A Costco shopper said she was trying to use her mother’s membership card to buy treats for a family event when a store employee stopped her from making the purchase and made her “embarrassed” by walking back to the bakery section.
“All we wanted was chocolate chip cookies,” TikTok user Gaby (@gabrielala_la) said as she and her sister Carmen walked to the cookie section of a store. In the video, Carmen can be seen putting the box of cookies she was about to buy back in frustration. “$10 chocolate chip cookies, and they’re not for us!” Gaby added.
Gabby revealed in a TikTok video that she made the cookies for a family party, and the video has been viewed more than 396,800 times since it was first posted on May 25.
Still, the sisters were able to use their mother’s membership card outside the store to buy a few hot dogs at the food court.
“I had no idea Costco hired FBI agents to check IDs,” Carmen tweeted off-camera.
Gaby said the store attendant spent several minutes comparing them to a photo of her mother on her membership card before refusing to let her buy the cookies.
Costco membership is subject to store policy. page It states that “only Costco members may purchase products.” Primary and affiliate store members will be given a second membership card for each member of their household who is 16 years of age or older and lives in the same household.
Some viewers criticized the sisters for not following Costco’s rules and thought their mother was lucky her membership wasn’t revoked, while others thought putting the cookies back was an act of generosity and that such a small purchase should have been allowed as long as she had a valid membership card.
“They refused a full basket of purchases because I used my husband’s card. Never again!” wrote one shopper who left her own membership card at home.
Some viewers were surprised by the thoroughness of the screening at the Fullerton, California store, claiming that their own stores never scan IDs that closely: “Our Costco doesn’t check that closely, most of the time the person at the door is talking to someone else and will just wave you in,” user @iammskaykay explained.
The Daily Dot reached out to Gabby via direct message on Instagram and to Costco via their website.
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*First published: June 4, 2024 at 8pm CST
Maya Ray
Maya Ray is the Daily Dot’s Fall 2022 FOIA Intern. She is currently a senior at the University of Texas at Austin studying journalism in the Moody College Honors Program. She has contributed to The Daily Texan and the Austin Chronicle.
