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Instacart

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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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South Carolina
2 reviews
2 helpful votes
Follow David M.
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So I thought I'd try ordering groceries on-line from FOODLION for a total of $58.18. They deduct from my bank account plus under a separate charge $52.11. I called them and they said it was a credit "hold." Went on to say it would be credited back. Never did and now I need to file a complaint with my bank. So why do they need to take additional money from my account when they already instantly got the $58.18? Complained on-line to Foodlion with no response and it's been 5 days!

Date of experience: September 9, 2019
Tennessee
6 reviews
11 helpful votes
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If you're considering joining/using Instacart, read all the negative reviews first. Instacart's website and customer service is the worst, the absolute worst! If you decide to open an account and use it despite these warnings, don't say you weren't warned.

Date of experience: September 9, 2019
Texas
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Unbelievable!
September 9, 2019

I have been using Instacart for 3 years now. I had numerous issues, but they had been resolved more or less.
Now they changed the way they accept credit cards and what credit cards are accepted. Which leaves me out in the cold, because suddenly the 2 cards I have are being declined, even though I had been using them for years and there has never been anything wrong with it.
Upon contacting them and informing them of my departure if they cannot find a way for me to make a payment and that I expect a refund for the full year of membership fees I paid, because there are now 10 months left of it of which I paid but won't be able to use.
They declined, said the grace period over. So they are sacking my money and don't work for it. Nice! NOT!

Date of experience: September 9, 2019
New York
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Took 9 tries to get the order right. They say an item is out of stock but a call to the store disproves that. Cust serv is in colombia. Left todays order outside with no notice. Avoid if possible.

Date of experience: September 8, 2019
Illinois
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Johnathon
September 8, 2019

Johnathon delivered my food he was great, polite and carried my food into the front door wonderful. This was so so convent, saved me time, energy and aggravation. No walking around the store aisle to aisle

Date of experience: September 6, 2019
Florida
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Total total ripoff! Beware people. They list prices on the site you are shopping at at a price that is not what the actual store charges! My delivery guy just gave me a paper receipt from the store and it was over $6.00 less than what I was charged. They did not have 1 of the items I ordered and I did NOT approve any modifications or substitutes but yet they added something that was $2.00 more than what I ordered. I sent it back. Called instacart and the customer service person outwardly admitted that "he should not have given you the paper statement". How shady and fraudulent is that? I will NEVER use them again. Aside from the convenience, by the time you are done with delivery and tip and their overcharging of ALL items it is worth it to put yourself out and shop yourself!

Date of experience: September 5, 2019
Alaska
1 review
1 helpful vote
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Garbage Service
September 5, 2019

They could care less about you or your orders.
My last one was given to a complete stranger. Will never know what happened to my 2 gallons of Alkaline Water and Turmeric. I'm done!
The worst possible service you could ever expect. Don't fall for their BS, if you call on the phone. This company screams, Scam.
Uber Trash.

Date of experience: September 5, 2019
Florida
3 reviews
0 helpful votes
Follow Ruth S.
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I Ordered produce And 10 packs of strawberries requested the shopper to make sure they were not rotten Half of them were rotten, Cucumbers were old turning yellow Shoppers just pull the 1st thing they see without selecting. In fact because the shopper works for the market I think they give you the old stuff And then bag it and give it to the instant card. If you're paying higher prices than in store prices I feel you should get prime produce not old wilted rotten produce

Date of experience: September 4, 2019
Germany
1 review
0 helpful votes
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My Instacart deliverer (Sara S. Of *******) was not friendly at all! I was ignored pretty much the entire time while trying to engage in light conversation. Also she had no intention of even asking me if I needed any help with carrying my groceries after watching me struggle a bit and finally carrying in all my groceries on one arm which included 14 items--3 of which were a gallon of milk, a 10lb box of cat litter, and a 12 pack of gatorade. It was horrible!

Date of experience: September 2, 2019
Georgia
1 review
2 helpful votes
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A friend of mine works for instacart and raved about the service so I gave it a try from my home. I had a great experience my groceries came in the right amount of time and were dropped off with a receipt. While at work we ran out of a few items and being the only manager on duty I thought I could order what I need and I won't have to leave the store unsupervised. Well, my order came without a receipt this time and came to find out shoppers are told not to give receipts but to reimbursed by my company in need a store receipt. I was told that can go to the store and ask for one and they may or may not give me one. Next, my order came incomplete, and my account was double charged. When I asked to speak to a manager, I was told they are all too busy, and one would call me back in 10 minutes. Its been 24 hours with no response. I am currently out over $100 for a $40 purchase.

Date of experience: September 1, 2019
Virginia
2 reviews
2 helpful votes
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I've used Instacart twice and both times my groceries showed up almost a half hour before the beginning of the time range that I chose. I just don't understand why they ask for a 1-hour time range if they never plan to show up within that range.

Date of experience: August 31, 2019
New Jersey
9 reviews
11 helpful votes
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Stay far, far away
August 30, 2019

If I could leave no stars at all, I would. I would even put in minus stars. My charges on Instacart's site are almost $100 higher than the invoice which came with the order. Things I did not ask for replacement for if out of stock were replaced, and with items I do not want. Four pounds of chicken resulted in one small $3.00 package. Linguine with red clam sauce turned out to be white clam sauce. I ordered a quesadilla which I did not get, but got a package of flour tortillas. I ordered meatloaf with mashed potatoes and got one slab of meat which looks like shoe leather, and no potatoes. I got salmon salad instead of shrimp salad. I hate salmon salad. This is only a few of the problems with this order. I can't seem to get an answer from Instacart or even a summary of what has been charged to my card. I will never order from Instacart again.

Date of experience: August 30, 2019
Florida
1 review
2 helpful votes
Follow Carina H.
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On my first Instacart delivery, my shopper provided very poor service. Bad substitutions, late, etc... but I had to give it just one more chance, that was a mistake!

First, I ordered at 2:30pm for a 6:30pm delivery. Minutes after checkout it showed that my shopper was shopping. This was concerning because I had many frozen items. So, I contacted the shopper and asked her if there was a mix up as she was already shopping. My answer was that my items would be stored in appropriate location until ready to deliver.

First of all, I come to find out that my order was being delivered from a Publix 8 miles away, when I have a Publix literally 2 blocks from my house. And that may have contributed to the fact that all my ice cream was completely melted when it arrived. It could not have been stored properly as they claimed and arrived so so melted. Even 8 miles away.

Second issue, they got a credit card approval for $40 more than my order and my credit card did not have enough funds. I made sure that the credit available covered my order total plus $30 more which was the 15% that they say they do. They did more like 20% and this caused a catastrophe of domino effect on my finances because they just went and automatically charged my back up card. Major problem!

Third issue, EVERYONE knows that you can not pack the fresh cut fruit containers sideways! Those containers always open and you surely can not pack sideways. So, of course, they also packed my cut fruit sideways and the whole thing opened, saturating bag and losing the fruit if course.

Fourth issue, the store search function is horrible. You can not find anything so it takes so long to shop that you might as well, just get in your car and go there.

I received a refund for the melted items and fruit, but will never use Instacart again.

+2
Date of experience: August 27, 2019
Florida
1 review
3 helpful votes
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I have attempted to use Instacart twice because I feel like you should always give people and places a second chance. Both times my order was messed up. When I called customer service to try to fix the problem there was nothing they could do. The shoppers usually don't speak English (nor does the personal in customer service), they are inconsiderate when just choosing replacement items, and they clearly don't understand the reason why people use Instacart. I use grocery delivery services because I have three children ages 2,3 and 8. So going to the grocery store with all 3 of them is very hard. It's worth paying the extra money not to have to take them to the store with me. When my shopper forgets items they don't understand the inconvenience it is to now load up all the children and go to the store to grab the forgotten items. I will not be using this service anymore. I will go back to using Shipt which is much better!

Date of experience: August 25, 2019
Florida
1 review
2 helpful votes
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This is a job where people are required to shop specific items, read notes and special instructions left by the customer, and communicate directly with the customer IN ENGLISH. Therefore, it is imperative that the employee be able to understand and speak English. While I greatly appreciate people's efforts in learning English, if you cannot effectively communicate with the customer when you're required to, you should not be an employee there. In this particular experience leading me to write this review, not only was my order 2 HOURS late, it was sent to FOUR DIFFERENT SHOPPERS after the order was already bagged and completed the first time. Because of that, the order had to be redone multiple times. The final time the order was placed, over half of my order was wrong, I paid more for items NOT in my order, and the majority of the notes went ignored because the shopper did not understand simple English. This is not the first time something like this has happened, where my shopper did not speak English and screwed up my order, but this was certainly the worst experience I've had with a delivery service and I will no longer be using Instacart because of it.

Date of experience: August 24, 2019
Florida
1 review
2 helpful votes
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Horrible service.
August 20, 2019

I ordered 10 boxes of bottled water for next day delivery, and I received only 3, the driver didn't know why, he said the order was to deliver only 3 boxes. Contacted their Customer Service and they were of no help at all. Stay away from this service.

Date of experience: August 20, 2019
California
1 review
5 helpful votes
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Bad delivery company
August 17, 2019

I am disabled and have had to rely on Smith's grocery order for quite some time. Recently instacart has taken over the delivery for them today they called me and told me my order was canceled because the driver did not have the correct barcode for payment at the store. This is the only way that I have to get my drinking water and other heavier items. Do to my disabilities they have severely inconvenienced me

Date of experience: August 16, 2019
Canada
1 review
2 helpful votes
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YO

I USED INSTACART 1 TIME, KEYWORD, 1 TIME. THE RECEIPT WAS 152 DOLLARS. CAN SOMEBODY INFORM ME AS TO WHY IN THE BLUE $#*! THEY CHARGED ME 200 DOLLARS? I PHONED AND THEY REFUSED TO GIVE ME A REFUND AND THREW ME THROUGH A STUPID LOOP AND DIDN'T EVEN APOLOGIZE.

DIE IN A FIRE

$#*! ME DRUNK

Date of experience: August 16, 2019
New Jersey
1 review
2 helpful votes
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AWFUL!
August 12, 2019

My son broke his foot and he was 7 hours away, stuck in his apartment with no groceries and no way to go. I ordered groceries for him from Kroger. I should have known something when i kept getting alerts of where the shopper substitutes items but I disregarded it. Got an alert stating my groceries were left at the front door because there was no answer at the door. My son made it to his door and NO groceries were delivered. The shopper delivered to the wrong apartment. I will NEVER EVER Use this service again

Date of experience: August 12, 2019
Arizona
1 review
3 helpful votes
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Rip Off
August 12, 2019

I tried instacart for the first time. What a rip off! My final bill total was $214 and they charged me $273. They overcharged my card $60! And I can't get ahold of anyone to rectify this problem. I sat on hold forever trying to be connected to a representative and never did get to speak to anyone. I will never use this service ever again.

Date of experience: August 12, 2019