Starbucks Suspends Prepaid Card Sales Amid Concerns Over Card Cash-Out Schemes

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\r\n[Financial News] Starbucks Coffee Korea Co., Ltd. said it will temporarily suspend sales of prepaid cards as concerns spread that its limited-time "unconditional refund" policy, introduced after a marketing controversy, could be abused for so-called "card cash-out" schemes.
Starbucks said on the 29th that it will temporarily stop selling anonymous physical Starbucks cards until the 14th of next month.
During this period, sales of e-card vouchers available through online platforms will also be restricted. Sales of the 100,000-won vouchers will be suspended across all platforms, while the 10,000-won to 70,000-won vouchers will be handled differently depending on the platform.
Starting today, sales of Starbucks e-card vouchers worth 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 50,000 and 70,000 won will be suspended on Giftishow Biz, operated by KT alpha.
Sales of 100,000-won vouchers were also halted across 11st, Auction and GS&Coupon.
Starbucks explained that the measure is intended to prevent cases in which physical cards and e-cards are misused for cash-out purposes.
Earlier, as consumer demands grew for refunds of balances on rechargeable prepaid cards, Starbucks announced that it would temporarily offer full refunds at customers' request for two weeks from the 1st to the 14th of next month, regardless of how much of the loaded amount had been used.
Under the existing terms of use, customers had to spend more than 60% of the final loaded balance to receive a refund of the remaining amount, but the company decided to apply an exception.
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ssuccu@fnnews.com Kim Seo-yeon Reporter