September 11, 2006

Starbucks Sued for $114 Million over Pulled "Free Drink" Coupon

From the Uh-Oh department, comes this one. Recall we updated you that the Starbucks Free Drink email promotion was pulled early due to the fact that the email got out of control. Now things just got worse; they are getting sued. In NY, an attorney is suing Starbucks because of the pulled promotion. Starbucks is being sued for $114 million over its recall. Attorney Peter Sullivan filed the lawsuit Friday in New York on behalf of a 23-year-old Starbucks regular who he says felt "betrayed" when her coupon was not honored. He is accusing the Seattle-based coffee company of fraud and says he will request class-action status for the suit. The $114 million is founded on an estimate of what the average daily cost is for a cup of coffee for all the people turned away for the promotion. How he even arrived at the number of people who got turned away is beyond me. So, I wonder, who was the brand manager who dreamt up this promotion and I wonder what s/he is doing now?