A Costco customer canceled his membership after he says he was repeatedly discriminated against by receipt-checkers.
TikToker @rakeshndutt shared a video of himself canceling his membership. The video was viewed over 474,000 times as of publication.
He begins his video with a text overlay that reads: “Canceling membership at Costco after multiple profiling behavior incidents.”
When the employee asks him why he is canceling his membership, he says that “there’ ha’s been some discrimination incidents.” In a previous video, he claimed he was “illegally” detained after refusing to show his receipt when trying to exit the store.
The worker seems taken aback by his claims of discrimination incidents and asks him if the incidents occurred at that location and if he needs to escalate the matter with the appropriate staff. “Once here, but a couple of times downtown,” the customer says. “I’ve already escalated … with corporate.”
The worker asks @rakeshndutt for an ID so that he can move forward with canceling the membership, and @rakeshndutt says, “I don’t feel comfortable showing my ID at Costco.” @rakeshndutt then proceeds to just show the worker his photo on the ID.
The worker also confirms that @rakeshndutt can no longer make returns at the sore after cancelation. “As soon as you cancel it, it’s basically like you’re no longer a member with us,” the worker says.
The TikToker shared in a comment that he “got a refund of about $63.” Memberships at the store start at $60. Executive memberships cost $120.
@rakeshndutt This is for news, educational, etc purposes – #FYP #Foryou #Foryourpage #Canada #Vancouver #Costco #Retail #Profiling #Discrimination #Shopping #Groceryshopping #Grocery #HumanRights #Charter #Security #Police ♬ original sound – RakeshNDutt
Many commenters argued that Costco is not discriminatory in its receipt-checking policy since every customer is subjected to it at the end of their visit. But @rakeshndutt claimed that “some demographics barely get the receipts looked at while other demographics receipts r closely scrutinized” and suggested that checking everyone’s receipts is a “convenient cover.”
It’s unclear what occurred during his encounters with Costco staff, but the store is known to routinely check customer’s receipts as they exit. According to Business Insider, employees are searching for four markers to ensure that customers are properly charged. Those four markers, according to Business Insider, are a code that changes daily, an item count, an indicator that workers need to look at the bottom of a shopping cart, and an indicator that tells the receipt-checker a customer purchased a high-end item.
The Daily Dot reached out to RakeshNDutt via TikTok comment and Costco via email for further information.
