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.
It sounds like they’re referring more to the bit about the member being able to bring up to two guests maximum into the store. So like if I had a membership and tried to bring my partner, my brother, and my 3 kids to the store with me because I’m disabled and need help shopping at a place like Costco but I’m the only one that drives. Is that me trying to bring 2 guests into the store, or 5? I might have misread but the article really didn’t make it clear what constitutes a guest. I know even if it is 5 that my partner could be the secondary cardholder and it sounds like have 2 guests too but like there are families with 5 kids. What about just the two parents and the 5 kids?
Logically you’d think kids wouldn’t count, but the article kinda makes it sound like anyone whose name isn’t on the membership card is a guest. I think that’s where the confusion comes from.