I written about Costco before; because where I live probably 150 Arabs all use 1 card and nothing can (or is) being done about it.
But, I have been a long term stockholder and I love it's dividend and return. But after today, I am thinking about selling it. Here's why:
I am fortunate enough to be invited to a lovely wedding in Boston. What the bride requested was a77" OLED TV from Costco. What the heck-- we are staying at her family's lovely house/estate, so why not pick up the TV and bring it over? We worked all this out in advance so it wasn't like it was going to be a surprise showing up with a massive box.
Now here's the kicker-- the Boston area Costco are a teeming madhouse of people. I put the gigantic box on a flatbed and maneuver it to the checkout area. Not kidding, there are no less than 400 people on various lines. I have 1 item. It's big and kind-of maneuverable. I work my way to the self checkout line and it is probably the longest line of them all. So I have to move retrograde to find the end of the line. It's clunky and awkward but I get to the end of a line of about twenty people all with a couple of items (and at least one other person buying something huge but single). Seems okay as the line is moving toward the checkout area. There is even one woman who is walking up the line checking people out with a hand held scanner and card reader.
Then, as I make my way to the end of the long line, some weirdly ethnic man of about twenty five years of age (wearing ear buds) moves in front of me with two completely filled carriages. He had come, like I had, across the checkout area looking for the end of a line, but decided to get in front of me between the end of the snack food aisle and the self-check-out area.
So I stop the prick-- "Hey, you can't cut in front of me AND I don't think you can have that many items on this line." I repeat what I said because acts like he doesn't hear me (and maybe he doesn't with his fucking ear buds in). He ignores me and I poke him the chest, raise my voice and say "You CAN'T cut in front of me and I don't think you can have this many items on this line!" He looked right at me and said something that sounded like "Erka Nyut Nyong Kang!"
He moves behind me and I go to the self-checkout finally. That's when one of the Costco guys monitoring the line tells me I can't cut in line. I like right at him and said something like, "Don't even go there with me, dude!." And, a pretty, petite redhead Costco person comes up to me with her hand-held scanner and says to both of us (as I am about to verbally or physically assault her colleague), "I'll take care of him."
So, she is super sweet- she checks me out, tells me there is special 5-year extended warranty on my item and will be right back with that paperwork. "No extra charge." Okay. Sounds like a plus.
While I am waiting guess who is now at the self-checkout lane next to me, putting things on the scanner, moving them to the little scale and then putting them INTO THE OTHER CART THAT ALREADY HAS UNPAID SHIT IN IT?! Mr. Nepalese douchebag, that's who!
So the pretty woman returns with my warranty info and I point out to her what's going on 5 feet away. "He's ripping you off, you know-- you see that, right?" She looks at him and back at me and says, "Yeah, I know, but right now all I want to do is get through the rest of my day and stay hydrated." So I take my cart, go to the little white register in the front next to the food area and tell the Manager in chart standing there about the theft occurring 30 feet away. Then I spend 25 cents and buy the pretty redhead a cold bottle of Kirkland water from the vending machine. I bring it back to her as Mr. Nepalese is still doing the bullshit shuffle of paid items into the cart with unpaid merchandise. I give her bottle and thank her and tell her, "I hope you stay hydrated and he gets arrested." She says, "Thank you, but there's only so much I can do." Then opens the water and takes a long drink.
I figure that fuck-head bought $400-$500 dollars of crap and stole the equivalent (or more) and then went to the front with his 2 carts and CVS-length receipt only to have the guy there swipe his sharpie over the receipt.
The fuckers at Costco MUST know that there leave-the-store check procedure is a total sham. Just how much merchandise is walking out of that Boston store on an hourly basis? Scale that up. OMG!
God bless America and Costco but some people need to be fucking arrested and it was abundantly clear to me that they know who those creeps are.
Thank you also, little miss redhead for checking me and being so sweet. And yeah-- you are probably correct in that all you could do in that madhouse was try to stay hydrated.
Finally, the wedding was beautiful and the gift was very much appreciated.
