Starbucks Annual Price Increase Showed Up Early Thanks To Glitch

Image courtesy of Ron G

For the third year in a row Starbucks will dig its hands a little deeper into customers’ wallets, once again raising the prices for many drinks on its menu.

Starbucks announced the annual price increase over the weekend after the company’s computer system mistakenly entered the new pricing two weeks early.

The coffee giant says that a computer glitch resulted in customers paying about 30 cents more on average for their drinks last week, two weeks before the annual price increase was set to take place.

“On July 12, Starbucks is planning a small price increase on select beverages,” the company said in a statement. “Unfortunately, that price adjustment was prematurely entered into the point of sale systems in our U.S. company-operated stores. As a result, some customers were charged incorrectly.”

The maximum any customer could have been overcharged is 30 cents per beverage, the company says.

The actual upcoming price increase is the third for the company in as many years. We’ve reached out to Starbucks for information on which beverages are affected and just how much more they’ll cost starting next week. We’ll update this post when we hear back.

Last year, the company upped their prices between $0.05 and $0.20. At the time a rep for Starbucks said small and large brewed coffees would each go up by $0.10 in most regions of the country, meaning a large coffee will be around $2.45.

In 2014, Starbucks added $0.10 to $0.15 to most medium and large-sized brewed coffees and $0.15 to $0.20 to small and large-sized lattes.

As for the recent computer glitch, Starbucks apologized for the inconvenience and urges customers who believe they were affected to contact Starbucks Customer Service at 1-800-782-7282 for an adjustment.

[h/t Eater]

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