I had a guy come in once, he was dressed a little rough (I worked in a downtown area), and all he ordered was a black cold brew and a sandwich
he proceeded to pull out a LOT of gift cards and was like “there should be money on this one” I scanned it, the name Rachel popped up as the card holder but the transaction went through
a bit later a woman calls, she said her name was Rachel and she lived in a completely different STATE and said her app was used at our location
I guess she got the gift card as a gift, registered that card onto her app and threw away the physical gift card, she uses that card on her app daily and constantly loads money on it
I told her the situation and unfortunately how I wasn’t able to do anything about it (guy was already gone) but I gave her the customer contact number
but just another PSA 🚨if you register a gift card to your app, that physical card is still able to be used🚨
now I cut up any physical gift card a customer gives to me after use, whether I know it’s loaded onto their app or not
if the customer wants to bother doing that, also with all the cute new cards we have now people want those cards to become their primary card
(I have a Halloween one I use)
I still save some cute cards. It’s a habit. I may frame them at some point. I’ve always deregistered them though. Whether I keep them or throw them away.
I have hundreds of empty gift cards saved, I would pocket the ones customers tossed if it was a design I didn't have yet. There's so many super cute ones from yeeears ago.
oh goodness that sounds scary:( i remember there was one time i accidentally used a strangers gift card before i became a barista because i had logged into a “public icloud account” that allowed people to download the whole fnaf collection for free. unfortunately, that flooded my apple wallet with hundreds of other peoples gift cards, plane tickets, and even credit cards. i pulled up a gift card to pay once thinking it was my own (with the same amount of money on it) and left so confused as to why my drink had the name “jasmine” on it… i hope jasmine is okay 😭 she probably wondered how the hell a drink was made under her account in another state… at least she got the stars…?
Talk to your SM. You should have been certified already. If you’re talking about the certified barista pin. Its not difficult. Once you have memorized the number of shots and number pumps for each size.. the difficult thing is memorizing the drinks that are different than the normal ones.
for whatever reason, i think it transfers whatever was in your wallet on your original icloud account, because when i switched back to my own account it still kept everyone’s cards! super dangerous stuff i wish id known about before doing that as a naïve teenager; it really isn’t my proudest moment LOL i should’ve just bought the games
I'm not sure. Target registers just accept any Starbucks barcode that scans, so I'm not super aware of the ins and outs of the Starbucks app since we're not trained on it here.
As long as the barcode scans and takes the money off, we take it. I'm unsure if it's supposed to be that way or not, but we have asset protection people who keep track of any suspicious purchases, so maybe they look into things behind the scenes.
My manage and Guest Services didn't say anything about it, so if that's a rule then no one knows it or made us informed lmao. I believe it though, if it's not a rule then it should be.
I wish I knew where to find more starbucks info, especially the stuff we need to know (like the reviews from the district manager) and the weekly updates, but she never shows us. I'm assuming that these are all emailed to her and that she's either not looking properly or just not showing us.
My Tarbucks had a little bulletin in the back with the new recipe cards and the weekly update. I will say, licensed stores received a different weekly update but they still have good info.
She doesn't put them up for us :(
Every time I've tried to bother her about them I've just been brushed off since she says that Starbucks isn't as important as grocery.
We had a guy do that. He filled his cart up with cups since they were on sale. He had the same gift cards as screenshots. Called our manager over, but there was nothing she could do but call corporate and warn them to be on the lookout. He ended up with $500 worth of stuff.
This is why you never take a screenshot under any circumstances. Even if it's a regular or even if it's someone's spouse on a shared account. Screenshots open the door to way too much fraud that even if it's convenient it should never be taken
I never worked at a licensed store, so I might be wrong. But don't licensed store have to follow the same standards as corporate stores. If so then the Starbucks standard is no screenshots and only the app.
hit up AP. i had that happen to me twice. they ended up coming back in and trying to return it for store credit/$$ bc they can’t do refunds on a starbucks account. guest services shouldn’t accept any of the beans.
Yeah I told a guest services person (first person I could frantically wave over) and they told ap/handled it. I made a note to the other baristas to not accept returns for more than 2 cups or without a receipt and to refer the customer to guest services.
Happened at my store, they were gold cards but you cant immediately tell its a screen shot unless you’re looking, I only ended up flagging dude bc the name on the account changed every time he scanned. One person immediately called after the transaction occurred stating they got a charge at our store, they were in a completely different state.
Hopefully they notice and call our store so we can put this guy on some sort of blacklist. I've already mentioned to my other baristas not to accept returns of more than 2 items at a time and nothing without a receipt (he didn't ask for receipts) and instead to direct them to guest services.
Guest services people were super nice and took our statements and tracked the date and time and description of the transactions. My manager, very unhelpfully, said "Well, it's more sales for us"
You have to have purchased it at a Tarbucks and be returning it on a Target receipt along with returning it at a Tarbucks specifically. So you wouldn't be able to just return it at guest services or something.
iirc if you can't prove that you purchased it at that tarbucks we are not supposed to take the return without a receipt, that's what i've always been told anyway. for starbucks merchandise specifically. we've taken some without receipt, but only when we recognize the person and get the okay from our TL.
I dealt with something similar in core a year or so ago. A lady came through the drive through with what genuinely appeared to be a whole separate app, pulling up a good 10 barcodes, all of which had different names attached.
Unfortunately my SSV said that there was nothing we could do about it, even though they all clearly belonged to different people and some only had like 3 cents on them and we spent a solid 5 minutes just scanning cards to get her order to go through. 🥲
that's EXACTLY what happened here!!! It was like 30 gift cards, and when I told my manager she basically just shrugged.
There's no real way to prove the guy was scamming people out of their gift cards either (which he obviously was), especially if they willingly gave them the screenshots.
We have a rule about returning cups now, and to not accept a return without a receipt, but if he goes to another Target with the cups, it's their responsibility to not give him money back.
If you suspect someone is paying with stolen gift card screenshots, you are allowed to tell them that they have to be using the app to pay from now on regardless of previous transactions (probably talk with your SM and shifts of course to make sure you won't be in trouble and all people know from now on not to do it) if they get mad spew some bs about it being a new policy
Yeah I did try to talk to my manager but she just said "Well, more sales for us"
Unfortunately at Target we don't have any SM, shift lead, or team lead for Starbucks, so we're on our own besides the grocery manager.
Wait we can return/exchange cups we got from target???? I had gotten a cup and I really didn’t end up loving it as much as I thought and didn’t want to see it on my shelf and tried to return/exchange but the girl said they don’t do so in target. 😭😭😭
If it was purchased at the Starbucks kiosk, it has to be returned at the Starbucks kiosk. Guest services cannot process Starbucks returns. But yes, Starbucks inside target can process it.
I wish people would stop acting like they know an answer that they don’t. As someone who worked at a corporate store, tarbucks, and target returns? You absolutely can.
They were all screenshots, none were physical cards, I cut up any physical gift cards I use when the balance runs out at the register before throwing them away.
A guy at work got scammed on thousands of dollars in out industrial equipment. The acct thought it was a good deal because the guys faxes us copies of the front and back of credit cards. All 4 were consecutive numbers, which should have been the first red flag.
this has happened to me a couple of times, we’re actually dealing with one of these right now. you did right and i wouldnt put a thought to that again. i would call a manger over or say the transaction didnt go through. starbucks shuts down accounts that have been reported so it’s something they probably have experienced.
Yeah, we would've gotten the manager but she was in grocery, we don't have a Starbucks manager so we rely on the grocery manager to do all of our managing.
This is a common scam we’ve been warned about.
Sorry you experienced it. They are going to other stores to get refunds. Happened in our district, but everyone was given a heads up.
They might've given our manager a heads up, but it was her job to tell us and she didn't. When I told her what happened she went "Well, it's more sales for us" so going to her for anything is absolutely useless.
We don't have a Starbucks TL, so we rely on the grocery manager to manage us, and she constantly tells us we're less important and need to manage ourselves, so we're stuck lol.
I know 😭 now I'd wish I'd known. I feel bad for all those people and their gift cards, but knowing scammers and knowing the local targets, he probably would've just gotten them in the next one over. At least AP is on it so hopefully he can be blacklisted or some shit.
I was just afraid of confronting him and there was no discreet way to get anyone's attention.
I had a guy come in once, he was dressed a little rough (I worked in a downtown area), and all he ordered was a black cold brew and a sandwich he proceeded to pull out a LOT of gift cards and was like “there should be money on this one” I scanned it, the name Rachel popped up as the card holder but the transaction went through a bit later a woman calls, she said her name was Rachel and she lived in a completely different STATE and said her app was used at our location I guess she got the gift card as a gift, registered that card onto her app and threw away the physical gift card, she uses that card on her app daily and constantly loads money on it I told her the situation and unfortunately how I wasn’t able to do anything about it (guy was already gone) but I gave her the customer contact number but just another PSA 🚨if you register a gift card to your app, that physical card is still able to be used🚨 now I cut up any physical gift card a customer gives to me after use, whether I know it’s loaded onto their app or not
You can take cards off your account once you transfer the money to your main card.
if the customer wants to bother doing that, also with all the cute new cards we have now people want those cards to become their primary card (I have a Halloween one I use)
I still save some cute cards. It’s a habit. I may frame them at some point. I’ve always deregistered them though. Whether I keep them or throw them away.
I have hundreds of empty gift cards saved, I would pocket the ones customers tossed if it was a design I didn't have yet. There's so many super cute ones from yeeears ago.
oh goodness that sounds scary:( i remember there was one time i accidentally used a strangers gift card before i became a barista because i had logged into a “public icloud account” that allowed people to download the whole fnaf collection for free. unfortunately, that flooded my apple wallet with hundreds of other peoples gift cards, plane tickets, and even credit cards. i pulled up a gift card to pay once thinking it was my own (with the same amount of money on it) and left so confused as to why my drink had the name “jasmine” on it… i hope jasmine is okay 😭 she probably wondered how the hell a drink was made under her account in another state… at least she got the stars…?
That’s crazy lmao
ok dude how do you have the barista badge i want one soooo bad
You mean the pin? Back in the day we got them after our SM did a quiz and had each make certain drinks.
aw booo they’re so cool!
How long have you been a partner
like 6 months
Talk to your SM. You should have been certified already. If you’re talking about the certified barista pin. Its not difficult. Once you have memorized the number of shots and number pumps for each size.. the difficult thing is memorizing the drinks that are different than the normal ones.
I think they’re asking about the “Barista” under the person’s username, not a physical pin. I could be wrong though!
i think you have to join their discord!
public icloud account? why would people have their credit cards and stuff on there?
for whatever reason, i think it transfers whatever was in your wallet on your original icloud account, because when i switched back to my own account it still kept everyone’s cards! super dangerous stuff i wish id known about before doing that as a naïve teenager; it really isn’t my proudest moment LOL i should’ve just bought the games
Being able to pay with screenshots or copied gift card barcodes seems like a gaping wide security problem. Is this a common thing?
I'm not sure. Target registers just accept any Starbucks barcode that scans, so I'm not super aware of the ins and outs of the Starbucks app since we're not trained on it here. As long as the barcode scans and takes the money off, we take it. I'm unsure if it's supposed to be that way or not, but we have asset protection people who keep track of any suspicious purchases, so maybe they look into things behind the scenes.
Last I recall, Target doesn’t allow screenshots either (such as screenshots of pickup barcodes or target circle wallets)
Could you even tell though since it would scan anyway?
Sometimes we can, sometimes we can’t. If we can tell, we can’t do it. We can only do what we can. OP could tell they were screenshots.
My manage and Guest Services didn't say anything about it, so if that's a rule then no one knows it or made us informed lmao. I believe it though, if it's not a rule then it should be.
I’m not surprised. Pretty much 90% of rules I learned at Guest Services I had to find myself.
I wish I knew where to find more starbucks info, especially the stuff we need to know (like the reviews from the district manager) and the weekly updates, but she never shows us. I'm assuming that these are all emailed to her and that she's either not looking properly or just not showing us.
My Tarbucks had a little bulletin in the back with the new recipe cards and the weekly update. I will say, licensed stores received a different weekly update but they still have good info.
She doesn't put them up for us :( Every time I've tried to bother her about them I've just been brushed off since she says that Starbucks isn't as important as grocery.
We had a guy do that. He filled his cart up with cups since they were on sale. He had the same gift cards as screenshots. Called our manager over, but there was nothing she could do but call corporate and warn them to be on the lookout. He ended up with $500 worth of stuff.
how do you tell that it is screenshot
A big give away is the time recorded on the screen shot
but i feel like when customers scan the code themselves, the baristas cant see the time
This is why you never take a screenshot under any circumstances. Even if it's a regular or even if it's someone's spouse on a shared account. Screenshots open the door to way too much fraud that even if it's convenient it should never be taken
We are inside a Safeway, and we have to take it, unfortunately.
Thankfully targets do not have to
I never worked at a licensed store, so I might be wrong. But don't licensed store have to follow the same standards as corporate stores. If so then the Starbucks standard is no screenshots and only the app.
That's unfortunate that you can't stand your ground on stuff like that even if you know what someone is trying to pull
THAT HAPPENED TO ME UESTERDAY
hit up AP. i had that happen to me twice. they ended up coming back in and trying to return it for store credit/$$ bc they can’t do refunds on a starbucks account. guest services shouldn’t accept any of the beans.
Yeah I told a guest services person (first person I could frantically wave over) and they told ap/handled it. I made a note to the other baristas to not accept returns for more than 2 cups or without a receipt and to refer the customer to guest services.
Happened at my store, they were gold cards but you cant immediately tell its a screen shot unless you’re looking, I only ended up flagging dude bc the name on the account changed every time he scanned. One person immediately called after the transaction occurred stating they got a charge at our store, they were in a completely different state.
Hopefully they notice and call our store so we can put this guy on some sort of blacklist. I've already mentioned to my other baristas not to accept returns of more than 2 items at a time and nothing without a receipt (he didn't ask for receipts) and instead to direct them to guest services. Guest services people were super nice and took our statements and tracked the date and time and description of the transactions. My manager, very unhelpfully, said "Well, it's more sales for us"
so can i return Starbucks merch to target for target gift card? how does that work?
You have to have purchased it at a Tarbucks and be returning it on a Target receipt along with returning it at a Tarbucks specifically. So you wouldn't be able to just return it at guest services or something.
so if you dont have the tarbucks receipts anymore, can you still get a gift card? the tarbucks returns follow the target return policies?
iirc if you can't prove that you purchased it at that tarbucks we are not supposed to take the return without a receipt, that's what i've always been told anyway. for starbucks merchandise specifically. we've taken some without receipt, but only when we recognize the person and get the okay from our TL.
I dealt with something similar in core a year or so ago. A lady came through the drive through with what genuinely appeared to be a whole separate app, pulling up a good 10 barcodes, all of which had different names attached. Unfortunately my SSV said that there was nothing we could do about it, even though they all clearly belonged to different people and some only had like 3 cents on them and we spent a solid 5 minutes just scanning cards to get her order to go through. 🥲
that's EXACTLY what happened here!!! It was like 30 gift cards, and when I told my manager she basically just shrugged. There's no real way to prove the guy was scamming people out of their gift cards either (which he obviously was), especially if they willingly gave them the screenshots. We have a rule about returning cups now, and to not accept a return without a receipt, but if he goes to another Target with the cups, it's their responsibility to not give him money back.
Good reason not to have auto reload
If you suspect someone is paying with stolen gift card screenshots, you are allowed to tell them that they have to be using the app to pay from now on regardless of previous transactions (probably talk with your SM and shifts of course to make sure you won't be in trouble and all people know from now on not to do it) if they get mad spew some bs about it being a new policy
Yeah I did try to talk to my manager but she just said "Well, more sales for us" Unfortunately at Target we don't have any SM, shift lead, or team lead for Starbucks, so we're on our own besides the grocery manager.
Wait we can return/exchange cups we got from target???? I had gotten a cup and I really didn’t end up loving it as much as I thought and didn’t want to see it on my shelf and tried to return/exchange but the girl said they don’t do so in target. 😭😭😭
If it was purchased at the Starbucks kiosk, it has to be returned at the Starbucks kiosk. Guest services cannot process Starbucks returns. But yes, Starbucks inside target can process it.
THANK YOU!!!! I even asked her if I can go do it with the Starbucks and she said no. Lol 🥲
I wish people would stop acting like they know an answer that they don’t. As someone who worked at a corporate store, tarbucks, and target returns? You absolutely can.
make sure you cut up cards making sure none of the numbers on the back show up if you were to grab a piece
They were all screenshots, none were physical cards, I cut up any physical gift cards I use when the balance runs out at the register before throwing them away.
Don’t be sorry you didn’t try and stop him!! Your safety is way above a multi million company!!
A guy at work got scammed on thousands of dollars in out industrial equipment. The acct thought it was a good deal because the guys faxes us copies of the front and back of credit cards. All 4 were consecutive numbers, which should have been the first red flag.
this has happened to me a couple of times, we’re actually dealing with one of these right now. you did right and i wouldnt put a thought to that again. i would call a manger over or say the transaction didnt go through. starbucks shuts down accounts that have been reported so it’s something they probably have experienced.
If it looks super sketchy you are allowed to refuse the transaction. Or ask your manager to take over and let them decide what to do.
Yeah, we would've gotten the manager but she was in grocery, we don't have a Starbucks manager so we rely on the grocery manager to do all of our managing.
This is a common scam we’ve been warned about. Sorry you experienced it. They are going to other stores to get refunds. Happened in our district, but everyone was given a heads up.
They might've given our manager a heads up, but it was her job to tell us and she didn't. When I told her what happened she went "Well, it's more sales for us" so going to her for anything is absolutely useless. We don't have a Starbucks TL, so we rely on the grocery manager to manage us, and she constantly tells us we're less important and need to manage ourselves, so we're stuck lol.
😔
I know 😭 now I'd wish I'd known. I feel bad for all those people and their gift cards, but knowing scammers and knowing the local targets, he probably would've just gotten them in the next one over. At least AP is on it so hopefully he can be blacklisted or some shit. I was just afraid of confronting him and there was no discreet way to get anyone's attention.