Don't see how it's cheating them out of a membership, since lack of a friend's membership would mean you'd just buy elsewhere, not that you'd buy your own.

I buy from Sam's club a lot, but we live out in the sticks and we have storage space for large quantities of staples and the occasional big item that we've found cheaper there (furniture, mattresses, etc.) And their gas is usually a few cents cheaper.

My son shares a membership to Costco with his roommates and he raves about their products, but I don't want to have to "learn" another warehouse store layout, what's worth it, what isn't, etc.

I did give up their credit card a few years ago when a computer glitch posted an online payment of $26K instead of the $260.00 I entered and they were trying to tell me it would take six weeks to reverse the error. They finally got it down to ten days, but I was an unhappy camper. Now I show my membership card and pay with my Mastercard.

About once a month, I take a non-member friend with me and she picks up a few things on my membership. I've never felt bad about it.



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