Doing This Will Get Your Sam's Club Membership Revoked

Countless Americans enjoy the benefits of a membership-based warehouse shopping experience. You pay a membership fee, you get great deals. Seems pretty simple, right? Well, yes and no.

What big warehouse stores like Costco and Sam's Club fail to mention is that you might not actually save that much. Oh, and they can revoke your membership at any time. According to Business Insider, one former Costco member had her membership taken away after she made "too many" returns – and this came from a company known for providing a very wide window of time to make returns.

Fortunately, these stores have web pages detailing general offenses that can get your membership revoked. The Sam's Club list of offenses is far from lengthy, but frankly, if you have doubts about doing something, you probably just shouldn't do it. You know, like borrowing Granny's membership card and presenting it as your own. Sam's Club really doesn't like that (via the company website). 

The first offense listed on Sam's Club's website is writing bad checks. Makes sense. Next is shoplifting. (Contrary to popular belief, workers checking your receipt before you exit has very little to do with preventing shoplifting.) Another offense is violent behavior. You also can't mistreat Sam's Club workers. Violations include abuse, disrespect, threats, and profanity. Yup. If you curse at an associate, you can have your membership revoked.

The final item on the list is "questionable returns." While this isn't defined on the website, as demonstrated in the Costco situation, this offense could refer to perceived "abuse" member privileges like returning items years later or simply returning too many things. Having a record of returning lots of items could give the impression that you aren't satisfied with the store itself, whether or not that's actually the case.

It's worth noting that the company states, "Sam's Club Home Office reserves the right to accept, refuse, or revoke Membership without cause." So if you want to keep your membership card in your wallet, you might want to consider being on your best behavior.