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.
Their entire model is based on assuming everyone is probably a thief, and I’ve just had it. That receipt checking of everyone as they leave is bad enough, and my last (literally last, i decided not to go back, wasn’t going to renew and just now realized it would have expired in December) trip there, the woman held everyone up by meticulously counting and comparing every single item in everyone’s cart. took 15 minutes to leave with goods i had paid for, finally just said fuck it and left while they screamed at me like fucking morons. “Touch me and see what happens”. Aside from that, I don’t want my movements documented and recorded by a card reader, for example, this whole incident, no I don’t want people actively trying to fuck with me know who I was.
Damn. You’ve got issues. Your mind is warped.
No, it’s just remnants of when people had pride and manners.