Bad news if you’re mooching off of someone else’s Costco membership: The retail giant is cracking down.

When you enter Costco, you need to show your membership card to an employee to shop. Costco membership cards are non-transferable, but the company allows members to give a second household card to one other person in their home. Anyone with a card can bring up to two guests to the club during each visit, the company stipulates.

But Costco has noticed that non-members have been sneaking in with membership cards that don’t belong to them — particularly since Costco expanded self-checkout.

Costco recently started asking for shoppers’ membership cards along with a photo ID at the self-checkout registers, the same policy as regular checkout lanes, to crack down. “We don’t feel it’s right that non-members receive the same benefits and pricing as our members,” Costco said in announcing the change.

And now, Costco is testing out a system that requires members to scan their membership cards at the store entrance — instead of just flashing the card to employees. Shoppers have spotted the new scanners at a store in Washington State and posted photos on Reddit.

    • Zoolander@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      You can’t. They are a private, membership-only business. If you tell them to fuck off, they can escort you out and disable your membership.

    • 5in1k@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Yeah exactly, people are so afraid of confrontation these days, you can tell people to fuck off and they generally will.

        • 5in1k@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          I’m sure they would try but if you’ve already shown the damn member card they can eat shit.

          • prole@sh.itjust.works
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            10 months ago

            It’s literally their property, it doesn’t matter if you have a membership card, they can kick you off their property for any reason or no reason.

            You don’t have an inherent right to shop at Costco.