Price fraud?! Starbucks and other three giants charged

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Recently, the National Post reported that an unnamed former Concordia student filed a class action lawsuit accusing Starbucks, Tims and Second Cup of "price fraud".

"for years, Starbucks, Tims and Second Cup have been using consumers either for medical reasons (such as lactose intolerance) or for other health, personal, social or environmental reasons to add non-dairy substitutes to their drinks," the class action statement said.

For example, students who file a class action lawsuit are vegetarians who need to choose non-dairy products instead of milk when buying lattes and other drinks. There are about 850000 vegetarians like him in Canada.

Lawyers argue that since December 30, 2021, the three coffee shop chains have made tens of millions of profits by charging customers C $0.5 to C $0.8 for non-dairy substitutes.

The lawsuit cites a study by the Agricultural Food Analysis Laboratory of Dalhaus University, which points out that soy, almond and coconut milk retail for C $0.21 / 100ml, while oat milk retails for C $0.23 / 100ml. By contrast, regular milk retails at C $0.23 / 100ml.

From this point of view, the cost of non-dairy alternatives is not higher than that of ordinary milk, so in the view of lawyers, chain brands charging consumers a surcharge for non-dairy alternatives is a "malicious fraud of consumers". It is believed that coffee shops should not charge extra fees for consumers who choose alternatives.

"however, ironically, charging fees for non-dairy substitutes became the defendant's cash cow," the lawyer said. Tims charged C $0.50 for non-dairy substitutes, generating a profit of C $550000 a day, totaling C $602.25 million in three years.

In response to the allegation, Tims said in a statement, "our policy has always been to charge for the addition of non-dairy drinks to plain coffee or deep-roasted coffee or tea, which is at odds with claims that may have occurred more than a billion times in the past three years. This statement is inaccurate and we think it shows that the lawsuit is unfounded."

Tims said it had decided not to charge extra fees for non-dairy substitutes for drinks other than plain coffee or deep-roasted coffee from January 2.

Prior to this, Starbucks announced on November 7, 2024 that it would abolish the $0.8 surcharge, saying that replacing milk with non-dairy products was the second most popular customer requirement. Starbucks Canada said in a statement that it was aware of the class action, but "cannot comment on the pending lawsuit." Second Cup, another coffee giant accused in the class action, has not yet issued a statement on the content of the class action.

It is worth mentioning that, according to reports, the purpose of the class action is to obtain an injunction requiring coffee chains to stop charging extra fees for non-dairy substitutes and to compensate Canadian consumers who have to pay surcharges. And impose punitive damages on brands.

Therefore, according to the application, Canadian users can participate in the class action against the coffee giant if they are charged a surcharge for non-dairy alternatives in the process of spending at the three coffee chains from December 30, 2021.

Picture from: Internet

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