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Instacart

1.1

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Instacart Reviews Summary

Instacart has a rating of 1.1 stars from 2,486 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 108th among Grocery Delivery sites.

service
641
value
596
shipping
426
returns
438
quality
529

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Texas
1 review
3 helpful votes
Follow Tracie B.
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During this pandemic when we are homebound I really needed groceries for me and my toddler. I love shopping at sprouts and really needed an order from there. However Instacart does not allow prepaid cards of any type. Including Child Support Card's. They really need to review this policy. If there are available funds on a visa accredited card purchases should be allowed. Very disappointed in the service because it would have been a lifesaver right now. Literally.

Date of experience: May 5, 2020
Michigan
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Dean C.
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Well. The 1 1/2 star rating on this service pretty much says it all.

Just tried to deliver $50 of groceries to my wife, as a surprise.

The "surprise" is that if you have a problem with this site - you are completely SCREWED!

The log in doesn't work (they didn't ask for a password... so how is this supposed to work?)

When you reset the password, the system just hangs. No action at all.

Of course, the first question on any other route in this system is "please log in." Hello... anyone home?

And when you call in, they tell you they cannot do anything, need to escalate the issue, and "someone will call you back."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

They think we all want PhD's in Instacart!

What a complete waste of time...

The crown jewel was the email "Prepare to be Amazed."

Yeah... I'm amazed all right... I'm amazed you are in business.

This is horrible... even for a Canadian company! Maybe TD bank can help improve the service up to Legendary.

What a joke.

Date of experience: May 4, 2020
New York
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Cinthea G.
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Oh brother!
May 4, 2020

Where to start, these so-called "shoppers" are THE worst! First off, they never have a thing, it can't be THIS many replacements for food. 2nd they youngish, 3rd I suspect especially towards the end of your order they don't have the rest of your items. They will refund everything and close the order. They take advantage of the fact that you cannot see what's all going on. I have tried Instacart 3xs, never again. I will stick with Prime as I have for years.

Date of experience: May 4, 2020
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Edward P.
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I realized I was going to pay about $40 extra due to instacarts several fees, tip and service charges. However I never dreamed instacart was charging me 19 to 30+ percent more than the price I would have paid at Costco. So I ended up paying a $100 premium fo what would have cost me $250 at the store... they don't tell you that in the fine print folks. What a ripoff!

Date of experience: May 3, 2020
New Jersey
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Sangrok M.
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They have $10.99 fees on every delivery on top of other fees totaling almost $20.
Their price is not even very good, either.
Why would you shop at costco.com?
I would rather shop at Whole foods.

Date of experience: May 3, 2020
Pennsylvania
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Shekar S.
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I understand there are 20% - 30% price high in instacart. But I bought a product which it's double the price. I am not happy about this and I am an express member. For this COVID situation, this price is ridiculous

Date of experience: May 3, 2020
Colorado
1 review
52 helpful votes
Follow divakar K.
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It is almost equal to cheating. They rip the customer utilize this pandemic situation.
This service is a rip off they mark up the prices by 25%.
I purchased grocery at Costco from $342 (including tax and exclude tips) order in that actual price is 284(include tax) was their mark up. Almost 60$ more for one order i did 3 order till now. I would have payed Walmart or Amazon prime paying 12.99 and get may other benefit along with the proper items. I don't how Costco allow these kind of fraud company.

Date of experience: May 3, 2020
Texas
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Yael z.
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Rip off they dont deliver the invoice from the shops for a reason. They mark up all the prices by at least 25% and on top they ask for service fee and a tip.
Dont use them, they are way too expensive.

Date of experience: May 3, 2020
Missouri
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Tracy W.
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1 star too many
May 3, 2020

I ordered a cake, 2 steaks, chicken and lettuce for my sons birthday. The delivery guy instead delivers 4 boxes of poptarts and hummus. My daugher-in-law knew what I ordered and told him this is not right. He then gave them 2 steaks and the lettuce. No cake. No chicken yet charged for it all. I contacted instacart via chat and got no place with the first person I chatted with. After seeing I was charged $72.05 for the entire order I contacted instacart via chat again (plus $3 tip my son gave him. I uploaded the receipt for $22.06 that my son screenshot for me. Instacart then credited me only $35.42. Still cost me $36.63 plus the $3 tip for total of 39.63 when the bill was only $22.06. I never would have ordered and paid their insane fees if I knew he wouldn't get his birthday cake and half the order. This is outright robbery. This is the first time I used instacart and the last. I agreed to pay those fees only to get all items, especially the cake.

Date of experience: May 2, 2020
California
3 reviews
12 helpful votes
Follow crystal w.
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We use instacart to purchase steak, milk, and beer in Albertsons. The price in the receipt is $113, but instacart charge us $158! Be careful if you still want to this app.

Date of experience: May 2, 2020
Louisiana
3 reviews
6 helpful votes
Follow MawMaw D.
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INSTACART beware - don't use them. A service that shops at grocery stores and deliveries. I have got overcharged for sales tax on 4 different orders. I pay the store sales tax of 5.250% and then Instacart adds sales tax again of 10%. I talked to two agents and they will not take off the added sales tax because they said I agreed to it when I placed the order. The last order they overcharged $22.20 in sales tax! The shoppers were goood but Instacart.com adds a delivery fee, a service fee, a tip for shopper and double sales tax.

Date of experience: May 2, 2020
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow R L.
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I ordered from Safeway through Instacart. Next day Instacart delivered all incorrect items then I asked the delivery man to take the items back to Safeway. You know what he said to me? This delivery man said he was no longer responsible after dropping off the items. Then I received an email from Michael at Instacart Care. He asked me to personally go to Safeway and asked for an exchange or refund! STAY AWAY AND DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING FROM INSTACART. THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY IRRESPONSIBLE AND UNPROFESSIONAL.

Date of experience: May 1, 2020
North Carolina
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow T W.
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Do not use Instacart at Costco! The fees are exorbitant! The markup on a piece of Salmon was almost 100%. The sticker price (if I had bought it in the store) was $20.93. Instacart charged me $39.57. I also ordered a beef tenderloin, sticker price $81.85. Instacart charged me $131.45, a $49.60 markup on ONE item.

NEVER AGAIN will I shop Instacart with Costco; it's price gauging!

Date of experience: May 1, 2020
Colorado
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow R C.
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We've used Instacart three times during the COVID-19 lockdown, ordering groceries from Ralphs (a Kroger brand), which in turn used Instacart for deliveries. While the shoppers have been very nice, have selected good items, and have texted us when any problems arose (such as an item being out of stock), Instacart has been anything but transparent when it comes to billing. The first two times we used Instacart, we got NO RECEIPT, and none was available on line. I called Kroger and got a list of the things we purchased, but it excluded the tip. Worse, the total on the list Roger sent to me was significantly different from what was charged to my AmEx card. In addition, there were several small charges on my card; the Kroger representative said those charges were for replacement items, and when I protested that I was also charge for the items they replaced, she assured me that I would eventually get a refund for those items. Guess what? That NEVER HAPPENED! The nex instance of using Instacart each resulted in a single charge to the credit card, but again we got no receipt; the shopper texted me that the was required to take a photo of it and send it to Instacart, and that Instacart would send it to me. Again, that never happened. The third time a texted the shopper and asked for the receipt from Ralphs, and it was in one of the bags I received. The total on the store receipt was $86.67, which induced a $9.95 delivery charge but not the $13.00 tip we had included when we ordered. That make a total of $99.67, but the AmEx charge was $106.13. We tried calling Kroger again to get an explanation, and they sent us an e-mail showing that a tip of $13.84 was added to the $86.67 in purchases for a total of $100.51 (we authorized a 15% tip, so I have no idea how they figured that the tip should be $13.84), again different from the AmEx charge. Bottom line, the shoppers are good, they deserve good tips, and I don't mind paying for the delivery but I hate the apparent overcharging by Instacart, and I especially dislike not being able to get a straight answer from them. No more! We'll risk getting sick before using Instacart ever again.

Date of experience: May 1, 2020
Pennsylvania
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Barbara B.
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Very unreliable!
May 1, 2020

They waited till 15 minutes before I would have had to leave for curbside pickup to tell me my order would not be ready. I waited over a week after placing the order to pick up $300 worth of groceries that did not happen. I had a 45 min ride. My time was 6pm to 7pm. Was I suppose to wait all night? I canceled. Wegmans can do better than them. They are not reliable at all.

Date of experience: May 1, 2020
Florida
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow zac a.
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From customers tips not getting to the shopper, to orders not getting to the customer due to their site messing up, hours on hold on both ends to try to resolve an issue only to haveing the chat ( you cant call them you have to use the in chat app) just ended. Instacart the company is making out like bandits in the wake of the covid virus. Tips mysteriously disappearing for a shoppers account even when the customer is a personal friend of the shopper and shows them that they paid the tip on their end, to customers begin his with hidden fees that jack up the prices. Shoppers getting baited to refer people with promises of large referral payments that never appear, just like their weekly payouts that some people literally had to get local news investigators involved to get their pay. Instacart is just one of the new wave of gig economy companies set to take as much money from people as they can.

Date of experience: May 1, 2020
Arizona
1 review
1 helpful vote
Follow Manish A.
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It's a rip off!
May 1, 2020

So I pay $99 (or $149) year for membership, then pay $5.99 - $7.99 depending on time for delivery (waived for orders over $35.00), then 10% Service Charge (optional but none of that goes to the employee who is delivering), plus 10-15% in tips (optional again but why wouldn't you?) and wait... on the top of that they charge marked up prices on certain items (15% flat on everything you order from COSTCO or WholeFoods etc.) So if I pay $3.99 normally for eggs at Albersons, they charged me $5. Xx. On an average if I spend $200/per COSTCO visit then I'll end up paying $230.00 for bringing it out to the parking lot. If you spend $500-$800 on groceries per month then add about $8. Xx for membership and even if you don't count optional charges including tips and still pay on an average 10%-15% markup price on some items or on entire order? Do the math. Is it worth paying that much to just save few minutes and travel to the grocery store? Not for a guy like me.

Date of experience: May 1, 2020
New York
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Dee O.
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I am a first responder. I go on BJ's website and since I do not have time to go shopping, I figured it's ok to pay the additional charges for same day delivery. Once I entered my payment information and verified my order I hit the submit button! All of a sudden I see that everything I ordered was out of stock and they wanted me to approve replacement items (that was not at all equivilant to what was ordered). Now I have to wait 3 day to receive my credit on my credit card. I am not stopping here, I will report to Consumer affairs and BBB.

Date of experience: May 1, 2020
Maryland
1 review
0 helpful votes
Follow Alexander Y.
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I would give this service a 0 star rating if I could. After just 3 orders I finally had a shopper give me the actual store receipt. What I discovered was a scam that overcharged me $31.34 on just one order. Almost every item purchased was overcharged by Instacart. 50 cents to $1 per item. I don't know who gets to keep the overcharge, but with a $45 tip to the shopper and then the $31 overcharge, I would be smiling and happy when I dropped off the groceries too. It's a SCAM. I have to assume that the other two orders were the same scam and with the $100 express membership (that I cannot cancel) I am most likely out well over $200.00. Expensive lesson to learn. PLEASE LISTEN, DO NOT USE INSTACART - THEY WILL OVERCHARGE YOU! I attempted to contact them for help and after 2-hours and 5 different representatives, they just kept hanging-up on our chat - which is the only way to contact them. Unbelievable, I feel stupid for trusting them during this pandemic - Lesson learned, Thanks Instacart!

Date of experience: May 1, 2020
California
1 review
0 helpful votes
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Bunch of theives
April 30, 2020

Its not enough that they are making money from charging higher prices plus service charge plus delivery plus tip, they charge you for items that were never delivered and when you ask for credit they say they will credit you in the next purcahse which never happened. I called and they said they won't give me back my money and it was a promo. How is it that my money was a promo. If they have 1 million customer and they steal $10 from each customer on top of all the extra fees that they cahrge then they are making $10,000,000 just by pretending that it was a mistake. The propblem is that they don'tfix the mistake when you report it.

Date of experience: April 30, 2020