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.
While I agree that I wouldn’t move to Sam’s on ethical grounds I don’t like Costco’s approach on this.
We pay for our membership. Adding hassle or making it less convenient as paying members just pushes me towards cancelling and using someone else’s membership instead.
I’m in the minority for sure though because we only use Costco for a handful of things on a pretty regular cadence (sparkling water, pet food, paper products etc.). We probably just slightly save more than the membership cost in a year.
I fully support Costco protecting their business model but at the end of the day it’s a subscription service and adding barriers to access will push us away.
This is an odd take to me. You acknowledge that you pay for the membership and yet you’re against them enforcing the very benefits that you, as a member, are paying for and then your “solution” to that is to cancel your membership and do the same thing that they’re attempting to curb *specifically for their members *.
This is, to me, akin to someone paying for a gym membership and then cancelling said membership when the gym enforces not letting people in who haven’t paid to use the facilities. Aren’t you paying specifically for the gym staff to enforce who is allowed to come in and use the facilities?
I’m not against them enforcing it, just that their enforcement makes my experience worse. I’m not negatively impacted by this problem they’re trying to fix until their fixes make my experience worse.
I also think it’s naive to believe there’s no financial motivation and they’re only doing it because it’s unfair to their paying members.
Your gym analogy is also a false equivalence. The Costco membership gets you their product guarantee/return policy and the opportunity to purchase things at a cheaper price than elsewhere. Joe Schmo letting his neighbor use his membership doesn’t hurt me in any way, it only hurts Costco.
What I’m saying is actually similar to what has happened, and is happening, in media regarding DRM and various attempts to secure content.
You’re only saying that because they’re insulating you from the effect of this happening. If Costco had to raise rates because people were sharing memberships and members didn’t want that enforced, you’d complain about that too. Again, it’s odd to me that you’re complaining about them protecting the very benefits that you’re paying for which others are not. Unless you have some magic way to prevent non-members from using benefits that doesn’t affect members, your demands are unreasonable.
The gym analogy isn’t a false equivalence. If Joe Schmo lets his neighbor use your membership, it does affect you and it does so in the same way as it does at the gym - more traffic, less access to product, more upkeep, etc. and none of which they’re paying for but you are. I don’t understand why you’re ignoring the ways this affects you simply because this also affects you.
DRM is a a false equivalence. This is not immaterial goods like Intellectual Property. This is physical goods at physical stores of resources that are physically limited. It’s not the same thing in any way.
I would not. If the new rates meant I’d pay more for a membership than I’d save over the course of a year I’d just not renew.
They are not protecting my benefits, they are protecting their revenue stream. I’m not sure why you and so many others don’t understand that companies don’t exist to provide something** for you**. They exist to extract a profit from you.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this and probably the whole situation in general because you’ve just re-stated the same points as in your first reply to me. You may not like my reasoning but it’s not wrong. The only reason I have a Costco membership is because it is currently cheaper for me to get a few items there than it is to get them elsewhere, but just barely. When it’s no longer financially beneficial to me to have a membership, or if they create a shopping experience so unpleasant that it outweighs the nominal savings we get from shopping there we will end our membership.
If that time ever comes and if the family members who have memberships now still do, then I’ll just have them buy for me or I’ll go as a “guest”. The only difference is the inconvenience of not being able to go whenever it’s convenient for me or waiting until we absolutely need something, because I’d have to go on someone else’s schedule.
Just because you can’t understand a logical cost/benefit rationale doesn’t make it wrong. I’m not under the same illusion as you seem to be that Costco, or any business or corporation, has my best interests at heart. This is ultimately about their revenue stream; you can tell yourself otherwise but you’re a fool if you think that’s not a driving factor.
I understand it fine. I’m pointing out the flaw in it based on the fact that you’re complaining about paying for something that you are ok with others abusing for free. I never said that Costco wasn’t doing it for their own benefit. Happy members benefit them. People who aren’t members do not benefit them or members.
The entire point of contention is why any member would be ok with non-members using services you pay for without paying.
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.
I feel like you’re projecting. I never said it was your job or mine to police who shops at Costco. It’s their job and they’re doing it. I’m not worried about what everyone else is doing. I just think it’s weird that you’re willing to pay for an exclusivity that you feel should be unenforced.
I’m sorry that you can’t consider other people’s viewpoints without distorting them to be some kind of victim. That must be exhausting.
And the feeling is mutual on not continuing. You’re assuming so many things so maliciously and distorting my point that I have to wonder why…
I replied to another comment of yours that was wrong and looked through your comment history. Are you a Costco employee? You are very combative in multiple comment threads.
I have to believe you either work for Costco or have such a cult like love for them you default to shilling on their behalf.