INSTACART IS CURRENTLY IN THE PROCESS OF DOING THEIR YEARLY BACKGROUND CHECK ON SHOPPERS THAT HAVE BEEN WORKING THERE RELIABLELY FOR 1 OR MORE YEARS. THAT MEANS THEY ARE CURRENTLY DEACTIVATING 1000's OF SHOPPERS THAT LONG TIME CUSTOMERS HAVE COME TO TRUST. CUSTOMERS THAT SHOPPERS ARE FAMILIAR WITH SHOULD BE CONCERNED. FOR INSTANCE I MYSELF WAS DEACTIVATED. NO IDEA WHY. BUT THIS HAS SERIOUSLY INTEREFERED WITH MY Livelihood. I DONT KNOW HOW I'M GONNA PUT FOOD IN MY BELLY NOW. I'M AT LEAST STABLE MINDED. BUT THAT IS ME. NOW IMAGINE 1000's of other SHOPPERS SUDDENLY WITHOUT THEIR JOB. SOME PEOPLE BLOW A GASKET AND WHO'S TO SAY THEIR ONLY WAY OF HURTING INSTACART MIGHT BE HURT GOOD CUSTOMERS IN ORDER TO MAKE HEADLINES THAT WILL SCARE OTHER CUSTOMERS. I myself am thinking I might have to go vandalize City Hall or the Police Station so they lock me up and then I'LL at least be getting feed. IF THE BGC FINDS THAT A SHOPPER HAS SO MUCH AS RECIEVED A SPEEDING TICKET, OR ANY KIND OF MINOR TRAFFIC TICKET, A TICKET FOR NO INSURANCE, EVEN IF THE SHOPPER RECIEVED A TICKET AND THE JUDGE DISMISSED IT, INSTACART WILL STILL PASS JUDGMENT AND DEACTIVATE. WHY? MAINLY BECAUSE THERE IS NO ACTUAL HUMAN TO APPLY COMMON SENSE TO WHAT A COMPLETELY BINARY AUTOMATED SYSTEM HAS DISCOVERED. IT IS BINARY: THIS KIND OF SYSTEM IS ONLY CAPABLE OF ONE OF TWO TYPES OF ANSWERS.: THAT IS "YES OR NO", "UP or DOWN", "LEFTor RIGHT, ZERO or ONE, REJECT or ACCEPT, STOP or GO, ME or YOU, WRONG or RIGHT, BLACK or WHITE, ETC. In a binary system there is no in between or shades of grey or even good or bad excuses.

There is no other company out there that does this and just leaves the employee or shopper high and dry and totally unprepared.

The only way to combat INSTACART is to find a way to let customers know that their long time dedicated shoppers are being treated this way. Ask that they please stop using INSTACART until they learn to respect the very people that have made INSTACART a success. Customers would have that capability if I or any INSTACART SHOPPERS knew how to get this message and others like it to the masses of customers. INSTACART will never take notice of any of concerns until they feel it in their pocket book.

Hello, for some background I am Platinum car with about 120 orders, a 4.95 rating and have never had a problem with Instacart orders.

Yesterday, I was on my third batch of the day, it was a single order with about 20 items. The total came out to $201.04, I was on the screen where it tells me to pay with Apple Pay, as I scanned my card I waited for the cashier to give me my receipt and she told me it was declined and to try again. So I did, because what else was I supposed to do. Again, declined, with a line of shoppers behind me I tried one more time to no prevail. Since I had my girlfriend with me helping me shop and she was a manager at the store I was shopping at (Wegmans) she knew just to pause the order so we could go over to the customer support area while I contacted Instacart support.

At first when I was in the chat with IC support it wasn't very helpful so I chose the call option. I talked with the nice woman for a minute or two about what was happening. She could see from her end how much the order was and asked if I had added anything the order that I wasn't supposed to, I didn't. The only thing that I replaced was 12 oz of brussel sprouts for a 24 oz family pack since the customer wanted a replacement and that was the closest option. The IC support woman said that the purchase was "too much money" so it was declining. However, I didn't want to delay the matter any further because the order was due and there was a pretty good tip that I didn't want to be decreased because of this, so the IC support woman added exactly $201.04 to my card balance and the purchase went through.

I brought everything to my car and started going to the house for the drop off, when all of a sudden my IC app suddenly shut down, saying that the account was deactivated and was under review. The order was completely voided and all money was lost. However, I still did the right thing and delivered the groceries to the customer who was nice enough to give me a big cash tip for my troubles.

Anyways, my account was deactivated, this had never happened before so I checked my email. There was an email from Instacart Trust and Safety. The email repeated that I breached the Independent Contractor Agreement by misusing the Instacart payment card. To dispute this, please respond to this email with any evidence to support your claim. So I wrote an extensive email to this email with pictures of the receipt and everything that had happened, and I was met with this email:

"Thank you for your response. We flagged your payment card due to misappropriated funds for the following transaction: APPROVED | credit | December 18th 2023 3:41pm CST | WEGMANS WILMINGTON #11 | $201.04. If you disagree with this decision, please submit receipts for the orders outlined above. If you no longer have these receipts, retailers can often reprint receipts as long as you present your original payment card. "

After reading this email, of course I resent the receipts and 30 minutes later I received another email.

"We received your request to reconsider deactivating your shopper account. After reviewing both your account and the available information, Instacart determined that you breached your Independent Contractor Agreement.

Your account remains inactive, and you can no longer provide services on the Instacart platform.

We may not respond to further emails about this issue. Thank you for your service. Best, Instacart, Financial Risk Team."

I was completely shocked, I didn't know what to do so I sent another email shortly after that response and a day later still no response. Does anyone know what I can do or am I screwed by their own card declining? Thanks.

NASTY SHOPPERS, CONSTANTLY PLAYING TRICKS TO INCREASE THEIR TIPS. HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE AGENTS.

I had placed a grocery order with Instacart a couple of days ago. I placed the order the night before, and chose an available 7:00 - 9:00am because I had some errands that needed to get taken care of, and I didn't have time to go shopping. Order confirmed.

Here's what transpired the next morning:

• I get a message saying my order is being worked on, and will be here by 9:00am.

• Around 9:00am, I get another message saying there has been a slight delay, and my order would be here by 10:00am.

• 11:15am: I get a message saying my order is being shopped. I'm already late for an appointment, and had to reschedule. I still had many errands to run.

• I call the store to try and reschedule my delivery, and they tell me they don't do deliveries, and have nothing to do with Instacart.

• I message the shopper from the portal they send you via text, and ask him if he could deliver it later in the day when I return. He tells me they can't reschedule, and he gets paid for the amount of time it takes him to shop and deliver, and I should call customer support. I asked for the number, and he doesn't have one for customers, but says he can call them, and they will call me right back.

• They call me fairly quick. I tell them my situation, and asked if they could reschedule it without docking the shopper's time. The lady says they can't reschedule, and that I would have to cancel the order, and reorder it.

It took me over an hour to go through everything I needed, and it was a rather large order. They don't save your order if you cancel, so I would have to go through the whole process again. I told her the order was supposed to be here between 7:00 and 9:00am, and it was just now being shopped. So, because it was so late, they should have accommodated me. She tells me the same thing: cancel and reorder.

I asked to speak with a supervisor, and she tells me the supervisor will tell me the same thing. I ask again to speak with a supervisor, and she tells me she is canceling the order, and hung up on me!

This service is supposed to be a convenience to people, not a headache! I use it at times, because I am fully disabled and shopping is difficult most of the time.

I don't care what business you run, customer support is supposed to be a helpful resource, and speaking to a supervisor is a right; not an option. Hanging up on a customer who isn't threatening, or abusive? Never OK!

I'm sorry I hit the Return button on accident. I'm very dissatisfied with the entire experience. I went on the Publix App to place my order. I was directed to Instacart, where I struggled with the App. I thought I ordered Delivery but it came out as pickup. My bad but no big deal because I literally live behind the store. There was a button that said something like "Forgot something?" indicating that I could add to my existing order. I decided to get some ice cream but when I ordered it and went to pay I saw a charge of $3.99 for the service! I called customer service and I spoke with Noah, who was very kind and accommodating and said that charge would be removed.Great. Both orders were scheduled to me ready for pick up at 5:30. I waited for the text notification that my order was ready until at 5:50. I called Instacart customer service and spoke with a woman who I believe said her name was Serene. I explained to her what the problem was because my second order was ice cream and I didn't want it to melt. She stated that since I was late and missed my pickup time I wouldn't be able to have my order brought out (which was ready) because all of the shoppers were serving other customers. I explained to her again that I didn't come at 5:30 because They didn't send me a notification. Then she scolded me and told me I didn't have my notification setting on (also untrue!). She would not allow me to discuss anything and she treated me like a liar! Her final directive for resolution was for me to go in and pick it up myself! I told her that I'd been cleaning all day and was not dressed for going outside...which is why I arranged to receive my order CURBSIDE! She is supposed to be a Customer Service Representative, however she behaved the complete opposite! I called Publix Customer Service in tears from frustration! She was so kind and apologetic (for something that had nothing to do with her store or her department!) and, after having a really bad day before any of this happened, she instantly validated my frustration and told me that she would have someone bring my groceries right away after making sure my ice cream didn't melt! A couple of minutes after speaking with her I got a Notification via text that said something along the lines of my order was ready and waiting. A couple of minutes later I received another notification via text again saying something along the lines that my shopper was on the way to me. I started this comment on April 22nd. I'm sorry it has taken me so long to to finish and submit it but I feel so strongly that the "Customer Service Representative" receive a strong and clear message that this is unacceptable! I personally think she needs to be fired! If it has become the culture of associates serving my community that needs to be addressed. Again, my personal opinion is that, if this is a cultural problem, intensive training followed by close supervision is in order. Thank you for your time and attention to this issue. Comment began 4/22/23 5:51 pm as soon as I got home.

Since the pandemic in April of 2020 we started using Instacart. But there are definitely problems you will likely encounter.

1) Note: if you pay the $9.99 per month or the $99 per year fee for free delivery you won't have to pay delivery fees for orders over $35 but you will still have to pay service fees on each order. The service fee is based on your order total. They only exception is for pickup orders.

2) Some stores advertised "in store prices." This is simply not true. There are exceptions not sure if it is human error or some other determining factor.

3) Shoppers can charge you for something you don't receive.

4) Also shoppers can charge you for one thing and deliver a completely different item. For example let's say you order a gallon of organic milk. The Instacart Shopper grabs conventional milk which is much cheaper and scans and pays for that at the store. If they don't use the replace function on the Instacart App you will still be charged for the much more expensive organic milk while the shopper actually paid for the cheaper conventional milk. This type of situation happens a lot.

5) Customers are suppose to be able to tag items as ok to replace if out of stock or not and only to be refunded if not available. If you tag your items as refund and basically don't give the shopper the freedom to pick a replacement don't trust the shopper will honor your selection, they can still replace the item and often the replacements chosen make no sense. So basically you have to babysit your order to make sure the shopper doesn't slip in a replacement you don't want. Also some shoppers will out and out lie saying an item is "out of stock" only to replace it with a much higher priced item.

6) Expired and perishable food items. Even if you put in the instructions to get a good expiration date, e.g. milk, meat, etc. we still have received items that are slated to expire the same day, the next day or have already expired.

7) Rotten food, when ordering bagged produce shoppers often don't check the bag to make sure it does not contain obviously rotten or moldy produce. We have even received hand picked produce not previouslybagged that was rotten. In our opinion so the shopper did this so they would not have to refund the item lowering the order total which we believe effects how much they get paid on the order.

8) If you encounter too many problems AND you report these problems asking for credits or refunds expect your account to be restricted. You won't be restricted from buying, just from getting credits or refunds. In order to get a credit if your account is restricted you will first have to go thru the app and select the items or items, note why you want a refund or credit, provide a picture and provide additional details as needed. Than you will get an email saying they received your request for a refund or credit and you will hear back. Then you will get a second email saying you have too many issue reports and they can't issue anymore credits on your account. But you can appeal it by sending in another request to their order appeals section. So now you have write out a new email detailing the situation, attach any pictures, and include the order number from the first email you received. Than you wait. Your order appeal might be accepted or you might receive yet another email asking for more information. Or you might not receive any response, so you will have to keep resending your email request until you get a response. If Instacart orders were not fraught with problems than this would not be a problem. But we seldom get an order that doesn't require a request for a refund.

9) Finally if you dare dispute a charge with your bank because say you didn't get a refund or credit or there was a billing error, than Instacart will lock your account until you withdraw your dispute and send them a screenshot proving you withdrew your dispute.

Bottom line, Instacart is expensive, you pay more for items than if you went in store, you pay delivery fees, service fees and there are other fees as well if the store is far from your home and items are large or heavy.

Instacart's business model penalizes customers who ask for credits and/or dispute erroneous charges.

The whole customer service experience is extremely poor. On rare occasions you might get good customer service.

The chances you will get a shopper who doesn't know what they are doing, doesn't follow instructions, or is just plain dishonest and wants the easiest and most lucrative path for them when fulfilling your order, are very high.

This is all the while your account is restricted.

Until finally your account is locked if you try to exact some sort of Instacart justice by disputing charges through your bank.

Supposedly instacart's motto is you will save time. No that is simply not true unless you give Instacart a free hand to deliver whatever they want, whenever they want and at the prices they want, plus delivery and service fees and turn a blind eye to what the service costs per order. You could easily pay on any single order 30% more. So if you went to the store and paid $100 you could easily pay instacart for the same order $130 or more plus pain and suffering.

I have been an Instacart shopper since 2020. It was great back then when you could see where you would be delivering to and select the store that you're familiar with to save time locating items. I hadn't shopped for a year and recently started again. The changes they've made are horrible! You can only see the amount you'll be paid and the location of the store to shop at. For example, yesterday I accepted an Dollar Tree shop (they're in every city!) that was 1/2 hour away from me. I assumed the final delivery destination would be no more than 10-15 minutes away, but I navigated to the customer's address, it was 36 MINUTES FURTHER AWAY! You can't cancel the shop at this point, so I was stuck delivering to that distance. You can no longer choose the store to shop at either. Example - I had just completed an Aldi shop and accepted another one that was a little further away. I thought I would just go back to the Aldi where I JUST SHOPPED and select that store, but the app said, nope, you aren't at the right location. In the past, it would say you're not at the right location, do you want to shop here anyway. So, now, instead of being able to shop and drive to the delivery destination, I had to get in my car and drive to the farther Aldi location, then start my shop, then drive even further away to deliver the groceries. This is highly inefficient and wasteful of everyone's time, not to mention that GAS PRICES ARE ASTRONOMICALLY HIGH RIGHT NOW! To add further insult, on 9/14 I accepted a 3 batch order. During check out for the third batch, my Instacart Issued card was declined. The location was a cell phone dead zone, so I tried for half an hour to reach Instacart customer support (there is no phone number only chat options), but of course, I couldn't reach anyone that could help. Rather than leave the customer with no groceries, I paid for them myself, delivered them, then submitted a reimbursement request through the Shopper app. I uploaded receipts showing the Instacart debit card was declines, as was a the receipt showing I had paid personally. INSTACART DENIED MY REQUEST WITH NO REASON. I contacted them through chat, but all they could tell me is that it has been "elevated." I refuse to work with this company further and I would highly recommend that others steer clear of this unethical company. By the way, they tell us not to give the receipts to customers, because if we do, the customers will see that they are clearly being overcharged. Terrible, terrible company.

I recently had 2 bad experiences with Instacart, two years ago I had my first bad experience, they delivered the wrong items and wouldn't even come and pick them up from where they left them inside my apartment complex down stairs after my instructions were for them to always call me first 5 minutes before they arrive because my apartment maintenance won't fix the intercoms so I have to put a bag between the building door to keep it open for them to get in, I don't want any contact due to the Corona virus, but Instacart refused to take the wrong bags away and one of my apartment neighbors down stairs, I don't know who left a note taped to one of the bags saying I should get them.

Last month I ordered about 13 items from Giant supermarket and they used Instacart, well on the web site I have instructions for the shopper to please call me 5 minutes before they get here as I said, and please bring my bags inside my third floor apartment and put them on my tables and couch too if it's a large order because I have bad painful Degenerative Disc Disease, 5 bulging discs, and Spinal Stenosis in my lower back and I can't bend or lift heavy bags and other things. Well almost 2 hours after my shopper delivered my items without ever calling me and quite a few were perishable too, I learn on the Instacart site that my order was delivered and it was somewhat warm weather that day too, so my food was now spoiled!

I called Instacart customer service and the guy I spoke with said that he sees my instructions on the site and that my shopper didn't pay attention to them so he assigned me a new shopper to get me all of these items again, and this shopper was really great too, she really took the time to look for items that I can only have because of a recent blood test showing my blood sugar was somewhat too high, but some items weren't available.

Before she got to my place, a guy who was visiting one the residents who lives on the first floor of my building knocked on my door to tell me that there was food in bags outside and that there is fresh chicken etc that can spoil in the warm weather, I told him that a new shopper was coming and I had asked her on the phone before he came to my door if she would please throw the first order of food in the dumpsters outside and she said she could do that.

The guy who came to my door asked me if I wanted him to throw it away, well after my shopper came over and kindly brought up my 3 bags inside my third floor apartment and put them on my table, she told me that the guy helped her throw out the first order. Instacart choses the tip for your shopper but you can change it, at least $5 tip and then $5 or sometimes more tip and service fee, depending if you get a bigger order.

Just a few days ago, I ordered 15 items through Instacart from Aldi's market, about 1/2 hour went buy and the shopper never called me or showed up and was wondering where she was, I then get a phone call from a neighbor I never met from the other part of my building who tells me that there was a woman with my bags of food and that she can't find my apartment, and neither could this neighbor at first and she told me that the woman (my shopper) barely spoke any English! It was about 11.30 am and it was about 70 degrees outside too.

And she said to me can't I come down and get the food, and I said no I can't and it's written in my instructions on the site but of course if this shopper could hardly speak or understand English she wouldn't have understood my instructions. Finally this neighbor, with the shopper, and with another neighbor I don't know knocked on my door and she brought my few bags inside and put them on my table and I thanked her and said sorry.

I called customer service and they said they were sorry and gave me credit for the next order, and said they wouldn't assign me this shopper again. The next day I saw that I only received one avocado and I had bough a bag of mini avocados 6 count, so I called and told another customer service agent about this and she gave me a refund, but I also said that I should really get the delivery charge refunded too, but after she put me on hold and spoke with her supervisor, she said he said no, so I told her that that's not fair or right, and that my neighbor was the one who really delivered my order etc so she put me on hold and spoke with her supervisor again and she claimed that he finally said ok he would refund the delivery charge.

I also said to her, why would you use a shopper who doesn't speak English? And she said that they don't discriminate and they give equal opportunities and I said this isn't about prejudice it's about being able to communicate with the shopper so things like this don't happen.

Today's delivery was absolutely HORRIBLE. My delivery was scheduled for 5 -7pm. I usually receive my order within the first hour of scheduled delivery. I noticed that it was almost 6pm & I hadn't received a text message notifying me about the status of my order. I tried texting the delivery person, but no avail. At around 6:30, I decided to call instacart. I spoke to a representative & then a supervisor who then said that the delivery person who I was texting no longer had my order & it was given to another deliverer for "technical reasons." After the 2nd deliverer was notified by instacart, the person text me saying that they were literally in the store checking out order and that it would be ANOTHER HOUR WAIT because she still "had another delivery." Around 7 & 8pm, I then receive a text out of nowhere from instacart informing me that my delivery had been rescheduled (without my authorization) & pushed to 11pm. Mind you, I don't even open my door for family members after 10pm. Surely, I was not about to open my door for some random delivery person at 11pm. I decided to call instacart back to see what was going on with my order & my money. Keep in mind, all this drama & incompetence was over ONE ITEM. One would think I had a weeks worth of groceries with all this unnecessary confusion. Of course afte calling about 3 to 4 times demanding to speak to a supervisor & threatening to contact consumer services, TWO of their reps hung up in my face. Finally, I receive a notification from A THIRD delivery person who exhibited far more professionalism & compassion for the customer than the actual field office. Even she couldn't understand all the foolery going on for just ONE ITEM. I think the thing that insulted me the most was all the patronizing by the call reps as tho I was just born today, and speaking to me as tho they were robots reading from a script instead of just being honest about their screw up. This will be my last time using instacart. I had things to do that I had to cancel & it was all scheduled around my delivery time, and thanks to instacart, those plans were ruined.

My first time and NEVER AGAIN. I ordered 17 gluten free items from Kroger and was supposed to get my order between 1:00 and 3:00 the next day. I kept getting texts that items were unavailable. I also received a text that one of the items was substituted when I had made sure the "Allow substitutions" box was unchecked and even checked the boxes for all 17 items to NOT SUBSTITUTE. So the guy substituted (non-gluten free) Little Debbies for I-have-no-idea-what, when I didn't order any kind of sweet baked goods, and had the guy not noticed that everything I ordered was gluten free?

I had specified that the shopper was not allowed to leave the order without seeing me first, and I knew from a text that he had checked out of Kroger at 12:15. I waited and waited, and it finally occured to me that, maybe, he left it on my front porch and DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO SEND THE TEXT THAT IT HAD BEEN DELIVERED, which is exactly what had happened. I don't know how long my cold and frozen items sat out there. Then, I was charged for 6 items and only got 5, because the Little Debbies weren't even in the friggin' bag. The total charge for the stuff I actually received plus the Little Debbies I didn't get was $28.54 minus store discounts, plus tax, plus the delivery fee of $9.95 for a subtotal of 37.46. With the $6 tip, which I didn't realize I only had 12 hours to add to or reduce, I paid $43.46 for what I could have gone to the store and gotten myself for about $26, and not been charged for something I didn't even get.

And to top it all off, I also only had 12 hours to rate my Instacart experience, which I missed. SO HERE IT IS, INSTACART. YOU SUCK. Try hiring better people. I'm guessing the store had at least several of the items the guy didn't get, and he just didn't want to be bothered to look too hard.