Starbucks Japan apologizes for overcharging Frappuccino customers, offers refunds

Launch of new ultra-limited fruity Frappuccino comes with some hiccups.

Japan gets a lot of seasonal Starbucks Frappuccinos, but even among those, the new My Fruit³ Frappuccinos are especially special. That’s because they’re only available at 15 Starbucks branches in all of Japan, so when these new fruity flavors (orange/passionfruit, strawberry, and grape/peach) went on sale last week, fans lucky enough to be close to one of the branches where they’re being offered rushed out to try them.

Unfortunately, in their excitement, some customers didn’t notice that they’d actually been overcharged for their drinks. The mistake occurred on February 15 at a number of the participating Starbucks branches, and the company has since issued an apology to customers and is offering to refund the difference.

The cause of the problem appears to have been a misconfiguration of Starbucks internal sales system. While the My Fruit³ Frappuccinos were supposed to have been priced at 750 yen (US$5.10) after sales tax, for dine-in customers and 736 for takeout orders, at some branches an extra 20 yen was tacked onto the price and collected from customers.

▼ The Grape & Peach My Fruit³ Frappuccino

It’s not shocking that customers didn’t immediately notice the problem. Japan increasing its sales tax to 10 percent was a highly unpopular move among consumers and businesses, and so when the change took place a few years ago, it came with a few concessions. One was that groceries and to-go food and drink orders have remained at an 8-percent tax rate (with the exception of alcoholic beverages, which are always priced at 10 percent), while those same items, if consumed in-store, carry a 10-percent sales tax. Another is that merchants have the option of displaying their prices in ads, menus, and on price tags as either after-tax or before-tax.

The end result is that unless you’re keeping all those variables straight and checking fine print, it’s not uncommon for price concepts to be a little hazy these days, especially when buying drinks, and so a 20-yen discrepancy from what they initially expected probably wouldn’t set off too many warning bells in most people’s minds.

▼ The signboard at the Starbucks where we got our My Fruit³ Frappuccino, for example, just lists the price as 750 yen, with no notation next to it as to whether that includes tax or if it’s the drink-in or to-go price.

20 yen may not be all that much money in the grand scheme of things, but this is Japan, where companies take customer service very seriously, and so Starbucks Japan’s statement includes:

“We deeply apologize for the great deal of trouble this has caused our customers. We are making efforts to ensure that this sort of error does not occur again, and humbly ask for your understanding.”

20-yen refunds will be offered, in cash, to whoever brings their receipt showing the incorrectly charged price to the Starbucks branch where they purchased their My Fruit³ Frappuccinos.

Source: Starbucks Japan via IT Media
Top image: Starbucks Japan
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