Receiving a perk on your birthday from your favorite retailer is a nice bonus, but one man took it too far. A man in the running for the worst customer ever figured out a way to get a free drink every day of the year, according to Starbucks barista Brad Halsey.
Every day Brad deals with the world's most infuriating customer — a man who has found a loophole to Starbucks into giving him free birthday coffee every day for a year.
“If he was a nice guy, I might not be so irritated,” Halsey wrote. “But he’s not a nice guy.”
In a confessional post on Kitchenette, Halsey recounts how this evil genius allegedly purchased 365 Starbucks gift cards and "registered every one of them online with a different birthday so that he gets a ‘free birthday drink' EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR."
Not only is this regular's method plain old fraud, but he also demands a pen so he can personally transcribe the intricacies of his vanilla white mocha in "lines and arrows" all over the cup.
In the email, Halsey detailed an average encounter with the customer, who he described as having a “pompous and creepy” voice.
The whole exchange is supposedly topped off with an exact explanation of how to ring up his order, presumably so he's not charged the full value of his drink.
The man then explains that his Starbucks app is "malfunctioning," so, "I'm going to use my free birthday reward to pay."
A Starbucks spokesperson tells Eater that the customer's method is technically not allowed: "We are aware of this customer’s misuse of the Starbucks Card program. We are investigating this matter as our card program terms prohibit such schemes."
Starbucks has policies in place to combat scammers trying to work the system for free drinks, but sometimes a clever customer skates through.
Halsey ended every transaction with wishing the worst customer ever to have a great day and a happy birthday.
