Costco Is Cracking Down on Membership Sharing
The success of Costco’s business model relies on rigor. The wholesale retailer, which uses a membership system, strictly monitors entrances and exits and double checks customer receipts.
But for friends and relatives of members, there was a well-known hack for scoring Costco’s low prices without paying an annual fee: the self-checkout lanes. Some users found they could borrow a member’s card, or a member’s QR code from the Costco app, and avoid the identification requirements of the regular checkout lanes.
That workaround is coming to an end. The company said in an emailed statement on Wednesday that it had noticed that nonmember shoppers had been using other people’s membership cards, which according to Costco policy are nontransferable, in the self-checkout lanes.
“We are now asking to see their membership card with their photo at our self-service checkout registers,” the company explained, adding, “If their membership card does not have a photo, then we ask for a photo ID.”
Source: The New York Times
