Washington Cancer Patient Gets Stopped in Costco By Workers Who Try To Search His Backpack—Where He Keeps His ‘Life-Saving Drugs’: ‘One Word. Lawsuit.’

A woman was shopping at Costco with her cancer patient husband when a worker accused her of assault. What happened, and what did Costco do next?

According to TikTok user Kayla Faber (@kaylafaber7), she and her husband were concluding a shopping trip to Costco when they encountered a receipt checker. At the time, Faber’s husband was dealing with Stage 4 cancer.

“He was in a wheelchair, and he had an oxygen tank that was hooked to a backpack that he had to tote around,” Faber recalls.

Faber says that, once the pair reached the receipt checker, they were told to open up her husband’s backpack. This presented a problem.

“My husband had stage 4 terminal cancer. He’s in a wheelchair. He’s hooked up to oxygen—he is very obviously sick,” Faber recalls. “The bag had a lot of sterile instruments that he was using at the time—things that people shouldn’t be touching with their hands.”

“So, I said, ‘No, she could not go through his bag,’” Faber continues. “It was obviously just holding an oxygen tank and medical supplies.”

From here, things took a turn.

An Alleged Assault

Faber says that, after rejecting the receipt checker’s request to search her husband’s bag, the employee “started screaming and got irate.”

“My husband was very weak at the time and sick, so I told him just to drive his wheelchair into the car, and I would deal with this,” Faber recalls.

While Faber says she tried to engage the worker in a dialogue about what happened, she quickly realized that her husband would not be able to enter their vehicle without assistance. So, she took the receipt back from the worker and left for her car—at which point she claims the worker accused her of assault.

“She screams, ‘Help! Help! This woman just hit me! She assaulted me!’” Faber recalls.

Faber claims that this was not true. Additionally, she says that she had been filming the entire interaction, meaning that she could prove the employee was not being truthful.

Knowing that this could become a larger issue, Faber says she contacted the police. She says that they reviewed the footage and determined that she had not, in fact, assaulted the employee. Despite this, she says she never received an apology from Costco.

“That was so undeserved. That woman should not have a job,” she states. “Imagine if I wouldn’t have been recording, or imagine if I would have been arrested for something I didn’t do.”

Costco Reaches Out

Faber says that this interaction happened several months ago and that her husband has since passed. She only recently decided to post her story and limited videos of the interactions after rediscovering them on her phone while going through old photos.

After she began posting clips, Faber states that Costco “finally” called her back.

“The manager from the Burlington Costco did call me to apologize,” she explains in a follow-up. “He said they’re under new management than they were when that incident happened. … They’re gonna look into this further and then call me back at the end of the week.”

“I just wanted some acknowledgement of it… how hurtful that was and scary—and that it could have happened to somebody else, that maybe they would have actually got an assault charge for doing nothing wrong,” she shares. “I just wanted accountability.”

Do You Have To Stop For Costco’s Receipt Checkers?

In online discussions of Walmart receipt checkers, many note that one is not legally required to hand over their receipt.

According to Costco’s website, “it is standard practice at all our warehouse locations to verify purchase receipts when customers exit our buildings.”

The company may not be able to legally force one to show their receipt. However, receipt checking is included in the terms of Costco membership. It’s possible that refusing to have your receipt checked could result in Costco canceling your membership, as the terms note that one’s membership “may be terminated at Costco’s discretion.”

Costco’s website also states that the company “reserves the right to inspect any container, backpack, briefcase, or other bag, upon entering or leaving the warehouse and to refuse entry to anyone at our discretion.”

Commenters Are Mad

In the comments section, users voiced their support for Faber.

“Get a lawyer and that’s a good lawsuit. Take Costco to court. I hope you get a lot of money from them,” wrote a user.

“If they tried to detain you you can definitely sue them. I would contact a lawyer asap before you speak to the manager again just fyi,” added another.

“I was on the fence about canceling my membership I think this made up my mind,” declared a third.

BroBible reached out to Faber via email and Costco via media relations contact form.