InstacartReviews 2,490

I purchased a Groupon for $40 worth of groceries as a first time customer with instacart.com. I had never tried them and thought this deal would be a perfect opportunity to see if I liked them. When my cart had over $40 worth of food in it (as indicated by the bright red total at the bottom of my cart) I proceeded to check out and was charged over $40. Upon delivery I expected my emailed receipt to be less than $1, but it still showed I was being charged the full amount. I called customer service where I was told they wouldn't honor the deal because my subtotal was less than $40. Which was not clearly marked anywhere on the Groupon or their website. The bright red numbers are what had my focus for the price. I entered my special code and instacart.com said it had been applied, even though it hadn't. Customer service was rude, the website was misleading, and I can't utilize the Groupon I purchased because I'm no longer a first time customer. I feel violated after this experience. Instacart.com will never receive my patronage again and I wanted to let folks know that they have some rather shady practices (and I didn't even get into the price gouging and shady replacements they tried to give me!). I will not recommend them to ANYONE at any point in the future.

Do instacart shoppers have to be so rude? They all have their headphones in and race running through Costco against the flow of traffic and don't care who is in their path. They are all so annoyed that you are traveling at a normal shopping pace through the aisles. Sorry I'm not a young, single hipster on a deadline to make money while I shop for groceries. It's just me and my toddler picking up our regular goods and trying out samples like everyone else. At least I know to watch out for the green t-shirts and ear buds charging my way!

This place is a total ripoff! They tried charging me 30% over the price per item besides charging a service fee! And to top it off, they kept the drivers tip! They cancelled my orders and deactivated my account, then my husband made his account and half of the order was cancelled and half not. They deactivated his account as well and when I called they tried to give him a credit for future use on a deactivated account! NEVER AGAIN! Thieves!

The shoppers weighed all my items even items that were pre-packaged like zucchini with the label on it and she weight the item and She changed all of my prices that I had purchased. The toltal is supposed to be $35 and they came out to be $71. If I'm purchasing something online and I agreed to the total & I see the price for each item that is what I expect to pay. And when you're purchasing your groceries from Publix Publix has nothing to do with it so don't even bother calling the 800-number Publix cause they're going to refer you back to Instacart. Instacart apologized and I got my money back but that's because I checked and that's how I found out. They believe and give me a $10 credit from my next use at least and my groceries was about an hour late from the time that I scheduled
When I have used Walmart pick up grocery if I buy $1.79 tomatoes and they don't have it they will replace the three tomatoes with $4 dollar tomatoes if they have to, and you will get 3 tomatoes because that's what you need and it's not your fault they don't have the item.

Instacart is new on my side of Phoenix so I was very excited to use them until the fraudulenty took money out of my account when I tried to enter a promo code. I called customer service and all I got was sorry there is nothing I can do, like a broken record. I explained to her I foud not authorize this payment I was putting in a promo code, once again broken record speech. So I said toher so should U call my bank and state Instacart fraudulently took money out of my account... she finally stopped sounding like a broken record and stated, "no that is not what Im saying... so I hung up on her andfied a claim wuth my bank, and now I cannot use my old debit card I haveto wait for a new card to come and go to the bank to make any withdrawals for expenses... Instacart ruined my weekend!

I am in my mid twenties and order about 1000 a month in groceries for the tech start up I work for. I had a driver find me on twitter after dropping off one of the orders by looking up my name and message me creepy things like I miss your killer smile on the loading dock. I immediately notified instacart and asked to take him off our shopper list due to sexual harassment. My request was ignored and he ended up being our driver on an order a few months later. Upon showing up for the second order showed up to our office pulled me aside in the corner and told me that he didnt send me those messages on twitter but wishes he did. Um Ok? Creppy much? Then he left me a note on a food item, gave it to another one of my coworkers, which had his personal cell phone asking me to call him. I was horrifed and still am and feel like this guy knows where I work and could easily follow me home etc. I called instacart waited on hold for almost an hour to be told sorry for inconvenience he is a credit in the amount that we give to folks referring someone for business. As I said I spent over 1000 a month and that is all instacart did for me after being sexually harassed and reporting it on a prior occasion. Needless to say I am moving my business to peapod & amazon fresh. Instacart customer service disgusts me. Thanks for nothing Instacart.

I am so extremely frustrated. My delivery window was 1-3. I had to leave for work at 3:15. I called at 2:55 to ask where my order was and let them know I had to leave promptly after 3. My order didn't arrive by 3:15. No one called to reschedule a delivery although I was assured they would. I had to call to find my order. They said my order was canceled. It wasn't. My replacement order could not be processed because I do not have Firefox on my computer. (!) so I couldn't enter a credit card (!) to get the groceries I had already shopped for myself and paid for and paid for the delivery (!). And worst of all, I have not received a receipt to refund me for my order and the smug and condescending customer service rep said I have to physically go into whole food tomorrow to get a refund (!) I assure you I will not ever use this service again. If I could rate it a zero or negative 5 I would have. Instacsrt added an hour of telephone calls and computer frustration to my day, when I paid to have a delivery to save time. Additionally, the hour and a half that I spent shopping and standing in a check out line has been utterly wasted and I will have to do it again tomorrow. I have nothing to put in my son's lunch box for school. What a horrible horrible service. So. Frustrating. Save yourself! Stay away!

I placed an order with Instacart last week with two BOGO items, but I chose different varieties of the BOGO. Lo and behold, you HAVE to order the EXACT same item in order to get the BOGO price. So, where does that savings go? Probably right to Instacart! I researched Shipt and found that with BOGO items (or any item, for that matter), you can leave a note. So, in the cart it shows 2 of the same item, but in the note, you can specify what other variety you want. I did this today and got exactly what I wanted. Buh-bye, Instacart!

- They improperly filled my order
- They forgot things on my order
Then I find out that in ADDITION TO THE SERVICE CHARGE on the website, which is for the shopper, you are expected to also tip the delivery person.
Also, prices are higher than if you shopped in the store. Too many variables add up to a too high price!
This was my first order for which there was no delivery charge. So if there was a next time( there will not be), there would also be a delivery charge.

To start with the scant good news, an Instacart manager called me after I called the grocer to complain. However, none of the issues are fixable without a complete overhaul of the model. First, rudest customer "happiness team" ever. Getting a supervisor required enduring epic rudeness. Second, I too paid $8. For my "free" delivery as the tip is added without choice ( you must cancel the tip before you checkout!). Third, no delivery pricing is available until you have filled your cart - so after 15 minutes of site navigation I found out it took $20 to have $55 of groceries delivered. Fourth, there is no checking with the customer prior to substitutions, and some of the swaps doubled the price! Texts and even calls to the shopper from the Happiness Team got no response. Fifth, unlike Shipt, the food is not bought at a local location, somitems I knew were available nearby were out of stock where the shopper was working. Sixth and best of all, when the Happiness Team assured me that all would be fixed by the shopper on delivery, no fixing took place because the shopper did not speak English - not her fault but how can the system work like this? I was offer FIVE dollars off my next order - did not even cover the next delivery. There won't be a next time!

Today was my first time to do order groceries to be delivered at home. The original order was for $36+ and i was billed $52.06! Come on! I was never informed about the replacements and the hidden fee until the stuff were all delivered! It says free delivery on first order but they actually put you automatically on a 14-day free trial after which you will be charged with an annual membership fee of $149.00. I cancelled my account today too after all this crap. Instacart, you guys are not honest with your business so i don't think you will last long.

Before ordering with instacart please read my review! Im so mad at this service that want everyone to hear!

1- delivery cost was not mentioned, while i put the order, it added 9.99 for delivery which is absolutely ridiculous! You might say ok you could cancel the order. Yes TRUE! I technically should have been able to cancel; but guess what. The cancel button did not work! I tried to cancel by phone, online any how... wasted almost 45 minute and could not cancel it ---
The order:
The order came on time however IT WAS LEFT AT MY DOOR!
AND the worst: Milk in my order was completely out of fridge with no ice-cube protection in this 90+degree weather!

Also they brought me a different brand!

Ridiculous

Don't count on them to deliver when promised. They apparently overbook, so if you're missing an ingredient in the middle of cooking dinner, you might as well go get it yourself. If you wait for instacart, you won't be able to finish cooking and you'll go hungry. This just happened to me. I was promised a 1 hr delivery time. It got pushed to two hours by the time my order was completed. Then, it got pushed back again and again until 5 hrs after submitting my order, it was already bedtime so I had to cancel my order. Then, adding insult to injury, after I spent all this time waiting and even more time writing back and forth to their customer service, I get a $5 credit. What a joke!

Worst experience with food delivery ever. They told me the price was $64, once my food was delivered my bill switched to $84. The driver didn't come during the window I selected and left my groceries downstairs at the front desk which is almost always unattended. Instacart apologized and offered me the $20 discount back, then went above and beyond to say they would redelivery my whole order to me at a time of my choosing! Wow great! Maybe I'd shop with them again.
I chose to hVe my order redelivered between 9-10pm when I am home from work.

They schedule 3 items to be delivered to me at 9am when I'm not home.

I tell them it was supposed to be the whole order and I'm not home until 9pm, so they schedule the 3 items to be delivered at 9pm.

All they do is lie.

Bad shopping experience via- received items I had not ordered, or versions of produce that were not what i specified; spoiled produce or low quality. I responded to Instacarts request to be rated via text and selected the "contact me" option. I called them for 3 days in a row, including an 11 minute wait and left my phone number by selecting the option for them to call me back - 2 weeks later and I Never heard from them. I called the local Whole Foods store where the groceries came from and the manager offered to exchange the products for others if I brought them back and did not get a response from Instacart, but I don't have the time to trot over there - the whole reason I have groceries delivered. He was nice and of good standing to offer, however, Peapod is a little more expensive, but they are my go to grocery partner now.

After using Peapod for a long time I decided to give Instacart a try as they usually have same-day delivery times available. After using Instacart several times, as best I can tell, it's a complete scam. First, they try to slam a 10% "service fee" on every order, and there is no way to indicate in settings that you wish to waive it, so you have to waive it at checkout every single time. Then, if items are "unavailable", the shopper will attempt to substitute with a similar replacement. This would not be an issue in theory; however,
Many items I *know* are available at pretty much every grocery store in the country end up getting substituted out for something else and 95% of the time the replacement is a more expensive option, sometimes significantly more expensive. Of course the lemon scent was not available, the tropical scent costs 80 cents more, so that's the one I'm going to have to pay for. Not to mention the fact that most products already are marked up from the in-store price.

Beyond the scammish nature of the pricing and shopping process, most of the shoppers could care less if you get what you need. You get alerts while they are shopping, which you have to watch carefully. If you miss them, and they complete your order, you can no longer communicate with the shopper so you are stuck with their decisions. Gluten-free items may be swapped out for whole wheat items (very, very bad if you have celiac disease or a wheat allergy), or items may be cancelled and refunded altogether if the shopper doesn't feel like searching for them. I started including notes in my order with instructions as to where the items might be found ("please look for gluten-free aisle in the store"), and even then it is often ignored. Too bad for you if a key item for a recipe is unavailable and the shopper is too lazy to message you to ask about suitable replacements.

I'm going back to Peapod. Prices on the site are honored and only very rarely are items out of stock. Just have to order a little further ahead of time.