Starbucks Card slurps my balance

One of my friends constantly complains whenever he's mistreated or short-changed by any customer service department and usually argues and persuades until he gets his way.

This is no mean feat - in the UK most customer service imagines themselves a bit like the soldiers in a World War 1 front-line trench. They definitely don't consider themselves as arbitrators, let alone on the customer's side.

My experiences with places like the USA, Australia and New Zealand are different - often the person you're talking to has the power to fix stuff up for you quickly and will usually respond well to questions like "well, do you think that's fair? Would you be happy with that?". Here in the UK (and to an even greater extent on the European continent) the response to those questions is usually "Well I'm afraid that's just our policy" - i.e. we don't think, we just operate. If you push hard enough they'll give you the address of a PO Box to write to, which is probably connected directly to a furnace which keeps their toes warm in winter.

So today I was curious to see how Starbucks, an American chain - reacts to a blatant screw-up on their part but on UK territory. Here's my email to them:

Hi,

I am writing to you to convey my initial experiences with your Starbucks card. I was a little sceptical at first as to why I'd want something like that, but then given I drink coffee at your store just about daily, and often have a quick coffee at airports when I don't want to mess around with foreign currency or pay through a credit card - it seemed sensible. Plus I'm the type of person who always likes to try out something new...

So yesterday I got one in Oxford Street, London and gleefully handed over about £8.60 in coins that had been sagging in my trouser pockets and jingling with each stride I took. I was given a nice shiny new card: [card number removed]. I then paid for my caramel machiatto (about £2.80) on the card. It took a few swipes and I wasn't sure what was wrong, but eventually I had my coffee and put the extra swiping down to the fact that it was the first use and probably needed a little practice or something.

Last night I went to the starbucks.co.uk website and tried to register my card, and got this message:

Browser error

We're sorry, your browser doesn't support the Starbucks Card registration pages of this website.

Please update your browser to Internet Explorer version 5.0 or above, or Netscape Navigator version 6.0 or above.

Thank you.

I am a mac user. I know I am not the only one because I see a large number of mac users sitting around drinking coffee and surfing the net every time I go into Starbucks. I know mac users are only about 10-15% of the population but they seem to be well over half of your customer base, at least the ones sitting in your cafes.. For your information Internet Explorer is no longer supported by Microsoft on the mac (since Firefox is basically better), and Netscape Navigator hasn't existed since about 1999. I am using Firefox, which is a very popular browser on both Windows and Macs. I can't see how buying a copy of Windows is a necessary requisite for keeping your coffee safe when my bank manages to work fine without it.

So I thought "I'll just make sure I don't keep too much money on my card , so if I lose it it's no big deal". Today I went into another Starbucks in Angel/Upper Street, London with a friend and proudly presented my card to pay for my coffee and hers.

EvEverythingooked fine until the barista said I had £0.06 left on my card. I thought she was joking. I explained I put over eight pounds on it yesterday and had only had one coffee on it. She asked if I had the receipts, which of course I did not. I said I didn't know you needed to keep the receipts. She said I needed to keep all the receipts. I said that sounded like more hassle than keeping cash. Everyone in the queue who overheard this agreed - who wants to walk around with a month's worth of coffee receipts and check your account balance all the time in case the card malfunctions???!

So where does this leave me? I would like to know what you suggest.

Thanks,
Joe

So now I'm curious to see what happens. Should everyone (Internet Explorer user or not) have to keep a bag full of receipts with their card and double-check their account online? Doesn't sound like convenience to me! What sort of experiences have other people had with their Starbucks cards?