Have you ever ordered a drink and it comes back 90% ice and 10% soon-to-be-watered-down liquid you ordered? Of course you have, because nothing says “American Capitalism” like a business screwing you out of $0.35 worth of fountain drink. In the long run, drink providers save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year by charging you cocktail prices for a cup of ice, and the only thing you can do as a consumer is to drink warm drinks.
NO MORE. Hero Starbucks customer Stacy Pincus has filed a $5 million lawsuit against the corporate giant for putting too much ice in her iced coffee. Don’t laugh.
From CNN Money:“Starbucks is advertising the size of its Cold Drink cups on its menu, rather than the amount of fluid a customer will receive when they purchase a Cold Drink — and deceiving its customers in the process,” the suit says.A Venti cold drink, for example, is advertised as having 24 fluid ounces, but only includes 14 ounces of the actual liquid, the lawsuit claims. The rest is ice.
We had less on Capone.
Now, CNN Money, and I’m sure IDIOTS at your kitchen table, local news, and corporate flunkies everywhere will mangle the intent of this lawsuit and draw inapposite comparisons to the McDonald’s “Hot Coffee” lawsuit. Don’t get it twisted. This ice lawsuit has nothing to do with the temperature of the coffee. It has everything to do with the casual fraud we’ve all gotten too used to. What Starbucks and every other restaurant, bar, movie theater, or fast food franchise does when they over-ice their drinks is false advertising.
When you cut two wheels off a car, you call it a “motorcycle” and charge less. When you cut cocaine with baking soda, you call it “crack” and charge less. WHEN YOU CUT COFFEE WITH TEN FLUID OUNCES OF ICE, YOU CALL IT A RIP-OFF AND SUE.
And sure, you can politely ask the barristas to not put so much freaking ice in the thing, and they usually comply. But this isn’t about one individual effort to avoid being scammed. This is about an entire corporate policy, ACROSS AMERICA, to shortchange consumers on their drink purchases.
It’s not about ice, it’s about giving the American consumer what they pay for.
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