Costco stinks

Apoxi

[H]ard|Gawd
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so tonight me and some friends went into the brand new Costco they opened in our town. we were hoping to look around at some TV's, but none of us had memberships. one of my friends had the intentions of signing up for a membership. as soon as we walk in the door, the greeter asks us if we have memberships, and we say no,but... and as soon as we say no, the lady says "no you guys can't be in here then, you are just a bunch of young punks that's what you are." and at this point we are like WTF?! my friend flips out and starts saying how he was planning on getting a membership and now he won't and how they have no right to disrespect us at first glance. long story short, one of the assistant managers comes to us, finds out the situation, apologizes to us profusely and lets us walk around for free...*yay*...hate costco brick and mortars, never gonna shop there again in my life. keep all my purchases online
 
Why do you hate a company when clearly it was an individual employee's fault?

Personally I love Costco. I remember in college the Costco near my university had free coffee and croissants at opening. Every Sat my friends would cruise around the store drinking coffee and eating samples...
 
every person who has suffered a poor experience from a store hasn't always had that experience from the company. when you walk into a place of business hoping to buy something, employees are a big part of what makes you want to go back imo. if you go somewhere and they are rude you don't want to go back.
 
Apoxi said:
every person who has suffered a poor experience from a store hasn't always had that experience from the company. when you walk into a place of business hoping to buy something, employees are a big part of what makes you want to go back imo. if you go somewhere and they are rude you don't want to go back.
QFT.

Was treated bad at The Good Guys, never went back.
 
if you go somewhere and have a bad experience, it isn't always because you get screwed by the store. you can be turned off to a place because of how you were treated by the associates. that was my point
 
Apoxi said:
if you go somewhere and have a bad experience, it isn't always because you get screwed by the store. you can be turned off to a place because of how you were treated by the associates. that was my point

Ahh ok. However, I try not to have my emotions control my actions.

Anyway, every company (especially in retail) has to deal with bad employees and over reacting customers. They have already written you off ;)
 
just because i was mistreated at a store and refuse to go back does not mean i am controlled by emotions. if you were poorly treated at a store would you really want to go back there? especially if you did not provoke the experience, it just happened out of nowhere. i personally will not fund a company who can't hire employees that can bite their tongues. i worked in retail at circuit city for over a year and i dealt with 100's of unruly customers and i never flipped out or said something in-appropriate to a single one.
 
Here's a story that doesn't really have a big point, but just goes to show how poorly some people behave:

I bought my 42" Vizio P42HD plasma TV from Costco in January 2005. I learned about the TV and the sale from AVSForum.com.

I wasn't a member, but had every intention of buying the TV when it went on sale according to the flyer. I am a member of Sam's, but not Costco simply because their location isn't as convenient. If they were a bit closer, I'm sure I would be a member.

In any case, I went in that morning. I told the greeter that I was going to sign up as a member. They pointed me to the service desk. As it happens, the service desk was swamped and I waited about 20 minutes. I finally decided to wander over to the plasma TV's about 30 feet away just to triple confirm that I wanted that TV.


The greeter promptly called "security" who quickly tracked me down and asked me if I was a member. I told him that I was not, but was interested in buying this particular TV. He told me I couldn't be on the sales floor and escorted me to the exit...within spitting distance. Literally, the service desk, the entrance/exit, and the TV's were all "right there".

I simply asked him to get the manager. The manager arrived and I told him I was going to purchase that particular TV as soon as I could get a membership and that their zealous door guy had accosted me about wandering a grand total of 30 feet towards the TV. I told him I was ready to purchase the TV, I was an American Express cardholder (at the time Costco's big credit backer), and I was only waiting for the service desk to catch up so they could take my 35 bucks or whatever and sign me up.

Of course, he smoothed the situation over and that was the end of the issue.

So, the point is: Don't worry about the knucklehead at the door giving you a hard time. My wife and I call it the "authority issue". If you don't have a whole lot of authority, you are more likely to abuse the miniscule amount you do have.

Go find someone with some real authority (that may or may not be the store manager depending on the company) and PROFESSIONALY explain your issue. Demanding resolution or restitution is stupid. It may or may not work.

Basically, it appears that America as a general consensus has decided that the sticky wheel gets the grease. However, my experience has been that while the sticky wheel might ultimately get the grease, you have to do a bunch of squealling and waste a bunch of time. However, if you calmly and professionaly explain to the real person in charge (and I mean the "real" person in charge...whoever that may be) then you can accomplish things a whole lot easier.
 
J-Mag said:
Why do you hate a company when clearly it was an individual employee's fault?

Personally I love Costco. I remember in college the Costco near my university had free coffee and croissants at opening. Every Sat my friends would cruise around the store drinking coffee and eating samples...
Dude, there are so many free samples of saturdays its not funny. You can seriously make a meal of the event. And the best part is there are usually so many people in the store that you can scam the same free sample a good 3 or 4 times before anybody notices.
 
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