Costco is testing out a new system for entering stores | CNN Business
www.cnn.com
Bad news if you’re mooching off of someone else’s Costco membership: The retail giant is cracking down.

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.

  • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Just because you can’t understand a logical cost/benefit rationale doesn’t make it wrong.

    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.

    • LilB0kChoy@midwest.social
      2·
      10 months ago

      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.

      • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        10 months ago

        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…

        • ShoeboxKiller@lemm.ee
          3·
          10 months ago

          The entire point of contention is why any member would be ok with non-members using services you pay for without paying.

          I feel like you’re projecting. I never said it was your job or mine to police who shops at Costco.

          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.

          • Zoolander@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            10 months ago

            It wasn’t wrong. You’re just misconstruing what I said.

            I said this in another comment too but the fact that you think the only way someone can disagree with you is that they work for Costco is a conspiratorial hot mess. I neither work for Costco nor “have a cult-like love for them”. You just have a persecution complex.