Starbucks sued for $114m for withdrawing free drink coupon

patrickw_2

:rotfl: Absolute joke, what is the world coming to?

It is people like that that just bump up prices in general becasue every company now has to cover themselves with insurance for every smallest detail, which mean they push their prices up to compensate. I heard some rubbish the other day about a magazine going out of business because somebody sued them for a paper cut!

I don't know the full story, but a legitimate business working hard to stay afloat and pay its hard working staff gets toppled in by some opportunist get rich quick scumbag- makes me mad:mad:

As a great philosopher once said, !!!! Happens- Just get up:j , brush yourself off and move on without a fuss!

...and breathe

CopperPlate_2

Broke_Student wrote:

I hope starbucks loose the case but not $114 million. They should be taught a lesson, but not punished.

And where do you draw the line? For a lost cup of coffee? $114 MILLION! $114 MILLION (sorry I don't know how much more I can emphasise this). It is lunacy. Regardless of whether there are a million people claiming in the suit, it is still a cup of coffee!! Get over it.

randan

CopperPlate wrote:

I think I'll sue Tesco or Asda the next time I go in and there's a space on the shelf advertising their latest buy one get one free that's out of stock and, horrors!, they've not removed the shelf advertising :eek: Think of all the people who've lost out on their free tin of beans, packet of biscuits or loaf of bread.

In such a case I would be asking for a 'rainy day' voucher to get the bogof the next time I am in the store.

UltraCheap_2

If you believe that class action suit can drive up prices, then why is it so cheap to buy things and to do business in the United States?

A company can choose to pass on the cost of a lawsuit, but if they do then they will be less competitive in the marketplace, and that will be bad for them in the long term.

The wonderful thing about a class action suit is that it gives consumers the opportunity to regulate corporations and businesses. Basically, class action suits make it difficult for companies to mess customers around in the first place. I have been part of class action suits in the US. There are generally so many people involved in a case that each individual may receive a nominal few dollars. The point of a class action suit is not to make money, the point is to regulate business.

Have you ever had a really frustrating run-in with a service provider? Did you have to sit on the telephone with them for hours in order to get what you paid for, and to receive some kind of compensation for your loss in time and services? More than likely, if the company has caused you problems, they have probably caused other people problems as well. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to band together and take care of the problem as a team instead of having to fight the battle all by yourself?

Sure, the Starbuck’s class action suit may seem ridiculous. I have to admit though that when I receive a promotion from a company, say for a free dinner or a cocktail, I look forward to the experience. I suspect that there were a lot of unhappy people that were turned away from Starbucks. How would you feel if you were turned away from something that you were promised by a company? What if all companies backed out on their offers when they found it convenient? Would this be considered misleading advertising?

A class action suit can also set a precedence to further regulate businesses in the future. Companies may think twice about cancelling offers mid-promotion in the future, and that is good for consumers.

Have you paid into a pension all of your life to find that the company mismanaged your funds and now you have nothing? Have you paid into NHS all of your life, but now when you have early stages of breast cancer, you either have to wait on a very long waiting list or pay to go private? How many service providers have you been pushed around by? How many expensive products have you purchased that have stopped working after just a few months?

Obviously, the US isn’t perfect, it has plenty of problems, but I have to say that one of the nicest aspects of American society is that people are allowed to band together in a legal arena when they have been treated unfairly by a business.

Please don’t flame me, I’ve read your views without attacking, this is just my .02:A

humfer

Only in the US of A

CopperPlate_2

UltraCheap wrote:

The wonderful thing about a class action suit is that it gives consumers the opportunity to regulate corporations and businesses. Basically, class action suits make it difficult for companies to mess customers around in the first place. I have been part of class action suits in the US. There are generally so many people involved in a case that each individual may receive a nominal few dollars. The point of a class action suit is not to make money, the point is to regulate business.

Unless it involved life or limb or the loss of all my wordly possessions/money I wouldn't even consider it.

UltraCheap wrote:

Have you ever had a really frustrating run-in with a service provider? Did you have to sit on the telephone with them for hours in order to get what you paid for, and to receive some kind of compensation for your loss in time and services? More than likely, if the company has caused you problems, they have probably caused other people problems as well. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to band together and take care of the problem as a team instead of having to fight the battle all by yourself?

Yes, it's called writing to complain or making the consumer's choice and voting with my feet. Not suing the a*s off them. At the end of the day, who will pay the compensation but other consumers as the company seeks to maintain a bottom line profit

UltraCheap wrote:

Sure, the Starbuck’s class action suit may seem ridiculous. I have to admit though that when I receive a promotion from a company, say for a free dinner or a cocktail, I look forward to the experience. I suspect that there were a lot of unhappy people that were turned away from Starbucks. How would you feel if you were turned away from something that you were promised by a company? What if all companies backed out on their offers when they found it convenient? Would this be considered misleading advertising?

Please, it's a cup of coffee. Yes, I might think "oh, great I've got a free cup of coffee I must remember and use that voucher the next time I go in" - when I'm turned away, I'd probably complain and having seen the exploitative way this voucher appears to have been passed around the 'Net, I think I might be more hacked off at the people who've abused it rather than the company that is seeking to stem a seemingly never ending flow of free coffee which, let's be fair, was never the intention behind the offer.

UltraCheap wrote:

A class action suit can also set a precedence to further regulate businesses in the future. Companies may think twice about cancelling offers mid-promotion in the future, and that is good for consumers.

Yes, to an extent I agree, but at the end of the day if the consumer's didn't abuse it in the first place there might not be the likelihood the offer would get pulled.

UltraCheap wrote:

Have you paid into a pension all of your life to find that the company mismanaged your funds and now you have nothing? Have you paid into NHS all of your life, but now when you have early stages of breast cancer, you either have to wait on a very long waiting list or pay to go private? How many service providers have you been pushed around by? How many expensive products have you purchased that have stopped working after just a few months?

Inappropriate examples I have to say - pensions and NHS are affected by factors not necessarily related to management decisions. The economy and political influences all have their effects. What are you to do? Sue the government? Perhaps. I think just because you receive poor service or a duff product doesn't mean to say that you reach for the phone and call in the lawyers. There are other alternatives.

UltraCheap wrote:

Obviously, the US isn’t perfect, it has plenty of problems, but I have to say that one of the nicest aspects of American society is that people are allowed to band together in a legal arena when they have been treated unfairly by a business.

Yes, and don't they just seem to do it at the drop of a hat and in the most inappropriate situations.

UltraCheap wrote:

Please don’t flame me, I’ve read your views without attacking, this is just my .02:A

I won't

bs7

UltraCheap wrote:

If you believe that class action suit can drive up prices, then why is it so cheap to buy things and to do business in the United States?

A company can choose to pass on the cost of a lawsuit, but if they do then they will be less competitive in the marketplace, and that will be bad for them in the long term.

The wonderful thing about a class action suit is that it gives consumers the opportunity to regulate corporations and businesses. Basically, class action suits make it difficult for companies to mess customers around in the first place. I have been part of class action suits in the US. There are generally so many people involved in a case that each individual may receive a nominal few dollars. The point of a class action suit is not to make money, the point is to regulate business.

Have you ever had a really frustrating run-in with a service provider? Did you have to sit on the telephone with them for hours in order to get what you paid for, and to receive some kind of compensation for your loss in time and services? More than likely, if the company has caused you problems, they have probably caused other people problems as well. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to band together and take care of the problem as a team instead of having to fight the battle all by yourself?

Sure, the Starbuck’s class action suit may seem ridiculous. I have to admit though that when I receive a promotion from a company, say for a free dinner or a cocktail, I look forward to the experience. I suspect that there were a lot of unhappy people that were turned away from Starbucks. How would you feel if you were turned away from something that you were promised by a company? What if all companies backed out on their offers when they found it convenient? Would this be considered misleading advertising?

A class action suit can also set a precedence to further regulate businesses in the future. Companies may think twice about cancelling offers mid-promotion in the future, and that is good for consumers.

Have you paid into a pension all of your life to find that the company mismanaged your funds and now you have nothing? Have you paid into NHS all of your life, but now when you have early stages of breast cancer, you either have to wait on a very long waiting list or pay to go private? How many service providers have you been pushed around by? How many expensive products have you purchased that have stopped working after just a few months?

Obviously, the US isn’t perfect, it has plenty of problems, but I have to say that one of the nicest aspects of American society is that people are allowed to band together in a legal arena when they have been treated unfairly by a business.

Please don’t flame me, I’ve read your views without attacking, this is just my .02:A

It's nice to see someone else isn't just looking at the "$114m" figure and commenting on it but actually understands what's going on.

I think you've made the point perfectly. And i totally agree with you. The class action suit is a relatively cheap and efficient way of regulating business, as you say.
It also works well as it isn't reliant upon consumer protection laws being drafted and re-drafted by successive governments but is dealt with by common law - and as such is constantly evolving.

What doesn't seem to be understood by a lot of people posting - is that it is extremely unlikely the eventually result will be $114m in damages, or anywhere near that.

And i don't know why everyone is so keen to back Starbucks and instead focus on the man's "greed" - there has to be a point where one can rely upon the statements and promises made by companies. Otherwise they could all make ridiculous claims, or constantly offer freebies to get customers in, and then withdraw it as soon as the voucher/coupon is presented.

CopperPlate_2

The sum of $114 milion doesn't get any smaller just because there is a large amount of people involved in the suit you know. No-one is "backing" Starbucks - more that I think that those who feel hard done to are going overboard.

It appears from your post that, and please correct me if I'm wrong on this, that if someone doesn't agree with the fact that Starbucks 'deserve' to be sued, then they don't "understand" the whole concept? I don't pretend to be a legal expert in US law, however, I understand the concept of class action law suits - I don't disagree with the legal simplicity of it; what I disagree with is the principle on which the suit is being brought. The fact that the company - and it could be ANY company - distributed vouchers to employees asking them to pass them on to family and friends and this was then subsequently abused by the mass public presumably via the Internet, is the point I was making. Suddenly everyone feels hard done to because they're not getting what they fervently BELIEVE they are entitled to. It begs the question - did they come by the voucher by legitimate means, i.e. from an employee of the company or did they download it off a site, probably not too dissimilar to the one we are posting on just now?

I have no problem at all with class actions - they have an appropriate place in the legal system - however, some of the actions which are brought seek to reinforce positions which, if a commonsense view were taken, should be kicked into the long grass at the first hurdle.