InstacartReviews 2,486

My experience shopping for Instacart has been absolutely terrible. The first incident was concerning the referral bonus- my mom used my referral code to sign up to be a shopper, and completed all of the qualifications on time. She was supposed to receive $400, and I was supposed to receive $450. When it did not happen, we contacted Instacart customer service. They informed us that she did not type the code in correctly, but this was clearly an assumption as they were not able to tell us what code she did use.They also said there is no way to fix this after the fact, which is completely absurd seeing as all they have to do is verify that she completed the qualifications and then pay us both accordingly. She did put in the right code, she is extremely detail oriented- this was a glitch on their end and they were completely unwilling to help. The second situation was when I shopped a very large order which took an hour and a half- it was an Online Pay order at Fred Meyer. When I got to the checkout and scanned the barcode for the order (which is how you pay for the online pay orders), it popped up with a message saying the code had already been used. After contacting customer service, the eventually (after an hour) discovered that the order had already been shopped but that the previous driver had an emergency on the way to drop it off and so I received it next. I spent ANOTHER hour chatting with customer service trying to find a way to pay for the order, as it was not allowing me to use my physical or digital card for it since it was online pay. At that point the store closed and I left, unable to pay for or deliver the order. They refused to compensate me because I could not complete the order, which was their fault entirely. That was 3.5 hours of work with no compensation. Today I decided to work for a period of time where there was a $4 boost per order. The order was at Costco, and took me 1.5 hours to shop. My physical card was stolen a couple of days ago (which I reported to Instacart, a replacement is on the way) so as I walked into thestore, I confirmed that they had tap and pay. When I was checking out the order, the digital card said "not authorized" Apparently you have to have the physical card at Costco, but Instacart does not inform you of that when you get the order. They were well aware that I don't have the physical card, as I reported it stolen. They compensated me only $5 and counted the batch cancellations against me. Overall I have spent 5 hours of time without pay and did not receive the $450 I was promised for the referral, and they cheated my mother out of hundreds as well. If you're looking for a job that does not pay you, this is it. Otherwise I would steer clear of working for Instacart. Their customer service representatives don't care, they hardly even speak English, because obviously they outsource for that; they hate paying people to work for them.

Ive wanted to change my number because my old number isn't working anymore so I purchased a new phone with a new number, the app glitched while i was doing a batch and logged me out, i filled out the form and its been a month since anything, everyone keeps saying they cant help, i haven't been sent anything, they said i would have a response in 24 hours and its been a month, insta cart care for their shoppers is disrespectful, i wouldn't recommend anyone get on this app, especially when the shoppers get no responses or lied to, i am so done with insta cart between the app not working with us when customers lie or simply just to change the number, i will be filing a lawsuit, i feed my family on this app, but they obviously dont care and continue to lie.

I found myself in a pinch and wanted to order groceries from my local Aldis. Not being familiar with instacart, I played along to purchase groceries to be picked up. After picking them and taking them home, I realized I did not have everything I ordered. I took it up with instacart in an email. They replied saying they were going to credit my account for the items I did not get. (Over $115 worth) The next day I went back to Aldis and they had all of my other items that had been forgotten from the day before. Before I left the parking lot I was emailing instacart to advise that I had gone back the store and was able to get the rest of the order. I asked them to reverse the credit to my account and stated that I would still be using them. I then received an email from them telling me that due to recent activity, GPS activity etc they have locked and deactivated my account. In other words they accused me of trying to scam them. I emailed them again and let them know that due to their incompetence I would no longer be using their service as I had previously stated. I also forwarded them my email I sent previously letting them know I had received the rest of my order and advised them to reverse the credit. Clearly the communication within this company is lacking at best. I wont be using this service again.
Update... just checked my email and they stated that after reviewing it (my initial email to them) they are leaving my account deactivated.

Made a purchase from lows when I realize that I made the wrong purchase. Walked 50 mins to try to exchange the item no receipt or purchase order on my order confirmation Lowes won't allow me to exchange nor return with out those. I walked now an 1 and 15 mis in a dark road to get back to my car with a dead battery made 2 mores unsuccessful attempts. I contact imstacart they finally give me the purchase order number that Lowes doesn't recognize. After contacting Instacart I was told I can't return the item because I chose the wrong car battery charger that I couldn't even test because it was missing an attachment. The charged me $62 for an item that was $39. I used their service before and was happy but not they are trying to make me pay for shipping to return a defective product. This was a month a go. I didn't use their service often not affordable in my case. But I mm sure they make enough to have a few cancelled orders.

Today I learned that Instacart does not charge the same as the store. I had a delivery today that had two packages of chicken wings from the stores meat department according to the receipt I was charged $22.76 however each package had a big yellow sticker on it for a special one package was marked down from $10.60 to 3.71 the other from $10.27 to 3.59. A difference of $15.46. When I called customer service they offered to refund me less then $2.00. I was informed they have there own pricing and I was not eligible for the special. These specials tend to be due to how old the package is so not only did I get chicken that had been around for a bit I paid 1.89 over the store price before the special. When I should have paid 7.30.
I don't mind the delivery fee and tipping the shopper but this pricing is a total scam and this order will be my last.

7.99 delivery fee, 4.00 service fee, and tip. 4 items, mozzarella cheese, 1 small lasagna noodle pack, ricotta cheese and 2 boxes cheese toast. $45.00 dam dollars? No more of my money for you all at Instacart. Keep in mind my supermarket is 12 minutes away and I am disabled. Rediculous!

Worse shoppers in history now begging for 5 star ratings. That do not follow instructions. Never saw groceries

Yes instacart is a great way to make money as long as the customer service helps you the correct way. But if they don't help you and you lose money and run out of gas they will not help you they will just tell you they don't care. They'll threaten you to make sure that you get their stuff back to the store and not care about your family or your income. I was trying to make money to put gas in my car to feed my daughter and the customer service deleted my order would not give me the addresses to take the items to the customers made me late to an appointment. And then blamed it all on me kept telling me to hurry up and get the stuff back to the store rather than apologizing for me being stranded at my daughter's school with no gas. I bamegged and pleaded for them to please help me and they told me no. I asked for an higher up manager and they told me they have no customer service to help people that ran out of gas cuz that's not their problem. But they are the ones that caused the problem I've never had an issue because I've always been able to make money. When you're app doesn't work that's your fault not mine. But their customer service not once apologize at the fact that me and my daughter had to walk home because I could not make money the way that I normally make money. The worst customer service I've ever had the worst situation experience 8 hours of taking and speaking to them to help you suffer they made my day and my daughter's day the worst day we ever had. And they had no remorse. All they said the whole time was make sure you get the stuff back to the store. They wanted me to walk the stuff back to the store. 7 Miles. I that stuff is still n the back of my car but has no gas in it because they messed up. Yeah go ahead and use Instacart but don't have any issues cuz they won't help you.

I was overcharged $30 by a shopper who didn't unerstand you had to be sure to charge for the correct weight of weighted items and instacart support said there was nothing they could do even after I provided proof. Then, on another order I was charged over $20 for bags - which I assume was some sort of glitch - when I received no bags at all. That's over $50 they've stolen from me with no help from their support team. Steer clear of these crooks.

I placed an order on 9/17 for $177 and received it. However…someone, not me, did another order the same day for $230. I never placed or received another order, it was for $230. What happened? I got no explanation. I have read before that some Instacart shoppers have placed fraudulent orders.

I ordered 6 of the garlic shrimp rice bowls and 2 lbs of catfish filets. Got 2 boxes of rice bowls and no catfish.no one texted or informed me that they weren't delivering my entire order and they dropped off my 2 boxes of shrimp bowls in a bag on my doorstep. The boxes were $4.49 each and for 2 they charged me $35. And then I try to leave a review on their app…impossible. I will never use them again. What a sloppy operation

Every I order I feel like perps are delivering my order and that's not right. I've had many orders with issues from Aldi's and the prices are so jacked up I'd rather take off of work and get the groceries myself.

I WAS APPALLED when I compared the Instacart prices to the actual supermarket prices and discovered that the prices were on average 13-17 percent higher. What this means is that not only are you hit with delivery and other fees, a tip (not begrudging the latter) you are ALSO paying a premium for the FOOD ITSELF. Example: I ordered a pound of Chicken Salad from the Deli at the supermarket and the packaging itself said 9.77 on the deli ticket affixed to the container. On the Instacart receipt however the amount was 13.43. As I kept going through the receipt and checking the prices on the supermarket website it was true across the board. This Practice is disgusting and near criminal. Cancelled my membership and won't go near this company.

I have used instacart now, on and off for two years. I have a bad habit of thinking that next time will be different, but finally, I am done with it. I have lost all faith that a transaction will go smoothly, and have had to call Instacart on nearly every occasion because of mixups or issues with my orders, including incorrect goods (ground chicken instead of turkey, rotten food, frozen fish instead of fresh fish, and totally different ingredients from herbs, vegetables or spices for recipes for dinner.) I have had many items missing (sometimes half an order, but was still charged for it), and other times, I have received a completely wrong order. Orders were delivered warm (when there was fresh meat or dairy), and orders have often run late (sometimes by hours), which really can affect plans, whether for dinner, or just plans for the day in general. Customer service flagged my account because of issues that were all documented and reported accurately (I even submitted photos, and even sometimes the shopper acknowledged the mistakes), and now banished me to have to appeal every issue, from cracked eggs to incorrect orders, through a tedious and time consuming process. I am being treated like a criminal, and not a valued customer. This is not how to treat loyal customers, and instead of working to resolve delivery issues, they would rather turn away customers from their platform. I cancelled my account and I will NEVER use their service again! I highly recommend that others heed this warning and stay away from Instacart, unless you are a glutten for punishment.

Iam an instacart SHOPPER and have dealt with ignorance, rudeness, and have had NO real help. I keep getting the runaround on re activating my account which I de activated when I lost my phone, and had to replace the number on the account...and oh my God that took more than a week of headaches, anger and exhausting back and forth emails and calls to their horrible CS reps. Outsourcing is a joke in this case btw. They keep asking for an email I never recieved from the trust and fraud department to reply to that and ONLY THAT EMAIL to activate my account. Cs can't don't it, the trust team can't either, their chat reps can't nor emailing them...so how can I get this resolved? I can't so here iam letting everyone know how bad Instacart is through burning their name as much as possible until either they get a huge class action lawsuit which I will gladly sign up for and this company ends once and for all.

I only ordered a couple things from the Dollar tree and my delivery driver sent to the wrong address and when I sent a screenshot showing that is the right address she's like well maybe you should go back and get it I'm bedridden I can't get out and now they're my account is restricted and I can't get my money back don't go through instacart

I tried ordering twice with an EBT and each time Instacart took the money but the order was either completely incorrect or there was no completed order at all (but the card was still charged by instacart). Each time I was inconvenienced and without groceries. We (my friend and I) talked on the phone for an hour and a half trying to plead with Instacart for empathy and for them try to rectify it in some way. Instacart had an issue with trying to fix the problem or give us some type of incentive for the inconvenience. It's strange because my friend orders all the time with coupons and debit card but she receives her orders each and every time. This makes me believe there are some discrimination from EBT card users.

I woke up I entered my bank account and had less $104, the instacart charge me for auto membership renew ( and my bank charge me cortesy pay), without me ever having had an account with them, I simply bought it as a guest on their platform two weeks ago. And for refund they told me that it's take 24h, but for charge me they didn't take 24h lol Laughing so as not to cry.

I was charged $99 out of the blue. Haven't shopped IC for over a year. I received a "Thanks for signing up! Welcome!" email. Either it's fraud and I was hacked -OR- the fraudulent practices are from IC activating an old account. (It was not an automated annual renewal.) Tried repeatedly to get help through "24/7 Customer Service". Worst automated prompt choices ever, and the ones I did use weren't working properly. (Tried 2 browsers to see if it would help-same results.) FINALLY got through to "chat" but only received automated answers so I don't believe I reached a human. Reply received stated refund would come in 8-10 business days or "maybe" 1-2. I want my account Deactivated for security reasons.