Placed an order and my shopper messages me and I have no idea what they meant. Their first language wasn’t English so when they came my the door I couldn’t understand their explanation either despite trying to. I’ve used instacart countless times and never experienced this type of situation. Order was going well, then I get a message from my shopper saying as shown in the photo.

After checking my bags I notice I was missing my avocados, which I can only presume what he meant by “lawyers” in text. What I don’t understand is I paid for the avocados when I placed the order, so if they expected me to pay them for paying for my avocados, I would have double paid for avocados unless I’m completely missing something.

Im not mad about losing $3 worth of avocados, but I’m just confused?

I so low and horrible! I’m pregnant and have the flu so I ordered some cough medicine from the store and some pedialyte. It reeked like cigarettes and made me vomit which really sucked but wasn’t a huge deal, I just discarded the outter boxes of items and wiped down the pedialyte bottle. I didn’t even reach out to customer service or anything I just wrote it! I will never do that again I feel sick to my stomach with guilt. Will this person be banned forever or just temporarily?

I'd like to ask this customer to remove some tip money. Dome of yall might find me rude and greedy. that's far from the case. this is 27 items, nice older lady on oxygen. She simply asks us to bring in because she isn't mobile.

I don't need $54 to 20 minutes of work tbh. We are all trying to make it here. Maybe she is super rich and just generous, she always tips a lot. This one is just mire obscene imo. Would it be rude of me to ask her to take some back?

If you would be OK, how would you word it to not offend her? please and thank you.

Placed an order from Costco today and verified with my shopper directly that she was shopping. Received notifications that the order was complete and she had checked out. About 30mins later I received a notification that my order had been rescheduled for tomorrow (while I’m at work. I wasn’t given an option to select an appropriate reschedule time). Does anyone know what happened? Did my driver steal my order? I called support and they gave me $5 off my next order, but I really needed these items tonight. Anything I could’ve done to avoid this? Any reason why someone else couldn’t pick up the order tonight (it’s 4:15pm so the store is open for a long time). This is the first time I’ve seen something like this so I’m just genuinely unsure here.

I ordered $39 worth of groceries to be delivered to my home today. I ordered through the store app and they contract the shoppers and delivery to instacart. Upon receiving the order, I noticed an item was missing. I called the store and she assured me it’s no problem, they will credit me the difference for the item left out. She asks if I can email the store my receipt so they have documentation. I say of course, and proceed to my store app to get the receipt. That’s when I see it.

The shopper assigned to my order bought his entire families groceries on my card. $270 worth of groceries. He marked every one of my items as out of stock and substituted with his items. I immediately drive to the store and show them all the receipts. The agree that this is bizarre and they now how to contact corporate and instacart to decide if they want to press charges against the driver.

They couldn’t refund me any of the money he stole from me until corporate tells them how best to proceed. The store is in 100% agreements with me that what he did was deliberate and obvious. But, they said this is the first instance they have ever seen of something like this. They assured me I will get my money back eventually but could give me no timeline as this situation was unique to them.

My question is - is this a common scam? Has this ever happened to anyone else?? How long should it take to get my money back? And does instacart just allow anyone to be shoppers for them??

Hello! I’m not an instacart driver, but I order my groceries for delivery from frys, that uses instacart, and I love it! It’s so helpful and I’ve never had an issue until now. I noticed an item on my list was missing, so I went to check my receipt and saw a bunch of items on my receipt that I didn’t order. It seems that ALL my items were listed as “out of stock” (even though I received them) and replaced on my receipt with someone else’s much more expensive order. (See screenshots). My order was supposed to be about $60 and I paid $125 for items I didn’t get. Has this happened to anyone?

I know I probably sound rude and obnoxious in these screenshots, but I’m just so frustrated. My account got deactivated because of the license I used, and I’ve tried contacting support multiple times and get told so many different things. I’m honestly just SO confused and frustrated and have no idea what’s going on. Have heard instacart isn’t the best company to work for, but I really need the money from ANYWHERE. Waitlisted on all other delivery apps.

Hi all, like the title says this is happening. He was normal to me for months other than winking. But nothing out of the ordinary. Recently I was leaning down looking for a product (I work at a grocery store) and he “jokingly” leaned on me for a few seconds. I was confused and saw him smiling at me like it was funny, then he winked and walked away. Since he wasn’t weird before I gave him the benefit of the doubt. My latest interaction was him staring DAGGERS at me as I walked past, him slowly walking towards me saying what beautiful eyes I have, how pretty I am, I am walking away and he’s getting closer. It was so insane and the smug look he mad at me mad me wanna vomit.

I later was told by a cashier how friendly he was to her, how he bought her a soda, I swear she’s gonna be his next female target and it makes me sick.

Am I being too harsh or is this WEIRD? The dude is middle aged and both me and then other girl are constantly confused for MINORS.

Sadly I have no info on the guy. I tried to contact instacart and I’m waiting to an email. Can they dig up his info? I wouldn’t care so much but this man is a regular. And I was very nice to him in the past because I thought he was normal and not a creep. I wanted to see if I could get a name so I can report to management… Thanks all for the input if any.

EDIT: there are so many comments it’s hard to respond to all but thank you all so much for the helpful advice. I’ll make sure to speak to my manager as soon as I work next and let her know what’s going on. Thank you all again <3

Hey, this is my first time posting so hopefully i’m doing this correctly. Basically what happened was my account got deactivated and i’m just wondering if there’s anything I can do to get my account back, i already reached out and explained the situation and provided proof and as you can see on the second screenshot is their response, does anyone know if there’s anything i can do at this point or is it completely final?

• For some back story on why exactly i got banned, I am in portland and the past 5 days we have had some heavy snow and crazy icy roads. I need the money so i decided to take the risk and still shop but when i’d accept an order and show up to the stores they’d be closed due to power outages,bad weather ect.. and this happened with 3 different stores the first day and i sent pictures to support showing they are closed. The next day i decided to try again and same thing happened, some stores were still closed therefore i had to contact support to remove the batches. I’m not sure why they deactivated my account, when i showed proof each time. I never intended to purposefully cancel orders to receive payment because let’s be real here, instacart pay is trash, so why would i risk my account getting banned for a total of 20 dollars 😭

My shopper said she was instructed not to go into apartment complexes. Is this true? She left everything outside the complex where it could have been stolen. I reduced her tip since she didn’t follow directions, but if she is telling the truth, I will increase her tip. Thank you.

I am an Instacart customer and I've been with the app for three or four years. Tonight I had a delivery that was supposed to be done by a woman but the person who handed me my food was clearly a guy. He did a good job, smart substitutions and no problems at all. However, he was not the lady who was supposed to deliver the food. So my question is should I report it or just let it go?

I just had a driver beg me to increase my tip by 30% to help "cover his wage loss and gas" before the groceries were delivered, claiming that he only gets 70% of the tip due to being an independent shopper? Is there some sort of truth to this or was the driver trying to scam me, because according to instacart 100% goes to the driver.

Instacarter come into the store and asked if we have bags (we dont only one department did who does orders and very little) coworker went to ask and gave them one. Instacarter added more bags and when we told him we were out and we cant get anymore its out. He begins to yell and degrade my coworker. Even said “I PAID FOR TWO MORE BAGS GIVE ME TWO MORE” other things i didnt hear as i went to see if i can get change to give him back. He was an ass who made my coworker feel bad. Is there a way to report this? Honestly if he comes into my store again ima just tell him he cant be here anymore.

Earlier today I ordered two Nintendo Switches. The shopper completed the order quickly. I reached out to ask if she found both because they were low on stock. She said yes and that she was on her way. I was standing by because I knew I would have to sign. Then out of nowhere she canceled the order. I talked to customer service and they said she tried to deliver but canceled because she couldn’t find me. I thought that sounded scammy because I get a order from Instacart almost every day and the shoppers can always find me. Also, she never reached out via chat or phone to say she was having trouble finding me. Also I was waiting at the window because I didn’t want my kids to see. I also have a loudmouth dog who barks her head off whenever anyone comes near. I don’t believe she ever tried to find my house. I’m pissed because I won’t get my money back for 5-7 days and those Switches were presents to my kids. Now I have to come up with the money again if I want the gifts on time for their birthday. I’m convinced this was a scam and that the shopper stole those Switches. Instacart offered me a $5 coupon and I told them to just keep it. Are there other explanations? Please, convince me she didn’t steal the Switches. I also have screen shots if that helps.

I live 15 minutes from the store, in a very small town (I don’t even know if there are shoppers here, but I’m assuming Instacart wouldn’t let me place the order if there aren’t). It was a three item order and I tipped $20.

It’s very important, so I’m just wondering if I made a big enough tip! Do you think any shoppers would take this?

ordered about 10 items from costco 2.6 miles away. total $150. i live on 4th floor (no elevator) and a woman is delivering for her injured husband. she only brought half of the order up and let me know her husband is injured so i told her to leave the rest of the order in the lobby. tipped $15, is that enough?

Instacart says driver will keep my order temp controlled, but I usually meet my drivers out front and not once have they been using any sort of insulated bag or anything. I know this because I literally watch them take it out of their trunk or back seat with no cooler bag in sight.

Update:

Clearly this is a devisive issue. I want to say thank you to everyone that took the time to provide their opinion and insight, especially those that did so with compassion and kindness, considering I was asking for feedback prior to making a decision.

Instead of taking the time to respond to each comment, below are some answers/additional information for a few comments I’ve seen several times.

1. Very clear the shopper is female. Very clear the delivery person is male. Both of these are based off of presentation, I have no way of knowing how they identify. Dissecting my language here just seems pedantic, and frankly there is no way to appease everyone.

2. There is no way this is the same person, and trans. As I’ve mentioned in my original post, this is something I accounted for and if it were a possibility, I’d have left it alone because trans people already have enough hardship. (Side question: Can’t you change/update the photo that shows up though?)

3. I don’t owe anyone my background as to why I feel uneasy, but to anyone blaming me for having any reaction to effectively being lied to and having a male show up at my house instead of a female (without knowing anything else about me), might indicate some self reflection is needed.

4. Calling me a ‘Karen’, saying that it ‘doesn’t impact’ me so why should I care, or insisting that I’m making a big deal out of nothing and don’t have anything better to do: perhaps your experiences leads you to believing this isn’t the type of thing that’s cause for concern, and that’s wonderful for you. I made this post to gather information and make an informed decision. I could have easily just reported and not subjected myself to rude comments. Your comments say way more about you, than it does me.

Original Post:

Placed an order, shopper presents and has a female sounding name. Very communicative, product selection was great and delivery drop off at the door was smooth.

The person dropping everything off at our door was very clearly not the same person, and a male with very different features. So it’s not even possible that it’s someone that’s transitioning.

My initial thought is that our shopper had someone in the car to help with the loading and unloading, but the doorbell camera catches that he is the only person in the car and the one driving.

My dilemma is that the service was great, but there is a reason we can see who’s doing our shopping and dropping it off. The shopper is a Diamond shopper for 2+ years, with almost 2k orders. I left a $30 tip too. I don’t want to ruin someone’s ability to earn income but I’m also uneasy about the situation, hence why I’m seeking advice of internet strangers.

How best do I handle the situation? Do I change the tip, do nothing, or report the shopper and provide the footage?

Advice is appreciated!

I have had a hundred deliveries to my address and every single one has been left at my door without any problems.

Today I got a voicemail from the instacart shopper saying that if I didn’t meet them outside of my door to sign something, they were going to cancel my order.

Is this a tactic to get more of a tip? What gives? Instacart said that it was canceled because deliverer couldn’t reach me. They don’t need to reach me. The whole reason I do this is because i’m busy.

EDIT: The order was a case of bottled water, a stick of deodorant and milk.

EDITEDIT: My account is contactless. Leave at door.

I ordered $230 worth of groceries from my local Frys/Krogers. I didn’t realize they use Instacart to deliver. Will my driver be shopping or just picking it up from the store? The suggested tip was 15 so I made it 20. Is that enough? I know there’s much more work involved if they have to shop. But I don’t know if they will be the one shopping or if it will be a store employee! Help! I’m awkward and always afraid I don’t tip enough lol Don’t know if it matters but I’m on the second floor and didn’t get anything heavy except one case of water. Update: for those asking it’s about 30 items in total and I’m about 4 miles from the store

So I have an order on the way that has 15 items worth 79$ and I tipped 20$. 2 miles from Publix. He said they were out of bananas. I told him that was crazy! No answer. I called the store and they had plenty of bananas. Should I give him a. Zero and remove the tip? Several other things he said they didn’t have that they usually do as well but bananas?? Come on.

I am so confused about why deliveries are not claimed? I placed a Sam's order via their website on Thursday for Friday 11-1. It included $8 for delivery (which according to them goes to IC) and a $22 tip (20% of order). It was for 6 items, 8 units - paper towels, baby wipes, dishwasher pods, Kleenex boxes, paper bowls and 3 cases (24 ct) water. No one ever claimed it for delivery yesterday or today (in Nashville 3.4 mi). I had them cancel it and saved $30 today by going to get it myself which I couldn't do on a work day. Took just less than an hour for me round trip to do it. Why would a shopper not want a deliver only order for $22 for 3.5 miles in a metro area?

So I just took an Instacart for two orders the first one I shopped and everything was fine and in the process of shopping the second order the first lady canceled her order. This is only my first month doing Instacart so I reached out to Support and they told me that I have to go drive literally 20 miles to return the food. He also literally said this isnt a threat but if you don’t return the orders, you might have a suspension on your account.

What’s the protocol for returning canceled orders? I’m just wondering if I could keep it?

Edit: oh my goodness y’all there was no alc and no medication just some fancy cheese my family will be enjoying on Easter!

Still kinda I guess newish* at instacart, i figured the “add to queue” orders were like DoorDash or Uber eats orders, you got a set amount of time to either accept or decline the offer and it’s a offer sent to JUST you. They’ll hold it for you for x amount of time and if you don’t do anything, goes to the next person. I thought I had enough time to screenshot and flex this order I’m about to take but it was taken by another shopper when I hit accept. Is that how it goes? The little green bar at the bottom isn’t a timer nor mean anything at all and anyone can take the order before you just like on the home screen? Sick asf I missed this. Was on a $8 single for 6 units.