Instacart

February 8 2022.

My bill does not natch what I was charged. I did not have all the fees in front of me to be able to add up the new total, 3 items were supposedly refunded. but there was no way the total was what I was charged once out of stock times were taken off. The total on my receipt in the bag was 95.14. I had two charges of 115.00 and 3.85. My fees before any items were refunded were 14.01. I added an item but the charge is still too high.

I have sent them 4 emails. I have talked to them once and had a pat the higher total is for fees. It does not add up. I was given money off for a watermelon that may or may not show up on my credit card.

This order was also late

I’ve been an instacart shopper for three years. This pasted week they hired quite a few new shoppers that have no idea what they are doing. I love my job and I love my customers. Instacart took all our batches away and are now giving priority batches to the new shoppers. I’m lucky if I see 3 batches a day when I used to see a lot all day. This is my only income. I have been a loyal shopper and now I feel so disrespected. I don’t understand why the new shoppers would get all of the good batches while the older shoppers see very few. I wish instacart would treat their employees better because I’m getting fed up and I’m about to find another job.

I will assume now that Instacart is not a company that I would want to work for considering what they have put me though the last month to get hired. Instacart has told me that the background company Sterling attempted to get more information from me, but had reached their maximum attempts so I would no longer be considered for employment. I have spoken to Sterling twice and they said I just needed to make sure I didn't have a typo on my application.  I attempted through the Instacart chat support (the only way to get help with instacart) and failed to get any assistance!  I asked on three separate occasions if I could please view my application to make sure I didn't have any typo's . The first time the chat support person told me my application  was viewable in the app... this was not true.  The second time I was told my issue would be escalated and I would get a response from a higher up department at instacart... that was not the case my application was just sent to Sterling yet again!  That is why it reached your maximum number of attempts, because your employee support chat group just kept sending the application through.  Sterling did contact me via email and I spoke to them immediately after. They stated that Instacart needed to let me check my application for a typo, and that I should reach out to them. Sterling also said they would reach out to Instacart.  Of course as of yesterday Sterling told me Instacart had not replied.  The second background check company Instacart uses called Chequer was used for a job I got the week I couldn't get a response from instacart. This shows incredibly poor employment practices on Instacart.   I will be contacting the better business bureau and the Washington State attorney general as Instacart is not practicing  fair and equitable employment practices. I will also be contacting the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and filing a report with them, and sharing my experience of being treated unfairly. I am also contacting the Washington State Human Rights commission as they enforce the Washington State Law against Discrimination.  I have been discriminated against during this entire process. According to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) all employers must follow the Adverse Action Notification process if they choose to not hire the qualified candidate after reviewing their background report!  In my case the  background check apparently was never ran.  I was told by Instacart that Sterling couldn't reach me, and then I was told by Sterling that they were waiting for more information from Instacart.  This shows that Instacart did not provide me a fair opportunity to gain employment. Instacart instead only provided a chat based support for candidates of employment.  This "support" was never working directly with someone in the human resource department or employment support.  It was simply someone assigned the task of telling potential employees that they would "escalate their situation".  One day later I received an email from "support" stating this: 

Hi Carson,

Thanks for reaching out about your background check status. Our background check vendor, Sterling, tried several times to verify your information.

Unfortunately, they reached the maximum attempts to contact you and the order has been closed due to a mismatch in the identifiers used. Therefore, we can no longer consider your application or activate your shopper account.

We apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for applying to shop with Instacart.

Best,

Sam W.

Instacart, Trust & Safety

Of course the email was sent to me from a non-reply email.  Instacart is not practicing fair or equitable hiring practices I have been their latest victim!  I will pursue this until their is action so no-one else needs to go through this.

i

This is the email I received four days earlier from Sterling the background company after I filled out their support request:

Dear Carson,

Thank you for checking in with us!

Looks like we need to confirm a few information you have submitted in order to complete your background check. We have already requested assistance from Instacart regarding your report and we are just waiting to hear back from them.

To expedite the completion of your report, we highly suggest that you reach out to the Instacart Shopper Care Team by clicking on the "?" icon found at the upper right. From there, select “How to get help” – then click “Contact Instacart Care” (top right-hand corner).

Hope this helps!

Regards,

MaryAnne Soliva

Client & Candidate Care Representative

Sterling

Contact Number: [protected] | extn: 9001

[protected]@sterlingcheck.com

sterlingcheck.com

Thank you,

Carson J Russell

I placed Kroger grocery order to be delivered on 1/25. I saw the shopper leave everything by the door as instructed and then I immediately brought everything in and put it away. Not until later that night did I realize a loaf of Lewis Bake Shop Keto bread for $5.49 was missing. I looked at my online receipt and I was charged for it. I called Kroger and they said I had to talk to Instacart. I twice texted Caitlin, the girl who brought my groceries yesterday, and told her about the missing bread but no reply.

Customers are allowed to file claims of damaged and missing merchandise without having to substantiate their claim in any way, that I'm aware. Some customers demand that their orders be left on their doorstep then claim items missing. Others claim damage to grocery items without providing photos. Sometimes the only items available are less than perfect. The only way to address this is to stop, photograph the flaw and text it to the customer, which takes time and slows you down, which is a potential problem because we are timed and there is a delivery target. If the customer does not respond we take the chance of being down graded if we deliver less than perfect for not delivering the item ordered. Some orders are just too large for one person to handle alone effectively. Large orders increase the likelihood of damage or a mixup. Some shoppers make false claims simply to get discounts or refunds. We are told to pack our own orders, but grocers often don't like this. Some spacey teenager put the seedless grapes in the same bag as a mini watermelon and if I don't catch it I get blamed. The stores want the checkout lines to move quickly but to makes sure everything is packed right and handle the payment can be a serious challenge when the cashier is pushing the next customer's item down the counter into your order that t you're still repacking because the kid made bad choices.

I just rec my order I placed early for a home delivery. I am down w/ some type of nasal infection since last Sunday. I order rfom my local Kroger, fulfilled by InstaCart. I order some soft drinks, had some other OOS items which I was notified about, but NO MENTION of the soft drinks. This is my local Kroger and they always have the soft drinks I ordered this time. Anyways got everything EXCEPT soft drinks, maybe they were too heavy.
Meanwhile I have no drinks AND am not getting out to get them myself. I would fire who ever screwed up this Order
Stephen Zink
9630 Livenshire Dr.
Dallas, Texas 75238
[protected]

Below from Kroger email

Hey Stephen,

We received your order. You may modify your order until the time we start picking your order.

You have selected "Leave at my door" delivery. The driver will contact you for delivery instructions. They will need to check your ID if your order contains alcohol.
DELIVERY DATE:
Thursday - Jan 20, 2022
between 4:04pm and 6:04pm
DELIVERY ADDRESS:
9630 Livenshire Dr. Dallas TX 75238
NUMBER OF ITEMS:
8

My refunds are not given. You do not give our receipts to us, and our groceries are missing so many items! we do not have our instructions followed and nobody lnows how to handle the coordination of shoppers, refunding the toral we pay from the initial order, less items not available and from items missing! ypu ate purely missing this simple ingredient:
.."l o v e"!
you do not seem to train tour workers to know how to use checks and balances in order for the user, us to call and have items dedu ted yhat were oaid for that qete noy brought! I wish you knew how hard it is to li e on auch small amounts oer month, much less to have oyr food budget taken by you.. While you aee getting rich off oyr social secueity checks! of how you take no concern when we need oue refunds... Our money, "groceries paid for minus groceries given" at our homes to us!
give me my refunds! I am waiting for $96.00 you stole and there should be some way to have you prosecuted.
We are having a complaint for the way instacart handles our busines with you. Our money is all we have and you saw a way to povket it by using your website to take our money upfront, deliver our groceries without a receipt, and only give us our sometimes our groceries ate missing 10 to 12 items or more! but, you took our money so you do not gi e our teceipts, the shopper does not see if we got everything... And oyr word is not good enough to say we are missing all items!
and not refunding our money to us! no you do not give us our receipts! this is America! the Constitution binds you to Integrity of holding yoursekf accountable to good business. We ars having signatures to continue to geow si we can get a business to compete with Instacart who will not rob us will give us our receipts, and will make sure we have all our groceries brought to us, minus out of stock items not having them replaced because we do not do that.
[protected]@gmail.com... email me to sign your names to a pwtition to gwy Instacart our of business or to come up with a business plan that will atop the steal! older disable folks should not be mistreated by the no receipts, no proof we ate getting the exact amounts we ahoyld be refunded, and no way to show we are missing lots of our food items! no cheks and balances and this is outrageous!
EMAIL @ [protected]@gmail.com for signing a petition for legal action to take for Seniors and disabled oersons being ignored and taksn advantage of by INSTACART!... BRENDA?

Placed an order for groceries from Kroger via Instacart becausey 7 yr old son is ill and I cannot leave my home. I got the groceries fast. Sadly, when I pulled up my receipt for my order to make sure I got everything I ordered I discovered that $15 of meat...2 packages of ribs were charged to me that I DID NOT order. The instacart shopper took advantage of the substitution option and added meat I never ordered or received for that matter. I only ordered fruits, yoghurt, nuts, oysters, cheese and paper towels so that I can give my son healthy food to help him recover.

Instacart would be a great idea if they actually knew how to run a business. That being said, this is the 2nd time my order was never delivered. they kept sending updated times that got later and later, until, they just sent me an update that said they wouldn't be able to help until 2 days after i submitted the order, so i had to cancel the order. The 1st shopper last night did deliver to someone else's house, there was a pic, but it wasn't my house. So they resubmitted the order only to not deliver it at all. In other problems, the shopper has left the groceries in front of my front door, even after clear instructions to use the side door, then i'm not able to open the door so i have to walk around my house to get the groceries. i am old and not too steady on my feet, which is why i get them delivered anyway. no one seems to care in the least and last night i actually felt rather foolish. This has me so upset that I am having an emergency session w/my therapist tomorrow. I will not use this service again ever!

I am a shopper with Instacart and had taken an order on Dec 31, 2021 for 3 items. I delivered the items to the address given and used the navigation feature in the app to get to the location. I had taken pic and submitted them to the order and mark delivered. Minutes later I get a call from Instacart asking question where I left the order and the color of the house! ? The customer had given the address on order as being 317 W Blank St and I believe it could have been 217 or 117 W Blank St. Instacart needs take due diligence before sending me a text & email at 7:00 am in the morning. You are more less calling me a THEIF. I will attach a pic of the products on the porch of 317 W Blank St, that I want back and had taken after the phone call. You owe me an apology and need to change bad rating I received from the customer! Someone needs to take accountability for this mistake, I am not in the wrong, I REFUSE to take responsibility for Instacart or the customer's mistake! Shame on you Instacart for not having my back.

The delivery service that Frys uses in Prescott was really bad, I ordered on Tuesday morning around 10:30 AM. I received a email stating that my order was complete and then I received a text message on my phone stating that my order should be delivered between 11:30 to 1 PM. An hour later I received a text message stating they're sorry and it won't be able to be delivered until 2:30 PM. I waited and then around 4 PM not a word from anyone . I called and no answer from anybody…..Then around 5:00- 6 PM I received a text message from the person that was getting the groceries to be delivered saying almost half my order was not in the store like potatoes, carrots, etc. The person texted that they would get the rest of the groceries and be delivered within the the hour…. they were not delivered until close to 8 PM that evening. I haven't been feeling good I wasn't paying much attention to the amount on my card that was debited until the next day also over six items was not in the order .I was charged for 22 items and only received 15 items ! I remember the deliver person stating that it will take a few days maybe to get a refund from Frys but now it's the end of the week and I have not received anything. Called Frys and they said it had to do with their third-party Instacart and I would have to contact them. Which I called and I don't even get a recorded message nothing all and all it does is ring forever. I've always used Frys food store most of last year during the virus when they did all the deliveries or whoever they used was right on time .
I was extremely impressed and I had Covid and I had it for two months and they were really good those two months. Now they're using this company and it is horrible never again. ?

I ordered $71+ in alcohol to be delivered at 7:30 a.m. The shopper (Toshanda T) charged me for the alcohol but did not deliver. Multiple attempts to contact the shopper, Instacart and the grocery store were unanswered. I am quite sure she kept it. There is no way to file a complaint for this disservice with Instacart.

I have been a full service shopper for some time now, and I think it's really unfair how customers order, and after it's delivered they decide to change the tip, for the simple fact that the STORE doesn't have what they're looking for. I don't stock their inventory, so I have no control of that. I think it's unfair, and a waste of time and money.

I requested a 2 hour delivery, the shopper texted that he checked out at Kroger around 5:30 pm and it is almost 7 pm and no groceries. It took him around 1 hour to shop and it has been an hour and a half and no delivery! What did he do go to dinner?!? What I ordered will be spoiled like my milk, salmon, catfish, green leaf lettuce, items that need to be refrigerated quickly. I placed my order around 4:30 pm from the Kroger store in Marion/West Memphis, Arkansas. The Insta-cart shopper is Ronque. I am disabled and cannot do my shopping or I would not use your service. To say I am upset is putting it mildly. And you will be charging me a service fee for groceries that will be spoiled!
Irritated!
Marilyn Lindberg
P.S. they just texted that it will be 7:30 pm delivery now!

I spoke to FOUR PEOPLE in the Customer NO SERVICE Dept in Essau, Bahamas. The first Woman who didn't give me her name., 6:02 pm PST [protected] from 310-721-xxxx. ., Kenneth Louw at 6:07 pm, Mbahonle, and Asanda.

Instacart sends me one to two emails a day begging me for my business and gives me coupon codes. I wanted to give them another chance finally, and none of the coupon codes worked on the website. So I decided to call them and ask them for one. It should've been a three minute phone call. Instead it turned out to be a 45 minute ordeal, I never did get the number and I'm mad as hell!

They ALL refused to give me a coupon code then hung up on me! You want me as a customer? Ha ha. So I simply call your customer no service department and ask for a coupon code and that was too much for them. They were rude, they insisted on knowing my phone number, and all but one, Asanda, hung up on me. Asanda said she left a message for a customer NO service supervisor to call me yet three and a half hours later, NO ONE HAS CALLED ME.

if your customer support sucks this bad trying to get a coupon code, what is your food and business like? Pass. I'll warn everyone about your horrible company amd oh, by the way, I'm an expert in customer service and have app in App Store regarding customer service. Your company receives an F.

Been a 5 Star shopper for over a year. This past week I received two low ratings, a 3 and a 4 star... customers not thrilled about the low availability of items during Thanksgiving. Today my rating is a 4.92 and I have not received one batch all day. Instacart will not provide me details. Their customer support is useless, I've chatted with 5 different reps. Nobody seems to care. They don't seem to value their shoppers. Sad. Frustrating. Disappointing.

I have been a shopper with Instacart for about 5 months. Recently had an issue trying to get to the store I was supposed to be shopping at because of traffic from an accident so reached out thru the virtual care chat and the agent who came online to assist was not very nice. They basically said there was nothing they could do and that my cancelation rate would go up since I was not going to make it to store in time. I was literally 5 minutes out and they could see that on their end because they told me so yet they chose to not assist me. I had a similar situation occur previously and the agent was able to give me more time to allow me to get to the store and complete order. Of course I was upset about losing order and cancelation rate possibly increasing but I wasn't going to let that ruin my day. I proceeded to continue driving to store since I was so close and wait in parking lot for upcoming orders since it was Thanksgiving week and it was going to be super busy. I refreshed app and tried going online but was unable to proceed as a message appeared telling me there was a "missing card payment". I wasn't sure what that meant or why it was showing up all of a sudden as I had my instacart credit card that I had been using and was good until 05/2025. So I had to reach out again thru the virtual care chat and chat with a different agent who couldn't explain why my card was suddenly deactivated! I tried explaining to this agent about previous experience with other agent and how they were not very nice or helpful. I then asked if that other agent could have deactivated my card? And of course got no response to question then when I pushed the issue the agent disconnected me from entire app. I had to physically log back in. I'm always logged in I don't ever log off so couldn't remember log in info and had to come back home to retrieve it. So now I've wasted all morning dealing with this bull. But still isn't over because now I've logged back in and have started a chat session with new agent. Well I find out that a new card has to be ordered which takes 5-7 business days to ship out which during holidays can take much longer. Again this agent can't answer most of my questions and ask how I can file a grievance because I feel I was sabotaged by that first agent and believe they deactivated my card during the busiest shopping time of the year! But they cannot direct me to a supervisor or human resource dept or give me any information on how as a shopper I can file a complaint. This last agent was nice but not able to resolve anything for me. I am now losing a lot of potential earnings since I cannot shop and pay for orders on Instacart during the busiest shopping time of the year! I am very upset and feel quite helpless as I cannot as a shopper even file a legitimate complaint with Instacart. I would appreciate any assistance with this matter.

The overall company. Now, this service is convenient don't get me wrong. But this company has taken slacking to a whole new level. First issue, I can't even count how many times my Android crashes during a routine order on Instacart. Enough that I have to literally restart my Tablet every time...and it's the only app I have to do that with. I've filed report upon report and nothing gets fixed, in fact I honestly think it's getting worse. Second, delay in finding a shopper and when they do, they "estimate" arrival time and then keep on putting it even farther, then farther...then bam, they cancel your order outright. They should suffer some kind of penalty for putting it's customers through such things. Like maybe give the food that person ordered, on the next order for free (inconvenience fee) for the trouble they caused. All in all, this complaint will land on deaf ears, and nothing will be done about it, probably sit back and look at the complaint and just laugh about it. So, at least for me, I'm going to find something similar to Instacart, that's more reliable and cancel my Instacart outright. Maybe if enough people do that, instead of filing complaints, hit them where it really hurts, their pocketbooks, they might reconsider how they do(don't) do business...

I've used Instacart for over a year now, but recently they added the +$2 for expedited delivery. I usually get that and am fine.

Today at 430 I'm thinking I need to get some food and place a "regular" order (not expedited).

The shopping was done by 5:30 and expected delivery was 6:50, and I'm here at 6:31 like cmon.. update me. Well they did - new delivery time of 8:30. Their service is usually good but some of these people who work for Instacart are half-retarded. They cannot find the only building on my block so I have to direct most of them (even though it's in my delivery instructions) how to get here…

Stop hiring jerks who will leave ripped bags at your door and then not bother to take a picture of where they left the food, instead they've started taking pictures of my building. WTAF INSTACART. I think I'll probably switch to Wal Mart… would be cheaper than this 15% markup anyways.

Also - STOP HIRING UNQUALIFIED PEOPLE.

see attached screen shot