Starbucks boycott

**imforpeace** · 01-14-2008, 03:30 PM

I receive many emails from friends warning me about scams, asking me to boycott this or that, chain mail, and many political and religious rants. I don't normally forward any of them or discuss them. This one blew me away! The original email was regarding Starbucks not sending coffee to Marines in Iraq.{they don't support the war or soldiers} I went to Snopes.com to research and discovered...big surprise...that it was another rumor floating around online. While researching the original email, I was shocked to discover this: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/starbucks.asp

WOW! Let me tell you that last month, Burger King donated 25 orders of fries for my son's class party. They received nothing in return and there was no national tragedy as there was during 911 terrorist attacks. Starbucks can't donated water to victims of 911????

Ok, off of my soapbox, but I should close saying I will not buy at Starbucks again. I almost always gave gift cards to the postal carrier, trash truck drivers and teachers for Christmas. This year, maybe I'll give Burger King gift cards!!!

**Telephus44** · 01-14-2008, 04:14 PM

Wow - I'm not the sort of person to boycott a place over one incident, but this does strike me as terrible customer service/PR incident for Starbucks. It seems particularly awful that phone calls and letters to upper management did nothing - it was only until it was circulated that they did something about it.

And not that I'm trying to defend Starbucks - but they charge $1.80 for a bottle of water - 3 cases of 24 bottles would be $129.60. So I tend to think that it would be just one employee acting on his own not wanting to "give away" merchandise without authorization. But shame on the company for not even responding when they were called on it!

**Katybird** · 01-14-2008, 05:07 PM

I try to avoid Starbucks (which I have started calling 5bucks

) because it is so incredibly overpriced. I love the foo foo coffees from there but paying 5 bucks for a cup of coffee just rubs my frugal self wrong. I almost had to find the 5bucks 12 step program to realize that though

.

**Frugal Girl** · 01-14-2008, 05:08 PM

I love BK! whopper jr's only a buck! WoOT!

**fuzzybunny** · 01-15-2008, 05:44 PM

I generally avoid Starbucks as well. Here in Portland we had another chain called "Coffee People" and they were much better than Starbucks. Most everyone loved them and they were always busy. The one by my house was always packed despite having 2 Starbucks within 5 blocks.

So what did Starbucks do when they couldn't beat them fairly with their inferior and more expensive product? Since they were a smaller regional chain they rented space rather than buying so Starbucks snuck around and bought up all the leases to their buildings, carts etc and then evicted them! I have no problem with them beating out the competition with a better product but I don't give money to bullies.

Christine

**acidcookie** · 01-15-2008, 11:01 PM

Originally Posted by fuzzybunny

I generally avoid Starbucks as well. Here in Portland we had another chain called "Coffee People" and they were much better than Starbucks. Most everyone loved them and they were always busy. The one by my house was always packed despite having 2 Starbucks within 5 blocks.

So what did Starbucks do when they couldn't beat them fairly with their inferior and more expensive product? Since they were a smaller regional chain they rented space rather than buying so Starbucks snuck around and bought up all the leases to their buildings, carts etc and then evicted them! I have no problem with them beating out the competition with a better product but I don't give money to bullies.

Christine

Yay Coffee People! I miss them (ex-Portlander here). I try not to go to Starbucks because I've always had this on-off bad feeling about them. I stick to the local places.

**nuisance26** · 01-16-2008, 01:11 PM

~I've ony bought coffee from Starbucks once in my life, not a fan. Boycott who you want but remember that if you boycott every company who intentionally or unintentionally chose profit over people you would have hardly anywhere to shop. And that's my

~

**imforpeace** · 01-16-2008, 10:56 PM

Originally Posted by nuisance26

~ Boycott who you want but remember that if you boycott every company who intentionally or unintentionally chose profit over people you would have hardly anywhere to shop. And that's my

~

Well then I guess it's a good thing I don't do much shopping.