"When you looked at it, what did you think?" asked Eyewitness News reporter Nina Pineda.
"I was shocked. I didn't understand why they would do that," said Vicki Reveron, a Starbucks customer.
On the side of Reveron's cup, a Starbucks employee wrote what she ordered, a caramel frappuccino.
But instead of scrawling her name on the side, she says he wrote the B-word.
"It says B****, my name is not b****, it's Vicki," Reveron said.
Vicki works nearby the franchise on 8th Avenue at 35th Street and her morning cup of Starbucks Joe is an indulgence she gets every day.
But on this day a few weeks ago, she says there was a mix-up in her order.
"We made light of the mistake the order taker had made so I mean no harm no foul, but unfortunately he took it another way," Reveron said.
She picked up her cup and not until she was back at her office did she notice what was written on it, B-I-T-C and what Vicki calls a scribbled H.
"I feel degraded actually. It's a degrading word here," Reveron said.
She marched back to Starbucks to complain.
The manager gave her vouchers for free coffee, but there was a catch.
"I said, 'Really, I do want my cup back.' They said 'OK, We're going to give it to you. But you can't associate the cup with the location,'" Reveron said.
Vicki says she got her cup back and her vouchers and when she turned around to walk out, a female employee allegedly said, "Some people will do anything to get a free cup of coffee."
"Yeah, and everyone started to laugh, and I felt humiliated at that point," Reveron said.
Nina Pineda went to Vicki's Starbucks and talked to a manager.
"Were you here that day when this happened?" Pineda asked.
"No, but I heard about it. It was a mistake," the manager said.
"A mistake? What do you mean? Like a joke?" Pineda asked.
"It's not. No it's no mistake at all," Reveron said.
Eyewitness News sent a picture of Vicki's cup to Starbucks Corporate Communications in Seattle.
A spokesperson looked at it but would not respond to our question if the company believed profanity was written saying only, "We have apologized numerous times for this unfortunate misunderstanding."
As for Vicki, she says she's switched to the competition.
"You don't want the free coffee do you?" Pineda asked.
"No I don't" Reveron said.
Story courtesy of WABC-TV New York
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