Instacart
Reviews and Complaints

I was with Instacart for a year or so and they left because I specifically ask the shoppers in the notes to please put my groceries in plastic bags with handles as I have to climb 5 sets of stairs as I live on the 5th floor. So all of sudden I was getting groceries in paper bags or boxes and the shoppers tell me they seen the note after they were done shopping. Should they not check that first to see what the customer wants? So I stopped my membership, signed up again a month ago and received 2 orders on in paper bags and one in boxes. I now cancelled again and told customer service why I cancelled, all they say is we will send this to the complaint department, I said it was already sent there. SO DO NOT SPEND YOUR MONEY ON INSTACART THEY COULD CARE LESS ABOUT THEIR CUSTOMERS.

After they charge you a service fee and a delivery fee and you pay the membership fee, they still mark up the products 25%! On my last receipt this amounted to $47 plus they marked up the tax?! In total with their "fees" for this $200 Costco shopping trip cost me an ADDITIONAL $68.47! OUTRAGEOUS
Fees for service I can understand and agreed to; allowing the insane upcharge I DO NOT CONSENT!

The sad thing is the shoppers do not make a decent wage if you don't tip them, so the company is taking all the profit! After several months of using this service I AM OUT and I will be telling every platform I can to spread the word! How dare you take advantage of people during a pandemic!

I ordered groceries many times, this time I compared the receipt and was charged over $50 more on a $250 order. That does not include the service fees or delivery. I contacted instacart via email and on the app several times and nobody ever cared to reply. I am owed that money back. Ripping me off for 20% is BS. I cannot belive you have the nerve to rip off loyal customers. I finally after 7 months, cancelled this week. I want my money back.

On June 4, 2021, I placed an order with Stater Bros., Fontana CA. I ordered Miller Lite cans only, no bottles, as clearly noted in my note by the item. The shopper delivered bottles, which I clearly did not want and said so in ALL CAPS. I refused delivery and asked her to take the bottles back and either deliver the correct cans or arrange for a refund/credit. I noted this in the receipt portion provided and replied via email. No reply has been received. I am again requesting a refund or credit for the incorrect item I did not accept.

Miller Lite Beer LN Btl

$16.99 • 20 x 12 fl oz

If out of stock,
find best match
Replace with Miller Lite 18 or 12 pack CANS ONLY, NO BOTTLES!
1

$16.99

Instacart demands a video of the driver running over the water facet before they can act they say. They won't give me his insurance information or his last name so I can file on his insurance. Driver was talking on cell phone during accident. In Texas Section 545.425 he can go to jail for a hit and run accident while talking on a cell phone. Broke line underground. Drained water well dry for a day. Still getting sand in water today.

I was trying to explain my son thought the Instacart Profile with picture was for my account ...he accidentally hit the camera button within the app on my phone and took a picture of the wall and sent it. Tony B from Trust and Safety deactivated my account with no further investigation and said this quote! at the bottom of this email... I loved working for this company til I received this email...

Refrain from Messaging

Tony B. (Support)
12:42 PM (7 hours ago)
to me

##- Please type your reply above this line -##
Hi Ronald,

We have upheld our decision regarding your deactivated account after determining that there was a violation of the Full-Service Account Access Guidelines and your Independent Contractor Agreement. We will no longer respond to any more of your requests on this topic and we request that you discontinue sending additional communications.

Best,
Tony B.
Instacart, Trust and Safety

Instacart requested a photo to prove I am who I am doing the Instacart shopping. I took a picture of my ceiling in my car because my hair is in an Afro not done. Instacart fires me. Then I sent an email with my face, hair messed up, all my personal information and the person responded From Instacart stating I still did NOT prove I was who I said I was. Most importantly my account is Uneligibe for rehire

I am an Instacart Shopper. I have been an Instacart Shopper for FIVE years with consistent FIVE STAR ratings. On Saturday May 22nd, 2021 at approximately 10:40 am I delivered an order that I had shopped at Jimbo's in San Diego to a customer by the name of "Jack." I brought the bags to his front door & then took a picture of the delivery (the bags) that I left at his door. I sent that picture to him through the Instacart app. I swiped "delivered" & proceeded to go home for the day. Within about 5-10 minutes of my delivery I received a message that the customer reported the entire order missing! Instacart just simply gave him a full refund-no investigation at all! I am appalled & deeply saddened that customers can do this! He has jeopardized my only source of income!
I have since emailed Instacart six times & still have not received any communication back from them. I sent a copy of the receipt, the picture of the customers house along with the route I took to get there on my google maps, & also a picture of the delivery was sent through the Instacart app.
Shoppers need to feel safe that their accounts wont be automatically deactivated over a fraudulent claim from a customer. Shoppers are automatically guilty & the customers are always right, this is not fair at all. I am thinking about filing a police report. This process needs to change!

I work so hard at shopping for people. I do the best I can dealing with low stock and trying to text back and forth with customers about stock issues. I mostly have a rating in the 4.94 range, but because of a couple pretty customers mad a out replacements I have two 3 stars. It is so unfair that any rating below a five and they limit the jobs I have access to. I spent 2 hours just trying to get a batch. There were none showing up for me to accept yet the whole time I am seeing notifications for lots of batches that I can't access. Now I see that instacart has a ONE star rating... WTF! I'm not sure I want to keep working for such a horrible company.

So let me get this straight Instacart can place a "hold" for more than the total amount they say they are going to charge. Mind you, I requested a refund for all out of stock items and requested that no substitutions be made so how can they justify double charging me!? So how can they get away with borrowing extra money from your bank account? This is stealing! I'm calling BBB and a lawyer.

Instacart has sent me a notice that I participated in multiple instances of potentially fraudulent behavior on the platform. In its message, it provides no details or dates, it just states that I have purposefully worked too slowly and have purposefully taken slower routes just to make the time go more slowly i.e. make more money because of Prop 22 in California. I am a 5-Star Shopper, have been on the platform for a couple months, and have no idea what instance they're referring to. As a 1099 worker, I have the choice to do my work as I see fit, as long as I don't break any major rules. This is a false and baseless accusation, and it also came with a threat of deactivation if further violations occur. Yet they give no evidence and don't give me any chance to defend myself. This is wrong on multiple levels. I do my work in the most efficient and timely manner that I am able to do, and have never recieved a bad rating or a notice of excessive lateness. This is absurd and very scary as it is my livelihood.

I started my first day with Instacart on April 30th. A customer by the named of Judy made false allegations in regards to her unopened products being tampered with.

Video surveillance in the store I shopped at Kroger's will show the cashier scanning the unopened items. I am new to this job and not familiar with Ms. Judy's prior false allegations towards other instacart workers.

I feel that she needs to be removed from being able to purchase through instacart due to fraudulent activity and claims that she is making.

I made a delivery order and didn't notice the fine print that said that my card would be charged $30.00. I tried your phone number that handles the charges but it was closed. I also called instacart and the refused to remove the charge even after I received the order. I will never use ABC or Instacart again. My card was a debit card and not a charge card. My purchase came to $20.87 not $30.00. Any time I have charged on line I was only charged for the items I purchased plus tax not almost 30% more. In your not below it states that the amount 15% higher. I don't care if it is just a hold but it is money, I don't have the use of. I am a 73-year-old man on a fixed income and I can't afford things like this. According to your fine print it takes 7 business days to get this resolved. That is 7 more days that I lose the use of that money. I was charged almost 30% higher.

missing items, brown bananas, incorrect chicken items, smashed butter and mixed greens container. This is unacceptable service and I would like a refund.

The woman clearly was not paying attention to my order directions. I ordered through the frys delivery service and my phone number is 520.548.4640.

Jennifer Satterlee

Hello.
I had a severe problem with my last order on April 1st. I did initially complain through the app but never spoke with anyone. My shopper, Sammy, had started my shopping on time but took 3.5 hours to deliver. The frozen items completely thawed and actually warm, and ice cream was completely melted. I did get a refund of 45$ but no resolution of what the shopper was doing with my groceries. They are supposedly to be in a temperature bag or place as well. Anyway, my issue is I want to make sure the shoppers are actually being trained and accountable for our groceries. it look like Sammy went "home" or somewhere after shopping for me, and stayed there with my groceries in his vehicle for at least 2 hours. I want to ensure if I stay with you guys, Sammy will never shop for me again. and this behavior should be unacceptable for your people. And also I would recommend better customer service by actually calling customers who have legitimate and grievous complaints as this one. And this is not the first time or experience with Instacart where my frozen item were thawing. thank you for your time.

said he didn't have enough time to keep looking. very rude. Do you do background checks

Today I placed an order through Dillons and I will tell you now that I will never use this service or store again. I never chose the option for substitutions. This store allowed for you to unclick substitutions so I did, but still got the substituted items. As I said, I will never do that again so this was on me.
I am frustrated and curious as to why someone thinks chicken is a good substitute for thin pork chops. That is a whole other meat!
Especially not knowing if the person has an allergy to chicken (which they do) why would you just not pick something in the same meat group? If no one answered the text I would think the person would pick a pork item or not get the item.
I will end up making a trip to the store after work anyway. Thanks!

Yesterday I received a phone call from " instacart" and was told my previous customer filed a complaint of "incomplete order" and they insisted I resolved it on the spot and was told my current shop was reassigned they had to check my account and investigate and made me give them my text generated code after threatening permanent "deactivation", Then proceeded to take over my account change all my info, steal my paycheck for $500.00 so now they have my SS#, bank # they changed all info and deactivated my account so now I can't get into shopper support. And NOBODY at instacart has helped me. I have filled out fraud report and emailed them. NO RESPONSE!

I decided to try delivering for Instacart to make a few extra dollars. At first everything worked out ok, but I wasn't impressed when I had to drive 15 miles each way to make a delivery for very little money. Still I was willing to do so. Several weeks ago, after completing an order ar Costco the app would not move past the part that I was supposed the receipt. That means I did not have the information of where to deliver the order. Both times I spent an additional half hour in the store in a chatroom trying to get help. The second time it happen I was informed I was not the only one that had this issue. Since I am a computer hobbiest of many years I know it was not me. The second time it happened it was so aggravating it caused me to lose their credit card. Finally the person on the other end just gave me the address and asked me to contact them in the chat room when I delivered it. They also ordered me a new credit card. The new card arrived yesterday, which was 2 weeks from when it happened. So today I took an order to Costco to deliver once again 15 miles from the store and my home. At the cashier it the app told me to use debit, but gave me no pin number. After holding up the line in the store, I was moved aside and spent 15 minutes in a chatroom once again. Finally I got a pin number. The manager took over and tried to help me complete the order. The pin number came back with the order declined. Further I was not able to get back to my batch to complete it in the app. Again in a chatroom for 20 minutes I was informed that due to a technical glitch my batch became unassigned. The person helping me in the chatroom talked a few things that made little sense, but assured me he would help. After 20 minutes I finally had enough, told him I quit, apologized to the manager for having to return the items and left the store. Now I have deleted the app and am finished with Instacart. If their app cannot work properly, and shoppers are dependent on the app to do so, I do not see why anyone would put up with that for such a pittance.

Instacart, I thought was a great way to make money . But I was unfortunately proven wrong . I had a customer who only had 1 item in his order . That item was out of stock and the order needed to be refunded and cancelled. I was able to refund the customer but only instacart support is able to cancel the order so it wont count against me and allow me to accept new orders . For some reason the link to initiate a conversation in the support chat keeps crashing. And for the last 5 hours continues to crash. The order was cancelled due to inactivity which negatively impacted my cancellation rate. Instacart has no working phone number, no email for their employees, and no way for their employees to contact them outside of the app . This is ridiculous!