Instacart Reviews

I am so sad to write this. But Instacart has become a toilet. The shoppers don't care if they bring the right items, orders are late, wrong, they charge you double what you initially authorized, no matter what you put in the notes, shoppers bring expired items, or in our case they bring us Halal items, which we wouldn't feed to our dogs and I have told them repeatedly do not bring Halal meat into my home as I will throw it away. And the biggest problem is the customer service. They are rude, not helpful and don't care if they overcharged you, or you got the wrong items. Very sad. I am assuming this is because Instacart was bought by someone who just doesn't give a damn about customer service.

I was initially excited about the concept of Instacart. However, it’s more trouble than it's worth. My orders were constantly missing items or receiving someone else’s items. Rude shoppers who don’t wish to communicate, even when they reach out for an order change. They simply want you to say “ok” with what THEY have chosen for you. I had to actually threaten a shopper with a complaint if she purchased an item not on my order. Lastly, pay attention to your list. I’ve had unknown persons (probably the shopper) adding items on the bottom that they want on my dime! Unbelievable…. I’m done with Insta Cart.

Missing items in order. Tried for 4 days to get my money back, get the runaround, to email this person or that person. Finally after doing a live chat to be told there’s nothing they can do because it’s past the 3 day window. I tried from day one to resolve it. Chatted with a representative and the supervisor and was told "sorry nothing we can do, sorry for the inconvenience" and they disconnect from the chat. I used Instacart once in 2023 & had a bad experience and then again on Friday…lesson learned. ZERO STARS.

I scheduled my online delivery order to arrive between 5:00 PM and 8:00 PM. Not only did the shopper begin shopping my order well after the scheduled delivery window, but my order was not completed on time. To make matters worse, they took it upon themselves to reschedule my order for the following day during hours when I will be at work and unable to receive it.

I had only 7 items for delivery, I had only 3, I tried to contact customer service, they just hung up, with no option to claim then I tried to put in the missing orders, didn't work. First and last time. I'll keep Doordash.

They are awesome. I did the free trial. Great service. I decided I needed to do shopping myself. It's the only excuse to go out and get some exercise. But, I forgot to cancel the trial. I called after the yearly charge was paid by PayPal. To my surprise, they canceled my subscription and refunded the payment. I am soooooo happy with their service. If I can't get out of the house to shop, I will be back.

Instacart was a very disappointing experience for me. I used the service once and had a bad experience. Please be careful and check all charges and order details carefully.

Instacart is incredibly poor customer service. There is nothing good I can say about them & it's obvious by all the other millions of bad reviews. They do not know how to treat people or care about their business. This is a business that should give up now, will never ever last.

3 orders in a row I've had issues! I got 2 orders with rotten food. Today I was charged for items I didn't order and didn't get! They refused to refund, credit or replace! If you shop with them you're throwing away $!

Awful customer service as a shopper. Can't file complaints. App is buggy. Pay is terrible. Inconsistent rules and many ways to exploit this app.

Terrible. I have been with Instacart on and off for years and have had may a bad experiences, but today took the cake. I rejoined Instacart+ (the point being that you don't pay for delivery and service cost is lower). It typically costs $99 a year, but I did get a discount. Well, you can imagine my frustration when I placed an order yesterday for delivery between 9-11am this morning, a Saturday.

8 out of 10 orders are out of schedule. There is no help from support but cancel order. If you need to shop through Instacart. This is 4 consecutive orders placed through Instacart and delivering rescheduled with next day (18 hours)!

I would never use this service again. First of all each and every time I’ve ordered I had to wait more than 3 hours for the delivery and one very important order I placed because my kid was sick and I’m disabled and can’t drive. I placed an order, waited 3 hours for the driver to get my items and snap a black picture saying order was delivered and nothing was ever delivered. I spoke with management and all they did was refund my money. Like I wasn’t just unconvinced because your workers wanna steal people's orders. And then for you not to take accountability and not give your customers some kind of credit. This company is a worthless piece of shit. Don’t EVER ORDER FROM HERE!! Use DoorDash or GoPuff.

Just checked my bill that I normally don't and found out that the zero delivery fee that I signed up for in that time frame has changed to 7.99. Called the company to explain and basically was told by not only the customer service rep who implied I was either blind stupid or hallucinating there was nothing she could do. Upon requesting for a manager was given a supervisor who told me that they also could do nothing and that they would bump it up to a manager who would respond within 24 to 48 hours. Don't trust this company at all. They like to slip in extra fees here and there. The people that deliver are nice but the company isn't. This the last time I'm going to use them.

An Instacart shopper of two years, today was the last time I’ll ever pick up work there. Instacart scams and grossly underpays drivers to the point that it’s pathetic and you’re basically shorting yourself and doing slave work that pays 3 bucks for an hour's work. I don’t understand why so many people are still shopping for them, they don’t disclose the destination address why? For what reason exactly?? Because they are afraid that if anyone sees the real deal, they won’t pick up those orders??? You're damn right !!

I made a mistake and made an Instacart order to Publix today for pickup when I need delivery. I immediately tried to correct the mistake and contacted Instagram. I am a 71 YO disabled widow and I always order my groceries delivered. Ihave been using Instacart for this purpose for the past 2 years! I am also on a fixed income. Instagram, who touts itself as a company that cares for senior citizens and has claimed it has special help for senior citizens, is not senior citizen user friendly. Not only did they tell me they couldn’t change my order from pickup to delivery, but they wanted to charge me a $15 fee for the trouble of cancelling my order! I just had to tell Publix to restock my order as I couldn’t pick it up. I will never use Instacart again! There’s always UberEats!

Horrible service. Horrible shoppers and constantly over charged by Instacart. SMH. I am very disappointed with Instacart.

50% of the time missing items and there's no way to contact the shopper after once they dropped everything off. Then customer service won't give a refund.

I am a long-time customer of Instacart. But they tried to expand into restaurants and have failed... in an epic way. They sent out coupons to get members to test the restaurant app and, after trying it tonight, I can say in confidence that they failed. I placed a dinner order, waited 2 hours and learned they had delivered it to the wrong address. Nobody from customer service was able to help me. I have been charged $75 and received no food. Even worse, I was on the phone for over an hour trying to resolve. I was transferred from the restaurant, to Uber Eats (the delivery platform for instacart), and finally to instacart. I was told by instacart that the restaurant division doesn't receiver customer calls. I will try to cancel the transaction with my credit card company since I never received my order. But instacart restaurants has delivered one of the worst customer service experiences ever.

God awful excuse for a company! Crappy service and no refunds, only credits. I have reported them to the BBB! Never doing Business again, ever! Be careful.

I received 3 packages of melted ice cream and from my delivery on May 22, 2026. I sent photos along with my complaint immediately after the delivery. They replied in minutes that they would not be refunding me or giving me a credit. The shopper did NOT use insulated bags, we watched him take our bags directly out of his trunk. The shopper said that he had two other drop offs before me and I was the last for delivery out of THREE orders, he shopped and was delivering. Regardless, I paid for items that were DEFROSTED at delivery. This is ridiculous, disgusting, and shameful.

Instacart will not honor return policy. Called on day 4, and after processing return rep said it would not go through because they have a three-day return policy. But Publix has a 7-day return policy. I was sent back and forth and never got my credit for return resolved. Shitty service.

This business is nothing but scam everywhere. Overcharging customers and slaving their driver around. You would see delivery fees customers would pay and they would pay shoppers and drivers only about 20% of that stealing money. They would pay you pennies to drive super far out of the way or not even $10 to shop even up to 100 units and deliver. This is definitely the most corrupted entity I accounted to. They should be ashamed of themselves.

I have only used Instacart once before during Covid and decided to use it again recently due to being ill. I was offered a free trial for two weeks and it expired on May 16th. I accepted the free trial because I didn't know if I would be able to make it to the store due to being ill and thought the free delivery charge would help. Turned out that I didn't need it so I canceled it on the 16th as required. I have confirmation that it was canceled. Instacart tried to charge my bank account on the 17th. I was alerted thought my bank's fraud alert. My bank is telling me that I have to cancel my debit card if I don't want the charge. Many creditors have my card number for auto pay. This is so unfair and to make me have to travel to the bank for a new card, let alone call all my creditors. I followed the rules and Instacart did not. How many people do they do this to and how many don't even notice? Shame on Instacart. I will never use them again.

Short story...No customer service. Vendor shows they have good stock on item., I order just for that item. Shopper then says it is out of stock so I cancel order. Instacart charges me a $15 cancellation fee. 1 hour and three levels of crappy CS later I still am charged the cancel fee because that is what their policy is. Use Uber Eats...Instacart sucks. I wasted 1 hour and $15 on this terrible company.

What a horrible experience I’ve had today! This is my first time using this site and I tried to order helium balloons. I specified helium filled, they specified helium filled on their site with the picture. It was supposed to be a gift! I had a gift card sent with it. They delivered balloons that were folded up in a plastic bag without helium!!!

Recent Instacart order was horrible. My shopper was an absolute angel though. Nothing wrong on her part. I was a new customer for the first time ever, with their promotion your first not one but three orders are free delivery fee wise, they charged me it anyways. The chat was not helpful at all. Kept swapping me around to different people, said I had multiple accounts when I do not, and didn't give me (a new user) free delivery and when I asked what they were seeing on their end they stopped saying anything. Ended the chat and left no answer to anything.

I wanted to share my recent experience, which unfortunately was incredibly disappointing. After placing an order and being charged, I went to the supermarket only to discover that my order had not been processed at all. Hoping for a resolution, I reached out to customer support and was transferred between four different representatives, but no one seemed able to help. The only suggestion offered was to move my order to the next morning, which I agreed to, but the same issue happened again. When they moved my order to the following day and nothing improved, I decided to cancel the order altogether. Throughout the ordeal, customer service failed to take any meaningful action or provide a real solution. This was not only frustrating but also incredibly inconvenient. I expected much better from Instacart, and this experience has left me very dissatisfied. I would strongly caution others about using your service based on what I went through.

I ordered two items, some biotin mouthwash and vitamin B supplements. What I got: biotin mouthwash, vitamin B supplements, a gallon of orange juice, a pizza, there was a kid toy that was in there, can of chili and dog pee pads. My order went from $22 which is what I checked out at to $74. I called several times, spoke with several different people and got the exact same answer, scripted and robotic that after I checked out, I went back in and re-ordered two minutes later all of these random items… no matter how many times I explain to them I never did. There’s no one who has access to my phone. They insisted there was nothing they could do.

I've used Instacart a few times...Not overly impressed but ok overall. THEN last week, I used them for a grocery order and NEVER AGAIN. I am on a fixed income and shop/plan/order carefully to stay in budget. When I received the order, it had two bottles of wine included that I did not request or order. I checked the receipt and found that the combined cost of these two bottles of wine was $38. Maybe not a big deal to all, but it is to me. I submitted the error via their "Help" desk on the website. No reply. (I also had issue with the amount charged which they said would be resolved, and it was after a few days.)

Such a scam. First time user, received an email stating “free delivery on first 3 orders” yet they still charged me the delivery fee and refuse to refund it. Customer service is no help. Was also supposed to receive the order 10-11am and didn’t come until after 2pm. Would never recommend.

I've had to reschedule an order due to having to go to work. It costs me an extra $7.99 to reschedule it. The biggest problem with Instacart is the fact that they don't vet shoppers. I've had 1 order stolen before, no ramifications. The current order I'm waiting on I've already had to reschedule, I told the "specialist" that it costs me money to reschedule. Which it does. If it was easier for me to go to a local store to buy items than rely on Instacart, I would.

Do not use this place, especially John can't speak English. Give phone number and place where I was. Left food on the grass somewhere. I don't understand why they hire these foreigners that can't find their way out of a paper bag. John didn't even try to call. Insta cart act like you are living. He should have sent them a picture of my food. No business where he left it. Guess it was for his dog. No, I got to fight to get my money back. They need to rid of these delivery places or stop hiring these people that can't speak English. I am not ordering every again from any of them.

I had been a loyal customer of Instacart since they started. For the first time, I had to return the items I had received (clothes that didn’t fit, I had ordered last minute for my son before a trip and didn’t have time to go to the store, and returned the items within the time frame listed). I went to the store to do the returns and they had an issue processing the return because the price Instacart charged me was double the price of the items in the store. I was charged $639 by Instacart and the clothes only came to $302 at the store. The store manager was shocked, as well. I called Instacart and spoke to a supervisor while I was in the store. The supervisor at Instacart told the store manager how to process the return and that Instacart would refund me the full amount within a few days. Two days later I received an email saying I will not be receiving my refund.

I have had multiple drivers either steal my order or deliver it to some random other property. After it is delivered you cannot contact the driver, and Instacart says they also have no way to contact them either (even though they are literally their employees). They won't consider given you a refund until after 24 hours later, so if you want groceries today you have to repurchase them and hope that they give you a refund a day later. The customer service agents copy paste the same sentences multiple times, often not responding even remotely to what you asked. This has happened more times than I should have accepted. One of the times it was stolen, the driver laughed at me, said that Instacart wouldn't do anything to them, and they were 100% correct. The only thing Instacart will do is remove them from people who are allowed to shop for you specifically. Do not give your money to this company.

Instacart has officially lost me as a customer. The app blocked because it is asking for an ID and credit card copy. There is no way I would ever do that. Now, it will not let me delete the account. I have asked customer service to delete the account....they will not. I am highly disappointed in Instacart.

I’ve had mixed experiences with Instacart, so I want to leave a balanced review. On the positive side, when I’ve had normal order-related issues in the past—such as missing items, incorrect items, or delivery problems—customer service has generally handled those matters appropriately. Credits or corrections were usually processed without much trouble, and I had no major complaints in that area. My recent experience with a billing and membership renewal issue was very different.

They pay horribly you rely heavily on customer tips. Everything is based on your customer reviews how fast you shop how fast you deliver. However, if you get one bad review there's no way to dispute it, and your customer score goes down immediately which you need to keep your customers score at a certain level or you stop getting batches. So I pride myself on getting a lot of customer compliments and I provided pictures that show such but my customers score has not moved in months because I had one order that was two customers that I was shopping for and I accidentally mixed up the two orders and delivered them incorrectly.

Instacart charged me $18.18 over the price that was actually charged at the grocery register to the shopper. When I attempted to get a credit, and itemized the overcharges - for example, they charged $3.81 for .35 lb. of fresh ginger, which, by the store's prices should have cost .87, calculated @ $2.49/lb.- it was impossible. The "help center" sutomsted response said they would get back to me eithin 24 hours. Five days later, using the chat feature to actually get a human helper, she was unable to figure out how to resolve the issue; and, despite my detailed itemized reports, she simply ended the chat without resolving the issue. Nor does Instacart provide any assistance via email, as their email "help" address is actually not monitored!

I made the mistake of trusting this company. I shop at Meijer very frequently on Wednesdays. They have the BEST sushi, and on Wednesday it is half price. Insta-rip-off did the right thing the first few times. So I was stupid and trusted them. But when I checked my past orders, they charged me full price. When I tried over 6-7 times to get them to do the right thing. They refused and said I didn’t complain fast enough. Then they tried to say if it isn’t an advertised sale, then they don’t have to give it to me at that price. So I said where does the extra money go? They didn’t have an answer for that. I give them -10 stars.