B.C.’s Civil Resolution Tribunal has rejected a man’s claim that he lost $900 in credits using Starbucks gift cards.
However, tribunal member Nav Shukla stated in a June 24 decision that the company claimed the loss was due to Bruno Bureau not taking care of the gift cards, which resulted in him twice losing the balance — even after the company credited him for losses.
Bureau claimed that, in late 2022 or early 2023, he purchased two $500 Starbucks gift cards using Air Miles points.
He said he loaded the gift cards onto his account on the Starbucks mobile app and, after making some purchases using the cards, the balance on both went to zero.
Bureau claimed it happened because of a Starbucks app security issue and that the company was responsible for making his loss right.
Starbucks, though, denied any responsibility.
“It says that any lost credit on Mr. Bureau’s gift cards was likely due to his own failure to protect the gift cards,” Shukla said. “Starbucks says that it has already voluntarily refunded Mr. Bureau the full lost value, and he again failed to protect his gift cards, losing the credits once more.”
The company said it has no further obligation to Bureau.
Starbucks’ evidence included a list of transactions on Bureau’s cards from April 1, 2022 to April 23, 2024, as well as a chronology of his complaints to Starbucks’ customer service department.
“It is clear from these documents that Mr. Bureau complained to Starbucks numerous times about stolen funds or missing credits between November 2022 and November 2023,” Shukla said.
The tribunal said the evidence showed that Starbucks issued Bureau credits to new gifts cards after his complaints as follows:
• a $362 credit on Nov. 29, 2022;
• a $452.83 and $349.59 credits on April 18, 2023;
• a $349.59 credit on July 20, 2023; and,
• a $34 credit on Nov. 3, 2023.
Shukla also noted that from April 2022 to November 2023 Bureau had 57 Starbucks cards registered to his account.
“It is not entirely clear which cards he alleges were improperly depleted,” the tribunal member said.
Further, Shukla said, “Mr. Bureau has not shown that there was any wrongdoing on Starbucks’ part that would have led him to lose the credits, as he alleges.”
Shukla said Bureau had not shown Starbucks owed him a refund and dismissed the claim.
