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InstacartReviews 2,492

1.2
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Instacart Reviews Summary

Instacart has a rating of 1.2 stars from 2,492 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 123rd among Grocery Delivery sites.

service
641
value
596
shipping
426
returns
438
quality
529
District of Columbia
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Chun T.
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I had recently placed two orders from Instacart. The first time there was one wrong item. I reported it and got an email saying it was credited to my account. But I never saw it there. The second order one item was charged twice and over $30 service/delivery fee was added. I ended up paying around 50% more than I normally pay.

Date of experience: April 20, 2020
New Jersey
1 review
4 helpful votes
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Rip off. Over charge
April 19, 2020

The company does not give you their grocery receipt because they up the charges. I accidentally got the receipt and it was 15.00 more than what they charged. On top of this they charge a 3.99 delivery fee plus a 5% service fee plus a 5% tip fee. My groceries ended up costing me over 20 in fees. Have not been able to get through to customer service. Phone won't take calls. Emails not answered. Avoid this company. They are a nightmare.

Date of experience: April 19, 2020
Arizona
1 review
2 helpful votes
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I've been charged a whopping $78 for tri-tip that was not included in my delivery. I made complaint on 'order problems' 5 days ago without any responses. The website complaints and concerns button circles around, hard to find a clear complaint section, no phone numbers, no chat room. That's a lot of money for no product.

Date of experience: April 19, 2020
Pennsylvania
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Lynn R.
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I'm a shopper.
April 19, 2020

The Instacart app can not handle the current volume. It is very laggy... delayed... while I'm shopping if a store is out of an item the app tells you to replace it... not refund it... we get chastised for refunding and congratulated for replacing items. They deduct from the tip for refunding... we can see the tip before we accept an order... then after the deductions if you have to refund items. The pic I uploaded was the toilet paper/paper towels section at one of my local stores. I can't make it magically appear.
When we are shopping, it takes a while for the customers to receive our texts... leaving us standing in the stores. Waiting and waiting. I had shopped for an hour at a Sam's Club and then ( because you need a code to cash out) had all of the stuff on the belt... for 10 minutes, on a busy Saturday, line backing up behind me and my customer never responded... I couldn't pay... I left the store with nothing. And I got paid nothing for driving there/ shopping/ waiting. I initially thought it was my customer but I know it's the app... I will never go to Sam's Club or a Costco again. I have had numerous problems. Like have delivered my groceries... and the app still says I'm shopping. The app can not keep up with the current demand. And while I find most of my customers very grateful. I do not understand people's desire for a certain brand at these times. Leaving us running through the stores to either put back items or replace with something else making it take much longer.
Certain items are in very high demand and you are lucky if you find them. My advice would be to pick a substitute for these items it helps your shopper.
Toilet paper
Paper towels
Cleaning products: good luck
Lysol or Clorox wipes: totally unavailable
Peanut butter
Rice
Those instant pizza crusts from Pillsbury
Canned pasta and soup
Frozen pizza
Thermometers: totally unavailable

There is no help for us either... I tried the instant chat thing with an issue I had and it said I was 165 in line. For instant chat.

Date of experience: April 19, 2020
New York
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow INDI C.
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I WILL REPORT THEM TO BBB AND OTHER AGENCIES THEY NEVER CALL YOU BACK THEY CHARGE WRONG AMOUNTS THEY DO ANYTHING A SCAM COMPANY WILL DO STAY FAR AWAY FROM THIS PEOPLE

Date of experience: April 19, 2020
North Carolina
1 review
0 helpful votes
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There's nobody running the business so when a food item is missing in your order it takes weeks to get a refund, if ever. Hire more people or close!

Date of experience: April 19, 2020
Illinois
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Horrible
April 18, 2020

Not sure how closely the "shoppers" pay attention. I had blueberries on my list and was delivered blackberries instead. No customer service by phone, could not use chat feature said I was "1637 person" in line for chat. Sent email and got no response, no refund. Tried them a second time, the shopper ignored my text messages while shopping my order. I did not receive an item on my list and did not get any refund for that item. Also, I wanted one item but shopper purchased two of that item, again no refund, no communication from the shopper. Horrible customer service, again, can't call or chat and no response to my emails.

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Our stove is not working, so we BBQ everything. I was charged $119 for five 2-packs of 20lb charcoal. Instacart shopper only delivered two 2-packs and cut open a third 2-pack and gave me only one single bag. I receive only auto-replies to my many emails to Instacart support and am invited to call their phone support. Instacart then stopped all phone support.

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Price inflated scam.
April 18, 2020

Costco receipt shows $254.44, Instacart shows 337.02. (not including $33 tips). The prices shows on the website (Costco Instacart) is not what Costco charges. Instacart inflated the price by 32.5%. If you don't want to pay $83 extra (not including tips) for an order of $254.44, stay away from Instacart.

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
Oklahoma
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Thieves!
April 18, 2020

I ordered and was overcharged by $54. My receipt is for $112.50 with fees and tip total should of been $141.52 I was charged $195.90! I chatted with them and they refused to do anything to remedy the situation so they stole $54 from me!

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
Texas
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Recieved a text that my order was delivered. I was at home at the time. Attempted to call customer service. They are closed because of the virus. Checked my email and they sent me my receipt. The only way to contact them is by email.

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
Pennsylvania
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Overcharging
April 18, 2020

Placed 1st order. Some items were not available so I either had to cancel or replace. No problem. When I received my items with receipt it was a total of $184.51. Now instacart is charging me before all their ridiculous fees $197.09. What is the extra $12.58 for. I contacted them & they told me instacart app charges different than the store. So basically upcharging you for items which should be illegal. They charge $3.99 for delivery BUT also a service charge in my case was $9.53 plus you of course need to include a tip. So I basically paid $36 to get food delivered from around the corner. I would've never used them if they are allowed to price items the way they want. I have the receipt from the store, it's a shane that this upcharging on an app is being allowed.

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
Colorado
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Never again
April 18, 2020

I ordered $575 worth of groceries leaving a substantial tip. My order has not even started packing, so I have no clue who is responsible for it. This is how my order status read after I posted it on April 13.
"Your Price Chopper order is scheduled for delivery April 15-19"
Next day it read the same. Then at the end of the day on April 15, it read:
"You Price Chopper order is scheduled for delivery on April 16-19" End of day, April 16
"Your Price Chopper order is scheduled for delivery on April 17-19" end of day April 17
"Your Price Chopper order is scheduled for delivery on April 18-19"
Today is April 18.3:40pm. I wonder...

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Hidden fees
April 18, 2020

Not only does Instacart charge fees for their service, they also pocket any discrepancies between what you get charged for items on their website and what their shopper pays at checkout. We have ordered 4 times with Instacart. On 2 of the orders we got the actual store receipt paid by the shopper. In both cases Instacart charged us more than what Instacart paid at checkout. $9 In one case on a $60 order and then $15 on a $190 order. I contacted Instacart and they said that is their policy.

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
Illinois
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Worse company service imaginable. Phone service inoperable. Web site service does not exist, and misinformation texted constantly. I was told three different times either my order was being shopped at Costco, in checkout, in route, or already delivered. None of these apparently happened because I never received my order. All I know is my credit card was charged for groceries and a service I never recieved. Perhaps this pandemic is causing miscommunication problems, but it's not stopping Instacart from trying to get your money with no service and misinformation.

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
North Carolina
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow john p.
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First of all request the delivery person he or she must provide you with the receipt from the food store these guys are not only feeing you to death (my last order there was a delivery charge of3.99 tip of $7.00 a service fee of $5.18 and a alcohol fee for $4.00 and tax totaling $23.80) next I compared the itemized store receipt to theirs and found that they take the stores prices and mark each item further my store receipt totaled $136.18 and their receipt totaled 171.82 for a difference of $35.64. If you back out their service fees of $23.80 above thats another $11.84 they are marking up your biil. So on a $130.00 grocery bill they bill me $35.64 in feesI think thats excessive!
Also the grocery bill lists al taxes for $4.78 and Instacart charged me $5.33. Where is this money going? Instacart?
I discovered they were charging my card $9.99 month for free delivery if my purchases were over $35.00. When I called them they said they would stop the charges and credit the last months charge back to to my card within three business days that never happened. During that month I had two or three deliveries and paid their fees therefore Instacart got paid twice!
Proceed with caution! I know they are providing a service in these troubling times but I feel their fees add up if you really pay attention and are excessive!

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
Virginia
2 reviews
0 helpful votes
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If there are no slots available, Instacart should reveal that *upfront*, so customers don't waste huge amounts of time trying to find products to put into a shopping cart that won't be fulfilled.

I had a Harris Teeter Instacart delivery successfully scheduled for Thursday, 4/16. (I had received a delivery date that was about a week after the order date.) When it didn't arrive, I checked my order. The date had been changed to to 4/29, by Instacart -- with no agreement from me, and the order now showed that "an error had occurred." I then tried to set up a curbside order from Wegman's and wasted several hours trying to find and replicate/replace the items I previously had ordered. There was no indication I'd run into the Instacart bottleneck again by choosing curbside. No "dellivery" date was available, of course.

No dates are available, in general, for stores that use Instacart as their shoppers. In the future, I will find out which stores use their own staff to fulfill orders and only use those. I will report the above experiences to everyone I speak with.

Useless. I'll just have to go out to address my immediate Instacart-caused grocery crisis. I'm in my late 70's. You're making this health crisis worse by stranding people at risk, without groceries.

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
New York
1 review
0 helpful votes
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The website stinks!
April 18, 2020

My husband has coronavirus and I set up for Instacart Express account for him so I could have food delivered - paid for the annual membership. No problem. I placed my extended order and then the message comes up that I have to wait 2 days and I should order earlier -even though I ordered when the store opened and just paid for an annual membership. So I remove all my items in the shopping cart - as I'm not going to pay for express delivery and then have to wait 2 days because the computer system doesn't recognize the membership. What stinks about instacart is the website. It sucks!

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
Illinois
1 review
1 helpful vote
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I have written to their "help" email address three times with nothing more than their auto reply getting back to me. I am absolutely furious that they have not refunded my money! My Costco order was placed on April 16 at 10:24 AM and then was marked as "delivered" at 10:37 AM on April 16. That is basically impossible. The Costco nearest my house takes roughly 17 minutes to drive. There is absolutely no way that this driver received my order, accepted it, shopped for the five items in it, paid, and then made it to my house all within 13 minutes. This shopper stole my money and Instacart needs to refund me immediately.

Date of experience: April 18, 2020
Virginia
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Indian giver
April 18, 2020

Several weeks ago we were told on web page 'Free delivery until 11-20-2020", but did not try to use until today, but note disappeared. Tried online chat, but they said 'sorry you cannot get it'! So apparently this outfit has Dirty policies, and refuses to fix their mistakes!

Date of experience: April 18, 2020

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.


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