It wasn’t the kind of meal Karen Edmonds hoped for.
The Kemptville resident says she purchased a pack of honey garlic sausages from the Barrhaven Costco in mid-January and cooked them up for dinner the following evening.
A few bites into her dinner, Edmonds says she bit down on a piece of metal that was lodged inside one of the sausages.
“It looks to me like a piece of a drill bit,” she said.
“I felt like my tooth had crumbled a little bit, so I had called my family dentist in Kemptville, and they were able to get me in immediately that evening.”
Edmonds claims there was also a second piece of sausage with mangled plastic grinded up inside.
She says she had X-rays done on her affected tooth and found that it had cracked.
Edmonds paid $708 for her first two dental appointments.
She had a partial filling the evening of the incident, but her unfortunate experience would not end there.
The day after Edmonds claims to have broken her tooth on the tainted sausage, she returned to the Barrhaven Costco.
“I just went to the customer service desk and told them what had happened. I had taken the actual metal piece and the piece of sausage with the plastic in it,” she said. “They had me fill out an incident report, and they reimbursed me for the pack of sausage.”
From that point, Costco passed the case off to their insurance provider.
“They had reached out to me and asked at the time, if I could provide them for any receipts or invoices for expenses that I had incurred,” said Edmonds. “However, I had not incurred the costs for the root canal or the [specialist] consultation at that time.”
The insurance company came back around two months later saying they had completed an investigation that found Costco was not liable for the piece of metal being lodged in the food, but as a one-time courtesy, they were willing to give Edmonds $708 to cover the initial dental expenses.
“After reviewing the information surrounding your incident, we have determined there is no liability on behalf of Costco Wholesale Canada Ltd. and we are therefore unable to entertain your claim as submitted.” Reads a portion of the letter sent to Edmonds on March 7 by Gallagher Bassett Canada Inc., the third-party claims administrator for Costco.
Edmonds declined the offer of $708.
“I would like to actually be reimbursed for my expenses to-date plus a reassurance that I will get reimbursed for any of the additional dental expenses that I am going to incur,” she said. “Costco needs to be held liable, and consumers need to be aware that things like this do happen.”
Despite immediately seeking dental work, Edmonds’ situation dragged on well beyond the night of the incident.
“A month after it actually happened, I was experiencing lots of pain on the side of my face and up into my head,” said Edmonds. “I had gone back to my family dentist, and they recommended me to go see a specialist.”
Eventually, Edmonds says she was told she needed to get a root canal.
“I was going through so much pain, I had figured something must have happened deeper within my tooth that my family dentist didn’t catch at the time,” she said.
The consultation fee for seeing the specialist was $285, and the root canal carried a cost of $1,700.
Even after all of that, Edmonds says she still needs to go back in for a permanent filling and a crown to rectify the issue.
Edmonds says she has been provided a quote for the remaining dental work totaling roughly another $1,700.
“If something like this happens, you have to advocate for yourself. You have to push it. You can’t just accept things the way that they are.”
Edmonds says she is seeking out a lawyer and is considering following up with legal action.
Costco has not responded to CTV News Ottawa’s multiple requests for comment.
“It just seems so surreal that they would not want to take care of their customer,” said Edmonds.
“They put this product on the shelves under the Costco brand, but they aren’t willing to stand by it when something like this happens.”
