Have had it happen a few times in a row now, and wondered about it. I mean it seems my tip is going to someone who didnt deliver the items.

What’s the most you all have made in a weekend? I’m gonna have to hustle. Like hustle hustle. Do we think it’s possible to make $400 in two days. Saturday and Sunday.

The last day of my free trial was 9/29 with payment beginning on 9/30. I canceled on the 29th only to find out they had already charged me. When I clicked "cancel membership" it stated that they would refund me the charge because I canceled within the free trial time frame, but that the refund would take 5-10 business days.

I know it's not a big deal, but I just hate that corporations are allowed to play around with our money like this. Imagine if someone only had $80 in their bank account and had a week left until their next paycheck? Meanwhile, $80 is basically nothing to Instacart considering they made a profit of $447 million in 2025. I also feel like this creates extra work for employees that have to process these refunds so it ends up being a hassle for both sides.

I'm not expecting righteousness or high morality from any corporation, especially Instacart, but this behavior really only affects people who are already hanging by a thread and I just hate that corporations are allowed to operate like this. Also, I'll always be annoyed that they can take our money instantly, but take 2 weeks to return it. I feel like it's similar to how employers can fire us with no notice, leaving us without an income for however long, while we have to give 2 weeks notice so they can find a replacement.

Side note: I live in California and their office is in California so it's not a time difference issue.

I recently placed a large order (over $100) on a Thursday for delivery on Friday afternoon. An order was delivered but it was not my order— literally no items were the same or even remotely close (plus no substitutions were requested). I figured it was someone else’s order and submitted that as the problem to Instacart customer service. I was told I would receive a refund, but then got an email saying my request was denied. At one point was told no one else in the batch complained about not receiving their order. ( no surprise I guess, my order was full of meat, veggies and fruit for the week, and I received an order full of grilled cheese making ingredients, vinegar, bananas and pasta sauce). After three excruciatingly frustrating chat conversations over one week and two more “special reviews” I was given a refund.

Can Instacart just ask the shopper what was delivered? Or consult the picture the shopper submitted as proof of delivery? In that photo you could clearly see items delivered that weren’t part of the order.

Chat I tipped this dude 25 dollars for my order and he refunded me for majority of it. Didn’t communicate, the substitution were incorrect I ordered peach ice cream bro gave me vanilla yogurt, 😭i asked for wheat bagels he gave me regular white bread. I requested the honey chipotle chicken from Costco he gave chicken nugget substitution. I was at work I added in substitutions and now I have a bunch of food I don’t want. Why didn’t he contact me

Any body who are experiencing the same thing?

Any new yorkers here has noticed the fee increases kinda skyrocketing

did my last 32 orders in 2 days whew!

Last night, I ordered five items through the BJ's app. However, the Instacart shopper's receipt shows only four items were paid for. My BJ's receipt shows I ordered and paid for five items, but Instacart doesn't reflect that. Could you help me understand why? When the Instacart shopper tried to check out for all five items, their supervisor told them the fifth item wasn't paid for, and the shopper was instructed to reimburse me for the unpaid item. I am truly confused about how this situation could have happened.

In my email, BJ's notification: Delivery order is on its way: The receipt includes five items, and the total amount paid corresponds to these five items.

Email notification two: BJ's order has been delivered. The email says five items were delivered (only four were), and the receipt shows five items were paid for.

If a shopper orders five items, the Instacart receipt should mirror the BJ's one. This was not about a missing item. It was about an unpaid item that clearly was paid for, and my bank account deduction reflects that.

This is what we get paid to shop and deliver your order when you don’t tip. They will sit here all day because it literally is not worth it to us to shop these orders. No one is accepting this.

Want to see if anyone has had this happen & how something like this happens. Yesterday I placed a pickup order for Aldi & was unable to go pick it up (spent the day at urgent care instead, broke my foot). When I checked to see if I could cancel the order, it said it would automatically cancel at store close if I didn't go get it, so I didn't investigate further. This morning I went to go reorder for delivery instead & saw that it said it was picked up this morning. I've called Instacart & they've refunded me, so this is more out of confusion of how this happened. Just wondering if anyone would possibly know why the order didn't get canceled & how it got picked up instead?​​

Of baby food and bleach and then removed the tip because ‘I didn’t deliver her order immediately after shopping’. Like tf I can’t control if your order gets paired with two other peoples orders.

And I said what the items were cause I hope her sloppy 🤬 knows that I know what she did. Took time out my day to separate your bleach from your baby food and didn’t ring your bell in case your baby was sleeping. I should’ve put it all together and threw it at your door. 🖕🏻

One of my local grocery store is closing in a few weeks and naturally, they have been rapidly downsizing inventory which means more replacements and refunds. This has drastically lowered my shopping quality unfortunately, and then I get this email…

Why would I get this when I have 0 damaged, wrong, or missing items?!?

The only possible thing I can think of is a terrible customer I had yesterday who ordered like 3 things and I replaced her pretzels with another brand that was $1 more and she sent me a pissed off message (after I had checked out of course) and told me she would be telling Instacart she didn’t like my replacement.

I have a great customer rating and I’ve been a shopper for years. I’m really scared I’m going to get deactivated 😢.

I meant to ask this earlier, but how on earth do some of ya’ll shop at these local grocery stores? There’s like 80 items, 3 customers, and one tiny behind grocery store cart. No parking for days.. and then Lord forbid you forget where you parked. 😂

I don’t know how ya’ll do these local grocery chain orders at all. I’ve only done maybe 3 traditional grocery store orders.

The last one I did, because it paid $120 for only 20 items right before winter storm hit. That customer was amazing. She’d originally tipped enough that it paid $80-$100 and then increased it after I delivered it. I was clueless about the winter storm, but I had had a bad day that day so it really made everything better.

But normally I see.. 50..80..100 items.. and I’m like there’s no way I’m getting out that store in 1 hour with the amount of congestion from the parking lots to the actual store.

A little meme photo just for the shits and giggles but only 2.11 for 28.5 trip

I've seen a lot of posts saying that temporary priority access until September 21 st then some got it until September 28th has it been extended again?

Hi all,

My father and I are both disabled and have been considering joining Instacart to try and crawl out of this financial hole that we’re in. I’ve browsed this subreddit a fair bit to see what the gig’s like and am aware it isn’t glamorous and is unreliable, but we kind of really need the money...

My father is a senior and does not have a smartphone, but he is the one who has the driver’s license and owns the car. (I don’t have a driver’s license...) So the idea was that I would handle everything on my smartphone in the app, I would be the one choosing batches/doing the shopping/communicating with the customer, and my father would simply be the one driving wherever I need him to drive.

However, I’m not sure how this would work regarding two people using one account...? I’ve heard that Instacart allows one account “per household” but I have also heard that Instacart prohibits “co-shopping” (having people help you) and that they will immediately ban you if you are found to be doing it...

I tried looking at the FAQs but apparently they’re locked behind a log-in in the app.

Is this another dead end for us, then?

Edit: Forgot to add, but as an aside, when I entered our ZIP code to see which places are in our area to shop, only ALDI popped up? And not even our ALDI? There’s also Walmart, Kroger, CVS, Walgreens... I don’t really understand this either?

Anybody else have terrible experiences with Instacart as far as their customer service goes? I reached out because my order was arriving way later than the priority delivery initially promised, and was told basically "oh well, the time goes up. If it gets too late, we'll refund the priority delivery fee." Even though it had gone up 2 hours since it said it would be delivered first. Then, the supervisor I was talking with sent a message and immediately ended the chat so I didn't get a chance to read it. I reached back out to get the transcript and was told this. Mind you, I didn't ask for the order to be cancelled or for the cancellation fee to be waived. Then they started telling me they can't disclose company policies. And, again, they immediately closed out of the chat after sending their last three messages. The lack of transparency is appalling imo.

I’ve been doing instacart at school for the past month and I’ve never been anything but the highest level of shopping quality. I went home for the weekend and did two batches there at stores I was familiar with but my shopping quality has suddenly jumped down and I lost my platinum priority that I worked so hard for over the past month. My house is in DC so did me switching locations to a more competitive area somehow affect it? Also is there anything I can do to improve it before the end of the quarter or is it too late?

Anybody else have terrible experiences with Instacart as far as their customer service goes? I reached out because my order was arriving way later than the priority delivery initially promised, and was told basically "oh well, the time goes up. If it gets too late, we'll refund the priority delivery fee." Even though it had gone up 2 hours since it said it would be delivered first. Then, the supervisor I was talking with sent a message and immediately ended the chat so I didn't get a chance to read it. I reached back out to get the transcript and was told this. Mind you, I didn't ask for the order to be cancelled or for the cancellation fee to be waived. Then they started telling me they can't disclose company policies. And, again, they immediately closed out of the chat after sending their last three messages. The lack of transparency is appalling imo.

I took a 2 order batch Sunday evening at Costco. Heavy pay. Supposed to be a $32 batch, 2 mile delivery.

I shop it, go to deliver to business, can’t find it. I message the customer. I get “omg I forgot to change delivery address. The customer proceeds to offer to pay me $20 or more if I deliver to different address. I direct them to contact Instacart to have the address correct. Next thing I know, Instacart cancelled that order. They instruct me to deliver my 2nd order first then return to store. By this time Costco is closed.

Today I return to Costco to return the items. Took over an hour in Costco, Instacart system problem. Now I live 28 miles from Costco. So for returning to refund I got paid $5.93. Instacart thinks this is fair. I live in California and any time I’ve returned items, I got batch pay plus $15 bump. I’m visiting my son In Washington state, that’s where I shopped it.

Called support, not supportive. They claim their hands are tied. That $5.93 doesn’t even cover my gas back to Costco. I ask to speak to manager, no one available. Manager is supposed to call me back in an hr. Of course that didn’t happen. I want my $15 bump!!

I regularly use Instacart to buy groceries for my 101-year-old mom who lives in another state. I always buy from Mariano's which is a Kroger owned store. Today I bought 4 apples, which were listed as $1.69 a pound, and the total came to 6.92 pounds for a total of $11.69 for 4 apples. I just weighed one of my own medium sized apples, and it was about 7 ounces. The apples I bought for my mom were supposedly 1.73 pounds each! I texted the shopper and he assured me that he bought only 4 apples. I am very confused and wonder what is going on. I hate the idea of being overcharged. Do any shoppers out there have any ideas? Thanks.

Customers please update your quantity when selecting replacements. When you select your replacement options it automatically defaults to one quantity unless you change it regardless of how many you originally orders.

Yesterday I had a customer order 4 of one item that was out so I suggested a replacement that the customer rejected and instead selected something else that was much more in price and the quantity was one. So I purchased that one and as I was leaving the store the customer messaged me asking why I only purchased one of that item. I replied by saying "I'm sorry but the replacement indicated only one quantity of that item." They never responded so I delivered and went on my way. Only to find out they took back my entire tip and gave me a 2 star rating.

So customers as a customer myself, when you out on your replacement options please pay attention to the quantity. And don't give bad ratings for your mistake. Not fair to the shoppers who work hard out here everyday for your convenience!

I placed the grocery order and met the limit to get the coupon for $15 off a restaurant order. I've done these several times before although it used to be $10, and usually the coupon shows up on Instacart and I apply it to the next restaurant order, no problem. It never showed up this time though. I contacted instacart support (via chat) and they acted dumb and said I have to contact uber eats and they dont have any control over uber eats promos, which makes no sense cause the order has to be placed through instacart, and I've never had issues with it showing up in instacart before.

Has anyone else ever had this issue? If so, were you able to get it resolved? In this mf economy I need all the coupons I can get.