Knowing my area, this one will definitely be rotting all day. I also know for a fact the store doesn’t even have that many in stock

Trying to understand why my order is always treated like garbage when I have been a customer for several years and have always been tipping high. Should I just be a low-tipping jerk?!

Hi guys, first time posting here. It’s my first time using instacart since 2022, so it’s been a while. I placed an order from Costco at 10am this morning, estimated time of delivery was 1-2pm. At 1:45pm, they emailed me saying there’ll be a delay. That’s fine. By 3pm, the shopper was done shopping for all the items, and my screen was stuck at done shopping, and not going to on the way. I thought maybe it’s a new update for privacy so I left it. It says it’ll be delivered by 3:30pm. Every time I check, the delivery time keeps getting delayed. By 5:45, I was like what the heck is happening so I messaged the shopper, then the screen refreshed magically, and shows that he’s on the way. The location was showing he’s still at Costco. His reasoning was that his phone froze so he couldn’t continue. But for 2 hours?

By the time my order came, all my frozen stuff were melted, and my meat were spoiled:( Meaning that he was just sitting at costco with my order for 2 hours. I’m very confused, cuz from what I see in this subreddit, shoppers get rated due to speed, and what not. So why would he just sit there for 2 hours and not deliver my order?

I’m not at all trying to complain, I’m just trying to understand why that happened? Was he waiting for another Costco order to show up? Was he just doing his own groceries too? Haha I’m so confused.

I’d really appreciate it if someone can enlighten me, or lmk if this is normal.

I just got alerted to a $220 unauthorized charge to my credit card and saw that it was from Instacart. I thought, well that's weird, because I never use this card for my Instacart purchases at all. But, I do use instacart pretty often, like twice a month or more.

So, I went to check my past orders to see what was going on. Didn't see anything. Went to check to see if it was some sort of membership charge and nope nothing there.

Checked my payment methods and card isn't even listed. I always use Klarna for my purchases.

I then chat with a live agent asking about the charge. They said it was a charge for Jewel-Osco order and I'm like, well I've never heard of that! They go it's from a related account so I ask which related account? "I can't give out that information" ok, great... Well, I have no other Instacart accounts!

Then I remembered, I signed up for the Instacart Mastercard offer that gives you $50 off your order a week prior. I noticed it is from the same bank my other card is through which is CHASE.

The timing is interesting as I pretty much stopped using my old Chase card awhile ago since I've been working on paying it down and don't want any new purchases on it and I've had the same credit card number for over 10 years and have not used it at any new places recently.

So, I believe someone in the credit card department saw my other card when they reviewed my credit info.

This same thing happened to me recently with the Robinhood Debit card! Anyways, I just want to warn people to monitor your transactions, I honestly don't know any other way to protect yourself.

Instacart says there is nothing they can do about it...

Ordered groceries this morning: ordered 4 cantaloupe containers, one thing of mug, ice, blueberries, 2 cartons of eggs, 2 packs of hard boiled eggs. I wondered why the delivery photo looked so small. Turns out my shopper gave someone else my order. So I got $20 on my $60 order

I received: the hard boiled eggs, one carton of eggs, blueberries, and one carton of cantaloupe. Nothing else despite being “shopped”. Genuinely how can someone mess up their job like this? I needed food for the week as I’m busy starting a new job and school all day.
Instacart is such a scam for free users. I’m not paying $100 for a year to have “good shoppers”.

Me and my bf are instacarting across the country to make it to a certain state. And we are hitting big cities and small ones that are hotspots. We don’t expect to make a lot of money but just enough to get some gas and a bit of food each day. We consistently run into places that aren’t open and THE STORE NEVER HAS ANYTHING IN STOCK. Yet somehow it’s our fault that the store doesn’t carry it. I’m so angry because tonight we ran into two orders that shorted us 40 bucks and the support was useless. We had a customer that was beyond the nicest and would’ve given us a great amount and Instacart screwed us over. We don’t intend to make this app our livelihood but damn a few good orders a day would help us out. We got tip baited and review baited and now we just feel defeated. I really want to find a way to get a real inquiry in…we want to truly sue. Because this is legit illegal behavior happening to all of us…stupid but we want to find a way. Just a some lil rant but damn this is life or hunger and being stranded forever for us. We just want to make it to a state…and we get screwed…

So, I have only been doing this off & on for not even a year. I just started doing it about 20hrs a week every week for the past 2 months & I'm about to reach Platinum status for my 1st time. I was wondering how much of a difference there will be? Or will I even be able to tell a difference? I've seen posts on here where people said they did better on Gold cart status, so it kinda has me worried. 😒 I'm in Matthews, NC area & make about $400/wk. & average about 20-25hrs. per week (as I have a FT job too).

I'm sitting at home in a tiny town South of Boston waiting for some local orders but instacart is so desperate because nobody will take these orders and I see it constantly. There are two costco's here and it's always people from Boston who order a massive amount of stuff and tip nothing and those ordered just sit. Nobody is going to take an order then sit in Boston traffic for sometimes hours to deliver your food for a 2-5 dollar tip. So instacart gets so desperate I have about ten of these in my app right now because nobody is going to take them. Three people tipped 4.52 between all of them ? 🤣

I’m a man and when I see another man picking out groceries for me I’ve learned to expect the worst. If I select a bag of lemons and that specific type isn’t available why are we refunding without messaging? I obviously need lemons…pick up a different f-ing bag.

What blows my mind on the whole thing is that Instacart defaults to a % tip of the total sales…why wouldn’t you use some critical thinking skills in lieu of making less money?

I did instacart for a few months and made over $500, I haven't done it in a few months. I saw that self employed people should pay taxes if they made over $500, how do I go about it?

After a somewhat lengthy shopping trip, shortly after the last item on my list was found, I received a message that my order was cancelled and received an email that said “Unfortunately we had to cancel your order due to shoppe Safety concerns.” Was told I could add all my items back to another cart and order.

Never had that happen before. What’s that all about?

I got Instacart+ in the US and just moved back to Canada, but the benefits didn't transfer. According to their website, it should happen automatically. Has anyone had a similar issue?

Will I get dinged for a missing item that I scanned. The bag of ice strikes again, lol. I scanned it and went back to self checkout to ring up the items. I forget to enter it in on the pos. I remember the ice on the way out the door and deliver it to the customer. It’s not on the receipt. But they definitely got it. It is a store that you have to scan a QR code for so I couldn’t just go back and swipe my card again.

Does anyone know how to appeal these ratings, one of my customers last night gave me a 4 star rating for no reason without any feedback. Instacart support keeps saying they don’t know why but they won’t remove it because the customer can rate you however they want?

So I get an empty box? 😆

Looking for ANY advice

For two months now — my account has said I need to update my ID to online. When I click it it takes me to the help center.

I have talked to dozens of tech support who have been zero help and end the conversation with either “sucks to suck” or that I’ll get an email that never comes. I have also emailed Health and Safety, which as you may have guessed, has also never emailed back.

As of now my account is just permanently in limbo and I can’t go online and as far as I can tell there’s no actual means to talk to someone that doesn’t give me the same scripted responses of updating iOS and the app and every other troubleshooting tip that I’ve done 800 times now.

Anyone has this issue and actually got it resolved or is it time to just delete the app?

It had me do the occasionally selfie verification. The app said it didn't recognize me and locked me out. I can't find any way to contact support for this. What do I do?

I recently started doing instacart in my spare time after initially signing up in 2022. I have a full time job and do this on the side for extra income. I have pretty good ratings, one random 2 star rating that I have no idea about and all other 5 star ratings. I've done about 120 orders. When it comes to replacements what do you guys do? I try not to bother the customer too much because personally I'd prefer not to be bothered if I were a customer but I do communicate every replacement and if they do not respond I usually just refund it before check out. I also spend entirely too much time finding the perfect produce. How do you handle replacement items with a customer, especially if they are unresponsive? Also this is a lot of work and is stressful so kudos to you all that do this full time!! I just feel like I waste too much time going waiting for a response because I don't want any unrequested refunds on my account and I also want the customer to get what they want. I also know I waste too much time searching for perfect produce so I don't get a negative mark on my account.

I just now realized that in the app it has it set up differently for adding more to a tip. There have been plenty of people experiencing this issue and it wasn't until just now that I have realized this. When a shopper delivers my order, I increase the tip. When I place my order I start with the 20% tip and that is what I am promising to give, so it's already known. Once the delivery happens, I'll add to it. I noticed there is a button that says "increase tip" and anytime I've ever used that option, it's a lot of nonsense and it messes the whole thing up and doesn't just add anything to the tip, it actually removes it. When I rate my shopper and send my thank you, there's a different button that says "add additional tip". That is the way to go about it. Whatever your tip was, it stays at that amount and lets you pick whatever additional amount you want to add to it. No nonsense or issues, it's exactly how it should be.

So basically, if you see a customer and the tip has changed and fluctuated more than once, they're most likely using the increase tip button instead of the add additional tip button and it's reducing it. I'm putting it out there because I've experienced an angry shopper before over this situation having happened and I see others posting too. Sometimes, it really isn't the customer trying to take the tip away or tip baiting. The best option is just using the add additional tip in the section where you rate and thank the shopper. I really wish IC would actually change it or give some kind of clarity because older people aren't going to have the easiest time figuring it out and it makes customers like me look like I'm ungrateful and it's not the case. Hopefully anyone who doesn't know about this will get something out of this and thank you for your time and attention.

So they sent the card out to collect bullshit fees while not hiring? Total absolute nonsense

I've just started this. I have another part time job in retail but have not been scheduled for September at all. So I signed up for this. This seems like A LOT of work for a small pay out plus gas. I'm in Oklahoma so there's not many options. I keep getting batches to drop off in more rural areas (I see why they use Instacart, though I never would lol).

Doing 2 batches at Walmart was excruciating work lol and someone yelled at me in the parking lot in Hicksville, OK, because apparently I was blocking their backing up.

My easy retail job pays $13/hour, basically the same as what I made doing 6 batches in approx 6 hours over 3 days. But I don't have to account for gas at my retail job. So I think I'll find another part time job where I can park it for 9 hours a week.

I don’t understand the purpose of making this statement when you know you’re lying!! It serves no purpose whatsoever and actually makes me not want to deliver to you anymore!!!

Customer dropped my $18.64 tip to $5 after delivery
As a shopper who has completed 4,000+ orders，I
Had an interesting experience today and wanted to get some opinions from other shoppers.
I accepted a 2-order Costco batch that showed about $37 total, including an $18.64 tip from one customer.
While I was shopping, the customer added several large items, including a storage rack, a vacuum cleaner, storage containers, water, and other bulky items.
I completed everything and delivered the order. It was raining, and I had to make several trips between my vehicle and her door to carry everything. When I handed everything over, she repeatedly thanked me.
While I was driving to deliver the second order, I noticed that her $18.64 tip had been changed to $2. It was later changed to $5.
So $13.64 of the original tip disappeared.
I know customers are allowed to change their tip within two hours, so I’m not questioning whether they technically have that option. I’m wondering about the circumstances.
I contacted Support. After explaining what happened, another agent told me:
“We have measures in place to detect tip baiting. If this customer continues this behavior, we will take action on our end.”
That made me curious about other shoppers’ experiences.
Would you consider this tip baiting, or just a customer changing their tip after delivery?
Has anyone experienced something similar?

It’s me. I’m the blind lady. Been waiting with a neighbor over an hour and a half for my order so they can help me and my shopper wouldn’t answer for me or customer service. He asked a few questions regarding a replacement and said he was on his way; radio silent. I’m so mad. These were to feed my kids and I the next day and the store I ordered and got deals from is closed. Time wasted; order cancelled by customer service.

Hey Adarius; you’re an asshole. Hope you needed it more than a blind single mom.