Costco cracking down on card sharing

[Romr123]

If I were to go waaay back, I actually think I might have started the account for me back in Chicago when Costco opened in Schaumburg IL in the 95-ish timeframe. Mostly I seemed to buy cat litter and lawn bags there in those days...moved to Atlanta in '99 and into that house (when Carol came into the picture behind me) in Dunwoody in '01. I definitely have a picture card (nearly illegible) from that late '90s timeframe.

[mbz321]

Each account can get up to two cards. One for each spouse. The members know the rules as they have to sign the membership agreement. Anyone who doesn't know the rules is either dishonest or ignorant.

Look at Costco's financial reports, with the 15% markup on products, selling merch is essentially a breakeven proposition. They make their profits off the membership fees. I don't blame them one bit for enforcing their rules. They're not doing memberships for as a gimmick, it's core to their financial model.

Been a Costco member for at least 20 years. I know the limitations of Costco but it's still the best value and best run retailer out there.

Thank You. There is so much backlash all over the Internet. Now I can see some employees not handling it well (mainly due to poor communication between management and staff which has always been a huge problem if my location is any indication), but anyone that is a legitimate paying member should not be that bent out of shape about this. As long as the name and picture (or ID if no picture on the card) matches, they are good to go. A regular cashier already is supposed to check cards anyway, so having it out and ready to go at the self checkout (since you need to take it out anyway...) shouldn't be that much of a hassle. But as tensions continue to mount, I see one of two things hopefully happening, as I'm not sure if we can continue like this forever..

a.) Make entry more restrictive where cards are scanned upon entry and a picture comes up for the door person to see (or an ID is presented then and there). This would require more door staff, perhaps relocating the membership counter, and then people will complain about lines going in.

b.) (Which makes more sense to me), ditch the self checkouts...they've caused nothing but problems. Cards are still verified by the cashier anyway as they always should have been.

[babs]

Each account can get up to two cards. One for each spouse. The members know the rules as they have to sign the membership agreement. Anyone who doesn't know the rules is either dishonest or ignorant.

Look at Costco's financial reports, with the 15% markup on products, selling merch is essentially a breakeven proposition. They make their profits off the membership fees. I don't blame them one bit for enforcing their rules. They're not doing memberships for as a gimmick, it's core to their financial model.

Been a Costco member for at least 20 years. I know the limitations of Costco but it's still the best value and best run retailer out there.

Thank You. There is so much backlash all over the Internet. Now I can see some employees not handling it well (mainly due to poor communication between management and staff which has always been a huge problem if my location is any indication), but anyone that is a legitimate paying member should not be that bent out of shape about this. As long as the name and picture (or ID if no picture on the card) matches, they are good to go. A regular cashier already is supposed to check cards anyway, so having it out and ready to go at the self checkout (since you need to take it out anyway...) shouldn't be that much of a hassle. But as tensions continue to mount, I see one of two things hopefully happening, as I'm not sure if we can continue like this forever..

a.) Make entry more restrictive where cards are scanned upon entry and a picture comes up for the door person to see (or an ID is presented then and there). This would require more door staff, perhaps relocating the membership counter, and then people will complain about lines going in.

b.) (Which makes more sense to me), ditch the self checkouts...they've caused nothing but problems. Cards are still verified by the cashier anyway as they always should have been.

I maybe in the minority but I doubt it. I always prefer self-checkout. I personally like Costco's set up for it. I really hate some of the conversations I've had with cashiers. Generally they mean well but man I have had some odd exchanges. I'd rather just do it myself.

[ClownLoach]

Where they're going to get in trouble is what I've experienced - we are a mixed race couple. In the Orange County location we visited they immediately profiled and falsely assumed that we weren't husband and wife, asking to see her card. I saw several white possible couples in line where this didn't happen. I was in a hurry and didn't want to make a big deal out of it, ironically the Costco employee was the same race as my wife which made it more interesting that they would single us out but didn't question white "couples" who could also potentially be card sharing. Needless to say it was very obvious that they skipped over multiple people to single us out which is flat out discriminatory behavior - if they're going to ask they need to ask everyone, period.

Interestingly my wife has experienced excessive questioning recently about returns small and large, yet they never give me any problems. Recently she had such a bad experience where it was obvious that they were racially profiling at the return desk that I called the corporate office on her behalf and was quickly called by the General Manager apologizing (yet not admitting any wrongdoing) while still stating it won't happen again. Our membership was obviously flagged by this GM because now whenever either of us make a return at that location we receive a letter in the mail within 3 days inviting us to call and speak with someone to share our experience with the return because "Costco cares about our members experience."

Put a technological block in place on self checkout that the system will require an override if a credit/debit card name doesn't match the member name (within reason, if it's John A. Doe and the card data is J Doe it shouldn't block, but if it's Michael Doe it will require an override so they can verify membership).

You can't do the credit card check thing with Contactless payments because Contactless payments do not transmit the name of the user to the terminal. I am suspicious this may be why Wal Mart/Sam's Club refuses to implement Contactless payments.

Now I am more curious about the card check experience you and your wife had. Were you both doing separate transactions? If not, why do they care if both people shopping each have a card if only one transaction is occurring? In a regular checkstand people go through all the time who are obviously not husband and wife, do a single transaction, and only need to show a single card.

It also isn't all that unusual for people to do separate transactions in Costco either. People buying for business and personal use often shop with others (not necessarily a spouse) and need separate transactions to separate items out for business and for personal.

Also regarding the return, if someone shows up with a receipt and an item and it is within the return policy (oh wait, there isn't much of a policy... maybe that is a problem), why would they be giving any pushback or hassle to the member? What types of questions do they ask? It is a satisfaction guarantee isn't it? That would be my reply to a returns clerk who gave me any trouble or pushback regarding a return. Why are you returning this? "Didn't end up needing it." Is there anything wrong with this item? "As you can see, it is unopened and resellable." Can you explain to me why you bought this item that you did not need? "Process my refund now please, you have my unopened item and receipt." Weren't you just here yesterday returning something? "Yes, it was also an unopened item and I also had a receipt. Do you have a problem? You can call out the General Manager right now and while we are waiting, get me the Regional Manager's contact information along with your name."

If these types of behaviors of hassling customers using self checkout, hassling people over returns, are pervasive with Costco Stores throughout the US, I think the chain is headed for a fast and sudden demise. Customers will not tolerate this. And every second Costco spends hassling people about these things is delaying additional customers as well who are waiting in line. People have already gone well out of their way to shop Costco, dealt with a messy parking lot and traffic jam, and do not need to be personally harassed by employees over a membership card, return, or stand around waiting while other customers are being harassed over these matters. I have no idea who or where in Costco this attitude is coming from but some heads need to roll and it is clearly well above store level.

I'm starting to wonder what other games Costco has been playing that have perhaps upset customers. I am wondering if there is more to Sam's Club's traffic increases than what appears to be a better executed Sam's Club...

They could disable contactless on self checkout to help police the issue. I've also seen my name printed on receipts where I paid contactless (I can't seem to remember where) and I'm seeing where even contactless it will now list the name of the bank I. E. "Chase Visa" instead of just "Visa." There seems to be some ambiguity to exactly what is and is not transmitted despite what we are all told. At my last company I also did see with electronic journals on our ancient POS system that some "tap" transactions absolutely did have the customer name and these were primarily MasterCard.

My wife and I had one basket and the employee wouldn't have had any idea if we were doing separate transactions or one because we were in line. After I showed my card she asked to see my wife's card. She accepted seeing only one card from the two white couples before us. It was straight out discriminatory behavior on her behalf to pick and choose when to ask both people for a card. She straight out said "I need to see her card" and my wife showed it to her because this was literally the first time we had even encountered the "self checkout police" program - it was nearly 6 months ago and since I am so irritated about it I'll name the store. Tustin at the District.

As far as returns go, they will scrutinize her returns excessively sometimes. Never happens to me except when I returned a gaming PC and they asked a supervisor to look at it (which makes sense as I've heard they were getting hit with returns where a $500-$600 video card was changed out with a $30 one). She has also been forced to wait while they go into the AS400 and look at her records even though she's returning a low price item, closed and resaleable, with a current receipt in hand, within a week of purchase. Once it took them ten minutes and they straight up told her they needed to look at her return record before they could give her a refund. That is completely and totally unnecessary and unacceptable behavior on their behalf. Never happens to me and we are on the same membership as husband and wife, so it unfortunately has to be discrimination as there is no other rational explanation. Both of us have extensive retail management experience and know how to professionally interact as customers; it isn't something that she is doing. Costco is the only retailer where I have no doubt that there is an acceptance of discriminatory behavior, at least in both the Los Angeles Division and the San Diego Division (which really is most of the Southwest).

There is one warehouse in particular that we know makes up their own policies and types notes on member files - Irvine on Technology Dr. where I have seen them make up policies about perishables not being returnable and actually telling customers they're putting a note on their membership that states they were told they can no longer return perishable foods.

Costco is absolutely making the wrong choices and they are undoubtedly irritating their guests. There are tens of thousands of comments on multiple Reddit threads all within the last two weeks with stories of this crackdown and how they are harassing customers at returns, checkout, and increased scrutiny at the door receipt check. People are pissed, and they've only just gotten started with this poorly thought out decision to crack down on membership policy and shrink instead of raising the price on membership. Hopefully they'll start to see Issaquah flooded with complaints and change course - heck raise the price and tell everyone if they don't want to see it go up further then stop sharing your damned cards with non members and offer a rewarding referral program where a member can say refer someone for a discounted first year and get a $25 bounty, maybe $50 if they sign up as Executive or get a Citi Visa too. Then instead of illicitly sharing cards the members become recruiters for Costco and everyone benefits.

I'll say again to the many doubters - Sam's is better and better every single day, and they're getting an increasing percentage of my business at the expense of Costco. This is coming from a 20+ year Costco member who tried Sam's about three or four times and never renewed due to low quality, dirty stores, mediocre pricing and bad service. They are a totally different company today with far superior merchandise (in nearly every case now I would rate Member's Mark quality over the equivalent Kirkland item) and deliver experiences like curbside pickup and Scan & Go that Costco doesn't. Their return desk used to be a nightmare, now it is friendly and faster than Costco. I am convinced that their recent announcements of investing their increasing windfall of profits into constructing separate infrastructure from Walmart (including 10 new DCs) is in an effort to become an independent company over the next decade. Even a year ago I thought that would be impossible and they're too closely tied together, but they continue to innovate and grow at a rate Walmart only dreams of. Their stores have never been busier, and I've never seen their employees happier - not to mention that I'm seeing more and more 10, 20, 25+ year recognition badges at Sam's while I'm seeing more and more "Since 2023" badges at Costco...

[mbz321]

Costco is absolutely making the wrong choices and they are undoubtedly irritating their guests. There are tens of thousands of comments on multiple Reddit threads all within the last two weeks with stories of this crackdown and how they are harassing customers at returns, checkout, and increased scrutiny at the door receipt check. People are pissed, and they've only just gotten started with this poorly thought out decision to crack down on membership policy and shrink instead of raising the price on membership. Hopefully they'll start to see Issaquah flooded with complaints and change course - heck raise the price and tell everyone if they don't want to see it go up further then stop sharing your damned cards with non members and offer a rewarding referral program where a member can say refer someone for a discounted first year and get a $25 bounty, maybe $50 if they sign up as Executive or get a Citi Visa too. Then instead of illicitly sharing cards the members become recruiters for Costco and everyone benefits.

As an almost 10 year Costco employee, I've seen more and more questionable choices on all sorts of matters., while falling further and further behind from a technology standpoint. We seem to get new policies and rules every week that are communicated poorly, if at all, and very few make business sense. Oldtimers say things started to go downhill when our founding CEO retired. I generally still like my job as the pay (for long term employees) and benefits are hard to beat, but I see mid-level managers stepping down left and right, and the people they move into those positions aren't always the best. There is very little incentive ($1.50 more an hour) for long term employees to move into a Supervisory role, so newer people who aren't as well-versed immediately get bumped up but quickly get burnt out. At one time, I did, but as of now, I have no desire to move up in the company as the work/life balance just isn't there. We can barely hold on to new hires as the starting pay ($17.50) is only slightly more than other surrounding places, but places that have a more relaxed environment and won't be stuck pushing heavy carts all day in the summer heat.

Going back to memberships, we are offering a $30 gift card for caught card-sharers if they sign up for the Gold Star membership and put a credit card on file to auto renew. That is the best deal I have ever seen outside of a Groupon deal or two over the years, but I don't think too many are really taken advantage, or it isn't being promoted properly. (Our old refer-a-friend program which is temporarily suspended at the moment only gave the new member $10 and the referring member $10).

I've been in Sam's only a handful of times, but honestly, as you have observed, there really isn't that much difference between us and them anymore besides Sam's feeling a lot quieter.

And we continue to expand with additional stores, some in completely new markets, when fundamentals are being ignored. Late stage Capitalism will be the end of us all.

[storewanderer]

They could disable contactless on self checkout to help police the issue. I've also seen my name printed on receipts where I paid contactless (I can't seem to remember where) and I'm seeing where even contactless it will now list the name of the bank I. E. "Chase Visa" instead of just "Visa." There seems to be some ambiguity to exactly what is and is not transmitted despite what we are all told. At my last company I also did see with electronic journals on our ancient POS system that some "tap" transactions absolutely did have the customer name and these were primarily MasterCard.

My wife and I had one basket and the employee wouldn't have had any idea if we were doing separate transactions or one because we were in line. After I showed my card she asked to see my wife's card. She accepted seeing only one card from the two white couples before us. It was straight out discriminatory behavior on her behalf to pick and choose when to ask both people for a card. She straight out said "I need to see her card" and my wife showed it to her because this was literally the first time we had even encountered the "self checkout police" program - it was nearly 6 months ago and since I am so irritated about it I'll name the store. Tustin at the District.

As far as returns go, they will scrutinize her returns excessively sometimes. Never happens to me except when I returned a gaming PC and they asked a supervisor to look at it (which makes sense as I've heard they were getting hit with returns where a $500-$600 video card was changed out with a $30 one). She has also been forced to wait while they go into the AS400 and look at her records even though she's returning a low price item, closed and resaleable, with a current receipt in hand, within a week of purchase. Once it took them ten minutes and they straight up told her they needed to look at her return record before they could give her a refund. That is completely and totally unnecessary and unacceptable behavior on their behalf. Never happens to me and we are on the same membership as husband and wife, so it unfortunately has to be discrimination as there is no other rational explanation. Both of us have extensive retail management experience and know how to professionally interact as customers; it isn't something that she is doing. Costco is the only retailer where I have no doubt that there is an acceptance of discriminatory behavior, at least in both the Los Angeles Division and the San Diego Division (which really is most of the Southwest).

There is one warehouse in particular that we know makes up their own policies and types notes on member files - Irvine on Technology Dr. where I have seen them make up policies about perishables not being returnable and actually telling customers they're putting a note on their membership that states they were told they can no longer return perishable foods.

Costco is absolutely making the wrong choices and they are undoubtedly irritating their guests. There are tens of thousands of comments on multiple Reddit threads all within the last two weeks with stories of this crackdown and how they are harassing customers at returns, checkout, and increased scrutiny at the door receipt check. People are pissed, and they've only just gotten started with this poorly thought out decision to crack down on membership policy and shrink instead of raising the price on membership. Hopefully they'll start to see Issaquah flooded with complaints and change course - heck raise the price and tell everyone if they don't want to see it go up further then stop sharing your damned cards with non members and offer a rewarding referral program where a member can say refer someone for a discounted first year and get a $25 bounty, maybe $50 if they sign up as Executive or get a Citi Visa too. Then instead of illicitly sharing cards the members become recruiters for Costco and everyone benefits.

I'll say again to the many doubters - Sam's is better and better every single day, and they're getting an increasing percentage of my business at the expense of Costco. This is coming from a 20+ year Costco member who tried Sam's about three or four times and never renewed due to low quality, dirty stores, mediocre pricing and bad service. They are a totally different company today with far superior merchandise (in nearly every case now I would rate Member's Mark quality over the equivalent Kirkland item) and deliver experiences like curbside pickup and Scan & Go that Costco doesn't. Their return desk used to be a nightmare, now it is friendly and faster than Costco. I am convinced that their recent announcements of investing their increasing windfall of profits into constructing separate infrastructure from Walmart (including 10 new DCs) is in an effort to become an independent company over the next decade. Even a year ago I thought that would be impossible and they're too closely tied together, but they continue to innovate and grow at a rate Walmart only dreams of. Their stores have never been busier, and I've never seen their employees happier - not to mention that I'm seeing more and more 10, 20, 25+ year recognition badges at Sam's while I'm seeing more and more "Since 2023" badges at Costco...

Contactless is getting the name of the card type/issuer from the AID that comes from the card due to the data in the chip. But this makes me wonder, given the Contactless chip transmits the same data as Contact Chip, if Contactless is run via EMV Contactless (you can tell this if that AID comes up- at this point most retailers are running EMV Contactless but some gas pumps notably Arco gas pumps continue to run MSD Contactless and half of the time at Sprouts it runs MSD Contactless even though Sprouts system has EMV Contactless so I don't know what the deal there is) then the cardholder name actually should be transmitting to the terminal as well now. Pre-EMV, the old MSD Contactless never picked up names unless your name was Valued Customer, Visa Cardholder, etc. Also I don't think Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. feed the name of the user to the terminal even when an EMV Contactless transaction is completed.

I don't understand why they need to see both customer's cards for a single transaction? I would have called them out. Also is there a requirement both you and your wife have a card? In the case of my parents one of them has a card and the other does not, what do they do if one has no card? Are they going to stand over you and make sure the one who has the card is also the one who pays for the transaction (this is how it goes at a regular checkout)? Maybe that is what they are trying to accomplish by making sure both the customer and their spouse have a card? I just don't get it.

As far as the racial profiling I don't know how to put it but I have noticed there are certain races that seem to, how do I put it, treat those of their same race differently than others for some reason. And in this case the "different treatment" is being harder on those of their same race than they are on everyone else. I don't know if they get a control trip or power trip out of messing with their own or what but I have observed this and it doesn't make sense to me. I have also noticed this particular group does not feel "discriminated" against and just shrugs it off for some reason. As if they are used to being belittled by people who are in a power position due to how it works in their home country. See some of this at casinos in NV with the employees of same race then hassling customers of same race with demands for ID out on the slot floor, ignoring them for drinks, etc., then not bothering others who look similar age for ID.

Still this treatment at Costco whether on the self checkout or on the regular register is completely unacceptable and should not be tolerated. If at a regional level this type of behavior is somehow deemed okay, there is a real problem, and some firings probably need to occur at quite a few levels. To behave this way in one of the most diverse regions in the entire US is the most odd thing about it. These employees who are screwing around hassling certain customers will either knock it off or just go work elsewhere where they can continue their odd behavior with each other.

I did a return at Costco many years ago on some clothing item and the tag was still fully attached and they spent 10-15 minutes going through the journal trying to figure something out. I did not buy many items at Costco, so I have no idea what took them so long. I could have done that journal search in about 2 minutes max. I had my receipt. I made conversation and they basically told me we need to make sure you didn't already return the item, they also told me next time I do not need a receipt as they have to look the transaction up that way anyway (I guess they were trying to close the transaction on a positive note). Since at the time Costco did not scan receipts for returns or track receipts at all I guess.

The Reno Costco has also from time to time made up policies saying you cannot return perishable items. They seem to like to make that policy up around the holidays.

I think on card sharing the policy has to be very simple: if the customer trying to do purchases has a card that isn't theirs, that customer can either sign up for their own card or they can get out of the store. They can also be reminded possession of a credit card that is not theirs (if it is a Costco card with the credit card attached) is something they can be arrested for and isn't a great idea even if they aren't actually using the credit card part of the card. For tracking purposes to handle the members who willfully allow card sharing, they can scan the card, confiscate the card, then scan another barcode that says "lost card/card use attempt by other than named member" or something and rings up .00. This should also automatically deactivate the card since the card is no longer in the possession of the rightful owner, it is essentially stolen. Then total the transaction out and someone in loss prevention can run the report at the end of the day showing all of these accounts that had "card sharing" attempts. If a customer legitimately loses their card they can report that and get a new card since their card is deactivated. Once a card has this "lost card" barcode "sold" to it twice over a period of say 3 months (or some period) at that point a letter can be sent to the customer saying they have been suspected of card sharing and that is a violation of membership terms, theft, and future incidents will be considered breach of membership. Once it happens a third time, at that point, you terminate the membership and tell the individual they are no longer welcome at the stores.

As far as enforcing this at self checkout, you can't, so rip them out. Or go to 5 item limit and quit caring.

I agree Sam's is being positioned for a split from Wal Mart and is finally doing well enough that they can get some good proceeds for it. I wonder how they will handle the international part of Sam's.

[veteran+]

Costco is absolutely making the wrong choices and they are undoubtedly irritating their guests. There are tens of thousands of comments on multiple Reddit threads all within the last two weeks with stories of this crackdown and how they are harassing customers at returns, checkout, and increased scrutiny at the door receipt check. People are pissed, and they've only just gotten started with this poorly thought out decision to crack down on membership policy and shrink instead of raising the price on membership. Hopefully they'll start to see Issaquah flooded with complaints and change course - heck raise the price and tell everyone if they don't want to see it go up further then stop sharing your damned cards with non members and offer a rewarding referral program where a member can say refer someone for a discounted first year and get a $25 bounty, maybe $50 if they sign up as Executive or get a Citi Visa too. Then instead of illicitly sharing cards the members become recruiters for Costco and everyone benefits.

As an almost 10 year Costco employee, I've seen more and more questionable choices on all sorts of matters., while falling further and further behind from a technology standpoint. We seem to get new policies and rules every week that are communicated poorly, if at all, and very few make business sense. Oldtimers say things started to go downhill when our founding CEO retired. I generally still like my job as the pay (for long term employees) and benefits are hard to beat, but I see mid-level managers stepping down left and right, and the people they move into those positions aren't always the best. There is very little incentive ($1.50 more an hour) for long term employees to move into a Supervisory role, so newer people who aren't as well-versed immediately get bumped up but quickly get burnt out. At one time, I did, but as of now, I have no desire to move up in the company as the work/life balance just isn't there. We can barely hold on to new hires as the starting pay ($17.50) is only slightly more than other surrounding places, but places that have a more relaxed environment and won't be stuck pushing heavy carts all day in the summer heat.

Going back to memberships, we are offering a $30 gift card for caught card-sharers if they sign up for the Gold Star membership and put a credit card on file to auto renew. That is the best deal I have ever seen outside of a Groupon deal or two over the years, but I don't think too many are really taken advantage, or it isn't being promoted properly. (Our old refer-a-friend program which is temporarily suspended at the moment only gave the new member $10 and the referring member $10).

I've been in Sam's only a handful of times, but honestly, as you have observed, there really isn't that much difference between us and them anymore besides Sam's feeling a lot quieter.

And we continue to expand with additional stores, some in completely new markets, when fundamentals are being ignored. Late stage Capitalism will be the end of us all.

"And we continue to expand with additional stores, some in completely new markets, when fundamentals are being ignored. Late stage Capitalism will be the end of us all."


Salient
Erudite
Sagacious

Thank you!

Ooooops.......................didn't mean that to be so large.....................sorry.

[ClownLoach]

They could disable contactless on self checkout to help police the issue. I've also seen my name printed on receipts where I paid contactless (I can't seem to remember where) and I'm seeing where even contactless it will now list the name of the bank I. E. "Chase Visa" instead of just "Visa." There seems to be some ambiguity to exactly what is and is not transmitted despite what we are all told. At my last company I also did see with electronic journals on our ancient POS system that some "tap" transactions absolutely did have the customer name and these were primarily MasterCard.

My wife and I had one basket and the employee wouldn't have had any idea if we were doing separate transactions or one because we were in line. After I showed my card she asked to see my wife's card. She accepted seeing only one card from the two white couples before us. It was straight out discriminatory behavior on her behalf to pick and choose when to ask both people for a card. She straight out said "I need to see her card" and my wife showed it to her because this was literally the first time we had even encountered the "self checkout police" program - it was nearly 6 months ago and since I am so irritated about it I'll name the store. Tustin at the District.

As far as returns go, they will scrutinize her returns excessively sometimes. Never happens to me except when I returned a gaming PC and they asked a supervisor to look at it (which makes sense as I've heard they were getting hit with returns where a $500-$600 video card was changed out with a $30 one). She has also been forced to wait while they go into the AS400 and look at her records even though she's returning a low price item, closed and resaleable, with a current receipt in hand, within a week of purchase. Once it took them ten minutes and they straight up told her they needed to look at her return record before they could give her a refund. That is completely and totally unnecessary and unacceptable behavior on their behalf. Never happens to me and we are on the same membership as husband and wife, so it unfortunately has to be discrimination as there is no other rational explanation. Both of us have extensive retail management experience and know how to professionally interact as customers; it isn't something that she is doing. Costco is the only retailer where I have no doubt that there is an acceptance of discriminatory behavior, at least in both the Los Angeles Division and the San Diego Division (which really is most of the Southwest).

There is one warehouse in particular that we know makes up their own policies and types notes on member files - Irvine on Technology Dr. where I have seen them make up policies about perishables not being returnable and actually telling customers they're putting a note on their membership that states they were told they can no longer return perishable foods.

Costco is absolutely making the wrong choices and they are undoubtedly irritating their guests. There are tens of thousands of comments on multiple Reddit threads all within the last two weeks with stories of this crackdown and how they are harassing customers at returns, checkout, and increased scrutiny at the door receipt check. People are pissed, and they've only just gotten started with this poorly thought out decision to crack down on membership policy and shrink instead of raising the price on membership. Hopefully they'll start to see Issaquah flooded with complaints and change course - heck raise the price and tell everyone if they don't want to see it go up further then stop sharing your damned cards with non members and offer a rewarding referral program where a member can say refer someone for a discounted first year and get a $25 bounty, maybe $50 if they sign up as Executive or get a Citi Visa too. Then instead of illicitly sharing cards the members become recruiters for Costco and everyone benefits.

I'll say again to the many doubters - Sam's is better and better every single day, and they're getting an increasing percentage of my business at the expense of Costco. This is coming from a 20+ year Costco member who tried Sam's about three or four times and never renewed due to low quality, dirty stores, mediocre pricing and bad service. They are a totally different company today with far superior merchandise (in nearly every case now I would rate Member's Mark quality over the equivalent Kirkland item) and deliver experiences like curbside pickup and Scan & Go that Costco doesn't. Their return desk used to be a nightmare, now it is friendly and faster than Costco. I am convinced that their recent announcements of investing their increasing windfall of profits into constructing separate infrastructure from Walmart (including 10 new DCs) is in an effort to become an independent company over the next decade. Even a year ago I thought that would be impossible and they're too closely tied together, but they continue to innovate and grow at a rate Walmart only dreams of. Their stores have never been busier, and I've never seen their employees happier - not to mention that I'm seeing more and more 10, 20, 25+ year recognition badges at Sam's while I'm seeing more and more "Since 2023" badges at Costco...

Contactless is getting the name of the card type/issuer from the AID that comes from the card due to the data in the chip. But this makes me wonder, given the Contactless chip transmits the same data as Contact Chip, if Contactless is run via EMV Contactless (you can tell this if that AID comes up- at this point most retailers are running EMV Contactless but some gas pumps notably Arco gas pumps continue to run MSD Contactless and half of the time at Sprouts it runs MSD Contactless even though Sprouts system has EMV Contactless so I don't know what the deal there is) then the cardholder name actually should be transmitting to the terminal as well now. Pre-EMV, the old MSD Contactless never picked up names unless your name was Valued Customer, Visa Cardholder, etc. Also I don't think Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. feed the name of the user to the terminal even when an EMV Contactless transaction is completed.

I don't understand why they need to see both customer's cards for a single transaction? I would have called them out. Also is there a requirement both you and your wife have a card? In the case of my parents one of them has a card and the other does not, what do they do if one has no card? Are they going to stand over you and make sure the one who has the card is also the one who pays for the transaction (this is how it goes at a regular checkout)? Maybe that is what they are trying to accomplish by making sure both the customer and their spouse have a card? I just don't get it.

As far as the racial profiling I don't know how to put it but I have noticed there are certain races that seem to, how do I put it, treat those of their same race differently than others for some reason. And in this case the "different treatment" is being harder on those of their same race than they are on everyone else. I don't know if they get a control trip or power trip out of messing with their own or what but I have observed this and it doesn't make sense to me. I have also noticed this particular group does not feel "discriminated" against and just shrugs it off for some reason. As if they are used to being belittled by people who are in a power position due to how it works in their home country. See some of this at casinos in NV with the employees of same race then hassling customers of same race with demands for ID out on the slot floor, ignoring them for drinks, etc., then not bothering others who look similar age for ID.

Still this treatment at Costco whether on the self checkout or on the regular register is completely unacceptable and should not be tolerated. If at a regional level this type of behavior is somehow deemed okay, there is a real problem, and some firings probably need to occur at quite a few levels. To behave this way in one of the most diverse regions in the entire US is the most odd thing about it. These employees who are screwing around hassling certain customers will either knock it off or just go work elsewhere where they can continue their odd behavior with each other.

I did a return at Costco many years ago on some clothing item and the tag was still fully attached and they spent 10-15 minutes going through the journal trying to figure something out. I did not buy many items at Costco, so I have no idea what took them so long. I could have done that journal search in about 2 minutes max. I had my receipt. I made conversation and they basically told me we need to make sure you didn't already return the item, they also told me next time I do not need a receipt as they have to look the transaction up that way anyway (I guess they were trying to close the transaction on a positive note). Since at the time Costco did not scan receipts for returns or track receipts at all I guess.

The Reno Costco has also from time to time made up policies saying you cannot return perishable items. They seem to like to make that policy up around the holidays.

I think on card sharing the policy has to be very simple: if the customer trying to do purchases has a card that isn't theirs, that customer can either sign up for their own card or they can get out of the store. They can also be reminded possession of a credit card that is not theirs (if it is a Costco card with the credit card attached) is something they can be arrested for and isn't a great idea even if they aren't actually using the credit card part of the card. For tracking purposes to handle the members who willfully allow card sharing, they can scan the card, confiscate the card, then scan another barcode that says "lost card/card use attempt by other than named member" or something and rings up .00. This should also automatically deactivate the card since the card is no longer in the possession of the rightful owner, it is essentially stolen. Then total the transaction out and someone in loss prevention can run the report at the end of the day showing all of these accounts that had "card sharing" attempts. If a customer legitimately loses their card they can report that and get a new card since their card is deactivated. Once a card has this "lost card" barcode "sold" to it twice over a period of say 3 months (or some period) at that point a letter can be sent to the customer saying they have been suspected of card sharing and that is a violation of membership terms, theft, and future incidents will be considered breach of membership. Once it happens a third time, at that point, you terminate the membership and tell the individual they are no longer welcome at the stores.

As far as enforcing this at self checkout, you can't, so rip them out. Or go to 5 item limit and quit caring.

I agree Sam's is being positioned for a split from Wal Mart and is finally doing well enough that they can get some good proceeds for it. I wonder how they will handle the international part of Sam's.

Yes I am not one to call out behavior as discriminatory or racist often, but there was no other way to look at the situation. They obviously made a false assumption and decided to dig to see if I was somehow being talked into ringing up product under my membership for this lady with me who might not be a member. And this again was before the big push that has begun over the last two weeks or so. Because of where we live we shop two different divisions of Costco (Los Angeles Division and San Diego Division) and my wife has been unnecessarily scrutinized on returns multiple times in both divisions. It's always certain stores while others are fine. Yelp reviews (yes, not always the most credible source, but...) indicate similar behavior at the same store locations. Costco has to be aware since one of these problematic stores has the entire Los Angeles Division office inside it...

I'm going to go over there later and attempt to return a Dyson vacuum that no longer holds enough of a charge to be useful and unfortunately they decided after the pandemic to stop making parts available for older products so the only option I have is to buy questionable brands of lithium ion batteries on Amazon which could cause a fire. They'll definitely have to look it up in the AS400 system as it's been a couple of years or more. Guarantee they'll let me do it. If I send my wife instead she will be denied if she goes to the store that's let's say down the freeway from me versus the store across town or up the freeway... They'll make up a BS reason why she can't return it like "you didn't keep the box" but they'll go above and beyond to accommodate the same return if I attempt it. It's happened enough that it's a pattern of behavior and management must be aware yet they choose not to address it, probably because addressing it would cut into their profit and related bonus checks.

And I agree with you on the self checkout, they need to just do what the best run Costcos do and make them a "assisted checkout express lane" where a cashier scans your card to verify, scans your items in basket, then hands it off to you at the payment screen. Then create the exact system described where the shared account is documented, locked out, warned and then canceled for future violations. If you didn't pay to shop there then you shouldn't be allowed to. Obviously everyone who does actually pay to shop there pays higher membership fees because of the number of people who are cheating. Nobody is forcing anyone to shop at Costco, its a choice you make to buy a membership and follow the rules. Don't like the rules? Go to Amazon Fresh or wherever else.

[storewanderer]

Yes I am not one to call out behavior as discriminatory or racist often, but there was no other way to look at the situation. They obviously made a false assumption and decided to dig to see if I was somehow being talked into ringing up product under my membership for this lady with me who might not be a member. And this again was before the big push that has begun over the last two weeks or so. Because of where we live we shop two different divisions of Costco (Los Angeles Division and San Diego Division) and my wife has been unnecessarily scrutinized on returns multiple times in both divisions. It's always certain stores while others are fine. Yelp reviews (yes, not always the most credible source, but...) indicate similar behavior at the same store locations. Costco has to be aware since one of these problematic stores has the entire Los Angeles Division office inside it...

I'm going to go over there later and attempt to return a Dyson vacuum that no longer holds enough of a charge to be useful and unfortunately they decided after the pandemic to stop making parts available for older products so the only option I have is to buy questionable brands of lithium ion batteries on Amazon which could cause a fire. They'll definitely have to look it up in the AS400 system as it's been a couple of years or more. Guarantee they'll let me do it. If I send my wife instead she will be denied if she goes to the store that's let's say down the freeway from me versus the store across town or up the freeway... They'll make up a BS reason why she can't return it like "you didn't keep the box" but they'll go above and beyond to accommodate the same return if I attempt it. It's happened enough that it's a pattern of behavior and management must be aware yet they choose not to address it, probably because addressing it would cut into their profit and related bonus checks.

And I agree with you on the self checkout, they need to just do what the best run Costcos do and make them a "assisted checkout express lane" where a cashier scans your card to verify, scans your items in basket, then hands it off to you at the payment screen. Then create the exact system described where the shared account is documented, locked out, warned and then canceled for future violations. If you didn't pay to shop there then you shouldn't be allowed to. Obviously everyone who does actually pay to shop there pays higher membership fees because of the number of people who are cheating. Nobody is forcing anyone to shop at Costco, its a choice you make to buy a membership and follow the rules. Don't like the rules? Go to Amazon Fresh or wherever else.

I just think it is absurd to demand two cards for a single transaction, as I keep saying. What if a tall mature looking 15 year old who looks like they may be 20 shows up with their parent? Does the kid get shaken down for a membership card too? At what age do you decide to not ask for a membership?

I also think there is an odd superiority complex going on here with Costco thinking they are so special of a place that you (member) is going to spend an hour of your day to bring a non-member in to buy a few items from Costco yet you are not going to buy anything for yourself. This doesn't even make sense. These employees are, for lack of better words, stupid. And applying their stupid behavior in a racially profiling manner makes them vile and malicious. Something really needs to be done here.

If you were trying to use your card to do two separate transactions I guess I could understand them coming to a conclusion you and your wife are unrelated parties and you are trying to share your card with her, but even then like I pointed out before it is very common for people to do multiple transactions at Costco due to the nature of the store/their purchases.

They definitely need control over their membership fees. If more and more people get the word out they can share memberships, membership growth/membership revenues will fall and like you say they'll have to up the fee for those paying. This can't get like the cable cars in San Francisco where the joke is on who actually paid a fare since hardly anyone actually pays unless they get on the empty cable car at the first/last stop.

Maybe they are going to need to tighten up their return policy... it seems like a period where stores in chains who previously had a return policy that was simply "satisfaction guaranteed" start making their own rules up is "the calm before the storm" where an entire policy change across the chain is about to occur to really tighten policies up. I've seen this with Sears, Wal Mart, and various others over the years. But even if they tighten up their policy tomorrow, the old "satisfaction guaranteed" policy is still going to have to apply to all prior purchases. I've run into that issue you describe with Dyson on a couple products from different electronics manufacturers lately where I needed replacement parts and ended up having to buy new units due to this supposed parts being discontinued thing. I looked for alternate/knockoff parts on Amazon/Ebay and the reviews on most of those items talked me out of trying them. I think during COVID a lot more people started trying to fix stuff and these companies realized that wasn't a good thing for their sales. Unfortunate waste.

[babs]

Personally, I'd be happy if they would enforce the state law against dogs in grocery.stores. I brought this up to a manager once and he says they can't enforce it. That's completely false. They can ask what service the dog is performing. When it's in your backpack, it's not a service animal. A cat is not your service animal. Just yesterday I saw a sample lady feeding a dog in a backpack. Truly disgusting. Did she wash her hands? No.