Costco Wholesale — Local services in Eureka

I just became a member and on my second experience I went through so much irritation. I’m with my three toddlers, my newborn & my partner. I ended up getting so upset by the time I walked out of Costco when we’re walking back into the parking lot to get to our family vehicle. When I first walked in, we were welcomed by an employee where you first scan your Costco card and was told, “let us know if you need help with anything.” That was awesome, but it’s not like anyone asks you if you need help while you’re shopping. By the time I’m done shopping, I see all the lines are really busy but the self check out was available. This was our first time using the self check out. There was a worker there who was not helping anyone and took a minute to come help out with trying to scan products from the “food court”. When the employee finally comes to help add food, they then get distracted with someone else who needed help with their blinking register. They leave my area where I’m just waiting with my family who is really ready to just check out, grab our food and go. Then they came back to my register to continue to help. The employee after had left the area and I needed help again due to my partner not knowing to not put our items in boxes while still checking out. A different employee who’s just standing in front of all registers walks over to help to fix that, then walked back to their area in front of all registers. Unfortunately for a third time needed assistance. The same employee that was standing in front of all the registers had made eye contact with me and didn’t come over to help, just looked. There was no other employee who was in self check out area to help. My family and I are just standing there for five minutes until another employee finally shows up to help so we can check out. We then walk over to the food court to pick up just three slices of pizza for our three toddlers. We waited so long just for those three slices of pizza as for a whole bunch of other customers due to the employees not changing the paper where the orders are received. Therefore, they were backed up in orders. I appreciate the employee who served us the pizza, they apologized for the long wait. After we walk towards to the seating areas before you exit, of course there is no where to sit for a minute. Just for the babies to eat their slices of pizza before we leave home after all that shopping and hassle checking out. At this point I’m so ready to just leave. Then the employee at the exit says, “you went to self check out, I have to look through everything. Which means I need to look through all your boxes”. I replied that’s fine but then I started to get overstimulated and so much anger from this whole situation. I was just getting so irritated from all the unfortunate events, that by the time this is happening, I let my partner handle them looking through our purchased items. I proceed to walk to our vehicle with our newborn and I just want to yell and cry from how irritating that experience was. Why is there no one staying at self check out to make sure no one is stealing or to help customers in need? Why do you then need to go through boxes when there’s cameras and should be having employees watching everything. I swear there’s cameras at self check out pointed right at your face while you’re checking out. The whole point of self check out is to be convenient I thought? I guess I was wrong.. never doing self check out again if that’s the process. Obviously they saw nothing was stolen and I just had a horrible experience for our second visit. It’s our only Costco in this area, so I have no other choice but to continue to use...

Im not one to give negative review however in this case i feel the need to express my issue i had with the Costco food service staff. This was my first time going to this Costco and i drove 2 hours to get to this location due to the area i live in now. I had a "whats to be expected" experience during my visit in the store, ( being that it is a Saturday and traveling season the store was busy in the morning) once i finished with my purchase i went to the food services area to eat before my 2 hours drive home. I saw a long line in the preorder area and a lady getting orders out but there was no one in the other line. I asked the customers that were in that line if this is were to order? One person did say it was preorder line but there has only been this one lady helping out thus far, so i got in that line thinking that was the only register open. Once i got to the front of the line another employee Nikki showed up and asked the help the next customer, a customer that was after me in the other line went up to her. I told that customer and Nikki that i was next in line but do not have a preorder and didnt see anyone eles helping so i got in that line. Nikki then preceded to say in a very derogative tone and pointed up to the sign saying what line was what. I apologized and said that there was no one eles and assumed that this was the only line available. She then proceeded to help the other lady that went ahead of me and during that time the employee helping with preorder line was trying to ask what i needed, i was offended by the tone of nikki that i commented to her that i was over it and apparently have to continue to wait due to my confusion of the way this works. At that time that same preoder employee started to help an elderly man and then made a comment under her breath to me YOUR IN THE WRONG DAMN LINE!!!!! i was shocked and told her not to curse! She quickly replied she didnt so i spoke very loud for her to hear and repeated what she said to me. Once i was able to get "help" Nikki still was not pleasant and when i asked for help on an item she explained to me in yet again a very derogative tone the difference between the items i was interested in. I received my food and left. Point of this story is that i understand and acknowledge my own confusion however at no point in time should any employee of a company that is front facing or not curse and be rude like that to customers that pay a membership fee to shop there. Because of this i canceled my membership immediately after, this was my first impression and will be my last at eureka Costco and will never shop there again. Its to bad because i have always had great experiences until i went to...

Costco does so many things right, but check out is not one of them.

Costco stockpiles all these boxes and has all these folks standing around the check out and then seems to feel the customer should run hither and thither to the box depot (while waiting in line) to get boxes for your baggers to put purchased groceries in. When you (obviously ) request a box they dump the purchases back in your cart so you get to a) place them one by one in the back of you vehicle or b) “re-bag” them on your own. This process is so obviously stupid I can’t believe I have to note it. But it is a recurrent problem.

Do not use the self-check out lane to avoid this problem because it actually demands you do this very thing or you cannot finish purchasing your goods. It is not possible to box your stuff up during the checkout process - you must first checkout and then box up your goods - oftentimes resulting in your purchases piling onto the floor (which is also an unacceptable outcome for the automated checkout system — error error!). Keep in mind you are doing Costco’s job for them by checking your stuff out yourself just so they can kneecap you for your efforts.

After I assisted the cashier and bagger by retrieving boxes for them and their associates and then re-boxed all of my hundreds of dollars of purchases on their behalf the cashier actually had the audacity to ask me, “is there anything else I can do for you today?” I thought to myself, “maybe I should offer them some gratuity for all of my efforts on their behalf.” This is a chronic problem. I’m inclined to believe this is not an accident. This is intentional. And Costco enjoys watching their customers be subjugated to this corporate prank.

Also, you can renew your membership at the in store checkout but not while trying to buy gas - the customer’s needless inconvenience is surely management’s...