Starbucks glitch blamed for bank charges

SEATTLE — UPDATE TUESDAY 10:30AM:  Starbucks tells KIRO-7  the app  maintainence was unrelated to the issue Joe Friend experienced.  They add they are working to correct that issue directly with Friend and that it's a isolated.  No system-wide changes are anticipated.  Starbucks says they take customers security seriously and at no time was a customer's private or financial information compromised.

Within minutes after Starbucks smartphone app and website went down for hours Monday night, KIRO-7 was swamped with Facebook messages and emails asking us to find out what was happening.

Starbucks told KIRO-7 the network outage was due to system maintenance that had to be performed, and they apologized for customer inconvenience. Coffee customer Joe Friend told Starbucks he believes the corporation’s online system was hacked.

“When my password didn’t work, I checked my bank account for the balance,” he said. Friend noticed that during the outage, Starbucks debited his bank account $800, when the most he ever allowed on his Starbuck account was $25.

“My wife said you’d better call Starbucks to find out what we’re going to do,” Friend said.

Starbucks assured KIRO-7 that there was never a breach, although they had no immediate answer for Friend’s overcharges.

“They need to set the standard for security for people to feel comfortable,” Friend said.

Starbucks recently revealed it processes 6 million payments through its app every week.

KIRO