Warning: Unethical Practices
This Starbucks at LAX engages in the unethical practice of charging more for coffee than their posted price. I am guessing that they get away with it because of its airport location. Since a great deal of their customers are not local to LA, those who get cheated are hard-pressed to come back to complain. Many times customers are in a hurry to catch their next flight (or their hotel shuttle or Uber), and just let the issue go since they have bigger plans that cannot be disrupted. And they have no real means of efficiently (or economically) returning to address the issue at the store. This particular Starbucks seems to be taking advantage of these factors, and are cheating airport customers.
I ordered a grande vanilla latté. The attached photo shows a copy of the overhead menu above the register, which indicates the cost as $5.25. However, if you look at the attached photo of my receipt, it indicates that I was charged $5.60 PLUS an extra 90 cents for vanilla syrup, costing a total of $6.50. I was overcharged $1.25 for my drink (which, if you do the math, is an additional 24% over their posted price for a vanilla latté -- and my employee discount is only 10%).
While waiting for my drink, I looked over the receipt and noticed the overcharge, so I addressed it with the cashier, Alma. Alma said "That's just how it is on the receipt, we HAVE to charge you separately for the vanilla on the receipt." I challenged this, noting that I was overcharged for the coffee itself, which was more than the advertised $5.25 WITHOUT vanilla. Both Alma AND her coworker insisted that my order was rung up 100% correctly -- and they insisted that the pricing on the menu above was INCORRECT, and that the wrongly published price was something beyond their control as employees. They didn't seem any bit concerned about the discrepancy between the posted price and what they were actually charging.
Unhappy with the result of my transaction, I chatted with Starbucks customer support on the app. Ahkila, the agent, credited my account $6.41; I informed Ahkila that my GREATER concern, however, was the unethical practice the store was engaging in to overcharge their customers. I asked if my concern would be forwarded on to company administration -- and it was at that point when Ahkila stopped responding to me. Every two minutes the chat gave a warning message that our session was about to time out, and asked if I was still there. I stayed online for another 20 minutes (repeating every two minutes) before I allowed the session to time out.
I decided that the next step would be to talk with a customer service agent via phone support. After explaining the situation to the agent, I indicated my GREATER concern of corporate investigating the practices of the airport store. As a paying customer I told him I needed ASSURANCE that my concern was addressed, requesting that I be contacted with the outcome of the investigation. The agent said he could not do that. He insisted that there was no one who could follow-up with me.
Frustrated, I agreed that I did not need to know any details or EVEN the outcome; I simply needed to know ONLY that "Ms. X of Starbucks corporate" contacted "Mr. Z of the Airport store" on "(date)" -- assuring me that someone had taken measures to address the situation. I pointed out if he could not do it himself, he could at least refer me to the appropriate person. He said that sadly he could not do that for me. In response, I said that if he could not provide me with any assurances that my concern was addressed, I would be left with no other option than to warn others on review sites about my experience, and notifying them that the store was unethically misinforming the public of their prices -- and that Starbucks corporate may OR may not have addressed the situation. I mentioned that issuing a warning on review sites could be perceived as bad publicity for the company, and that it could be avoided SIMPLY by giving me an assurance that my concern was being addressed (not too much to ask, in my opinion). The service agent did not seem to care about the issue, and at that point we ended the call as there was nothing more that could be done. read more