Starbucks Credit Card Issue

** Credit Card Update**

On December 5 - 6, 2023, you may have received charges Starbucks (WPI) on your credit/debit card that you do not recognize. As soon as we became aware of this issue, we reached out to our credit card vendor to determine the cause.  The cause of the issue was a security update that occurred over the summer that would not allow all transactions to be transmitted to your financial institution. These charges coming through are not fraudulent and are related to prior purchases you made at our specific Starbucks store during the first semester. If you feel that the charges are not correct, we encourage you to notify your financial institution and to dispute the charge. We are currently working with Starbucks and their credit card vendor for resolution and will continue to provide information as we receive it.

We appreciate your patronage and apologize very sincerely for the inconvenience. 

** Police Report **

What Happened:

• A security update was made to the Starbucks processing system over the summer of 2023. Chartwells was not made aware of the update; therefore, the router/register settings allowing transactions to transmit were not updated.
• Transactions were transmitted intermittently during the first semester up until approximately October 25th . At this point, some of the updates needed on the register itself were updated by Phoung Nyguen and Starbucks IT.   This would allow transactions to go through, but we were receiving “Decline” messages in the batch report.
• Further investigation found that not only the register needed to be updated, but the Compass Managed router needed updates as well. 
• When this information was received, we were able to obtain the document outlining the exact settings for the router.
• The router settings were adjusted on December 5, 2023, at approximately 11am
• We started having customers arrive at approximately 2 pm on December 5th telling us they did not recognize the charge. We were not aware that there were transactions being held in “memory.”
• The back charges had started posting; however, they were posting with the date of 12/05 even though the transaction may have occurred on a prior date.

What we have done:

• On December 6, 2023, we were able determine the charges were not fraudulent.
• We stopped use of the Starbucks credit system and used another wireless reader not connected to the system. 
• We posted the above communication at Starbucks.
• Staff were trained in how to respond if questioned.
• We are working to see if we can identify transactions and provide the actual receipt.
• We are working to determine how far chargebacks can be made.
• We are working with WPI to post additional communications resolution.

Additional Information:

• Being sure Starbucks has multiple people to contact when changes are made.
• Our admin team has been trained to only use a batch report to report sales. This would have identified the problem sooner.
• Recommendation would be to have someone onsite that is familiar with the router and can adjust settings.