Shoppers claim Costco is testing a new ID policy near company HQ

(NEXSTAR) – A Costco warehouse near the company’s Washington headquarters is testing a new policy requiring customers to scan their membership ID at the door, shoppers say.

A Reddit user who visited the Costco in Issaquah, Washington, sparked speculation about the potential policy over the weekend, after sharing an image that appeared to show a checkpoint near the entrance of the store. The photo shows a customer stopped at the checkpoint, in front what appears to be an employee operating a tablet or scanning device.

“You will be asked to scan your membership card before entering the warehouse,” reads a sign posted to the stand of the scanning device.

The Reddit user who shared the photo, in a follow-up comment, claimed there were actually two scanners near the entrance, both manned by separate employees.

Once the membership ID is scanned, “there’s a display that shows your face for the employee to check,” he indicated.

In a separate Reddit post, another shopper at the Issaquah location described encountering the same setup on the same day.

Many readers speculated that Costco, which is also headquartered in Issaquah, might be testing a new checkpoint policy to thwart any non-members attempting to gain access to the store with someone else’s membership ID. If so, it wouldn’t be the first recent effort to keep non-members from taking advantage of members-only deals.

In June 2023, Costco announced its intentions to more strictly enforce its membership policy, which stipulates that only Costco members are allowed to make purchases at checkout — and not just anyone who happens to be carrying a valid membership card borrowed from a family member or friend.

“Our membership policy states that our membership cards are not transferable and since expanding our self-service checkout, we’ve noticed that non-member shoppers have been using membership cards that do not belong to them,” a spokesperson for Costco said at the time. “We don’t feel it’s right that non-members receive the same benefits and pricing as our members.”

To curb such non-member shoppers, Costco soon deployed employees to the self-checkout area to validate each shopper’s status using the photo on their card. Costco members in the U.K. and Australia also claimed on Reddit that their stores had been scanning IDs at the entrance for months.

As most Costco members are likely aware, however, even the most basic of the three Costco membership options (Gold Star, Business and Executive) allows the primary member to assign a “household” card to someone else at the same home address, at no additional fee. That person needs to be at least 16 years old, and must provide proof of residence before being assigned the household card. That card, too, will be printed with the name of the secondary member, and contain a photo and unique member ID.

A representative for Costco was not immediately available to confirm whether the checkpoint described by Issaquah shoppers would be a model for future checkpoints at Costco locations throughout the country. But Reddit users said they wouldn’t be surprised, whether they approved of the policy or not.

“Honestly that’s annoying. Why do they need to check your ID twice[?]” one user asked.

“It’s another bottleneck,” another said.

Other users, meanwhile, were more receptive to the idea, including one who joked that he actually wanted an additional checkpoint in the “rotisserie chicken line.”

“Don’t take my chicken unless you get carded,” he wrote.