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InstacartReviews 2,490

1.2
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Instacart Reviews Summary

Instacart has a rating of 1.2 stars from 2,490 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with Instacart most frequently mention customer service, credit card and grocery store. Instacart ranks 122nd among Grocery Delivery sites.

service
639
value
594
shipping
424
returns
436
quality
528
Texas
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Kathleen C.
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Twice cancelled or advised unable to deliver after it was supposed to be delivered unacceptable do not recommend at all

Date of experience: May 4, 2018
New York
3 reviews
7 helpful votes
Follow anne o.
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Placed my first order, so far looked ok There was a service fee of $6.00 that I thought was strange since I have already paid a monthly subscription fee of $15.00.
The day of the delivery checked it online. My order was very different! Many items simply missing ( pre-packaged cold cuts?), others replaced with much more expensive, and mainly inadequate items. Like gluten free replaced by regular bread, beef replaced with pork etc
Contacted instacart: There was nothing better they could offer except charging me an additional $15.00 fee for refusing the order...
The end of the story. Never again, but this lesson cost $36.00

Date of experience: May 3, 2018
Canada
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Check your receipt! The overcharge for items vs the price on the item. And, they charge for items they didn't deliver.

Date of experience: May 3, 2018
Florida
1 review
2 helpful votes
Follow Cindy L.
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These people hire drivers with NO CLUE. There app converts my address to a different place so I have had to call and make sure there are notes to give proper directions. Twice I never received my groceries because the drivers just return them when they cant figure it out (I live in a quadrant neighborhood, not hard to figure out NSEW). They just keep telling me they will put notes for the future. One guy told me if it were him he would stop using the service. Lol. Two hours after my scheduled delivery time, with the first driver returning my groceries, still no groceries. What type of convenience is this?

Date of experience: May 2, 2018
New York
1 review
5 helpful votes
Follow Alexandra C.
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I've been using Instacart for a few months now, ever since they started offering service in my area. I have not had a problem with anything related to charges, but I've had poor or inconsistent service, and my latest experience was the last straw. I requested a delivery time on a certain day and time, and the day of the delivery was informed that the delivery had been pushed back by an hour. I was able to accommodate that, as I would be home anyway. The delivery window came and went, and no groceries. I emailed Instacart, and they told me that due to a lack of shoppers, they were rescheduling the delivery for the next day. This did not work for me, so after some back and forth, it was rescheduled for the day after that. The same thing happened - midday, I got an email stating the delivery had to be rescheduled for another day, as they had no shoppers. At that point, I told them to forget it, and cancel the order.
They have one job - deliver groceries. Clearly they can't provide that service (at least in my area) if they keep cancelling deliveries due to a lack of shoppers. I don't have the patience or time to schedule a delivery only to have it cancelled.
I made my views known to them, as well, and have yet to receive a response.

Date of experience: April 27, 2018
South Carolina
1 review
5 helpful votes
Follow Jenny P.
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I have no complaint about the store I used, the personal shopper herself, what she brought to me, or how fast she was. That was all fine. My problem is that the site soaks the customer for at least 20% more than the groceries cost -- what exactly is "service" and "tip" when you've already paid for delivery and it's obvious that the shopper who delivers your order expects a tip on top of that? I can't pay 25% more than groceries cost. As it happens I did not tip my shopper (I had no cash in the house and it really was an emergency order), and then I ended up feeling guilty about that all day. If I hadn't been watching my granddaughter, who was sick and couldn't go out, I would have gone to the store myself. Next time that's what I'll do.

Date of experience: April 26, 2018
Texas
1 review
3 helpful votes
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Charged twice
April 25, 2018

They charged my card twice, all most $300, waiting on credit. Will not use again. Shopper was very nice and seemed to know what she was doing.

Date of experience: April 25, 2018
Nevada
2 reviews
4 helpful votes
Follow Patricia A.
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I use to get groceries delivered from Vons.com until instacart took over their payment site and declines my card that every other site takes. Now i cannot get deliveries from local stores with reasonable/low prices, only option is speciality stores with prices 3x the cost which screws up my budget and without owning a car makes getting my needs met nearly impossible!

Date of experience: April 25, 2018
Florida
1 review
5 helpful votes
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Fraud/scam
April 24, 2018

I wish to rate instacart a 0 on the scale. Instacart has recurring charges of over $200 being withdrawn from my account. When I attempted to contact them the customer service rep advised me to wait til the transaction was 'completed' posted [at the time it was still pending]. Now that the charges has posted. They have also overdrawn my account. ALL MY AUTOPAYMENT BILLs were rejected. This has caused me a major inconvenience. I am unable to get a properly trained customer service rep to help resolve this 1matter. This company definitely need to retrain their staff. Instacart is a scam. IMMEDIATELY CONTACT YOUR BANK IF YOU SEE ANY SUSPENCIOUS CHARGES FROM INSTACART.

Date of experience: April 24, 2018
Colorado
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow Carole L.
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I ran a busy business schedule and had to rely on instacart for years. The shoppers will pick the worst produce and make wrong replacement or false refunds because they are too lazy to do a good job. I placed an order for $150 on March 30th and had to call customer help 3x during the shopping because the shopper refused to communicate and listen. She gave me replacements I did not ask for and refunded items that were in stock. I asked to cancel the order and get a refund but I was delivered the items nonetheless and was told I would get a refund for the complete order. That never happened and now Instacart is refusing to take care with the refund or a credit. I'd rather change my time management and do my own shopping from now on.

Date of experience: April 19, 2018
Florida
1 review
5 helpful votes
Follow Hamada V.
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Charging $149 for an app that I downloaded and uninstalled the same day since I did not wish to use. Attorney general should prosecute this company.

Date of experience: April 18, 2018
California
1 review
6 helpful votes
Follow christelle r.
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Do not use them, even just to try once because without you knowing it, you would subscribe to annual fee of 149$. I found out about that when I checked my bank accounts and never consented to this subscription.

Date of experience: April 15, 2018
New Jersey
1 review
4 helpful votes
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DO NOT USE THEM! They charged my card twice and denied it! Had to call my bank to investigate and restrict them. Their customer services sucks nobody their knows anything

Date of experience: April 9, 2018
Georgia
1 review
5 helpful votes
Follow Marsha M.
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I don't know where to begin except to say they charged my card twice in two days and once after I cancelled my order that they could not delivery after a customer service (can't really call them customer service) stayed on the line and walked me through placing my first order said they would. I had a special bakery request at a Publix and asked repeatedly that my order would be picked up at that particular store for obvious reasons. The representative assured me that was not an issue. The next morning I get a call from a frantic shopper telling me he is at the Publix but my order is not. When I asked what Publix he told me one that was 20 miles from my delivery.

They are the rudest, most unprofessional organization I have ever encountered. They randomly (this is how they assign all their orders) gave my order to a shopper that was 20 miles from the delivery address which means they drive around with your grocery before they are delivered.

I spoke to two supervisors one in the morning to cancel my order and refund and another to inquire why I had a new charge after my order was cancelled. He advised me that it was an Instacart error and that he would report it. REALLY - they hit my card due to a system error.

Just run from this one - a new start up that is filled with bugs and won't be around much longer with these glaring issues. If I could give a negative number I would - AWFUL!

Date of experience: April 6, 2018
Netherlands
1 review
10 helpful votes
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Hidden fee - $149
April 1, 2018

I did not know beforehand about this 149 $ fee. And I was advertised that if I tried out this app, i can have free delivery if order over 35 $. No where else mention that after the 1st trial they will just charge me 149?!? No email, no receipt. I only know this when looking into my bank account. This is horrible.

Date of experience: April 1, 2018
Connecticut
1 review
8 helpful votes
Follow Julie C.
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I am an Insta-Shopper
March 29, 2018

Well I am reading all of these reviews and I now see why I sit in a parking lot waiting for an order to come through. Instacart sucks for us shoppers as well. I wanted to let you customers know that working for them is just as bad. It is Rush Rush Rush! When the app goes down in the grocery store, we cannot do anything... the texts do not go through until you are done with checkout. Sometimes I could communicate with customers while in the store. So many times the orders contain items that the store just does not carry. I just do not understand why the products are listed at all. It frustrates the customers as well as the shoppers. And so much time is spent looking for a suitable replacement. Not to mention that I my pay this week I made a total of $51.66 in 15.50 hours. That is about $3 an hour. Plus all the gas that I spend money on.
So I agree with all of you customers. There is absolutely no communication with them. If you have a question, they send you an email with FAQs. There is no communication with anyone. The app never works efficiently. And if you are late delivering the groceries because the app did not function correctly, they take points away from the shopper. And there is no way to dispute this because they will not communicate with us at all. I would never be a client of any service that treated their employees like this. It is a TERRIBLE SERVICE for the clients and the shoppers!
DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE! I SUSPECT THAT THEY ARE GOING UNDER VERY SOON!

Date of experience: March 29, 2018
Illinois
1 review
5 helpful votes
Follow Irene R.
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The service was OK (basically no complaints) until they charged me twice in February for the Instacart Express monthly subscription ($14.99 twice).
I called their customer service several times only to be told that "on their side" everything is correct, and finally - that my only recourse is to file a dispute with my bank over the charge (which I did).
Everything seemed fine until they cancelled my Instacart account online last week (end of March) - for filing the dispute! When I mentioned to the customer service that I have no other way of shopping at Whole Foods because I don't have a car, I was told to look for a cab service in my area (that would be ~$30.00 here if the cab doesn't have to wait for me to do my shopping).
At this point, I am being blackmailed (I don't have any other term for it) by them to drop the dispute, or they will keep my account closed 'til the end of June.
It seems that the E-mails are written not by a real person but by a computer!

Date of experience: March 27, 2018
California
1 review
7 helpful votes
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Ditto
March 25, 2018

Nightmare and I echo all of the other comments. I'm still trying to get a refund of the $149 membership fee for a service that I used once.

Date of experience: March 25, 2018
Ohio
1 review
8 helpful votes
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DO NOT USE
March 20, 2018

I tried to use their service but eventually end up not using it since most of the things I needed was out of stock. After 2-3weeks, I saw a charge on my card for $149.00 that says Instacart Subscription, I was surprised as I didn't even used their service and I don't remember signing up for anything. They have a very deceiving ad, so please save yourself. I called customer service, it was horrible. Have to speak with 2 CSRs.

Date of experience: March 20, 2018
Florida
1 review
7 helpful votes
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Not only did I not receive my ordered products - but I was charged some $20.00 on my debit card beyond my purchase price. When contacting Instacart they said this was common practice for this company! They tie up your funds and refuse to credit for up to ten day! Who do they think they are!

Date of experience: March 19, 2018

About the business

Instacart delivers groceries from local stores in two hours. Choose from stores like Whole Foods Market, Target, Costco and Petco. Try us today for free.


instacart.com
Founded in 2012
+457