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| A customer has won a case against Starbucks Korea for falsely promising to provide free daily coffee for a year to 100 competition winners. / Korea Times file |
By Eom Da-sol
A Seoul court on Wednesday ordered Starbucks Korea to give a woman the money to buy a coffee daily for a year after she sued the brand for a false announcement.
Starbucks last December launched a competition to encourage people to share photos of their drinks online. The company promised a free cup of coffee every day for a year to 100 randomly selected winners.
The unidentified plaintiff, one of the winners, claimed the company did not offer her 365 coffee coupons, only one. Starbucks told her the prize was "mistakenly written" and originally intended to promise just one tall coffee to winners.
The woman demanded Starbucks make a public apology about the mistake, but the U.S.-based global coffee giant refused. She sued the company, demanding compensation of 2.3 million won ($ 2,050), which is the cost of 364 cups of coffee, excluding the cup the company offered.
The Seoul Central District Court ordered Starbucks to compensate the woman with the money on the grounds the company had promised the winners the prize.
"Starbucks may be an international brand but that does not give it the right to excuse itself easily from the responsibility," the woman's lawyer Choi Su-jin said.
Choi won a case against U.S.-based ice-cream parlor chain Baskin Robbins in 2010 over a prize the company reneged on. Choi won a competition that promised flights and two nights in a hotel. But the brand changed the prize to "one-night travel only."
Choi sued and the company was ordered to compensate her with two nights' accommodation and the lawsuit costs.
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