Instacart
reviews and complaints

Placed an Instacart order on the Kroger app at 10:05 am. Asked for delivery to be within 2 hours. Received a text stating shopper checked out at 12:30 pm. I Called to check status of delivery at 1:00 and again at 1:50 because the order was still not at my house. Received my order at 2:05. Frozen items were melted, bag was leaking from cottage cheese. Boxes of garlic bread were open and leaking butter and garlic. Shredded cheese was clumped together from getting warm and melting together. I called Instacart and was told there was both they can do needed to call Kroger

Instacart seems to have under gone, new ownership or management or something, when 1st started shopping through Instacart they were nice and helpful (trying to grow their business), now they are extremely belittling, condescending, rude, mean and demanding, seemingly on purpose, they act like they are doing you a favor at customer service to take your complaint,

I order mainly fruit, the shoppers are not trained in buying produce at all, especially not fruit, therefore they buy whatever produce with no - to little care for the customers food quality, and to top that all off, when you call into Instacart to report the rotten or damaged food, they are rude demanding and condescending, the guys are the worst, some of the females were horrible though, you see, Instacart contracts out their employees, so they pay them something like 7 dollars an order, they call the orders a batch, then the shoppers make the rest of their money, essentially their pay check really, off of tips, from the delivery, that puts the Instacart employee in direct provocation with the customer, we should not have to tip them when we already pay a single fee fora premium account, to ovoid such stuff like that, they should fight that battle with Instacart for an actual pay check, so what Instacart has done to get their employees off their back and stop asking the customer to pay more of the grocery money in tips, was to make the employees shopping windows broader, meaning Instacart gives them 3 hour windows to shop before they have to actually deliver the customers food, and since they are ignorant to shopping they do stuff like bag bananas - meaning they put bananas in a greens bag then when they check out they’re put in another double bag then they go into their trunk, then when done shopping one order they take as many other orders as they can for that 3 hour window, the 1st order and how ever many more orders are sitting in the car bagged in plastic, the plastic tied in a knot, and condensation starts to form and rot the food, now they way Instacart has rigged their game they call a contractor, understand that the shopper, they have to do that to save on gas money and make as much money as possible for that window and that day, meaning while the customers foods spoiling in 100 plus degree heat, Instacart says that the customers food is in a temperature controlled environment, chilled! When in actuality It’s in their trunk! The shopper does not have a setup to be able to perform a multiple shopping orders much less do they have any kind of chilled nor refrigerated vehicle, to hold the food in their vehicle for 3 hours! Now with a set up operation like that, foods bound to spoil, rot etc, plus the food that doesn’t spoil in their vehicle, due to their poor quality produce picking skills or judgment, turns out to be rotten with in a day or 2, or doesn’t ripen at all, so the fruit has to be thrown away, for example the bananas,

You have to wait 1-3 days to be able to see if they are going to ripen or not, some longer like a week depending on how green, and some weather they are green or yellow are rotten when you open them, they never ripen at all,

They are uneatable, so you have to throw them away, a waste of money, now when they are thrown out, you still need to buy the food again that requires a new tip, new charges and taxes and there’s a minimum to you ordering food at all! And then you can’t use the app to report rotten food anymore past the same day the order was delivered, in other words, they have removed the option to return any food on the Instacart app, past the day the food was delivered, no doubt to ovoid, losing money, plus, they probably have stipulations in by laws or in contracts with the store, to where they are discouraged in some way, to not offer returns so easily, outside of that, they have implemented new software that reports your account if you do return to much food or to often, now keep in mind it’s Instacart’s and the shoppers fault for buying the unbeatable or rotten food in the 1st place! now the scam is, they don’t pay their employees a living wage, the employees also aren’t qualified to pick good quality fruit, that’s actually eatable, nor do they require any kind of suitable vehicle to truly keep the customers food cooled, now that’s liable, in the since that Instacart advertises that your food is in a temperature controlled environment, they mean the vehicles air conditioner, keep in mind the instacart employee seems to keep the food in the trunk! instacart does charge a premium to their customers 100$ a year, and now if the customers return the uneatable food, instacart has invested in new software that flags the account for abuse and the customer’s account is suspended from returning food, my account was in a state of suspension for 1 whole year, where I could not report nor return any food, not even food that was rotten upon delivery, not even missing food had ordered, not even wrong food or being charged for food I never received, now they say that the customer can email the a special department in side instacart to take care of suspended accounts, when ever sent any thing to that department I was never taken care of! So strong armed by all sides into being voiceless, powerless and wasting money, all due to their lack of good businessman ship, meaning they don’t pay their employees a proper wage, they don’t require a proper temperature controlled vehicle, they don’t train their employees, or as they call them independent contractors,

Sincerely to anyone reading, thanks for listening,

I decided to give them a second try. It has been a long time since I used them. They welcomed me back with a very low fee of 9.00 and it I thought they changed. I am barely surviving with $$. However, I used them because I could use PayPal credit. I received a charge of 27.00 and they won't reverse it. They burned me again! People need to stay away from this company.

I do Insta-cart for a living every day. I think its crap that they changed it from 7 dollars a batch and lowered it to 5.43. We are not doing this for free. I am a small business accountant with degrees. It is not worth doing this for any Insta-carter for less than 7 dollars each.

You do realize we have to drive to the store park, get a cart go shopping, wait in line usually forever no matter what store, ring it at the self-help line cause its faster, than bag, pack cart, get to our car unload, drive to customer, miles usually away, in every type of weather hot 100 degrees, to freezing and wet days.

If I was going to do that for 5.00 dollars than its easier and faster to do door dash than Insta-carting. Even spark drivers for pick up only starts at $8.00 per batch. The government will give you .58 per mile on the taxes so when doing the batch however many miles you need to go you only get back .58 per mile. so, in conclusion if you get a batch for say 7 item 14 units at Aldi's which is half mile away from me going to 4 miles away for only $5.43 that took me 15 to 20 mins on top of 4.5 miles to my car and gas for that trip plus my time for 5.43. These item that are being pick up can be anything 7 cases water or heavy item to boot or we have to deliver it to apartments building where the customer wants you to lug it up the stairs two flights. What it comes down to is that we don't work for 1.50 per hour. I have been insta-carting for a year now and out of all the apps I do instacart, door dash, and spark drivers, insta carting was the best for both pay and work but messing with the worker amount when they make so little already really is low. You know what happens when you mess with your worker force you lose it to something else or something better. They are your money makers without them you are nothing.

I took an order. I get to the home address. I then have to walk 5 minutes because the gate was broken. Customer asked not to be contacted but asked to be handed the order! then i'm then to wait 10 min For a reply before returning the order to the store. 45 min for a $9 dollar order I feel Instacart needs to empower the shoppers with better options.

Your false advertising there is no promotion for ebt card holders. $4.99 for a year. It’s a bunch of crap. I can’t order groceries with my ebt card because there is only $21.00 in my bank account. You charge so much. You would think being a member since 2019, that I would get some help. Terrible service. Then the disappointment is heartbreaking. You guys don’t value your customers. Anything for a buck. Terrible service Angela Mack of saintpaul Mn.

Hi I wanted to reach out because the wait time for my order was completely unnecessary. There is no reason I should be waiting 2 hours for food delivery? And adding 10 extra minutes because god knows what the delivery driver is doing? It said the food would be here in 10 mins. It’s been 20. And she’s at the exact same spot. Please I am having trouble understanding why it is taking so long and there isn’t any traffic at 11:30 at night?

I have been a shopper for instacart for 2 years and I have done over 1,400 orders for them. And looking back at my past orders I see that I’m not getting paid for mileage and or my heavy pay. I’ve gotten in touch with customer service and all they want to do is give you what they call a bump in pay which is a 5.00 dollar payment. I can never get a supervisor to talk with me and nobody can give me a break down on how mileage is paid or for the heavy pay.

On December 29,2022 with an execution date of 12/29/23 a fraudulent warrant was obtained and given to instacart to breach confidentiality and disclose information pertaining to an unknown amount of information. I have yet to be informed as to what information was given at the hands of this warrant. I do however know that i was arrested, incarcerated for 6 days, and have 200 pages of so called evidence given or accessed through instacart. ALL my accounts have now been compromised but not limited to emails, ip address, all banking account information, social medias, and i am sure there is more but as I said I still have yet to recieve a letter from instacart. My arrest was 3/29/23.

Driver Dena Vindiola high on meth at time of delivery along with drug addict gang members as passengers in the vehicle who were also getting high in the vehicle while in my driveway they also parked out on the street and continued to get high after the delivery the passengers also looked like they where shopping my neighbors yards for stuff to steal this woman was also recently arrested for stealing someone’s dog from their house while she was on the clock for Amazon delivery after she delivered the package she stole the homeowners dog when detectives went to Dena Vindiolas residence with search warrants drugs and theft tools were found inside the residence all you need to do is Google the name Dena Vindiola I recognized her from the local news after her non professional work ethic and suspicious passengers instacart shouldn’t have employees that driving around under the influence getting high casing neighborhoods for stuff to steal

For 7 months I had been trying to get answers in regards to my flex savings card. There are stores that you shop at that except this FLEX saving card if I go to those stores but Instacart does not give the option to attach it to my account! The reason I need this answered is because I am blind and I use online shopping to get my groceries. I presently use Walmart.com but I am not satisfied with there services! What can you do to help me?

I asked to be refunded on 6 items and was not refunded. I am very upset when I ask to be refunded I need to be refunded. I also asked to not have chocolate almond milk because I and my daughter are allergic. I am wanting a refund. I also never heard anything from him and it shows up as being refunded but it never was. I really want this refund.

Today is July 3, 2023 and I have made arrangements for delivery at about 8:30 pm. Luckily, Mr. Antonio C. Was able to pick up my order and deliver. Upon arrival Mr. Antonio stated “ he is trying lol” then sent a message stating “ never mind found 12”, when sending text back to shopper I said “be right out”, and shopper sent a picture of someone else’s door and i immediately replied wrong house. My husband then tried to find to where the package was delivered but failed all attempts. When contacting Instacart they stated “driver looked for 12 and dropped it off” when explaining that I have a ring camera and assuredly he did not they refused to have driver re-attempt to deliver my two items and wanted to give credit or redeliver. This needs to be addressed ASAP. If shopper is lost shopper needs to make sure to deliver to correct address as I do not have option to just leave at front door.

Saturday, 2023 placed an order from Publix with instacart. Time was 5:08 PM. The item was ordered on my list but we did not get the item. I ordered some pods Tide and paid for them but not the item. This was putting a hardship on me needing the Tide that I was ready to use with my clothes.

I had to pay for someone else mistakes. I have a sick Husband that needs his cloths washed. I also paid for sales tax$6.01 Tip $10.3l Service Fee $2.64 and fee $9.99 for service.

I need my item Tide Pods for $l7.69, and $28.95 miscellaneous expense.

I related this complaints with Publix

Becky Channell 5767 Tree Swing Court Hoschton, GA 30548 Phone # [protected].

My instacart account was hacked and I was charged for over $250 (for CVS orders that I never placed) today. When I tried to log in my instacart account after receiving the order conformation, I couldn't log in instacart. I tried to change my password through email, I never received the email to do so. Apparently my email on my account and the address information were changed right after I received the order confirmation. I called the support without much help. The charges were complete. And it was a fraud! I'll contact my bank and never use Instacart again!

First of all, I would like to say no company prior to this has ever done anything that would prompt me to file a complaint, nor have I ever experienced customer service and breach of trust as I have with this company. I regularly place 2 orders a week with Instacart spending approximately $400 dollars a week shopping with this institution. I have always been a supporter of this service and have a subscription. On 06/24/2023 I placed my regular weekly order which totaled approximately $210.00 and authorized this charge. Upon checking my bank account the following Monday morning I was shocked to see a large amount of money missing. Instacart not only withdrew the authorized amount of $210.00 they attempted to withdraw this exact amount 3 more times and were appearing as pending and placed a hold on the money in my account. To clarify, I authorized only $210 and without my authorization Instacart placed a hold on 630.00 additional dollars after receiving their payment. I immediately called customer service in a panic as this account is used for many automatically paid bills and these charges had forced my account to overdraft. The customer service representative informed me there was a record of these extra charges and there was nothing they could do to stop it I would have to wait 7 to 10 business days for the charges to drop. There was no offer of any type to attempt to make up for the fraud Instacart committed with my banking information. No explanation of how this happened. No reassurance of this never taking place again. Just a robotic statement of facts. When I expressed my outrage I was then given an exact replica of the robotic script. When I asked the customer service agent to speak with a supervisor she then again repeated the same thing she just told me then placed me on hold. When she came back to the call she indicated a supervisor would not provide me different information and for a fourth time word for word stated the same information again. I explained at this point wanting to speak with a supervisor was beyond trying find a resolution it was to explain my outrage that fraud was committed and this was not a small dollar amount and was being treated as if a shopper had forgotten an item on my order. I asked the customer service representative if she was refusing to let me speak to a supervisor, she stated yes and for a final time blabbered her robotic statement. I then asked to cancel my subscription, which she informed me would need to be done in a different department and placed me on hold. After 20 minutes of being on hold Instacart customer service disconnected my call. This should not just be considered bad customer service this should be considered a crime for placing a hold on 3 times the money I authorized. Congratulations Instacart for providing the worst customer service of my life and breaking the trust of a loyal customer.

I am utterly disgusted over our Instacart experiences! They NEVER get it right; they upcharge at EVERY opportunity because their tips are based on a percentage of what you spend. It's ALWAYS someone else's fault or problem. There's NEVER a supervisor available to complain to. My account is constantly OVERCHARGED; and sometimes overdrawn because they take their money TWICE, and then reimburse the difference! They NEVER want to refund or reimburse me for items I don't receive, or the wrong items. IF they do, it takes an act of CONGRESS... and they sit on my dang REFUND for DAAAAYS! [SCAM] My worst experience was when we spent over $500 at Kroger in Cypress, TX; and because the final total was different [which it ALWAYS is] they recharged my account with even MORE money! So they took over $1000 out of my checking account; and sat on my refund for days! Who has that kind of cash lying around? I couldn't pay my bills on time; and the bills I had already paid that were not yet posted were returned because of Instacart! Hate this service! NEVER a good experience... we have switched back to just picking up our groceries at Kroger and not using Inst for a dang thing! These are JUST the 2023 dates with the final charges to JUST my debit card [does not include dates for credit cards] 01/07 for $156.15, 01/21, 01/31, 02/04, 02/05, 02/09, 03/18 for $278.48, 03/22, 03/23, 04/01 for $322.89, 04/08, 04/05, 04/15 for 231.61, 04/29 for $337, 05/06, 05/13 $249.13, 5/27 for $526.37, 06/ 04, 06/08, 06/11(2), 06/23..

I've been using Instacart for about a year now, and I gotta say, I'm pretty disappointed with the service. I've had so many frustrating experiences that I've finally decided to move on to something else. Here are some of the reasons why:

First of all, the prices are ridiculous. I don't know why, but for some reason, everything on Instacart costs 15% to 30% more than it does in the store. And that's before all the little fees they tack on. So if you're not careful, you could end up paying a lot more than you bargained for. I mean, who wants to spend $160 on groceries that would only cost $100 in the store?

Another problem is that the online inventory is almost always wrong. Even before the pandemic, I would often order things that were listed as available, only to find out later that they were out of stock. And sometimes, things that were listed as out of stock were actually available in the store. It's frustrating to have to deal with these kinds of discrepancies, especially when you're trying to plan your meals for the week.

But what really bothers me about Instacart is their treatment of their workers. From what I've heard and read, they don't do enough to make sure their workers are compensated fairly or kept safe on the job. It's important to me to support companies that treat their workers well, so I don't feel good about using Instacart anymore.

And then there's the issue of shady charging and fees. When you place an order, Instacart adds a buffer amount to cover any changes in pricing. That's fine, but sometimes it's not clear how much you'll actually be charged, and they'll even place a hold on your money even if you haven't actually placed an order. I had an experience recently where I was charged $175 for an order that I never even placed. It took six days for the money to be refunded to my account. That's just not acceptable.

Finally, the customer service is terrible. It's almost impossible to get in touch with anyone, and when you do, they're not very helpful. I had to spend close to two hours in a chat box just to get an answer about why I was charged for an order that never happened. And even then, the answer was basically "we don't know." It's frustrating to feel like you're not being heard or taken seriously.

Overall, I would say that Instacart is not a good choice if you care about getting your groceries at a fair price, supporting ethical companies, or having good customer service. There are better options out there, so I would recommend looking elsewhere.

I just spent like 2 hours doing online food shopping from sprouts farmers market that uses instacart for delivery. The first order was supposed to be free delivery. When I was about ready to pay, they wanted to charge $6.52 service fee. I'm not sure if the service fee was based on the amount of money I was about to spend or if it was fixed. It was confusing because they also had a list of other amounts, including the $6.52, that were listed under tips. At first I thought the service fee was a tip until I looked further. It said the service fee 'helps support the instacart platform and covers a broad range of operating costs including insurance, background checks, and customer support.' They normally charge a delivery fee that they said varies, which they say they don't charge if you pay for membership and spend $35 for an order. Why is it up to the customer to pay a service fee on every order for the costs of running their business that is on top of their other charges? Another concern is that they said they were going to take more money than the actual bill and then do some sort of adjustment afterwards so I'd only be paying what it actually cost, but seeing that some people have never been refunded for overcharges or mistakes doesn't fill me with confidence that they wouldn't do that to me as well. I'm glad I came here before I went through with the order because of the overwhelming number of bad reviews and that some people reported the repeated problems I have had with amazon fresh delivering warm and melted foods. I've been looking for an alternative, but I can see that this isn't it.

I almost forgot that about 6 weeks ago I was going to try to order some things from vons.com. Eight years ago I did some online food shopping with vons.com. On several occasions but nothing more since then. At the time it had nothing to do with instacart. Vons made the deliveries. However, since then instacart have somehow linked themselves to my vons.com account. My account details have almost all changed since then, but I have been unable to change them myself. Either the change I made wouldn't stay changed and reverted back or there was no way for me to even attempt to change it. I was confused by instacart being involved and their involvement has resulted in my not being able to change my account information with vons.com. The only people I could contact turned out to be instacart, who told me they didn't have it under the information I gave them and asked if I had a different name or email or whatever it was at the time, I forget now, and when I told them no, I never heard back from them. If the only way I can get delivery from vons any more is by instacart, I won't be doing it anyway, but I don't like the way I can't even have any access to my own account any more, and that my account is stuck in some sort of limbo where I couldn't order anything if I wanted to because of the details being wrong.

I don't like the way these companies with personal shoppers have taken over and most of the ones I have had have been mediocre to bad. Now you're dependent on some stranger you don't know doing your shopping, and in my personal experience not at all like they were doing their own, not having good judgement or common sense or following instructions, and also dependent on what happened to be in stock by the time they finally got there to do the actual shopping. I never knew what I was going to get and in what condition with the other companies I have tried and instacart is apparently no different. I mean, it's like you're paying extra for the convenience of having someone else do your shopping for you, but then you're not even getting what you want or what you paid for. It's like a gamble every time you order. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel like these companies need to step up their game and make sure their personal shoppers are actually doing a good job. Otherwise, what's the point?

I recently tried out Instacart, a grocery delivery service, and signed up for their 14 day free delivery trial. To do so, I had to provide my credit card information, which would automatically charge me $140 for free delivery for a certain number of orders for the year. However, I received an email that the trial was ending soon and I decided to cancel before being charged.

Unfortunately, I had trouble finding where to cancel on the website and ended up having to call customer service. Despite being two days past the trial period, the representative was able to cancel my membership without any prorated charges. However, I insisted on receiving an email confirmation of the cancellation.

To my surprise, I later discovered that the charge had gone through on my debit card, even though I had been assured it wouldn't be. When I called to get a refund, the customer service representative was rude and dismissive, even insulting me. This poor treatment has led me to decide not to use Instacart again, as I don't trust them to be honorable in any future dealings.

I wanted to warn others who might be in a similar position, especially those who could be negatively impacted by an unexpected charge. While I appreciated the convenience of the service, I can't support a company that doesn't value its customers or employees. It's important for businesses to understand that mistakes happen, but it's how they handle those mistakes that can make all the difference in retaining customers.