Instacart unusual demands and permanent ban
I am a frequent Costco shopper in Nor Cal, but I've been locked out of grocery delivery for a long time. Now I'm going to need delivery services in the next few months, and I'd like to get it working.
I had ordered successfully a few times--no problems--and then in 2022, I received an email saying they (Costco Same Day) were cancelling my order. They wanted me to verify the card used on my last order. I did that, then got an email from trust_safety@instacart.com saying they put my account on hold. To remove the hold, they wanted a secure upload of my DL and my payment card showing only the last 4 digits.
I let that go (did not comply) but then in 2023 I could not log in (I forgot about the earlier problem) and contacted them, and learned that was deliberate. They responded my account was locked, I needed to do the secure upload of my DL and payment card. I provided this, then they responded that a photocopy of my ID was unacceptable, it had to be a photo of it. I thought this was ridiculous, but I complied, and provided a photo of my DL. And then they responded again, saying they wanted, "A selfie holding your photo ID up to your face, so that we can verify a match" signed Quinn, Instacart, Financial Risk Team.
At this point I decided this escalating string of requests was ridiculous and I was obviously just being harassed by someone who didn't have anything better to do. I did inquire, "Can you tell me why you need this? It seems really out of line with normal online shopping procedures" and I never heard any more from them. But my account is still on hold. I cannot log in at "Costco Same-Day Powered by Instacart website" and the URL says, "https://sameday.costco.com/?user\_deactivated=true"
I shop online very frequently and have never experienced anything like this. All my activity has been in the same county. Does this sound normal? I want to contact them again but this feels so creepy. I cannot believe I need to fight a permanent ban for having done absolutely nothing wrong or in any way out of the ordinary.