I Brought Home Several Gallons of Bad Milk From Costco. Here's What Happened

Image source: Getty Images

Costco has become my go-to store for all sorts of grocery items and household essentials. As such, I shop there on a weekly basis to stock up on cheese, sandwich meat, and other items my kids seem to consume in short order.

Another item we consume a lot of in my household is milk -- usually to the tune of three or more gallons a week. And buying milk at Costco makes financial sense for a couple of reasons.

First, Costco milk tends to be a bit cheaper than the milk I find at my regular supermarket. But also, Costco milk tends to come with a better sell-by date than the milk I find at the grocery store.

Recently, though, I ran into an issue with milk I had purchased at Costco. But not shockingly, Costco did what it had to do to make things right.

When your milk goes bad and you don't keep the evidence

Not long ago, I opened a gallon of Costco milk to find that it smelled sour and looked chunky. What was surprising was that it was a good number of days before the sell-by date printed on the carton.

I then proceeded to open a second gallon of Costco milk only to experience the same thing. So clearly, both cartons must've come from the same bad batch. (To be clear, no other food in my fridge had gone bad, so I knew the problem was the milk itself.)

Now the good thing about Costco is that it has a very customer-oriented return policy. In a nutshell, it will take back any item and issue you a full refund if something doesn't meet your expectations.

Clearly, funky, chunky milk falls into the "not meeting expectations" category. But there was a problem. I didn't want to hang onto two gallons of spoiled milk at home.

Not only were those cartons taking up space in my fridge, but I also didn't want to somehow risk having one of my kids come home and grab some milk without realizing it was bad. I mean, you'd really have to be not paying attention to not notice those chunks and awful taste, but you never know.

So what I did instead was take a picture of the milk chunks in a glass, and then take a picture of the two gallons with the printed sell-by date. The next time I went to Costco, I showed those photos to customer service and explained what happened. I got my money back, no questions asked.

Don't hesitate to take advantage of Costco's return policy

You may have heard that abusing Costco's return policy could cause your membership to get revoked. But you'd have to really push the limits of Costco's generosity for that to happen.

Returning food that spoils prematurely is something you should never hesitate to do. And if it's not safe or feasible to keep that rotten food around to bring back, use photographic evidence like I did.

Furthermore, your food doesn't necessarily have to be spoiled for Costco to take it back without a problem. You can technically return grocery items on the basis of not liking how they taste.

That, however, is something you may want to do more sparingly. And if you're going to return food on the basis of not enjoying it, make sure you're returning the bulk of it. It's not cool to bring back a cake that's 75% eaten and claim it wasn't good and you want your credit card refunded.

All told, Costco has one of the most generous and flexible return policies out there. So if you ever end up bringing home a grocery item that spoils from Costco, do not hesitate to get your money back.

Alert: our top-rated cash back card now has 0% intro APR until 2025

This credit card is not just good – it’s so exceptional that our experts use it personally. It features a lengthy 0% intro APR period, a cash back rate of up to 5%, and all somehow for no annual fee!

Click here to read our full review for free and apply in just 2 minutes.

We're firm believers in the Golden Rule, which is why editorial opinions are ours alone and have not been previously reviewed, approved, or endorsed by included advertisers. The Ascent does not cover all offers on the market. Editorial content from The Ascent is separate from The Motley Fool editorial content and is created by a different analyst team.Maurie Backman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.