Consumer protection groups claimed in December that Starbucks’ mobile app trapped users in a vicious cycle of beverage purchases. complaint to Washington’s attorney general. The coffee chain’s mobile app allegedly uses “dark patterns” to disable small funds on Starbucks cards, forcing you to add $10 or lose the money altogether.
“The Starbucks payment platform incorporates unfair and deceptive digital dark patterns that effectively force customers to prepay for the company’s services,” the Washington Consumer Protection Federation said in a Dec. 19 letter. Ta. Let’s end Starbucks’ unfair and deceptive practices and fix the harm it’s caused Washington consumers. ”
The Starbucks app has processed the overage payment 31 million users In 2021. This is 6 million more users than Google Pay. The coffee chain has been accused of encouraging customers to add large sums of money to their Starbucks Cards and taking steps to prevent them from using up their balances if they are low. Customers charged about $15 billion to Starbucks Cards last year, and executives believe these digital payments are key to success, according to the complaint. The Washington State Attorney General is now being asked to investigate whether these techniques are deceptive.
Starbucks recommends that users upload $25 at a time to their Starbucks Card, but the chain’s cheapest drinks hover around $3 in New York (may vary in your area). there is). If your balance is less than $3 or the cheapest drink in your area, your funds are essentially frozen. The Starbucks app doesn’t allow you to combine these funds with other payment methods or even leave them as a tip. The coalition says it’s nearly impossible to zero out a Starbucks card balance via the mobile app, so the only option is to add funds.
A Starbucks spokesperson told Gizmodo that users can go to a physical store and ask the barista to use their Starbucks Card and another payment method from the app to zero out their balance at the time of purchase. When asked by Gizmodo why the mobile app itself, which claims to be easy and convenient, can’t do that, a spokesperson had no comment.
“Starbucks is committed to working with the State of Washington to ensure compliance with all state laws and regulations,” Starbucks said in an official statement.
The Washington state attorney general did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.
Consumer advocates refer to these measures as dark patterns, or ways in which software cleverly tricks users into doing things they did not intend, such as spending extra money or sharing information. It is explained that.Washington state attorney general recently forced Google to pay $40 million for Dark Pattern This is an issue with deceptive location tracking, where Google collects your location data without your knowledge. The Washington Consumer Protection Coalition argues that this is another case of dark pattern deception, calling the practice of “the ability to deceive a significant portion of the population” illegal.
of Federal Trade Commission It highlighted dark patterns common in 2022, including hard-to-cancel subscriptions, hidden junk fees, and tricking consumers into sharing their data. “Our report shows that a growing number of companies are using digital dark patterns to trick people into buying their products and divulging personal information,” he said at the time of writing the report. said Samuel Levin, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.