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.
From the article, as I didn’t see this being mentioned in the OP summary…
So it seems like there’s two different things going on, per the article, when you’re entering the building, and when you’re trying to use a self checkout machine.
When you enter the building I’ve never had anyone check if it’s actually my card, they only do that at the checkout. You just need to flash the card so they can tell you have one on your way in. They check the photo and address at the checkout though. I guess people were getting by that with the self checkouts.
I’m just repeating what was said in the article.
Having said that, each and every time I’ve had to flash my Costco card at the employee at the front door, as it also states in the article.
Costco UK has been scanning cards for months, we don’t have self checkout, though.
In the US it’s still visual verification by an employee, as stated in the article.
Just providing some extra info, not refuting anything in the article…
Just noting the differences on each side of the Pond.