r/InstacartShoppers

I’m new to Instacart (only on my 2nd batch, trying to grind to Cart Stars), and I just had the absolute worst experience at Costco.

​I accepted a double batch. Customer A had 22 items (dog food, soda, etc.), and Customer B ordered 12 cases of water. It took me 50 minutes to find everything.

​I get to checkout, scan Customer A’s membership, swipe, and enter the PIN on my screen. Not Authorized.

​The cashier makes me step aside to contact support. The agent tells me to refresh the app and try again. When I ask the cashier to jump back in, she rudely rolls her eyes and makes me wait. I try again. Not Authorized.

​Step aside again. Support escalates the call, and I’m stuck on hold for 15 minutes. They tell me to try a manual override PIN (5454). By this time, they have to open a whole new register just for me because the line is backed up and people are staring daggers at me. I move everything over, try the 5454 PIN, and it still declines.

​Support decides to cancel Order A, promises me I'll still get batch pay, and tells me to run Order B. Swipe Order B... Declined.

​They ended up canceling the entire batch. They gave me the base batch pay, but removed the tips and I got zero delivery credit toward my Cart Star goal.

​I went home frustrated as hell because of how embarrassing that experience was. I opened a chat to find out what actually happened. Support spoke to me like I was an idiot, claiming it declined because of an "incorrect security PIN." Total BS. Even their backup override PIN declined! This was 100% a backend server issue on Instacart's end.

​I was planning on shopping all day, but this completely ruined my motivation. Has anyone else had Instacart cards completely fail like this?

Customer A's order was $250 and customer B i dont remember, but I wasnt willing to pay for their orders out of pocket and then wait the 30 days for reimbursement..

I bet they reassign the order as a deliver only since I did all the shopping for them.

Just delivered to a 3rd story apartment. That on is own is already off putting but my GODDD. The apartments are all scrambled around and I was holding over 40lb of groceries with paper bag’s which is another stressful factor plus a 12 pack of sodas. Literal hell. Then the best part is how the apartment buildings never have clear numbers so I was going in circles trying to find which is which. And of course Im had to take all the bags at once lol

Tell me why it was nowhere near as easy to do as yall make it seem?

It was a two-shop, and the only item A wanted was not in stock, so he asked to cancel. I refund the item then tap the Cancel Order button on the completion screen and it gives me the option to Message Customer, or Go Back. I already texted him, but I had no choice but to tap that one. From that screen I’m able to select Get Help. Nothing else. This opened the general help screen - not any particular area of it, just all the help articles. I poke around and try to figure out how to cancel it.

By this time the clock is nearly run out and I only have like half of the second order shopped. I try messaging support and I the messaging screen takes over the entire app and I can’t continue with the batch (I eventually rebooted the app to get back to it but it wasted even more time and patience). So I decide I’m gonna cancel the whole batch, cuz yall make that seem like 3 button presses. Nope! Pressed all the buttons and still was required to call support. I told her it’s cuz the app was glitching (half true, reception was dropping frequently).

So, batch cancelled successfully, but what the fuck? Why so hard??

Anyway customer B’s order popped back up as I was leaving the parking lot with the 6 pack of cider I decided to get because FUCK the orders I’ve been getting today. I’m done.

It was $10 for a 15 mile 30 minute drive.

Glad I cancelled the whole fucking thing.

So we all know that Instacart runs on a big algorithm. That's a given. Having done it for a while you kind of know how it works. Why is it that shoppers insist on rewarding bad behavior of the algorithm and taking orders right away that are four or five dollars?? How can you even get in your car and turn it on for $5 let alone spend gasoline at $4 a gallon and drive it somewhere and put the wear and tear on it. I just can't understand why people are doing this. Stop taking these BS orders! Let them sit. Let instacart add money to them before taking them. If it's a very short trip and it's under $8, why in the world are any of you bothering? Let's stop rewarding Instacart with the bad behavior of taking these lowball batches!!

I hate doing triple orders, Instacart is a bunch of cheap tightwads, they can at least boost it to $70 instead of $40 and having to drive 11 miles, I did 2 of them today, I’m at $100 now, hopefully a 1 shop comes in and it’s no more than 3 miles, I actually just got a $20 order 0.1 miles, does anyone else hate doing these triples? I shop fast though

I decided to try out a different Publix today than the one I've been shopping at every single day for the last two years.

At my usual Publix, if I'm looking at the app, I am always able to get the batches.

At this new Publix, I've been staring at the screen all day. Two decent batches popped up so far that I wasn't able to accept in time. Makes me wonder if the shopper at this store is using a bot because I'm very fast.

I had 3/4 bars of signal when I missed these batches and my phone was overheating and lagging a little so that's another possibility why. However, at my usual store this doesn't stop me from getting them (my phone is always overheating lol). I have 100 5 stars, shopping quality bar is all the way good (even though I have two damaged items and one unrequested refund), and shopping efficiency is at 64s currently.

What is going on? Is others having the same problem this morning? I’ve been signed on for a few hours now. I drove to both sides of town and still barely anything showing. Definitely starting to crash out mentally. Makes me so angry! So sick of Instacart and their shit!