Two weeks ago Starbucks circulated an email to some employees to encourage their friends and families to redeem a free grande iced coffee drink. Today, after being forwarded to emails and linked in blogs, Starbucks has canceled their offer even if it should have expired on September 30, 2008.

It was too good to be true and a lot of people were hesitant at first. Good for those who went and claimed their drink but for some who went, there have been stories that they weren't granted any free drink. With all the news going around about people getting free drinks even if they shouldn't be in the circulation, Starbucks got alarmed and canceled the whole promotion.

According to a spokesperson:

The release said the offer had been “redistributed beyond the original intent and modified beyond Starbucks control.

Elizabeth Hoogs of Seattle wasn’t too disappointed about the demise of the coupon, which she learned was invalid just moments after it appeared in her in-box on Wednesday morning.

"I don’t even like Starbucks, but I would’ve gone if I had a free coupon," she said.

A similar promotion happened in the Philippines too, with Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, as they had a promo which they gave out free tea latte and like Starbucks, they didn't have any control number on it. What people did was to circulate it in emails and blogs and before they knew it, people were going there to ask for their free drinks. They had to change their rules 2 days before the promotion ended. They changed it to "Buy one take one." The only thing weird was it wasn't consistent with the different branches since some still accepted the coupons.

Lesson here is to really have a control number to make sure that you somehow have control to the allotted drinks that you will be giving away.

Source: Starbucksgirls.wordpress.com