NYC students still slinging OMNY cards for up to $500: ‘I have these for no reason’
They’re boarding the gravy train.
New York City kids continued pawning off their special student OMNY cards this week, despite MTA and city Department of Education claims that they were cracking down on illegal sales of the free transit passes.
The cards, which get students four rides any time of day for an entire year, were still going for up to $350 this week, The Post found, despite its front-page expose Sunday busting students for pushing the scam.
One sly student was seeking a whopping $1,500 for one card on Facebook Marketplace.
This week, posts by students from Flushing, Queens, to Gravesend, Brooklyn, to the East Shore of Staten Island, offered the OMNY cards — which replaced the student MetroCards previously given to students — for $100, $200 and as much as $350.
The new program from the state and the city provided 1.5 million cards to schools, funded with $25 million from the state Department of Transportation and $50.5 million from the city Department of Education.
The ads frequently contain misleading information. “Never deactivate[s],” one ad online this week falsely claimed. “Lasts for 2 years,” claimed another.
Cards can be deactivated if students report them lost and request a new one from their schools. And they are only usable through fall 2025.
Last week, a student tried peddling a card to an undercover Post reporter but it was declined at the turnstile, apparently because it was deactivated.
A few hours later, the listing was marked “sold” to someone else.
“I have these for no reason, I go on car and I’m trying to upgrade my bike so I’m selling these one is mine one is my brother who is also going on car,” one ad out of Jamaica, Queens, for two of the passes explained. “Queens only … come to me any time besides above 10pm,” it added.
Another would-be seller apparently got a kick out of his gimmick, posting an ad titled “Student omny card lol.”
The South Richmond Hill, Queens, student dropped his price from $500 to $200 as of Friday.
Critics say the cards should have students’ photos on them to prevent abuse of the special fare program, which is a class B misdemeanor, according to the MTA’s rules of conduct.
A spokesperson for the MTA initially told The Post that the cards being sold online are being deactivated, but it was not clear how that would work for Facebook accounts with aliases like “Mud Kidd,” “Uzi Stacks,” and “Accesand OnTop.”
Most ads did not reveal the cards’ serial numbers or the names of the students they were issued to.
Some students told The Post that their schools put their names on stickers on the cards — which could easily be peeled off.
Companies including eBay and Facebook have begun to remove all listings for OMNY cards as requested by the MTA, according to officials.
