Lifestyle TikToker Bethany (@pnw.bethany) is heartbroken after discovering that someone had emptied her $50 “Wicked” Starbucks gift card. She claims that the card, which is gold and metal, “hasn’t left [her] side.”
Bethany says she never registered or used the card at first. Yet, the day after purchasing, she decided to add the card to the Starbucks app. However, she was shocked when the card showed a balance of $1.36.
What did Starbucks do?
Bethany said she called Starbucks where an employee told her that while they noticed a purchase of 48 items, they couldn’t tell her when the purchase was made. While they offered to put the balance back on the card, Bethany said she was uncomfortable with this because the card had already been “compromised.”
She continued, “So then [Starbucks] said, ‘Well, I’ll just go ahead and I’ll put it on a different card, and we’ll close your Wicked card.’ And I was like, ‘OK, well, can I get another Wicked card?’ Because this thing is, like, limited edition, I specifically went out for it.
However, according to her, the worker claimed she would not be receiving another “Wicked” card. The “Wicked” card is a limited edition collaboration between the beverage company and Universal Pictures to “celebrate the upcoming holiday release of the new cinematic event, Wicked,” according to the Starbucks website.
@pnw.bethany I could cry 😭 @Starbucks Can you help a girl out?! #wicked #starbuckswickedgoldcard #starbuckswicked #wickedthemusical #starbucks ♬ original sound – Wicked Movie
“So, after a lot of back and forth, they gave me my $50 back, but this is useless,” she added. “Now, literally, [the card] is just a keychain. Can’t use it.” She speculated that the person who used her card could’ve been an employee because it was sealed with double-sided tape.
She ended the video with an appeal to Starbucks: “Maybe mine was just a one-off, I don’t know, but Starbucks, if you are watching, can you send me another ‘Wicked’ gift card? Because this is limited edition, and now I don’t have one. It’s literally just metal, and I’m sad.”
Bethany’s video amassed 76,500 as of Sunday. She didn’t immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment via TikTok comment and email.
What did commenters say?
In the comments, users shared their own theories of what happened. A retail worker wrote that, in their experience, “this happens quite a lot with gift cards. Sometimes they accidentally print the same codes twice on different cards. So this is probably what’s happened.”
Another speculated, “I heard it’s bcs a hacker on computers is running gift card numbers constantly that it’s a problem n nobody is doing anything about it (sic).”
Meanwhile, a third claimed that “people take the gc numbers and wait for someone to put $ on it and then they drain it immediately. This happens with lots of GC’s sold at grocery stores, too (sic).”
Other commenters were confused as to why she needed another Wicked gift card, with one pointing out that “after you used it, it would be the same as now. Keep it as a souvenir.”
A similar situation played out for TikToker Miquela (@kella_k). In her video, she issued a PSA for users tempted to connect their credit or debit cards to their Starbucks app accounts. This is because she discovered that someone had accessed her account and made several Starbucks orders using her card.
To add insult to injury, Miquela also discovered that this user had redeemed all her stars in the app.
The Daily Dot reached out to Starbucks via email.
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