued its hideous constomer relations by prosecuting us using the old double whammy – threat of collection agency plus withholding of diploma and transcript, which is nothing more than sanctioned extortion.

Is extortion any way for NIU to treat its customers?

NIU’s underhanded, unjust and cold-hearted behavior, as demonstrated by its policies, the Parking Division, the Parking Appeals Committee, Associate Vice President Patricia Hewitt, John La Tourette and Collection Specialist Suzie Shott, has cost its Rockford education center $1,000 in lost donation.

We have avenged NIU’s ill will by using our financial power and we urge others to do the same.

Fellow customers, remember this: with your checkbook in hand, you ultimately have a certain degree of control over NIU.

Eventually, the merciless self-appointed gods may act with justice and compassion as a matter of economics.

Jeff Halberg

Mindy Halberg

NIU alumni