Starbucks temporarily double bills a million customers
— -- Folks who gripe about $3 or $4 drinks at Starbucks— but buy them anyway — may have had double the reason to complain over Memorial Day weekend.
The customers' in-store receipts were correct — the extra billing came when the sales were settled at the end of the day and first appeared on account statements.
Starbucks caught the error, and when banks reopened on Tuesday, May 26, after the holiday, it began to credit the cards for the duplicate charges. All were resolved by May 29, says spokeswoman Trina Smith. "We sincerely apologize to customers who were confused," she says. But, she adds, in a world of digital transactions, "Consumers are accustomed to these kinds of things."
Well, maybe not at Starbucks. "When it comes to a company like Starbucks, consumers certainly don't expect that," says Ellie Kay, a financial consultant and author of Living Rich For Less. "They think better of Starbucks."
Actually, it can happen to anyone, says David Robertson, publisher of The Nilson Report, a payment card industry trade journal. There were 57 billion credit or debit card sales transactions last year, he says. As merchants get bigger and technology more complex, the potential for problems grows. "One little glitch can trigger an error that involves millions of customers."
Several days before Christmas, a systems glitch also resulted in a small number of Macy's shoppers getting double debits on card purchases at some stores.
Kay, the consultant, says she was double-billed for a car rental last month by Hertz, but she saw it on her credit card bill and spoke with a manager at Hertz, who quickly fixed the problem.
Starbucks patrons pay more not just for a better product, but for a perception that it treats consumers better, says Bradford Hudson, assistant marketing professor at Boston University. "You expect a company like Starbucks to do everything flawlessly, or to do something extra special to recover." He says it could have given a free drink to all affected.
