Nick Bartlett“Every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.” - Emerson

My wife and I walked through Costco a month ago and decided to purchase a membership today (Sunday) after church so we could purchase some items and try to save some money.  After 1.5 hours at the place, I was ready to go and couldn’t wait to get out of there.  Mainly because the place was extremely busy and everybody was lost and standing around in the middle of the isles.  Yes, I am an impatient person.  I’m the “get what you need and go” type.  Anyway, below is a hint at my experience and why I’ve decided Costco sucks.

1. Costco does not accept Visa or Mastercard credit cards. Only American Express. This is bullshit. I’ve never heard of a company doing this. I wonder if they realize that Visa and Mastercard are more popular than American Express and that most of the population does not have an American Express card? They will, however, accept a Visa or Mastercard debit card. When you go to Costco you don’t just spend twenty dollars, you spent hundreds. Most Americans these days will need to put that on credit.  Many other Americans, like me, do not use credit cards anymore because they always screw you on the fees and cost you more than they’re worth.  Costco has dramatically limited the number of customers that will, or can, shop at their store by requiring cash or American Express.
2. No isle signs.  As a new customer and most of the return customers shopping at Costco today, we were all totally lost. They have huge crowded isles and the customers are pushing a loaded two hundred pound tank of a shopping cart all over the store looking for items. Let me give you a hint Costco executives… have you every been to a grocery store? Ever noticed the handy little signs hanging above the isles stating the kinds of products located in that isle?
3. Little to no organization.   I might actually be able to answer the question above on my own as I realized there isn’t any organization of the pallet loads of product in each isle. One isle had a pallet of ginormous containers of Pine Sol right next to a pallet of grape juice. This is just one example of many.
4. Odd sized packaging. How is the consumer supposed to easily figure out if they’re saving money at your store if all your products are odd sizes and off brand? The house branded Kirkland I can understand, but when it comes to standard brand name products like cereal, soda, and paper products, it’s difficult to compare. The coke products are not standard 12 or 24 packs, they’re 32 packs or something like that. I could easily calculate the saving if it were a 30 pack, but they made it 32 just to be difficult.
5. No plastic bags at the checkout. Again, ever been to a standard retail store?
6. No “mobile” employees. The only employees you find at the store is the door guards, returns people, cashiers, and a guy in the deli. That’s it! You know why nobody is working the floor at Costco? Because they’d be bombarded by customers who are lost all day!
7. Their selection sucks. Costco has a little bit of everything, but not enough of anything. They have six kinds of cereal to choose from, three kinds of shampoo, one kind of any paper product, one choice for frozen pizza, two kinds of dog food, etc. This also limits the customers’ ability to compare costs as Costco doesn’t have what you want. The main reason we paid for a Costco membership is for cheap diapers. They have one brand of diapers, which is fine, but they start at size 2, which is for 15 to 22lb babies. My son was born at 7lbs and is now 9lbs. Huggies makes a newborn and size 1 Costco! Stock the product line or don’t stock it at all!
8. They don’t accept manufacturer coupons.

After we loaded our cart I’d had it. I was ready to ask for a refund and had walked half way back up to the returns desk where I just paid $50 for a membership (I did not get the American Express card with the membership). I decided that we’ll just have to come on weekdays when it’s not so busy and we’re limited to a few products there. Cheap diapers is the main reason we paid for the membership and they didn’t even have the right size.  It’s difficult to tell if I save any money at Costco, which is the only reason anybody shops there.  One thing I do get from Costco is grey hair.  This is why I think Costco sucks.

My wife and I have been banking with Wells Fargo for ten years.  In my experience, they are only focused on big business couldn’t care less about the little guy.  As soon as you are viewed as a risk of any sort, they will hike your rates or terminate your accounts without negotiation!

Here’s why Wells Fargo sucks

1. Our Wells Fargo VISA credit card has the highest interest rate; triple that of our capital one card.
2. Wells Fargo will not give us a loan for a five year old used car at a decent rate.  They sent us to their “Wells Fargo Financial” branch and came up with a car loan for 16.9% APR, which is ridiculous.
3. Wells Fargo “was” the online merchant for my supplement business until somebody there performed a random audit and didn’t like some of the LEGAL product on the site.  My merchant account was terminated and marked as “TMF” (terminated merchants file).  Because of this, most other banks and merchants will not do business with me.  It’s like declaring bankruptcy on your credit score.  There was no negotiation or warning, just termination.  After discussions with the rep from Wells Fargo and convincing him that the products were OK, they still terminated the account because they didn’t want to be linked in any way to the product.  Why?  Because I was too minuscule for them to care about my lost business or change their thinking.