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Does Starbucks Owe You Money? Mistake With Early New Prices Could Mean A Cash Refund!

By Georgia Makitalo
Published on: 03:42 PST, Jul 6, 2016

Did your morning shot of caffeine at your local Starbucks seem a little steep last week? A computer error caused Starbucks all over the United States overcharging their customers up to 30 cents per drink. Starbucks has been proactive with issuing a press release including a customer service phone number to ensure that their loyal customers are informed and will be refunded for this pricing error.

So last week, did you and maybe some friends decided to get a vanilla latte or a chai tea at Starbucks when you went shopping for your fabulous red, white, and blue bikini? Perhaps the total price seemed a bit high. Or perhaps you didn’t think twice about the price because you didn’t order your usual at Starbucks. No, your barista did not purposely mischarge you. What basically happened is that the company accidentally jumped the gun two weeks ahead of their annual price increases. This meant that all customers that purchased Starbucks drinks overpaid up to 30 cents per drink.

The mistake was discovered on Friday, July 1. The correction was made on Saturday, July 2. There was no explanation as to how they discovered this pricing error. Generally, regular customers know exactly what their drink prices are and perhaps someone asked the barista if the price did increase. The pricing snafu may not have been evident for those who were perhaps trying out a new summer beverage or caffeinating up for the big weekend.

At this time, there is no indication that the price increase applied to the many food items at Starbucks or coffee bean, gifts or other items available at each Starbucks.

Typically, Starbucks implements their price increases every year in late June or early July. The scheduled price increase was meant to start on July 12. Yet, when the point of sale register was updated with the new price information, what mistakenly occurred was that the update failed to include the correct date. Instead, the new prices were instantly changed.

Along with the computer correction, Starbucks immediately released a statement apologizing to their customers and explaining how this mistake occurred. They explained that they were planning the increase as well as the error that caused the prices to prematurely and incorrectly go up in price.

“On July 12, Starbucks is planning a small price increase on select beverages. Unfortunately, that price adjustment was prematurely entered into the point of sale systems in our U.S. company-operated stores. As a result, some customers were charged incorrectly. The maximum any customer could have been overcharged is 30 cents per beverage.”

In addition, Starbucks provided the customer service number for any customer that overpaid with the promise that they would “make this right.”

“The error has been corrected and we sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience. If a customer believes this mistake impacted the price of their beverage, we encourage them to please contact Starbucks Customer Service at 1-800-782-7282, and we will gladly make this right.”

While Starbucks has yet to disclose the brand new price points for their variety of caffeinated hot and cold beverages, historically the price increases have been been between 5 and 20 cents. As Starbucks claimed on their press release that customers could have been charged 30 cents too much, It could be safely assumed that some of the drink prices are expected to increase by 30 center. Again, the actual price increases have not yet been revealed and will not be announced until the official date of the price increase, on July 12.

Did you get a Starbucks coffee before Independence weekend and think you were overcharged? Are you calling Starbucks customer service for your refund?

|Photo by Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images]

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