Costco cracking down on card sharing

[mbz321]

1. Issue: I keep seeing posts of couples shopping and both being demanded to show a membership card.
(Previous??) Costco policy: A member was allowed to enter the store with up to 2 "guests."
My response: If you can bring 2 guests, they shouldn't be asking couples to both produce a card. Period.

That to me just seems like overzealous employees and poor training about the policy. I've never asked to see the ID of a guest as long as someone with the membership card belonging to that said person is in the group.

2. Issue: I read that if you miss scanning an item on self checkout, Costco detains you at the exit and fills out paperwork about the incident noting your name, membership number, item, value, etc.
Costco policy: Is it really a policy to essentially "write up" a customer? Take the item or charge them for it, then let the customer leave... perhaps revoke the customer's right to use self checkout in the future (figure out how to do this without detaining the customer... look back at the cameras after the customer leaves and pull the transaction from the journal)
My response: Remove the self checkouts now.

This is always been done even before self-checkout. It has nothing to do with the member...it's called a door audit. Cashiers get in trouble for missed or overscanned items. It is simply documented as proof to show the cashier. If a cashier misses more than $100 in items in any given week (honestly that threshold should be raised given the price increases over the years), or 3 door audits in any one shift, the employee gets written up. Although it seems like the vast majority of audits come from Self Chekout, either intentionally or unintentionally, so yes, they definitely should go!

3. Issue: Membership cards do not have current photos or photos at all. Many customers report being accused of using someone else's card because the photo on the Costco card no longer looks like the customer or the photo quality is so poor...
Costco policy: All membership cards should have a current photo.
My response: This policy clearly isn't followed. Costco needs to upgrade its photo taking equipment to have a quality full color photo equivalent to a DMV, and then start to re-issue cards every 3 years, 4 years, whatever. Customers often change appearances due to hair style changes, hair color changes, weight gains/losses, aging, etc.

Locations now have better card printers that print a color photo (however it is frequently breaking down). We have been asking members without a picture or a beat up card to stop at the desk to get a picture, but idk how many are actually doing so. If a check was set up at the front door with someone right there with a card printer and camera ready to go to issue new cards, that would be the best way. The old photos are horrid though....I had to do a double-take at one the other day as on first glance, the blurry picture made the woman in front of me look like an elderly lady

[veteran+]

Love all these stories about "membership" stores

Paying for the privilege of shopping and then all of this?

Yeah, NO.

[arizonaguy]

I spent a lot of time earlier reading Reddit Costco threads. Way too much time. But it was quite horrifying to read those threads. There is clearly a major problem here.

My outlook on Costco is very sour after reading these forums. I cannot believe what I am reading on Reddit and the hostile attitude that is being displayed toward customers. Whatever upper management in Costco is pushing these policies down is going to tank their company.

I think Costco needs to clarify a few things to its employees because based on the amount of comments, thousands, on Reddit, This current crusade the company is on to patrol "membership sharing" is going to cost them a lot of business in the coming year and a half.

I thought the management of Costco was smarter than this. This is like bad local Wal Mart loss prevention level of dumb in terms of how customers are being treated. I am almost curious if Wal Mart did a clean out of clueless loss prevention staff at local levels and somehow a group of them got jobs high up in Costco.

1. Issue: I keep seeing posts of couples shopping and both being demanded to show a membership card.
(Previous??) Costco policy: A member was allowed to enter the store with up to 2 "guests."
My response: If you can bring 2 guests, they shouldn't be asking couples to both produce a card. Period.

2. Issue: I read that if you miss scanning an item on self checkout, Costco detains you at the exit and fills out paperwork about the incident noting your name, membership number, item, value, etc.
Costco policy: Is it really a policy to essentially "write up" a customer? Take the item or charge them for it, then let the customer leave... perhaps revoke the customer's right to use self checkout in the future (figure out how to do this without detaining the customer... look back at the cameras after the customer leaves and pull the transaction from the journal)
My response: Remove the self checkouts now.

3. Issue: Membership cards do not have current photos or photos at all. Many customers report being accused of using someone else's card because the photo on the Costco card no longer looks like the customer or the photo quality is so poor...
Costco policy: All membership cards should have a current photo.
My response: This policy clearly isn't followed. Costco needs to upgrade its photo taking equipment to have a quality full color photo equivalent to a DMV, and then start to re-issue cards every 3 years, 4 years, whatever. Customers often change appearances due to hair style changes, hair color changes, weight gains/losses, aging, etc.

4. Issue: Customers are being denied service by the front end until they go to membership and get their photo updated if their photo does not look like them.
My response: Not all customers have 20-30 minutes to screw around at membership to get a new photo/card. This should be checked by the door greeter, not the front end. If someone does not have a satisfactory photo, they should be denied entry and sent to membership. At this point if the customer doesn't have time they can just leave. Or they can shop while they are waiting for membership to print their new card. They probably need to do about 5x staffing and buy new photo/card making equipment at every card before enforcing this policy.

I've mentioned it a few times on some other threads but I really used to love Costco.

However, over the last 10 years (around the time of the switch from AMEX to Visa) the Costco experience has really gone downhill. They have cheapened up on many private label suppliers. 10 years ago, Kirkland Signature products were the same or better than its national brand competitors. Now, they're comparable with private labels from other retailers.

Their food court (which was a big draw of mine, especially when I was single and childless) has been degraded to the point where I generally just get a drink (if anything at all). Their bakery selection / quality has diminished, same for wines, clothing, and many other departments. Their worker attitudes have gotten worse. They've gotten rid of their photo printing service (which I used a lot). They haven't embraced online shopping and the internet like most other retailers (intentionally). A lot of their cache and following comes from Costco nostalgia versus what they actually are today.

I get it, they need to make money off of memberships. However, I don't feel like a member of an exclusive club if it seems like the club that I am a member of mine believes I am out to defraud it. I don't feel like a member if I have no voice in decisions to degrade the quality of the products and the experience. I certainly won't feel like a member if I have to go through some subway gate / turnstile type device just to get into the store. It's gotten to the point that if I didn't have the Costco Visa, I'd probably cancel my membership.

Say what you want about Walmart, but Sam's Club in 2023 offers a much more pleasant shopping experience with friendlier employees and happier customers than Costco in 2023.

[ClownLoach]

I spent a lot of time earlier reading Reddit Costco threads. Way too much time. But it was quite horrifying to read those threads. There is clearly a major problem here.

My outlook on Costco is very sour after reading these forums. I cannot believe what I am reading on Reddit and the hostile attitude that is being displayed toward customers. Whatever upper management in Costco is pushing these policies down is going to tank their company.

I think Costco needs to clarify a few things to its employees because based on the amount of comments, thousands, on Reddit, This current crusade the company is on to patrol "membership sharing" is going to cost them a lot of business in the coming year and a half.

I thought the management of Costco was smarter than this. This is like bad local Wal Mart loss prevention level of dumb in terms of how customers are being treated. I am almost curious if Wal Mart did a clean out of clueless loss prevention staff at local levels and somehow a group of them got jobs high up in Costco.

1. Issue: I keep seeing posts of couples shopping and both being demanded to show a membership card.
(Previous??) Costco policy: A member was allowed to enter the store with up to 2 "guests."
My response: If you can bring 2 guests, they shouldn't be asking couples to both produce a card. Period.

2. Issue: I read that if you miss scanning an item on self checkout, Costco detains you at the exit and fills out paperwork about the incident noting your name, membership number, item, value, etc.
Costco policy: Is it really a policy to essentially "write up" a customer? Take the item or charge them for it, then let the customer leave... perhaps revoke the customer's right to use self checkout in the future (figure out how to do this without detaining the customer... look back at the cameras after the customer leaves and pull the transaction from the journal)
My response: Remove the self checkouts now.

3. Issue: Membership cards do not have current photos or photos at all. Many customers report being accused of using someone else's card because the photo on the Costco card no longer looks like the customer or the photo quality is so poor...
Costco policy: All membership cards should have a current photo.
My response: This policy clearly isn't followed. Costco needs to upgrade its photo taking equipment to have a quality full color photo equivalent to a DMV, and then start to re-issue cards every 3 years, 4 years, whatever. Customers often change appearances due to hair style changes, hair color changes, weight gains/losses, aging, etc.

4. Issue: Customers are being denied service by the front end until they go to membership and get their photo updated if their photo does not look like them.
My response: Not all customers have 20-30 minutes to screw around at membership to get a new photo/card. This should be checked by the door greeter, not the front end. If someone does not have a satisfactory photo, they should be denied entry and sent to membership. At this point if the customer doesn't have time they can just leave. Or they can shop while they are waiting for membership to print their new card. They probably need to do about 5x staffing and buy new photo/card making equipment at every card before enforcing this policy.

I've mentioned it a few times on some other threads but I really used to love Costco.

However, over the last 10 years (around the time of the switch from AMEX to Visa) the Costco experience has really gone downhill. They have cheapened up on many private label suppliers. 10 years ago, Kirkland Signature products were the same or better than its national brand competitors. Now, they're comparable with private labels from other retailers.

Their food court (which was a big draw of mine, especially when I was single and childless) has been degraded to the point where I generally just get a drink (if anything at all). Their bakery selection / quality has diminished, same for wines, clothing, and many other departments. Their worker attitudes have gotten worse. They've gotten rid of their photo printing service (which I used a lot). They haven't embraced online shopping and the internet like most other retailers (intentionally). A lot of their cache and following comes from Costco nostalgia versus what they actually are today.

I get it, they need to make money off of memberships. However, I don't feel like a member of an exclusive club if it seems like the club that I am a member of mine believes I am out to defraud it. I don't feel like a member if I have no voice in decisions to degrade the quality of the products and the experience. I certainly won't feel like a member if I have to go through some subway gate / turnstile type device just to get into the store. It's gotten to the point that if I didn't have the Costco Visa, I'd probably cancel my membership.

Say what you want about Walmart, but Sam's Club in 2023 offers a much more pleasant shopping experience with friendlier employees and happier customers than Costco in 2023.

Yesterday I went to Costco, this time with my elderly aunt who is vision impaired. They only had four full service lanes open and six people who were in the area of the six self checkout lanes. The four lanes were long, obviously because they needed to open more but the labor was on the patrol of self checkout. There were a supervisor with a clipboard and someone with them that maybe was a Manager standing nearby watching, then another supervisor basically blocking the self checks and asking to see cards. This proved insufficient as several guests went right past her while she checked another guest.

We used regular checkout right next to self checkout because I needed to use my executive reward check. They were trying to see if they could scan the basket before the conveyor belt items and I had to stop them and said they're separate transactions. It was as if the cashier and assistant were frozen without words and then I said "the cart is on my aunt's membership card." Sigh of relief. Obviously they were anticipating some sort of situation?

But during the time it took to ring my items and my aunt (plus go to get cash because they owed me more in change than the register had) I saw them catch 3 people who were using someone else's card at self checkout. Two were using the Costco app and had someone else's username and password; obviously the picture looked nothing like them to the employee checking who said "this picture doesn't look like you." One had someone else's card (not the Visa version). All were incredulous about it, and the one with the card when they said you can't use someone else's membership and need to get your own said "Why do you care who's card it is? You're getting my business, so???".

So obviously they opened Pandora's box with those self checkouts. They need to revert them to employee assisted permanently and be done with it. In the overcrowded stores the addition of self check was a good thing because they usually put 3 checkouts in the place of one regular check stand, resulting in the net addition of at least 4 to 6 registers per store or more within the same limited space. But obviously if they can catch 3 people in 3 minutes cheating on membership then they've got a really serious problem to solve, and who should we talk to about that?

[storewanderer]

I've mentioned it a few times on some other threads but I really used to love Costco.

However, over the last 10 years (around the time of the switch from AMEX to Visa) the Costco experience has really gone downhill. They have cheapened up on many private label suppliers. 10 years ago, Kirkland Signature products were the same or better than its national brand competitors. Now, they're comparable with private labels from other retailers.

Their food court (which was a big draw of mine, especially when I was single and childless) has been degraded to the point where I generally just get a drink (if anything at all). Their bakery selection / quality has diminished, same for wines, clothing, and many other departments. Their worker attitudes have gotten worse. They've gotten rid of their photo printing service (which I used a lot). They haven't embraced online shopping and the internet like most other retailers (intentionally). A lot of their cache and following comes from Costco nostalgia versus what they actually are today.

I get it, they need to make money off of memberships. However, I don't feel like a member of an exclusive club if it seems like the club that I am a member of mine believes I am out to defraud it. I don't feel like a member if I have no voice in decisions to degrade the quality of the products and the experience. I certainly won't feel like a member if I have to go through some subway gate / turnstile type device just to get into the store. It's gotten to the point that if I didn't have the Costco Visa, I'd probably cancel my membership.

Say what you want about Walmart, but Sam's Club in 2023 offers a much more pleasant shopping experience with friendlier employees and happier customers than Costco in 2023.

In Reno, Sam's has always been a better experience with friendlier employees and a more relaxed store. The problem with Sam's was always lack of assortment and confused direction of the club. Years focusing on business customers, then a change in strategy to focus more on individuals, back and forth, etc. Costco held steady with a clear strategy and ongoing strong merchandising efforts. Sam's is really fixing their focus and merchandising. They are also getting a lot smarter about how they arrange and present their merchandise. As Sam's is getting busier the service isn't quite as good but it is still quite good.

[storewanderer]

Yesterday I went to Costco, this time with my elderly aunt who is vision impaired. They only had four full service lanes open and six people who were in the area of the six self checkout lanes. The four lanes were long, obviously because they needed to open more but the labor was on the patrol of self checkout. There were a supervisor with a clipboard and someone with them that maybe was a Manager standing nearby watching, then another supervisor basically blocking the self checks and asking to see cards. This proved insufficient as several guests went right past her while she checked another guest.

We used regular checkout right next to self checkout because I needed to use my executive reward check. They were trying to see if they could scan the basket before the conveyor belt items and I had to stop them and said they're separate transactions. It was as if the cashier and assistant were frozen without words and then I said "the cart is on my aunt's membership card." Sigh of relief. Obviously they were anticipating some sort of situation?

But during the time it took to ring my items and my aunt (plus go to get cash because they owed me more in change than the register had) I saw them catch 3 people who were using someone else's card at self checkout. Two were using the Costco app and had someone else's username and password; obviously the picture looked nothing like them to the employee checking who said "this picture doesn't look like you." One had someone else's card (not the Visa version). All were incredulous about it, and the one with the card when they said you can't use someone else's membership and need to get your own said "Why do you care who's card it is? You're getting my business, so???".

So obviously they opened Pandora's box with those self checkouts. They need to revert them to employee assisted permanently and be done with it. In the overcrowded stores the addition of self check was a good thing because they usually put 3 checkouts in the place of one regular check stand, resulting in the net addition of at least 4 to 6 registers per store or more within the same limited space. But obviously if they can catch 3 people in 3 minutes cheating on membership then they've got a really serious problem to solve, and who should we talk to about that?

Unbelievable this is that big of a problem. Did they stop checking pictures during COVID or something due to the masks (recall Costco started to demand masks before there were mask mandates in most areas) and people got away with this for 3 years but now this is the result? I wonder how much of their sales increases have come from people who are "sharing memberships."

If this is this big of a problem, trying to patrol and the manner in which it is being handled, is going to cost them significant sales I suspect. And they need to patrol the entry. If it isn't your card, you don't get to come in. Sorry. You can go see membership... This should not be happening at the front end.

What happened with the 3 people who got caught? Were they still allowed to make purchases? Did any of them appear to go sign up for their own membership?

Is it time to just open the store to everyone and raise the prices on everything, then try to sell memberships to the "big spenders" and give them those cash back checks, perhaps increasing the percent back to make up for the higher prices? Then people would still try to card share but maybe if there were fewer people using cards it wouldn't be as big of a deal to check them.

[ClownLoach]

Yesterday I went to Costco, this time with my elderly aunt who is vision impaired. They only had four full service lanes open and six people who were in the area of the six self checkout lanes. The four lanes were long, obviously because they needed to open more but the labor was on the patrol of self checkout. There were a supervisor with a clipboard and someone with them that maybe was a Manager standing nearby watching, then another supervisor basically blocking the self checks and asking to see cards. This proved insufficient as several guests went right past her while she checked another guest.

We used regular checkout right next to self checkout because I needed to use my executive reward check. They were trying to see if they could scan the basket before the conveyor belt items and I had to stop them and said they're separate transactions. It was as if the cashier and assistant were frozen without words and then I said "the cart is on my aunt's membership card." Sigh of relief. Obviously they were anticipating some sort of situation?

But during the time it took to ring my items and my aunt (plus go to get cash because they owed me more in change than the register had) I saw them catch 3 people who were using someone else's card at self checkout. Two were using the Costco app and had someone else's username and password; obviously the picture looked nothing like them to the employee checking who said "this picture doesn't look like you." One had someone else's card (not the Visa version). All were incredulous about it, and the one with the card when they said you can't use someone else's membership and need to get your own said "Why do you care who's card it is? You're getting my business, so???".

So obviously they opened Pandora's box with those self checkouts. They need to revert them to employee assisted permanently and be done with it. In the overcrowded stores the addition of self check was a good thing because they usually put 3 checkouts in the place of one regular check stand, resulting in the net addition of at least 4 to 6 registers per store or more within the same limited space. But obviously if they can catch 3 people in 3 minutes cheating on membership then they've got a really serious problem to solve, and who should we talk to about that?

Unbelievable this is that big of a problem. Did they stop checking pictures during COVID or something due to the masks (recall Costco started to demand masks before there were mask mandates in most areas) and people got away with this for 3 years but now this is the result? I wonder how much of their sales increases have come from people who are "sharing memberships."

If this is this big of a problem, trying to patrol and the manner in which it is being handled, is going to cost them significant sales I suspect. And they need to patrol the entry. If it isn't your card, you don't get to come in. Sorry. You can go see membership... This should not be happening at the front end.

What happened with the 3 people who got caught? Were they still allowed to make purchases? Did any of them appear to go sign up for their own membership?

Is it time to just open the store to everyone and raise the prices on everything, then try to sell memberships to the "big spenders" and give them those cash back checks, perhaps increasing the percent back to make up for the higher prices? Then people would still try to card share but maybe if there were fewer people using cards it wouldn't be as big of a deal to check them.

I don't know what to think if they're able to catch a cheater a minute at the self checkout. Maybe it was a fluke they had so many at once. But if it really is that bad then I do suspect there will be a price to be paid in reduced sales as some of these customers will not get a paid membership and thus won't return. The billion dollar question: how bad is the problem? Because the worse the issue is, the worse it reflects on management and their misguided self checkout project.

I do think they need to consider a hardened entrance for membership enforcement, as they're currently doing in Europe and other countries.

For the 3 I saw, I was pretty distracted with helping my aunt but I believe one left empty handed, one was talking to a membership rep (probably getting the deal), and the incredulous guy was arguing still.

I don't see them opening to the public. Their current shrink percentage is so low that if it went up to industry average we would see either a near doubling of membership rates, store closures, or price increases...

I think they opened Pandora's box with these self checkout lanes.

[storewanderer]

I don't know what to think if they're able to catch a cheater a minute at the self checkout. Maybe it was a fluke they had so many at once. But if it really is that bad then I do suspect there will be a price to be paid in reduced sales as some of these customers will not get a paid membership and thus won't return. The billion dollar question: how bad is the problem? Because the worse the issue is, the worse it reflects on management and their misguided self checkout project.

I do think they need to consider a hardened entrance for membership enforcement, as they're currently doing in Europe and other countries.

For the 3 I saw, I was pretty distracted with helping my aunt but I believe one left empty handed, one was talking to a membership rep (probably getting the deal), and the incredulous guy was arguing still.

I don't see them opening to the public. Their current shrink percentage is so low that if it went up to industry average we would see either a near doubling of membership rates, store closures, or price increases...

I think they opened Pandora's box with these self checkout lanes.

Well if they get 33% of people card sharing to go sign up for new memberships, 33% who leave, and then deal with the 33% who argue (knowing how Costco seems to behave about this, they will deal with it all right and it won't end well for those thieves/customers) it is possible they will cut through this group of card sharers within a month or so.

It is very easy to rip out self checkout lines. I've seen this done in the past, heck, even Costco had them in the past and ripped them out then... granted on a wide scale tear outs were 15-20 years ago, at Kmart, some low volume Save Mart (former Albertsons) units, Raleys tore them out of a Scolaris that had them in Reno that they bought in 2018 and the space still sits awkwardly wide open, more recently I saw it when Raleys sold a Food Source in Sacramento to a Food4Less franchisee in 2021, Walgreens ripped them out of a few test stores 10+ years ago never to be seen again... so removing self checkouts is definitely not unusual.

The other thing we have to ask is what is the point of self checkout at Costco? It sounds like it is more of a labor eater than a labor saver due to this odd card scrutiny behavior. Plus they don't let customers use hand scanners and sell many heavy/bulky items that should have a hand scanner used.

If I were in charge I'd remove all but probably 3 of them from the store, make them have a hard 5 item limit, and not worry about this card sharing thing on small transactions. No "multiple transactions." But I'd enforce that 5 item limit- literally program it into the machine.

[ClownLoach]

I don't know what to think if they're able to catch a cheater a minute at the self checkout. Maybe it was a fluke they had so many at once. But if it really is that bad then I do suspect there will be a price to be paid in reduced sales as some of these customers will not get a paid membership and thus won't return. The billion dollar question: how bad is the problem? Because the worse the issue is, the worse it reflects on management and their misguided self checkout project.

I do think they need to consider a hardened entrance for membership enforcement, as they're currently doing in Europe and other countries.

For the 3 I saw, I was pretty distracted with helping my aunt but I believe one left empty handed, one was talking to a membership rep (probably getting the deal), and the incredulous guy was arguing still.

I don't see them opening to the public. Their current shrink percentage is so low that if it went up to industry average we would see either a near doubling of membership rates, store closures, or price increases...

I think they opened Pandora's box with these self checkout lanes.

Well if they get 33% of people card sharing to go sign up for new memberships, 33% who leave, and then deal with the 33% who argue (knowing how Costco seems to behave about this, they will deal with it all right and it won't end well for those thieves/customers) it is possible they will cut through this group of card sharers within a month or so.

It is very easy to rip out self checkout lines. I've seen this done in the past, heck, even Costco had them in the past and ripped them out then... granted on a wide scale tear outs were 15-20 years ago, at Kmart, some low volume Save Mart (former Albertsons) units, Raleys tore them out of a Scolaris that had them in Reno that they bought in 2018 and the space still sits awkwardly wide open, more recently I saw it when Raleys sold a Food Source in Sacramento to a Food4Less franchisee in 2021, Walgreens ripped them out of a few test stores 10+ years ago never to be seen again... so removing self checkouts is definitely not unusual.

The other thing we have to ask is what is the point of self checkout at Costco? It sounds like it is more of a labor eater than a labor saver due to this odd card scrutiny behavior. Plus they don't let customers use hand scanners and sell many heavy/bulky items that should have a hand scanner used.

If I were in charge I'd remove all but probably 3 of them from the store, make them have a hard 5 item limit, and not worry about this card sharing thing on small transactions. No "multiple transactions." But I'd enforce that 5 item limit- literally program it into the machine.

Costco doesn't want a 5 unit transaction.

Somewhere the self checkout program went sideways at Costco. They were originally being added to high volume stores that couldn't physically fit more registers, and as such they could fit 6 to 9 units in the space of two regular checklanes.

For the many "maxed out" West Coast locations this was a win as there was zero additional space for more registers and a more productive use of labor than the old "linebusting" program where a employee would pre-scan a cart in line during peak hours. (The problem being that sometimes the old AS400 based system ate the order, or if the customer wasn't sure about prices and wants items removed etc. it takes more time than if they never Pre scanned in the first place)

I think that there could be more to the story than just a membership card crackdown. I visited three Costco stores today all in upscale areas (looking for a hard to find clearance item) and were surprised to see virtually no enforcement of the crackdown. I wasn't even asked to show my card at Self Checkout although I did see the same two supervisors or whatever else "supervising" the self checks that everyone else has seen. All three of them were within 10 miles of the stores that I am aware are fully cracking down, queuing up customers for a card/ID check, scanning the cards to ensure validity, and so on (including the store who singled out my wife). She went to two stores in "rougher" areas you'd expect higher shrink in today and they were doing the full crackdown.

When I started to piece the puzzle together about levels of enforcement I've seen by store - it's pretty obvious that the stores in higher shrink areas are the ones that are cracking down the most. Just knowing where shrink was higher and lower at my last two companies - the enforcement level aligns.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they figured out that the same folks who are likely to use someone else's card are also the same folks who would under-ring, UPC switch and everything else that comes with self checkout shrink. Sure they check at the door, but we know they can't be perfect there and there's a lot of runway between the self check and the door to conceal that second unit that intentionally wasn't scanned etc.

Take it a step further and how many people "lost" their card but didn't report it stolen (they do deactivate the member number and change it instantly, even on Citi Visa as I reported mine stolen and was given a new member number in the Citibank app instantly). If you lose your card and ask for a new one you get same member number and barcode meaning the old card will still work. Only reporting it stolen changes the number/barcode.

This whole thing seemed like a wild overreaction, but if the real reason is increasing shrink from these card sharers/stealers (and we know that any retailer who uses the "S word" publicly loses billions in stock value overnight) then it makes sense to secure the self checkouts in this manner at the most troubled locations.

Thus they aren't doing this in low shrink stores and it isn't really about membership sales. It's about shrink control.

[storewanderer]

Costco doesn't want a 5 unit transaction.

Somewhere the self checkout program went sideways at Costco. They were originally being added to high volume stores that couldn't physically fit more registers, and as such they could fit 6 to 9 units in the space of two regular checklanes.

For the many "maxed out" West Coast locations this was a win as there was zero additional space for more registers and a more productive use of labor than the old "linebusting" program where a employee would pre-scan a cart in line during peak hours.

I think that there could be more to the story than just a membership card crackdown. I visited three Costco stores today all in upscale areas (looking for a hard to find clearance item) and were surprised to see virtually no enforcement of the crackdown. I wasn't even asked to show my card at Self Checkout although I did see the same two supervisors or whatever else "supervising" the self checks that everyone else has seen. All three of them were within 10 miles of the stores that I am aware are fully cracking down, queuing up customers for a card/ID check, scanning the cards to ensure validity, and so on (including the store who singled out my wife). She went to two stores in "rougher" areas you'd expect higher shrink in today and they were doing the full crackdown.

When I started to piece the puzzle together about levels of enforcement I've seen by store - it's pretty obvious that the stores in higher shrink areas are the ones that are cracking down the most. Just knowing where shrink was higher and lower at my last two companies - the enforcement level aligns.

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that they figured out that the same folks who are likely to use someone else's card are also the same folks who would under-ring, UPC switch and everything else that comes with self checkout shrink. Sure they check at the door, but we know they can't be perfect there and there's a lot of runway between the self check and the door to conceal that second unit that intentionally wasn't scanned etc.


Thus they aren't doing this in low shrink stores and it isn't really about membership sales. It's about shrink control.

I know they don't want 5 item transactions but those are the only types of transactions that can go through self checkout based on the way they have it set up (can't use hand scanner) and this paranoid thing about card sharing.

Eventually the crooks will go to the stores in upscale neighborhoods too. Eventually will be like, next week, with how things are going lately. There have been some real surprises in my area lately. Stores that never had theft issues before are having theft issues now, large attempted thefts, due to being stores that historically had so little theft that nobody paid any attention.

The UPC switch thing is why Sam's Club is having the person at the door actually scan the receipt then scan the actual contents in the cart... as opposed to the visual check Costco tries to do. Which is a real crap shoot. I am noticing the door at Sam's is getting slower to exit. I'm not sure if it is more people at Sam's, increased examination of carts (sometimes it only wants 3 items scanned, other times it seems to want almost all items scanned, and I am seeing a real problem with Scan & Go Customers not knowing they need to show ID for alcohol to the exit and holding the line up for 45 seconds getting their ID out), or what.

I have no idea what Costco's shrink is vs. that of Sam's but my suspicion is Sam's has better programs to combat shrink on this front and Costco needs to pay attention.