137 karma · joined July 8, 2010
The transaction info available on the Starbucks site and mobile app is pretty limited, but I can see that the transactions are listed as "In Store Purchase". For example:
http://cl.ly/3H1j3g443X0y0O3j2M2L
Unfortunately, there is no info about which stores the purchases were made in, and the history only goes back about 20 transactions. It does look like some people are making large purchases, which is jerky, but not totally unexpected.
Thanks, j
The card was not hacked. Looks more like you're just trying to promote your link. Thanks though.
Cheers! j
Draining the card to the penny is not weird. If there is $10 on the card and your purchase is $11.50, $10 will be removed from the card and you have to pay the remaining $1.50 some other way.
Expected behavior :) j
Yes, unfortunately I do get the rewards. I get a free coffee for every 15 purchased. I figured that the free coffees would accrue to the card itself and therefore every 16th person would get a free coffee. As it turns out, sbux mails free coffee coupons to me:
I'm not sure how to redistribute them fairly, but I was thinking that I could at least pass them out at my local store. However, doing so is expressly forbidden and my name is on the postcards.
Thoughts? j
Fair point. My goal is to figure out the dynamics of social giving in this fashion and create a similar sustainable model around items that are less "luxury" than coffee.
For example, I can imaging people paying for other people's groceries or medicine in a similar manner. Maybe I'm crazy, but it seems worth trying.
Best, j
I totally agree. The sbux site and card don't support this directly, but I think I have a way to achieve this manually that involves requesting a coffee before you can know how much is on the card. We'll see!
Thanks, j
I've been thinking about this quite a bit. One the one hand, last week some jerk saw a $50 balance and spent the whole thing in one shot.
On the other hand, people need to know when there is money on the card if they are thinking about walking down to a sbux to get a coffee.
I might try the "there's more than $10 on the card right now". I've also experimented with delaying the reloaded messages, and doling out the money more directly by asking who wants a coffee.
Folks who respond get the update if they're quick. We'll see what happens, but I believe that there is a sustainable way to handle it.
Cheers! j
I'm the author of the original post being discussed here. I can see that most everyone on this thread disagrees with me, which is fine.
I just wanted to let you know that because of being linked to on HN, there has been some thoughtful discussion in the comments that addresses several of the points raised here.
Cheers, j