Bad news if you’re mooching off of someone else’s Costco membership: The retail giant is cracking down.
When you enter Costco, you need to show your membership card to an employee to shop. Costco membership cards are non-transferable, but the company allows members to give a second household card to one other person in their home. Anyone with a card can bring up to two guests to the club during each visit, the company stipulates.
But Costco has noticed that non-members have been sneaking in with membership cards that don’t belong to them — particularly since Costco expanded self-checkout.
Costco recently started asking for shoppers’ membership cards along with a photo ID at the self-checkout registers, the same policy as regular checkout lanes, to crack down. “We don’t feel it’s right that non-members receive the same benefits and pricing as our members,” Costco said in announcing the change.
And now, Costco is testing out a system that requires members to scan their membership cards at the store entrance — instead of just flashing the card to employees. Shoppers have spotted the new scanners at a store in Washington State and posted photos on Reddit.
One of the last times I was in, I was asked for my photo ID and Costco membership card no less than 5 times by employees. I literally got asked while I was in an isle looking at items. I’ve never had this happen before and made me honestly a bit irritated having to constantly pull my ID out of my wallet. This policy needs to chill.
Aisle*
The Costco isles are more exclusive.
Aisle be back!
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Damn I so gotta use my friends account on instacart? But I like holding the product and seeing what I’m buying.
I share my Sam’s Club with my gf and her family. They share their Costco with us and just walk by or shop online.
Instacart lets anyone order from Costco and Sam’s without a membership… You just have to pay overinflated Instacart prices and be cool with the fact that you’re exploiting someone’s labor.
Yea but you can also connect the membership to your instacart account.
Just tell them to fuck off.
You can’t. They are a private, membership-only business. If you tell them to fuck off, they can escort you out and disable your membership.
You CAN still say it, just with consequences.
Fair enough. OP did not say “tell them to fuck off and keep shopping”. 🤣
Or tell them to talk to one of the employees that already checked your card. That’s excessive and can’t be good for business.
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Yeah exactly, people are so afraid of confrontation these days, you can tell people to fuck off and they generally will.
And then they can tell you to fuck off, because it’s their store.
I’m sure they would try but if you’ve already shown the damn member card they can eat shit.
It’s literally their property, it doesn’t matter if you have a membership card, they can kick you off their property for any reason or no reason.
You don’t have an inherent right to shop at Costco.