TULSA, Okla. — A Tulsa couple who was accidentally charged more than $4,000 for just two coffees at a south Tulsa Starbucks said they have gotten their money back.
The couple said they’re rescheduling a vacation they had to cancel because of the overcharge.
They also said they haven’t been given any extra compensation or even an apology from Starbucks.
Jesse and Deedee O’Dell said they’re really happy they’ve got their money back after a trip to Starbucks cost them big bucks, $4,444.44 more than usual.
“We’re extremely happy and ecstatic, I don’t appreciate Starbucks holding onto my money for a month but I’m glad to finally get it back,” said Jesse.
“At this point we’re just kind of sitting and we’re like, ‘Wow that’s a lot of stress that was unnecessary,’” said Deedee.
The money was the tip taken from them back in January, at the Starbucks near 91st and Yale, when they bought a Venti Iced Americano and a Venti Caramel Frappuccino with an espresso shot.
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To put that into context, that tip for two drinks would have bought them around 1,611 cups of coffee.
Jesse said he paid with a credit card, selected ‘no tip,’ and didn’t get a receipt.
When they found out about the charge two days later, he said he was told it was a network error issue.
Starbucks told FOX23 in a statement that it was down to “human error.”
“What we were told from the area director was they had reviewed the camera and they had found that it was a network issue or a sticky button but there was no fault to us,” Jesse said.
The couple said the first two checks sent to them bounced.
Deedee is an orphan originally from Thailand and hasn’t seen her sisters in 18 years. The family, including their four daughters, who are between 2 months and 13 years old, had a to cancel a trip there.
They said Starbucks hasn’t given them any compensation and they don’t expect to get any.
“No gift card, no sorry, no nothing, it’s just, ‘You got your check bye,’” Deedee said.
“I’m not looking for any like public apology I wouldn’t expect it if I had to wait a month to get my own money back so in something like that I think Starbucks just needs to have a little bit of respite and look back at how they want to deal with customers in the future,” Jesse said.
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The couple said they’re trying to re-arrange their trip for April.
“Finally we can put all that behind and just go and do what we wanted to do,” Deedee said.
“Thank god that we’re able to reschedule the trip, we just have to work a little bit harder to see how we can be financially set up as well as we were,” Jesse said.
The couple said they’re not heading back to Starbucks any time soon.
“I think for now we’re going to try to keep it in-house and try to do the French press, if I ever do go to Starbucks I’ll definitely get the receipt for sure,” Jesse said.
The couple said they hope everything they’ve gone through will be a warning to people to get a receipt and check it afterwards.
The couple are also thanking the Tulsa community for their support.
“Thank you for reaching out and asking us if we needed any help or prayer, all that means so much to us, just the fact that our local family and our community reaching out means a lot to us, Tulsa, it’s a small city but we all have a big heart out here,” Jesse said.
In a statement FOX23 got from Starbucks last week, a representative said they didn’t have a whole lot of details on why the charged occurred, or why the checks sent had bounced, but confirmed that Starbucks was aware of the situation which was attributed to human error. The representative stated that the company had been in communication with the O’Dells about the reimbursement and that the issue had already been resolved.
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