I heard that Costco had a return policy so generous it was actually possible to return food items, for any reason, even after eating a good percentage of them. Some of these stories, like the woman returning an empty box of nutrition bars, are so unbelievable, I had to test this very open policy for myself!
Before doing so, I took the time to read Costco Canada's return policy, and it indeed confirmed it would refund any unsatisfactory items, with a few exceptions including gift cards and electronics. It has no additional information on returning food items, however.
Before finding out for myself, I gave myself a few rules to follow to make sure the experiment was successful:
1) I made sure very little time lapsed between purchasing and returning. Even though I was told that there was no time-limit on food returns at Costco, there were some Reddit users who stated otherwise, and I wanted to ensure this could not be used as a reason to refuse the refund.
2) I wanted to really “test” both their policy and the execution of it by their customer service team, so I did the exchange in such a way as to make it completely obvious this was an attempt at abusing their return policy. I chose items that the customer service agent could reasonably deduce had been used together to make a meal, and then returned all of the items at the same time, with 50% or less of the product in the package.
3) I also pushed the envelope even further, by including a rotisserie chicken, since this would be a ridiculous item to return half-eaten. Surely they would say no to THAT!
Here is my experience:
I drove to Costco, and went first to the membership desk, as it has been a few years since I had a membership. This part was the WORST! Something was going on with their hand-held tablets, and they had to restart my order at least 20 times. The customer service agent helping me kept apologizing, but all in all it took about 45 minutes to get everything set up and me on my way.
Hard-earned membership card in hand, I went into the warehouse area and purchased the items for the experiment, as well as other items I didn't intend to return.
The items intended to return were gluten-free noodles, a bag of sheet pan vegetables, and 1 rotisserie chicken. The total for these three items came to $36.01.
Day 2: I made a meal for my family using the three items I had purchased for the experiment, and we ate it. It was quite delicious, even though that is not what I would be telling the customer service agent the very next day!
The following day, I took the remaining ingredients: 4 noodle bricks (out of the 12 the package initially contained); approximately 40% of the sheet pan vegetable mix; and 50% of the rotisserie chicken. Then, I drove back to Costco.
I went in to where the customer service counter was and stood at the “Returns and Exchanges” area. The lady who assisted me, I’ll call her “Alice”, came to the counter and asked how she could help.
I pulled out my receipt, my Costco card and then started pulling things out of my bag and laying them on the counter. Alice scanned my card and saw that I had only purchased my membership just 2 days before, and that the ONLY purchase I had made on file was this one purchase. I’m not going to lie. I was feeling stressed and a little guilty about doing this, but I did really want to know what they would do with this obviously predatory return request!
She looked at me and then down at the items and asked me what I was returning. I told her I was returning these three items. Despite some accounts I read online, this customer service agent DID ask me what was wrong with them, and I had to quickly make up something to satisfy the question. I muttered something about seasoning and taste. She looked at me with a look that can only be described as “secretly rolling her eyes” and processed the return. We exchanged parting pleasantries and I went on my way.
So what was my conclusion? Yes. Costco will honour its return policy, almost anytime for any reason. While they DO honour their return policy, keep in mind that there are accounts of people abusing this generosity and having their memberships revoked, so I wouldn’t make a habit out of it. It is very useful though, when trying new items or when taking bigger purchasing risks, to spend your hard-earned money someplace with this kind of forgiving return policy.
