Fact Check

Did Costco Issue a Recall Notice for Toilet Paper?

Even if COVID-19 hasn't infected the entire population, a mania for buying bathroom tissue apparently has.

Published March 14, 2020

 (Costco)
Image Via Costco
Claim:
Costco has issued a recall for their Kirkland Signature brand of bath tissue.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 prompted a run on stores by consumers stocking up on common foodstuffs and dry goods supplies, most notably toilet paper.

In the U.S., the Costco chain of wholesale warehouse club stores was hit particularly hard by a worried public seemingly bent on hoarding the entire available supply of bathroom tissue:

Mid-March 2020 saw the spread via social media of a purported notice from Costco informing consumers that the company had issued a recall of their Kirkland Signature brand of bath tissue because it had been "contaminted [sic] with Coronavirus outbreak" and was "containted [sic] due to the item being manufactred [sic] in China":

If the atrocious misspellings evident throughout the alleged recall notice weren't enough to give it away as a fake, the fact that it was virtually identical to another hoax about recalled toilet paper perpetrated by a fake news website should have.

Not surprisingly, the Recalls & Product Notices section of Costco's official website lists no such recall.

Sources

Costco.com.   "Recalls & Product Notices."     Accessed 14 March 2020.

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

Article Tags