Instacart Reviews 11,834

I,m a shopper for instacart and they are a bunch of scam artist, i did a $300.00 worth of shopping their card would not work, they said use my own and they would reimburse me they gave me less than half, and I will have to pay the rest, they hid behind their app, no one to verbal talk to or no email to contact them.

SCAMMERS

Instant Cart charges a HIDDEN yearly fee of over $100 and refused to refund when I explained to them I had no idea I will never use this service again very sneaky fees beware.

My membership was renewed for $99.00 without my notification or permission. We tried the service a year ago and found the item up-charge exceeded the value of delivery. We discontinued use after two deliveries and went to curbside pickup as a better alternative. I removed our payment information from my profile when we decided not to continue after spending $50.00 for a one year trial. Instacart charged the $99.00 to the card I removed. I was notified of the charge when I saw it on my credit card statement. Instacart refused to refund the renewal because it was 6 days after they quietly made the charge and their rules say you have to notify them within 5 days. I guess scamming your customers for all you can get is not embarrassing for service companies any more. If you decide to try or use Instacart be very careful for their scams.

Wretched customer service. Will make you pay twice for deliveries if the driver left something out.
will not refund you for months of membership when you inevitably want to cancel.

Instacart is a scam with lazy abusive people. I'll never give Instacart a cent of my money every again and neither should you.

Instacart driver ran over my driveway marker lights smashing them and instacart says I need to go after the driver whose info I do not have. Horrible company.

The pay is horrible you actually rely more on customer tips then the actual pay that you get for what they expect you to do. Since they pay so little they group 2 or 3 customers together, and then you have to shop for multiple customers and deliver for multiple customers. If you get a customer compliment your score does not go up but if you get a customer bad review whatever the reason even if it's not your fault your score goes down and they count that against you being able to get batches so that you can work. Customer service for a instacart driver is non-existent so if you get a bad review there's no way for you to dispute it or talk to anyone about it. And they don't pay you according to their own policies so they say they pay you for heavy pay but they don't always and you'll have people who will order three and four 12 packs of soda and you don't get paid heavy pay for that even though they say that you do.

$400+ in damaged, rotten products, LOng term storage CAVIAR products from costco same day Instacart. I offered to SHIP to them as I kept all product and packaging! NO refund, NO care. I called I emailed. I am tryign to paste all the back and forth and their RIDICULOUS - PAST 3 DAYS? NOT OUR PROBLEM! but Trust pilot not letting me paste.. NO CSR, Robbed me of Money and TIME. AFTER 10 REQUESTS FOR REFUND ZERO RESPONSE FROM Instacart or Plaza Osetra company. 1ST Instacart delivery fr costco SET WAS OK, then i ordered more via costco delivery Same Day. Caviar was Spoiled. Trusting the 3 mon use by date, I obviously waited on opening and tasting multi cans I bought for future - for medical diet to heal my body . If i opened sealed plastic packaging and jars they would spoil before 3 mon exp. Thus I opened 1 each month. I reached out about 25 days after purchase as I could NOT inspect before. Thus Instacart said NOT our problem u passed the 3 day report time! I tried escalating, Just waste of time. Then reached out to manufacturer - they did not bother responding or REPLACING.. I had full jars, packaging, just asked for FRESH not rotten product - crickets.. I will include the email to instacart below.. They said return in person! Well if I HAD A CAR OR HEALTH to shop in person I would NOT have OVERPAID $120 in mark up, fees and tip Instacart Same day, right? i do NOT have health or car or strength to go... to distant costco. I offered to SHIP the product, they refused it. When i finally paid for tax service both ways and took a day off to GO to scosto that cost me $400 more in hawaii cab fees and my time and caused more damage to my condition. Here is NON RESPONDED REQUESTS TO instacart CSR: I called and emailed many times to no avail:
On Wed, Jan 28, 2026 at 10:05 PM Customer Experience customer_experience instacart.com wrote:
Instcart-letterhead
Hi Consumer,

Thanks for contacting Instacart.

I understand how disappointing it must be when the glass jar of your Farmed Caviar became unsealed, allowing air to spoil the product.

While I completely understand your concerns, I need to let you know that, based on our policy, credits can only be issued for issues that are reported within 3 days of order completion.

To make it easier in the future, you can self-report any issues directly through the app or website within that 3-day timeframe. I’m sorry for any inconvenience this situation has caused.
For more information, please visit the Customer Help Center at instacartcom/help. If you have any more questions, we're just an email away!

Best,
Kanneboina A.
Instacart - Customer Experience

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Very very consistent in giving worst experience. I only order through instacart during sickness or busy schedule like twice a year. Not a single time , the delivery was correct. Every delivery, I had to get on call with the customer service. Items are either missing, or incorrect quantity or replacement without a consent.What they do ? Some refund but whats the point? We anyways have to make a trip to the grocery store to get those items.
Surprisingly , all the items originally ordered are there on the store shelf. These shoppers dont even check and replace. Most of the time you will get bigger bill than ordered as they get higher tip accordingly.
My regular bread was replaced by buttermilk bread , i got strawberry boxes enough for family of 5+ when I ordered box for just 2.
Also by default, instacart+ is enabled while checking out. So you get billed as a surprise yearly.

Worst never used them before until the other day and if you make a mistake you have no other choice but cancel and they charge you $15 !!!!!!!!! Like you for real right now never will they get my service again

very misleading. the show a similar product but when you get it, its the wrong size or quantity

they delivered the wrong quanity of the wrong item even after I said I don't want any substitution, and when I reported a problem with the order, I was only given the option of a partial refund. I will never use this service again, they've managed to cheat me out of $20 but they've lost hundreds/thousands of dollars from me giving them any future business, I'm absolutely livid at this fraudulent company.

Instacart is really convenient, but their customer service is awful. I tried to contact customer service and waited for an hour over phone calls and a chat that the agent closed and he didn’t help me at all once I provided my phone number. Once I finally got a hold of someone, she was rude when I had a simple question. I know there are two sides to every story but I promise there was no reason to be rude as I was polite the entire time.

Almost every time I pay priority, it ends up not being delivered for over 3-4 hrs after I try to get help for the help center. With no help from them I have to just sit and twiddle my thumbs or just give up and cancel my order. And it's been a consistent problem. After I finally receive this order I will be cancelling everything. Definitely not worth the money or the time

I used this stupid app once because my car is in the shop. They charged me for my 3 items, fine. Then they charged me again for more money for nothing! They steal your money right out of your account. Yes, that is STEALING!!!

I would give a zero but that isn't an option. The last 3 times I have used instacart for an order I either didn't receive it or I came 3 hours after I placed the order. I spoke with customer service and they seem very nonchalant and uncaring about any of it. All I get is " ma'am I apologize but give it another hour then call us back and we'll cancel your order" waiting on lunch for 3 hours plus every time is wild. I definitely will avoiding instacart from here on out.

I’ve used Instacart weekly since COVID. There were always ups and downs, but their customer service once felt mission-driven and solution-oriented. That’s no longer the case. The apologies feel disingenuous, and the experience has noticeably declined. I’ll be switching to DoorDash.

My Son made a order yesterday to be delivered today. They changed the delivery time x 5 . He is Special needs and is waiting for his order. This is totally unacceptable. Won't accept the order because of the low tip. To the Shoppers , there is a option to increase the tip at the Door or on the Website. We are not giving any extra tip. This Service in horrible.

I picked a time slot originally 12-2 but noticed it was on pick up and I wanted delivery. When I switched it it changed my time slot to 10 to 1:39. My delivery was 9:30 and the deliver left my order in the sun. I called them and the C.S. person said my order was in the time slot. I said no it isn't even 10 yet. She said my time slot was 8-11:30. I didn't order until after 8 it wouldn't have let me use that time slot if it already started. I told her on the phone that my order say 10-11:30 and it wasn't even 10 when I called.
She called me back and said that she did not argue with me and that I clearly did not understand about the time slot. When you disagree with a customer I guess that isn't arguing.

Shopper says app won't let him cash out. Instacart wants to charge me $15 to cancel order!! This is bullshit!!

Their "priority" fee is a total scam. They charge you extra to "guarantee" delivery by a certain time, then make no attempt to even be anywhere close to that window. And if you cancel your order even after that window has closed, they keep your money. Absolute scam. Will never use again.