I've been a longtime Costco member, and in general, I value the membership. Sometimes the warehouses have great deals. I've stopped looking at any of their online deals, because every time I see a deal that I am interested in, I discover that Costco has scoped out the competition and made the deal just a bit less of a deal than what's out there. They will add a shipping and handling charge at costco.com, for instance.
Another bummer about Costco is that they don't really look out for their members. I'd expect as a member, for instance, that Costco would stand behind all the products in their warehouse. I found to my surprise that if you buy a phone or phone plan in a Costco warehouse, that Costco has nothing to do with the phone vendors. The phone vendors are entirely separate, and they will make promises (that they will then renege on) and Costco is of no help. I bought a phone and 2-year-phone plan a few years back at the phone booth in Costco, and the vendor told me that I could return the phone and cancel the plan within two weeks with no fee or penalty whatsoever. I tried to do so, and the phone vendor said that I'd have to pay something like $70 as a penalty. I took my situation up with the Costco front desk, and they were no help. I was and remain disturbed that Costco would allow outside vendors in all of their stores that do not offer the best phones and phone plans for their members. The phones and phone plans do not represent very good deals at all, and Costco could not care less.
For instance, check out the phone plans at puppy wireless, which sells plans on the Verizon network. I have a phone plan from there, that works on the Verizon network, and costs me $80 per year -- only $6.67 per month! I use it only for voice calls, but I could use the plan for data also. For my smartphone, I use a Freedompop phone that costs me nothing for 1Gb of data per month. I've written about this plan in the past.
Still -- getting gas at Costco is a great deal, and their returns policy (for their Costco items, not outside vendors) is generally great.
But sometimes, Costco's really crappy attention to customer service -- which is respect for their customers -- is surprising. I have not encountered such poor customer service at Amazon, for instance, which seems totally dedicated to good customer service.
A few months ago, I suddenly began getting emails telling me about the lame Costco Connection magazine (ad-zine). I tried to unsubscribe. It was impossible to do so. I wrote them and got a response, from "connection+canned.response@costco.com"...yes, really. Here's the email that I got in reply:
Well, yesterday I got another email -- obviously my request to unsubscribe was not honored. I guess that the person who sends out the emails from "connection+canned.response@costco.com" only sends out canned responses! I am not surprised.
Here's the email I received, and here are the utterly useless unsubscribe links in the email:
If you click unsubscribe -- or Update Email Preferences, here's the useless web page that you are taken to. Yes, it is basically a blank page:
If you click Update on that page, you will get the following utterly unhelpful email:
Clicking the link does nothing.
And here's perhaps the most irritating aspect of this unwanted email of all -- showing that the Costco web folks clearly don't give a crap about customer service and preferences. If you click on "Manage your Costco Connection subscription" in the original Costco Connection email, here's the page you get:
Note that you are not given an option to unsubscribe ANYWHERE. The above only gives you an option to subscribe to this crappy "ad-zine."
Hey Costco -- how about letting me unsubscribe from your crappy "magazine"?
How about respecting your customers enough to allow them to remove themselves from spam marketing from Costco?
How about firing the person in charge of these crappy email marketing tactics and terrible web practices?
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