Instacart Reviews

When I told her that she said, "Oh no, they aren't even allowed in here, what must have happened was that they come in without any documentation, just dressed as anyone else would, and shop on their own, pay and leave. Then they not only mark up each item, but that food is no longer protected from being eaten, disturbed or otherwise messed with, and on top of that they get a delivery fee and tip, often coming to a big 20 dollars more for their service in total." I was shocked to hear that all of this was true, she affirmed it, she was very believable.

So I called Instacart and told them that since this store had barred them, I wanted to know where my food came from, and their only answer was that store, when asked to prove it, they just repeated that answer-they were then reported to the Board of Health, as the unauthorized marketing for food, the unscrutinized driving, and the possibility that the food may have been opened, eaten, or in any other way "messed with" as she had said, was now no longer protected, or insured. The report should go a long way to stopping this monopoly of a company from hurting so many, in a time when so few, have resources-in fact during this Pandemic, this type of behavior is appalling. Stay Well All...

Today, I ordered from Albertsons and Sprouts, different items, of course. Both orders today were wrong. The first, I asked for 10lbs of meat to be wrapped in 2lb increments. Just like I do every single week. The recipe calls for exactly 2lbs of ground beef, and it's easy for the butcher to weigh and package it. I got two 5 lb slabs of meat. Not helpful. At all. I had to buy a food scale in order to be able to divide it into 2 lb increments. Yes, I called and complained. Yes, they refunded the amount of meat, which is great. But I would rather have correct orders.

Second order, I asked for one FULL bunch of bananas and three ORGANIC avocados. I got one single measly banana and three regular avocados, in which I have to go back tomorrow and exchange. Still waiting for a refund on these items. I don't think they have ever delivered a cantaloupe without damaging it. I even had two different shoppers just put groceries on my doorstep and walk away. No knock, nothing. Just dropped them off and left. It's a good thing that I was watching or I would have never known my ice and other perishables were sitting in the elements.

This isn't all. There are plenty of site issues. Want to try one item just to see if you like it? Be aware, it will be in "your items" forever. No way of removing it. There is no delete button. Once you buy it, you will have to look at in your items for the rest of your life. Even if you hated it. No matter what. I have more items than I can count just loitering in my item section because they didn't feel the need to allow us to remove / delete items. You can delete a facebook post, but you can't delete items from "your items."

If you would like to see a picture for every single item before you buy it, forget it. So many missing photos. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. They also don't update photos. Oh, and they don't even list all items. Ex: Sprouts carries Boiron homeopathics. They are not all listed. That's one small item, but there are dozens more that I know of. Seasonal items? Yeah, those are not listed at all. This may not be a big deal to most and that's ok, but for me, and for those that literally can't get to the store, it matters. I like others would like to purchase season holiday items. Household items, those are not all listed either. It's a toss up, you just never know what you will be able to find.

Did you know that you have to fight to get the receipt that you paid for? Yep, Instacart withholds those from you. Shoppers have bags and bags of them, Instacart never asks for them, but they also don't want you to have them. Know why? Different prices! Yep, you read that correctly. Last Christmas I was talking to a shopper, she told me all about it and the fact that they don't even give their shoppers their tips until the end of the year! Please, if you are going to attempt to use this company, please tip your shopper with cash. The website will force you to give a tip. Yeah, that happens too. So even if you had horrible service, it forces you to tip. Even if you want to give them a cash tip, it still asks for a tip.

I could go on and on. Instacart is an impossible company to work with. Regardless of how many times I call in or write in with complaints, regardless of how many refunds the offer, it's only getting worse. Way worse. There just shouldn't be this many problems. It's obvious they are not training their shoppers successfully. It's obvious they are not paying them enough to do the job. There have been many times where they have told me they don't have any shoppers for that day at all. How is that even possible if they are an upstanding company that takes care of their employees?

If one has to call or write in once per month because of bad service, that's too many times. I get it. Life is tough. I'm a business owner as well and sometimes no matter what you do you can't make someone happy. But this isn't that. This is just a terrible company. I have no problem doubling the suggested tip when I get good service. But that's pretty rare.

Seriously. Every single month it just gets worse. I've had it. I'm pulling my membership and will just go out and do my own shopping. This is unacceptable. Absolutely no excuse for continually terrible service. This company needs new ownership and a complete overhaul. Don't believe me, just ask the shoppers. They are all too happy to share stories about this company.

Original Review: June 30, 2020

Be careful if you are using Instacart. Ordering is easy but customer service has proved to be less than efficient and helpful. Because of COVID-19 I started ordering my parents who are over 65 with health issues, groceries through instacart. It was going great. I eventually was able to talk my dad through the process so he could do the orders himself, and that was going well until last week. He put in a nice order and received delivery through instacart. But then 20 minutes later another person showed up with the same order. My parents, being kind and feeling bad for the girl delivering who informed them the groceries couldn’t be refunded, which of course is understandable, let her leave the groceries.

My father never got an alert about the second order that it was being shopped or questions, or that it was on its way. This is where there’s a problem. My dad called to inform instacart there must be a mistake because they just received the same order twice and the customer service personnel was very nice and put him on hold a few times but then told him, "I’m sorry. Groceries can’t be returned. There’s nothing we can do." My father was charged twice!!

This is my problem... 1) How did a duplicate order go through? How did no one at instacart catch that and call my father to question the second order? 2) Then when my father tries to reach out and resolve the issue he gets a “sorry we can’t do anything” response? They are on a fixed income. And I’m seriously upset with instacart's poor customer service.