‘That was our rent money’: Woman confronts Starbucks barista who stole $212 from her credit card

A Starbucks barista stole a customer’s credit card information on New Year’s Day and spent over $200 at a local store. Confronted by the card’s owner on camera, the surprised girl admitted to the theft. The video was shared on YouTube and Facebook.

The confrontation was recorded by Brian Espinoza, who said that his sister went to Starbucks and then “a few days later a couple hundred dollar transaction was taken out of her account.”

“She went to the store where they used the card info and had her on camera,” he said in the description.

The video starts with the angered woman, identified as Juana Martinez, 25, pulling into a Starbucks drive-thru. “We're gonna get even, that's what we're gonna do,” she responds when asked what she was going to tell the cashier.

Martinez, a wife of a military man and a mother of three, suspected an unidentified 19-year-old teenager of stealing her credit card data soon after receiving a notice of a $212 transaction at a local grocery store.

“So we got you on camera yesterday at Ralph's for $212, so just know that the cops are coming up here,” Martinez tells the totally shocked cashier. The Starbucks worker starts to apologize profusely.

“I am so sorry, ma’am,” the girl responds right away.

“I'm sorry that I took money from you and your kids. I'm sorry that you had to come up here. I'm sorry that this is inconvenient for you,” she continues later in the video.

The incident originally began when the barista took Martinez’s credit card with her when claiming that she needed to get more receipt paper for the cash register.

“I've worked in retail, you don't take someone's card for that long,” Martinez told the Daily Mail. “She came back and was really nervous.”

Further along in the video, the 19-year-old explains that she “didn’t take the copy [of the card]” but “took the numbers, actually.”

In the video, Martinez warned the girl that she was going to press charges against her. This is when the barista starts pleading with her not to file a report to the police.

“I am a good child. I swear I am really good. I really do go to school. I'm 19. I play soccer,” the girl says.

The cashier then offers to give her the money back, but Martinez cuts her off, saying: “You went through the $212. You come to Starbucks to get coffee, not to get robbed.”

Martinez has told the Mail that because of the theft, she and her husband, stationed in Lakewood, were unable to pay the rent. The woman explained that they have three children, aged two, five and six, and work hard to provide them.

“That was our rent money,” she said. “My husband is in the military and I go to school. We both work our butts off to bring home money, I guess that's why it hit me harder.”

A spokesman for Starbucks confirmed to the newspaper that the cashier “no longer works for Starbucks.”

“We were extremely troubled to learn of this incident and are working directly with the customer to address this situation,” the spokesman added.

Martinez has posted on Facebook that she believes, “I did what I had to do to get the point across to this girl.”

“I'm sure she has done this to many people with out getting caught until now,” she wrote.