Starbucks pockets $215 million yearly from gift card balances customers never spend. About $3 billion gets loaded onto cards each holiday season, but most people abandon small leftover amounts, which the company keeps as pure profit.
Starbucks stole $215 million last year, and it came directly out of your pocket. Here's how they trick you. So between October and December of each year, you know, pumpkin spice latte to peppermint mocha era of the year, Starbucks customers load about $3 billion onto Starbucks gift cards, both for their own drinks and also as gifts for the holidays. Now that $3 billion would be enough money to rank Starbucks as one of the largest banks in the United States. But hang on, just look at yourself. I bet you've got a Starbucks gift card with a tiny bit of cash left on it floating around your junk drawer in your purse, and you're not loan. In fact, most people have a few bucks of wasted gift card money that's too small to spend on coffee. But for Starbucks, those leftover dollars and cents add up to hundreds of millions of dollars in profits each year. So in 2023, Starbucks claimed $215 million in unspent gift card revenue, literally betting on you, the consumer, losing that gift card or throwing it away. And it makes me wonder, how much
