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.
You really don’t, though. I was not complaining, I was sharing an opinion that you seem to have taken very personally. It’s not my job to police who shops at Costco, you seem to think it is yours. I can only imagine how exhausting it is being you, worried about what everyone else is doing and who’s breaking the rules.
I do not care if Costco stops people from using memberships that aren’t theirs except in the context of my experience shopping there. If the measures they take make my experience worse, then I will no longer take my business there.
There’s no point continuing on with you, it’s clear that you feel your perspective is the only one that’s valid. I don’t bang my head against a brick wall for the same reason I’m done engaging with you, it’s a fruitless endeavor only serves to give me a bad experience.