Dear Starbucks at Cutty Sark,

On Saturday March 20th I came to your coffee shop in the morning and forgot my black and gray Coach purse under a chair by my table. When I came back an hour later and asked the manager of the store if anything had been turned in he told me nothing had been turned in. It was very busy in the store at the time and I think he just didn't have time to look. After searching every place I went that morning again, I still felt certain I left the purse at your store. I came back a second time to ask about it. The manager still said nothing had been handed in. I described the item I lost in detail and asked him to please check in the back which he had not done before. He looked and still said nothing had been turned in. I went to the police to report my purse was stolen from your cafe and identified all the contents inside. Besides going to the police I also had to spend the rest of the day on the phone cancelling all my cards. After I cancelled the cards I couldn't take out money from the bank for days. This really spoiled my whole weekend and was extremely stressful.

When I came to the shop on the Saturday of the 27th of March to have my coffee I asked off-hand if my purse had been turned in. The cafe wasn't very busy this time. The gentleman behind the cash register went and looked in the back. He asked me my name and I told it to him. He came back with my purse. I asked him how long the purse had been there and he said about a week. I asked why no one had told me about it on Saturday. He said the manager probably didn't understand what I meant when I said purse, explaining that what I called a purse, would be a "handbag" in England. I said that this was fine, but I had described the item in detail, including the brand and had given my name, so the proprieter would have been able to see what I was talking about in any case. All he had to do was check the ID cards inside to see if it really belonged to me. Besides, he had said that "nothing at all had been turned in all day." The gentleman at the cash register said, "You should be happy you got it back at all" when he gave it to me. I said I was happy about it because the purse was a gift from my mother, but that I had had to cancel all my bank and credit cards, some of which are Canadian. The new cards had to be sent to me by registered mail from Canada which takes several weeks to arrive and is expensive. In the meantime I now had no credit cards and had had to borrow money from my friends until my British Lloyd's bank card arrived a few days later. I couldn't buy anything other than food for days. Also, I had to get a new gym membership card to replace the one I thought stolen and it cost 3.50 pounds.

When I looked in my wallet inside the returned purse I found that although my ID cards, bank cards and Canadian driver's license were all there, someone had taken the fifty pounds in British bank notes that were inside.

I have to say I am quite upset that this happened. I have always been a big fan of Starbucks. I have been coming to the Cutty Sark location several times a week ever since I moved into the area a few months ago and have always been pleased with the coffee and the service.

I am not sure exactly what happened. Maybe the manager was so busy with customers that he really didn't bother to listen to me when I explained what my purse looked like and just disregarded it when it didn't match what he thought of as a "purse." I don't know who took the money, but I really wish the whole matter could have been dealt with more proffessionally. All anyone had to do was check the ID inside to see if the item really belonged to me. If there were things in the back he shouldn't have told me that "nothing was turned in." A whole lot of stress and hassle could have been spared as a result.

Sincerely,

Adira Rotstein