Starbucks picked one helluva time to start a consumer forum. Earlier this week, the big news was the launch of My Starbucks Idea, a virtual hangout for lovers and critics alike of the most expensive cup of coffee on earth. And today? Starbucks is ordered to pay back $105 million for years of raiding the baristas’ tip jar. Ouch.

Starbucks, for its part, intends to appeal the decision calling it “fundamentally unfair and beyond all common sense and reason.”

Naturally, the news is already being discussed on My Starbucks Idea. And surprise, surprise, there’s little sympathy for the coffee chain’s management.

As this poster writes:

Here’s a revolutionary idea for the people who sell $4 per cup coffee.
Use some of your outrageous profits to pay your management personnel a
fair wage and quit raiding the tip jar of your barristas. Shame on you.
I refuse to buy another cup of your coffee products until you change
your ways. I encourage all others to do the same.

and the comments keep coming, like this one:

Just to let you know that as a customer at starbucks or other place I give a tip to MY SERVER and no one else.

I WILL NOT TIP IF   TIPS GO TO OTHER THEN MY SERVER AS  IT  USED TO HAPPEN ON CERTAIN LIMOUSINE  SERVICES.

This is a difficult issue for Starbucks. They cannot say too much about an ongoing legal matter, but they can at least clarify their position. Why do they feel this is "fundamentally unfair", for example? Perhaps they are referring to the payout. At $105 million, that would mean each current and former barista is entitled to $1,050 worth of "lost" tips, money, it should be noted, that was shared between managers and baristas alike. As anyone who’s worked in the restaurant business knows, managers throughout their shift must roll up their sleeves and bus tables, take out the trash, work the till, just to keep chaos from descending on the restaurant. It’s possible the managers merited a few coins to pay for return bus fare or a pint of beer.

But without a peep from Starbucks, the theories will fly and the brand reputation will take a hit. And it will all happen on Starbucks’ new consumer forum.