Remember back in 2006, when Starbucks had to cancel coupons for free iced coffee after they were forwarded throughout the Western Hemisphere?

It seemed the company didn't have a firm grasp on the power of e-mail.

Now comes another possible glitch.

With the advent of its new frequent-buyer program, Starbucks will nix the 10 percent discount that Gold Card carriers have gotten, once their current year of membership ends. They don't dig that and appear to have found a way around it.

A reader e-mailed me to say that Gold Card carriers who lose their cards -- or break them, or whatever -- and get new ones are finding the expiration dates are reset to one year from their first use of the replacement card.

"Starbucks is not able to assign the expiration date from the original card to the new replacement card," this person wrote.

That means "if a customer has their card replaced between now and their expiration date, the replacement Gold Card will actually have a year membership from the date the customer first uses the new card."

Whatever you think of the potential lying and stealing, why can't Starbucks set the expiration dates properly?

Update at 1:45 p.m. on 11/20/09: A Starbucks spokesman just wrote to say they've fixed the problem.