Are You at Risk of Having Your Costco Membership Revoked in 2024?

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Abusing Costco’s generous return policy could get your membership revoked. Here’s how to make sure this doesn’t happen to you in 2024. 

A Costco membership comes with many great perks. You can wander around and get free samples of new products and buy the famous $1.50 hot dog and soda combo. You can get bargains on food and household items that allow you to keep more money in your checking account. And you can enjoy Kirkland brand products, many of which taste great and have a dedicated following.

If you enjoy shopping at Costco, you likely want to keep your membership active. That’s why it’s important you don’t engage in risky behavior that could get your membership revoked.

If you’re doing this, you risk losing your Costco membership in 2024

According to Costco, the warehouse club has the right to terminate your membership at its discretion, and it does not have to give cause for that termination. However, the most common reason why people have their membership revoked is because they are abusing the store’s very generous return policy.

See, for most Costco items, you can return a product pretty much at any time if it doesn’t satisfy you — even if it has been a long time since you bought it. There are limited exceptions to this. Electronics, for example, have to be returned within a 90-day period, and special order items made just for you also can’t be returned unless there’s a specific problem with the product that would be covered by a warranty.

But just because you can return almost anything you want at any time doesn’t mean there won’t be consequences for doing so. If Costco managers believe you are abusing the policy — say, by returning a ton of items after using them for a long time even though there’s no real problem with them — then the store can and will tell you that you can no longer be a member.

Unfortunately, many people do make returns that push the envelope. In fact, in one Reddit thread where Costco employees were asked to weigh in on the craziest returns, examples included:

An open milk returned because the customer didn’t have time to drink it all before it was expiredPumpkins the day after Halloween because they were no longer neededAn expired cake that was 75% consumed because the customer didn’t like it any moreA 10-year old faux leather couch that was cracking

Avoiding these types of returns can help you to keep your membership — and avoid being featured in an internet forum too.

How to protect your Costco membership

If you want to keep your Costco membership and not end up having to shop elsewhere and give your credit cards more of a workout, you will want to be sure that you don’t put yourself at risk of having your membership canceled in 2024 due to excess returns.

There are no specific details on the Costco website about exactly what abuse of the return policy could look like, but Costco members who make frequent returns — especially of high-value items — are more likely to have their accounts flagged and potentially end up having their shopping privileges revoked. Trying to return items a long time after buying them could also raise red flags as well, especially if you do this regularly.

Ultimately, if you are returning a few items here and there because they didn’t really satisfy you, you likely have nothing to worry about. But you don’t want to do anything that could be seen as abusing the system. If you feel as if a Costco manager reviewing your list of returns might start to get concerned about your history, you should probably reconsider your pattern of behavior before it ends up getting you banned from Costco for good.

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The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.Christy Bieber has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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