I ordered my drink and looked in my wallet for a cash tip. I had one $10 bill and one $1 bill. I accidentally grabbed both and put them in the tip box. I immediately said “Oops! My bad!” and took the $10 out.
Another customer in line saw this and accused me of stealing $10 out of the tip jar. I didn’t hear him and walked off to look at clothes with my daughter (the Starbucks is inside a Macys).
Suddenly I had 3-4 customers yelling at me, accusing me taking the money. An employee came out from behind the counter and confronted me about stealing it. I said no, it was a mistake. I put two bills in by accident. She said okay and walked away.
Every single customer was now staring at me as I stood there waiting for my drink to be made. One woman was staring and staring and wouldn’t stop. I finally said “Why are you staring at me? Do you honestly think I would steal out of a tip jar?” she gave me a nasty attitude and the other customers started cursing at me. Then the baristas all started talking trash to me.
I started crying, saying I didn’t take it out.
I finally put the $10 back in the tip jar and yelled “THERE. IS EVERYONE HAPPY NOW?” and left.
Awhile later, I went back home with my daughter and told my husband about what happened. I filled him in on the whole situation. He was furious and wanted to stick up for me, so he went back to the Starbucks. He asked the manager to check the security cam.
The footage shows me accidentally putting the $10 bill in along with the $1 I was originally going to donate.
Seeing that he was wrong, the manager apologized and got his team to apologize to me, too. They even gave us a fully paid gift card, claimable at any Starbucks. We won’t be going back to this one, and none of it makes up for the humiliation they put me through, but it’s at least something, I guess.
I love my husband for standing up for me and for doing right by me.
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