Membership-Sharing Crackdown at New England Costco’s

Have you ever grabbed food at the super-cheap Costco food court? You just order and pay. Easy peasy.

However, if you're a Costco member, you now know that extra step of showing your Costco membership card has been part of the check-out process for a few months now.

This was actually the second part of the crack-down on non-members taking advantage of the inexpensive shopping (and dining) experience that is these big box membership-only stores like Costco.

Starting a year ago, the warehouse retailer locations around New England began rolling out photo-verification systems at the self-checkout kiosks.

While the regular checkout lanes have people who compare the photo on the membership card to the person checking out, it was easy for non-members to borrow someone's card and skirt the system by simply using the self-checkout.