Starbucks on Friday pulled the plug on the almost month-old social experiment where a mobile developer released an image of his iOS app Starbucks card and was inviting anyone to save it to their phone and use it to purchase drinks.

Mashable that Adam Brotman, vice president of digital ventures at Starbucks, called Stark on Friday to let him know his card would be deactivated. Brotman was apparently a fan of Stark's concept but in the end decided it had to be sidelined because sharing gift cards violates Starbucks' terms of service.

"I'm sad about it, first and foremost, because we were legitimately cheering on this experiment," Brotman told Mashable.

On Friday Sam Odio posted a claiming that he and others have made a script that would alert them to when Jonathan's card reached a certain balance and would then transfer donated money onto their own Starbuck's card.

"Since I don't find the idea of yuppies buying yuppies coffees very interesting, I decided to mix things up a bit," Odio wrote. "Through this strategy I've personally netted $625 by spending less than 5 hours at Starbucks. That's enough for an iPad."