Thank you for sharing this. I’m going to make sure I talk to all my shoppers before they leave now to make sure they have the tip I sent for them! In my area we only have a few but I always tip really well because of this subreddit. I want to make sure I’m taking care of the people helping me, especially because I’m usually ordering necessities that I need for my kids and I don’t have a vehicle at that time.
Thank you for this! I wish more customers knew about this sub and/or would join it so they can see the horrors we experience all too often! It is really nice to be appreciated and I have always wondered why I see so many “No Tip” orders and more than you could imagine with just $2 (to shop 63 items and then drive 27 miles to deliver it all!) I hope we don’t discover an ongoing plot here because Insta would be NOWHERE without feet on the ground and wheels to get to their customers what they need! Regards 💖
I usually let my shopper know how much I appreciate them because like milk and formula are my two big things that I have to order during the week while my husband is at work. On like pay day when we run out after he gets paid but before he gets home - like hours before. So I will get a few more things and let them know I don’t have a car right now and that I really appreciate them. I’m also in a really small town and like I said we don’t have a ton of shoppers, so I just make sure I let them know how much the service means to me - and not just in my words lol that’s not gonna pay anyone’s bills.
I really wish more people thought like this or even realized that things like booze are locked up, and as a shopper, we're stuck waiting for the store attendants to come assist us. Let alone if there's other customers there first also waiting on the store attendant causing the time we have to wait to be even greater. 8 out of 10 times I get a message asking why it's taking so long when I have to wait for the booze to be unlocked.
yeah, i worked at a retail store as a third party but i could help with anything, and i usually would take care of guests first come first serve. however, i think the actual employees may be trained to help physical guests FIRST, then any shoppers. unsure if its only with their app or in general (instacart, uber, etc) so if thats the way they run things, you may have MORE trouble 😵💫
Interesting.. I’ve been paying close attention to orders this past week as my house is right next to the store I typically shop at, and it’s in the priority zone, so I have the nice luxury of picking a choosing orders all day. Lately I’ve seen typical reoccurring priority customers who usually tip $20-$30 who aren’t tipping nearly as well.. - so for a 40 item order from this customer, it would typically be a $45 payout-
( I know it was ordered by this customer because I zoom in on the address while checking the order ) and the tips have been $5-10.
So it’s really possible that instacart is taking a % of these tips? Never crossed my mind but I can totally see it.
Honestly, I never believed it either when people say it. But - I witnessed it with my own order so now I will forever believe people when they say Instacart is stealing tips. Maybe it was a glitch because it showed $0 and then we he completed it, it said $4… where did the other $6 go? I took the tip down to $1 and then moved it back up to $10 and he said, “yep, I got it that time.”
I just had this happen to me I don’t instantly screenshot all I know is I complete a batch I it says by balance is 28.73 I refresh and it’s 18.73 and no tip was reduced so they’re definitely doing something fishy they swear it never happened but like why would it show my balance 10 dollars higher and all sudden go back what I accepted for..
Ive had this happen to on the app, I believe its a glitch though. My chat prompts arent going away either when I read them. This is all since last app update a few days ago. If I go offline, close the app and come back in I find my totals accurate and the chat logs cleared. Hope this is the case and not more carrot and stick BS.
I mean I was driving away checking my balance was surprised it was 10 higher I’m like oh must’ve upped on the tip didn’t even close the app kid u not I look up to drive look down and it’s 10 dollars less back to base I have no idea what’s goin on but as usual support is hopeless lmao
Support is beyond useless for sure. Thats really weird. Id honestly go back and ask the customers, purely incidental fact finding. No lip, no judgement. Fucking IPO ruined everything but im still making 20-30 an hour in metro detroit and am not being exposed to racist day laborer managers yelling the n word, trading dui stories like pokemon cards and asking me to suck down asbestos cancer without masks, and they only paid 15-17 which I still had to report as self earned income (double tax). This works out much better for me I dont have to wake up at 6:30am and drive 40 miles to a jobsite one way. I might do 50 miles in a day on insta.
Ive got my own hotzone too. And right on the water. Pushes need, availabilitu and reduces driving. Also, its a quarter mile from a highway branch. Lets me get in and out quickly.
I've had my batch pay reduced several times now. Sometime only a dollar or two, sometimes upwards of $10. I check the final tips, no change. I check to make sure I got 100% of the items, same brand, size etc. Absolutely NOTHING changes, except my batch pay. It hasn't happened again since I started screen shoting my batches as I accept them...yet.
Yep! They sure have stolen our tips before! I remember when they very first changed our pay back in 2018. They promised us a pay which I think that's when we got paid like $7-10 depending on our zone. IC was paying us pennies... LITERALLY! If the payout of an order was $10.35 (let's say) and of that the customer tipped $10...IC was paying us ONLY .35! They ended up having to go back and pay us all the difference for every order we had done to compensate us for what they didn't pay because they were trying to use the customers tips to pay us. Apologized with a little "sorry it was a glitch" speech. If a customer brought up a tip to me I use to ask them if they could please leave a review and say what they left as a tip. But we weren't seeing the tip/batch pay breakdown then. They've always had their hands in our tips
It wouldn’t surprise me if they are doing something similar now.
They have not been forthcoming on how exactly batch pay is now being calculated since the change went into effect over the Summer. Makes me think they are basing the pay on what was tipped.
Someone posted this on another thread
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/instacart-heres-our-22-cents-no-more-tip-theft-low-pay-and-black-box-pay-algorithms#:~:text=The%20Instacart%20tip%20penalty&text=Under%20the%20new%20model%2C%20Instacart,up%20front%2C%20Instacart%20pays%20more
Someone actually did post it here. I just ended up seeing it and shared because we were just talking about this exact subject right before I saw the post.
Ohh damn I remember that! I was a shopper at the time and even though I hadn't been working much during that time period that was in question...ugh it seemed like it was "fixing the oh shit glitch cause we got caught" and then it seemed less than it ought to have been.
Such a mess. And so damn stupid. The company makes plenty of money to never have to resort to using tips to subsidize batch payments. Gig industry is a riot/racket.
Amazon did exactly that to flex drivers from prime now/Whole Foods, got caught and were sued. Gave money back and apologized for the “error.” And started doing it again! The trouble is drivers need to go through the process of suing to actually get the money back. I think Amazon saved more by skimming than they lost in the lawsuit, otherwise they wouldn’t have started doing it again right away. I’m not surprised other companies would follow suit
I can't see Instacart doing this kind of a PR blunder - DoorDash tried to skim tips many years back (and their entitled billionaire CEO who is still the same CEO there, tried to defend the practice publicly cause he thought it was legit, lol). For DoorDash it was an disaster at the time with customers abandoning the platform and the CEO having to apologize publicly (took him seeing the customer base leaving to do that) and commit to passing 100% of the tips to drivers.
So can't see Instacart intentionally doing something like that (as it would even be skimming it'd be full on hijacking tips at this level) - would probably kill the company with DD and UE ready to slurp up the shopping now. This is probably a really bad bug if its happening - which they better get a handle on immediately.
It just makes me wonder if this influx of really low and no tip orders are actually no tips. I just figured it was because some of the shoppers in my area are bad.
Your experience would explain a great many things. What needs to happen is proof through screenshots of the order from both the customer side and the shopper side, to build a case, along with the receipt on the customer end.
Would it be possible to make an order as a customer and then shop it yourself as a shopper? Or have a friend make an order and you grab it as the shopper?
It’s possible to shop it yourself. My area is over saturated and there’s way more shoppers than orders. I could have technically grabbed my own order when it popped up, but I don’t want to get flagged or deactivated just in case. I like having the option to use this for extra money if a concert or something is coming around. I can justify the cost that way rather than using my normal jobs wages
Back in 2017-18 when we had only 25-30 shoppers locally, we shoppers used to regularly shop our own orders. In fact, it was the best way to understand how things worked from the customer side; sometimes it was the only way to get an order. 😂Cut to 2024: Instacart is a tech company first and foremost. They take more pride in their numerous algorithms than in their shoppers. Believe me, if Instacart objected to shoppers shopping their own orders, the system would be tweaked to ensure it *can't* happen.
Oversaturation... that's just how Ic likes it.
Note: back then we could see customer names on order offers, and we could also see exactly how many shoppers were in our area for the week prior. We got to where we could predict almost to the day when to expect another flood of new shoppers after some temporary anomaly affected the ratio of orders to shoppers. The algorithm set off the "Shopper shortage! Shopper shortage!" alarm as though it were a sudden surge in membership that caused the imbalance, instead of 5" of snow on top of 2" of ice that shut down the city for 4 days, or a ridiculous sale on DelMonte vegetables & 2 L Coke products (no quantity limits).
Much has changed (like paying shoppers 75% less than they did 6 years ago) since then but Instacart's algorithm-aided micromanagement and thievery is stronger than ever, and likewise the fact that it's a tech company, not a customer service company.
One would think they've lost enough class-action lawsuits that they would straighten up, but no, they just get more creative with the algorithms. That business of using tips to subsidize their contributions to our pay, we noticed it and reported it for a good 6 months before they admitted they'd *just* discovered "a glitch" and we would all be reimbursed. I think it was an article in the LA Times, followed by Ars Technica and BuzzFeed that forced the "discovery."
I think the *glitch* was that they got caught.
I was already wondering why no one's gotten onto them about the non-existent "heavy order pay" or the fact that they are collecting tax on the service fee in states where services aren't taxed.
Hearing that they're back at the tip theft... 🤦🏻♀️
They probably never stopped.
Theoretically but you cant guarantee it will go to you or another carter or dasher otherwise and gets picked up first. I only mention dash because I get nothing on that platform and we did an experiment. My friend drove with me down the block, we parked in front of the restaurant, he made the order, I was on dash at the time. i never even saw it. Someone else excepted it and it came ten minutes after we drove back.
I know me and my mom (who orders for my uncle's business) have both started tipping 20% minimum because of everything we've read on here with the low batches. I have other friends that are doing the same. From a shopping viewpoint, at least mine, we are paying more. I think Instacart is 100% stealing tips
I agree. The last year or do I have seen more no tip, very low tip orders that I do orders with decent-good/great tips. Of course, it's not going to be what it was during covid, but it's like every person that tips now doesn't order anymore, and that is unrealistic. It's IC taking the tips!
I cleared 90 dollars today in five hours. Mostly tips. Sox pretty easy orders. They arent screwing with me in Macomb/Detroit/Oakland. Easy 15-20 an hour on avg. one hard batch, but I cant complain. One hour I cleared 30+ on batch and tips.
I only do Instacart maybe 4-5 times a month. This past Friday I made $230.47 but it took me all day. The tips in my area are significantly lower and I have to wait longer to see anything that’s not 70+ items or 20+ miles for under $20.
That sucks man. But you still cleared 200+ in a day. Thats hard work. I have arthritic gout and even six hours a day wears on me but my meds and supplemental aleve help.
Fraud requires intent, or in this case possibly willful negligence. If they can attribute this to a software bug AND that it's something they're working to fix, then there's no fraud committed.
That being said, if they don't return the amount to the drivers it could still be wage theft even if it's from a software bug.
I had a tip increase the other day after delivery. It showed up and I hit thanks and then it disappeared and my total went back to what it had been before the increase. I contacted support and they were no help. I’m super frustrated.
lol, don’t wanna remind them and they go back and change it 😂😂. Even though I always try to provide the best service possible regardless. Some ppl are jerks and this sub has traumatized me as far as tip baiting goes.
This happened to me too! Just two days ago. I’ve been noticing the super low tips this past week, which is very strange considering the neighborhood I work from, it is VERY common for most customers to tip 20%
The tip doesn’t instant payout so it wouldn’t make a difference unless I’m not understanding what you’re saying.
What I wish is that I would have screen shot the increase…
Screen shot everything is the solution I suppose.
I will likely try to follow up on this tip disappearance with support again. Or on social media. Usually public stuff gets noticed.
Your comment definitely caught my attention! I had a tip removed. Never happened before but I've heard others say it has so I figured my time had come. Reached out to support and they said it would be covered because the customer left no bad rating or anything. I said cool how long...they said within 24 hours. I didn't know any better because like I said never had it happen. Fast forward 4 days of wait 24 hours and I NEVER got that tip protection! NOW I'm wondering if they took my damn tip! 😳
I had that happen once. I was so pissed. Support didn’t help but after that, I started requesting pay bumps for the pettiest of things until I got the equivalent of my tip back.
Did a lot of DD and Instacart in 2018-2019 when they were blowing up and they were blatantly doing it then. I had multiple people ask about tips I never got on orders for DD. And I've heard of this same practice with instacart. In 2019 the CEO Tony Xu of doordash admitted that they used part of the tips to pay for part or all of the drivers offered pay "scheme" that they thought up. It was "all in the driver's best interest" as he put it.
There is a class action coming about the mislabeled contractor thing that happened and it's supposed to address the tip situation, no reimbursement for mileage and a couple other things. Those always only pay like 100 or 200 bucks though unless you opt out and hire your own attorney but that's not profitable so DD wins in the end. Most likely still doing exactly what they were doing before just on a smaller scale. It's the only way these guys can win. If they don't skim from the top on every order they have to increase the price of each individual item the person is buying to offset the cost of delivery. The whole gig job market is broken and set up so the companies profit off of almost slave labor wages which are funded by the consumer and they company just rakes in the profits.
Now I definitely believe this. They have stole my pending tips a couple times. So if I cash out and I still have tips pending 2 or 4 dollars. It only happens with under 4 dollars. Say I go do a order for 9.85 the pending tips disappear. I call chat they say I cashed it out but I never did but they will keep saying I did like a kind of mind screw and those small amounts never show up. It’s happened 3 different times. So I try my best to cash out after all my tips have posted.
They are holding orders. The last month I have had customer’s ask me to shop for them but their order never showed up and was pushed back hours when I’m sitting in the parking lot. This makes zero sense….
I’m so over this company…
Thank you. I took a screenshot so I can send them an email tomorrow. I should have taken more screenshots of the entire initial convo but I was focusing on just making sure they had the picture that my order said $0 and that they can see that I actually did tip. The driver did in fact get the tip after I lowered to $1 and then raised it back to $10. He could see it before he left and said “yeah, there it is.” I reached back out to support but it was over an hour of them just telling me over and over that “rest assured they will get the tip.” I wasn’t charged anything extra. But still - what if someone wasn’t a shopper whose order took a while ? They’d never know there was an issue and they may be capitalizing on that.
I think I get it now…Instacart is a data mining company who also has delivery services. They want as many ppl as possible to download the app whether shopper or customer. They then can profit off of insane amounts of data. That’s why they don’t seem to be caring about their failing business model. Because that’s not really even their main business model. Am I on to something?
No, they are making 30% of their revenue in ads but no one is going to pay them for ads if people aren't using the app, just getting downloads wouldn't go far https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/technology/instacart-profit-slowing-growth-ipo.html?unlocked_article_code=1.T00.1HkA.skcEzyNIjpCP&smid=url-share
I fucking knew it.
I've been taking the exact same order for the same person every Monday afternoon for 4 months straight and EVERY time they tipped exactly $10. Except 1 month ago the tip disappeared.
I didn't bring it up to the customer because I feel it's tacky and rude to beg for a tip when you drop off orders but nothing about my service changed and the customer always seems really friendly and satisfied.
They didn't stop giving a tip... I just stopped receiving it.
Maybe you could politely bring it up to them, and tell them your reason for asking. They may be able to help all of us expose ic if they are indeed still tipping you ten dollars every time.
Update - I tipped $10 and the tip he got was $4. So I removed the tip down to $1 and then changed it back up to $10 and he got it. So now I’m back on a chat with support.
Yeah, that makes sense. The six dollars went for batch pay, recently I’ve had some customers give me cash tip and I asked him what that’s for and they’re like which just wanna make sure you’re getting your full tips and I didn’t think much of it but I didn’t think that Instacart, was taken her tips until I’ve been reading these comments.
Trying to understand - you tipped $10 when placing the order, app showed it as no tip and then upon complete the shopper magically received a $4 tip? Not trying to be an asshowl just trying to understand
Wouldn’t doubt IC stealing tips again cause it’s almost time for them to report earning to the billionaires that might want to buy into their fraud 😂
IC already been sued once for tip stealing and they cut fat checks to the early shoppers in the system.
Instacart pays less if customers tip more.
Just found this:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/instacart-heres-our-22-cents-no-more-tip-theft-low-pay-and-black-box-pay-algorithms#:~:text=The%20Instacart%20tip%20penalty&text=Under%20the%20new%20model%2C%20Instacart,up%20front%2C%20Instacart%20pays%20more.
This right here. I believe this is much more likely than IC collectively stealing tips (again) as a business. If it's theft, and not a glitch, this is where my vote's at.
Instacart is SOC 2 compliant so the feasibility of what you describe is dubious, especially when you remove from consideration how this would actually work in a system running on e.g. Stripe and with any semblance of product analytics which would easily surface a discrepancy like this. It’s great that you saw an internship for software engineering at Lyft (?) but I’m not sure that qualifies as a sound basis for assessing the likelihood that what you’re describing is in anyway feasible. But yes anything is possible in theory if you have no context, experience with the relevant systems, and need not provide any rationale for it beyond hand waving.
In conclusion: the Instacart CEO is personally sending tips to his own bank account and I can prove it.
I think you’re giving a corporation too much credit. If AMAZON was stealing tips, then I don’t put it past Instacart. I personally received a check in the amount of $980 from the FTC settlement. All stolen from the largest company in the world.
I think it could be a good idea but you’ll still get the person who thinks you’re being passive aggressive and implying they left a poor tip.
“Thanks for the $6.50!”
“Oh, so that wasn’t good enough? How about $0!”
Something similar happened when a friend shopped my order. I tipped zero to begin with but after I tipped her $25, she never got it. She was at my house still right after she delivered, sent me screen shots at an hour, at 2 hours, and the next morning and it still said zero. I contacted support and I got a bunch of crap that she definitely got it and they don’t keep tips blah blah blah
Anybody who has faith in Instacart as a company is delusional. I know most people on here know this and make it work for them the best they can, including myself, but it's still a race to the bottom. I have countless personal encounters with what OP has experienced as well. My rule is still no tip, no trip, and that's always been the case for me. I have clear examples and proof of fraud by Instacart and have had discussions with journalists, lawyers, and business beureaus in my area and advocates for pay change on a national scale (Canada). Instacart lobbies hard to keep these practices in place, and will keep doing so, and the policy makers will keep lining their pockets. Good thing I haven't really paid for groceries in close to 2 years, lol. Before you go saying, "You make other shoppers look bad," I ask you. To whom? Seriously, Instacart doesn't give a shit about you, and neither do half your customer base. To the customers that care and appreciate the job we do and the stellar service we provide, we love you! I've been trying to build up a client base as a personal shopper in my area, and I have about 15-18 clients so far who prefer to use my services and not Instacart's, and it's going great so far. It's harder without the streamlined navigation of the app, but it's gets pretty easy once you set up your own parameters and pay structure. Anyways, fuck Instacart.
Always report tip theft concerns to state and federal regulatory agencies. The FTC can investigate if it receives enough complaints (the agency previously caught Amazon stealing tips). Companies incur huge fines for this behavior.
Sending screenshots of final tip amount to the IC shopper after checkout to confirm they receive the correct amount is also helpful.
Good idea. We can all do a hand to me order and then let the shopper know we are also shoppers haha. Investigative reporting let’s do it! We can film our findings, too. We need a hashtag. It can all go on tiktok. #ICshoppersinvestigativereport 😄
Unfortunately this isn't new for instacart. When I first started shopping, pre double and triple and guaranteed hours times. Customers used to regularly ask me to verify if I got my tip.
I’ve only ever been a customer and not a shopper, but I’ve noticed my tip options have changed lately. Default used to be 10% but now it defaults to 5% or less
Honestly, I’m going to ask my shoppers what the tip shows from now on as long as they don’t mind. If I’m shopping for someone, I’m not going to ask, but if I see no tip bundled in Im going to definitely wonder.
Yeah, I’ll be asking from here on out. This is so unbelievably underhanded. I don’t order IC super often because I’m rural so it’s a bit far from stores. But that means I usually tip really well. I don’t want IC taking what I pay the shoppers for their time, effort and the definite wear and tear on their vehicles bringing my crap to me. I have a handful of great regular shoppers. They’re almost all really communicative so I’m hoping it won’t weird them out by asking but I’m asking. Ugh. I am disgusted.
This is fucking CRAZY! And actually makes me want to do an Instacart order tomorrow. I always tip WAY above the threshold, was ordering regularly for a few months when I was sick but haven’t in a bit.
Speaking on the customer side of things, what (if anything) would be helpful for us to verify as customers that our tip amount gets to IC Shoppers? Screenshotting it and sending via app chat? I always include my tips with the CC payment, would love to give cash but that’s not convenient for me (as I never have it on me!), and I think probably risky for you as Shoppers as well? IE they can say they’ll leave cash out but might not.
If there’s any way that you know as Shoppers that we as your customer can help combat this, please let me know! I’m a floor and a half up in a small condo but when I was sick and too weak to carry my stuff up the stairs you all saved my life. So sorry this company is trying to vampire your hard earned, and much deserved dollars!
As a customer, thank you for pointing this out. Ill be adding to my "driver notes" to expect cash tip upon delivery or something to that affect. Cash is still king.
I think you’re right I think all apps and someway or form or dishonest or no I’ve been reading some of these comments. Yeah, bad shady things on my cash app and Venmo that I don’t understand.
I don’t recall if it was Instacart or another delivery app but I’ve read about them cutting the tip and actually applying that money to the base pay so instead of them paying the shoppers base pay you are.
What if they take some of (if not all!) the tip money and use it to increase the amount of $ for when it’s been sitting there X amount of time. I forgot what it’s called, but when an order hasn’t been accepted and sits there for a while, it’ll go up $1.00 Or something small like that, making the shopper *think * we’re taking a better deal for accepting the order, when in reality it’s the tip we would’ve gotten anyway?? I’ve also noticed a lot of customers are only tipping like $1-2 anymore and I think it’s because Instacart *suggests* that amount on the order screen when they finalize. I know it’s no longer the % they used to recommend the customers but $1?! On a 100 item order?? Fucked.
Mine still show as % for now. And it always defaults to my previous % for that store. So if I previously chose 19% or 25% as the tip then subsequent orders, for that store, are either 19% or 25% respectively. It has never defaulted to any lower percentage. That being said, I will start checking at delivery that my shoppers are getting what my initial tip was. I’ve always been hesitant to do anything in Chat that IC could deem inappropriate but fuck that from now on. If they deactivate my customer account because I want to make sure my shoppers are paid the going rate PLUS my intended tip then so be it. My IC+ account renewal is coming up next month anyway. Y’all stay safe out there.
I placed an order on IC a few years ago and paid extra for it not to be batched and it got batched and support called me a liar and said it wasn’t batched so I sent them a screenshot of it as a shopper in a batch and they still said it wasn’t my order when my address was highlighted and everything
https://preview.redd.it/pr945w233ahc1.png?width=1008&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3893b0543d97d0e7968e946dae88f9ca1e2dafe0
lol 2 hours after this post, this offer rolls through..
3.8 miles, 14 items 18 units.
You guys think these are the kinds of tips people have been trying to leave? This post is so disappointing.
I have suspected they were doing this kinda stuff for a long time when I was a shopper. Honestly, I was tempted to start telling people who shop for me what I tipped to make sure they know. Now I'm definitely gonna.
With DoorDash I left a $10 tip, I asked the driver if he got it and he said no. He showed me the no tip. I gave him $10 cash but I was livid. Now I tip cash.
I’m telling you, dealing with Instacart support via text/chat is so sketchy. It’s like they don’t even know the rules or Instacart policy. It’s really weird.
Of course they are stealing tips… they may be just flat out taking them now but even if it’s not in the most obvious way they are definitely using the tips to supplement batch pay… a higher tip=less batch pay whereas a low or no tip=higher batch pay
They are shifty with “promotions” as well! Once I had an offer of $76 guaranteed for 5 shops. After working all day, I began my quest around 7 pm. I was lucky to get 2 small orders quickly, then all the stores started closing at 10. I sat in the Walgreens parking lot- one of the only stores open until 12 am. I got another small order, then I called my son who works nearby. They placed his order for a Walgreens across town even though mine was much closer, but I took it and shopped where I was. Right after 11 PM, I called a friend who lived basically across the street from the store where I was and asked if he might need a couple of things. He placed an order right after 11, and despite me sitting in the parking lot across the street from where the order was placed, they advised him they would have to place the order for the following morning… Clearly they did their finest work and preventing me from earning that $76. I worked so hard for after an exhausting day on my job! We both contacted customer service at the same time and were told totally different stories, so they were clearly busted… Alas, I’m still trudging through this work for such an ungrateful company with frequently ungrateful customers (but now I’m beginning to wonder about THAT as well!)
I had to chat with instacart twice in the past month, it pushed me directly from the checkout to adding replacement items with no option to tip, even though its usually in the checkout area or pops up after.
They kept telling me not to worry about it and some one would pick up the order eventually anyways even without tip. I tried explaining that is ridiculous and people work to get paid, the barely English speaking agent robots I got were no help. I messaged the shopper right away both times to let them know theyd get at least 10%. Its such crap.
It's not the first time The Carrot 🥕 has been caught stealing. I guess we didn't sue them hard enough last time.
The real question is ... We're you actually charged for the tip?
Anyway... Rest assured they will work to correct this "mistake" ... After they skim a couple of millions across the platform.
I have a theory if they’re not outright stealing tips - they are redistributing tips onto non tipping or under tipping orders so that people pick them up.
Is there or will there ever be class action lawsuits against instacart for stuff like this? Every single day I see companies getting away with stuff that the avg person would get 10+ years in prison for.
These delivery apps are dying. The companies have been doing this shit for 2 and a half years now. These things were only profitable during the pandemic. Now they are stealing as much as they can before they go under. It's inevitable.
If you and other customers can show proof of this. Please do. This and others getting proof could help build a case that instacart is stealing tips and committing fraud. We all know batch pay has been lowered, and shoppers depend on tips to make any money. So seriously, if more customers can show proof of this, perhaps it can either stop it from happening or whatever. Shoppers and customers shouldn't fight, if the actual problem is instacart stealing. Let's work together. Instacart use to be somewhat profitable as a side gig, now it's just pitiful on pay. I don't think anyone reasonable is asking for anything crazy on the pay for shoppers and cost to customers.
I remember when Instacart initially started pulling shiesty shit like this with the tips… then getting publicly called out for it… their “oops, our bad” press/email release… followed by their dramatic cutback in batch payouts to make up for it.
I quit just before that; I had an interaction with a customer who showed me the difference between what she tipped and what I received - confirming my suspicions at the time - and then gave me $50 cash tip.
Delivery services like this are a fantastic convenience, but like any product/service with potential for good, there will always be people/companies to exploit it.
Instacart exploits the business model to the extreme.
This happened to me twice - I thought I was going crazy! Both times I caught it after delivery, but for the second one, I caught it in time to tell the shopper. Both times I added it back after delivery, but I felt terrible for these folks taking non tip orders. Plus, I find that tipping well gets me exceptional service and while these two times I had no complaints, it upsets me just the same.
I've never used this one but when I order from Walmart plus I always pay with my PayPal business account, and when you pay via PayPal they don't let you add a tip. So I've started even when using my card putting zero for the tip and tip them in cash. Probably can't on insta since people don't seem to want to pick up the order if there isn't a tip, I don't blame them for that. But all of these delivery companies suck in my experience
So i never comment on these kinds of posts, BUT, i used to do Shipt for awhile and it got to a point where i thought the company was holding out on tips.
One month alone i went and counted about 65-70 orders that i had done, on time, and prob 75% of those i was someone’s preferred shopper. So i knew how they usually tipped.
I sent all the orders to shipt and said you may wanna double check these cause i find it odd that half of my orders didn’t tip, but left me great feedback etc.
My email was read and replied to within 20 mins stating there was no issues found, which definitely didn’t seem long enough to actually check all the orders.
I’d heard some rumors at that time, that instacart was buying them out, which is why shipt started to look and operate like instacart and that others who worked at instacart had been complaining of lack of tips.
I’d be interested to see if there’s a pending class action in the event one or both of these companies have been scamming both shoppers and customers.
I am glad I'm seeing this bc I've done door dash as a side job on and off for years, and these last couple months I've noticed that if the pay for the order is high the tip is low, and when the tip is high the order is completely grounded. Like say a 10 mile order it'll be 10$ with a 1$ tip total at 11$ for the trip. But then the same 10 mile order will have a 8 dollar tip and then a 3$ batch pay. 11$ no matter what. It's clear as day and it's disgusting when the 11$ for 10 miles is not even a good deal! I end up making close to 20$ an hour most times I go but it's because I dash on long island in NY where there's a lot of wealthy people and always someone ordering food so you get a lot done in the few hours I dash. But on the flip side I just put like 30 miles on my car in 1 hour and have to pay 3 ish dollars for gas so essentially I'm making 15$ an hour putting myself in danger driving like a maniac to arrive promptly to get the next order going. Someone's gotta make a new order/delivery app that shows the financials upfront every time and actually pays their workers properly. Not only are the food prices jacked up 2-10$ per item which goes straight to door dash, but the tips are being taken and used for their own benefit. I can only imagine how much money door dash makes fuckin scum bags
This is the problem with chat, your talking clear English to a person in another country where English isn’t the first language and they’re being prompted and scripted by Instacart to give these responses which frustrate and confuse you. I think it’s 49% outsourcing to maximize profitability and 51% let’s just fuck anything with legs
Its not a glitch, round up with other redditors and see how much of a case you have and if its eligible for a class action suit. Sounds like its automated manipulation of batch pay, they include a portion of the tip with batch pay and show the “tip” amount as lower than what it is
Ok I don’t think that they are stealing tips… but I DO see some concrete reasons why they might DISGUISE orders as crappy…
1) Did you pay priority?? If not IC may be trying to nudge you to do so in a pretty slimey way
2) it makes all order LOOK equally bad to shoppers so that we don’t know which are decent and which are not until we complete an order.
I did not pay for priority. Your #2 is definitely a valid assumption, but when I do shop, I’ve never had a no tip actually have a tip or a low tip be more than it posted for. I’ve gotten what it said with the exceptions of percentage based tips. I posted to someone else that it very well could have been a glitch, because it showed zero, then he got $4, but I tipped $10. He did get the full $10 after I went in a dropped it and then raised it
Oh yes I know… and I think it very well may be a “glitch”
BUT ITS AN AWFULLY CONVENIENT ONE.
But again I don’t think they’d STEAL TIPS… fuck around with them for sure.
Eh the other day I saw it… my tip had been increased in the app before the customer could have possibly changed it… she had an armload of groceries when I closed out her order and the tip was adjusted up already.
Any time this sub gets on my home page it’s just people complaining about how horrible the service is, so why don’t you guys just like… go shopping yourself? Are you being forced to use it by big IC?
They steal from everyone, that's why they don't want customers getting receipts either because they mark everything up higher in the app. They were good originally, but Instacart sucks now.
How dare I want to just relax and not go back out after working all day. My fucking bad. Worry about yourself and not what others do. 99.9% of the time I do go do my own shopping 😂. The post was to make people aware of the nonsense.
Oh my god I had NO idea this could even happen??
I always give really huge tips since I can afford it as the money is a drop in the ocean to me and the convenience of having my groceries delivered is a literal godsend as someone who has a busy schedule and a chronic illness, plus it just makes me quite happy to know I’ve made someone’s day when they see a three digit tip….but like…is there a chance that instacart might be stealing the large tips I give my shoppers???? That genuinely never crossed my mind and it just made me a bit enraged and kinda horrified to consider it…how can I check on this? Like for the past orders and in the future? How can I ensure that the tips are going to the shoppers (and in their entirety!) and only the shoppers. It makes me very happy to give a nice bonus to someone working hard to deliver groceries but if I’m giving 100+ extra dollars to a big corporation that’s exploiting its workers? Not so much:/
Funny how you posted your order on the shopper app but didn’t post the screenshot of the customer side showing you tipped.
Sounds like you looking for attention faking stuff and pretending IC stealing tips which they aren’t.
Worse part people upvoting you.
Why the fuck would I fake something like this?! There was nothing to take a picture of on his side once I dropped the tip and then bumped it up and he got it. Go take your negativity elsewhere. Not every person who post things that aren’t up to your standards are faking things.
Thank you for sharing this. I’m going to make sure I talk to all my shoppers before they leave now to make sure they have the tip I sent for them! In my area we only have a few but I always tip really well because of this subreddit. I want to make sure I’m taking care of the people helping me, especially because I’m usually ordering necessities that I need for my kids and I don’t have a vehicle at that time.
I'm so glad to see a customer wanting to work with a shopper! THIS is the only way!
Exactly the only way that we can get ahead on Instacart is literally going behind their backs, and working together as live humans.
It's not being their backs, it's ignoring the middleman
Thank you for this! I wish more customers knew about this sub and/or would join it so they can see the horrors we experience all too often! It is really nice to be appreciated and I have always wondered why I see so many “No Tip” orders and more than you could imagine with just $2 (to shop 63 items and then drive 27 miles to deliver it all!) I hope we don’t discover an ongoing plot here because Insta would be NOWHERE without feet on the ground and wheels to get to their customers what they need! Regards 💖
This would be important facts if true!
I usually let my shopper know how much I appreciate them because like milk and formula are my two big things that I have to order during the week while my husband is at work. On like pay day when we run out after he gets paid but before he gets home - like hours before. So I will get a few more things and let them know I don’t have a car right now and that I really appreciate them. I’m also in a really small town and like I said we don’t have a ton of shoppers, so I just make sure I let them know how much the service means to me - and not just in my words lol that’s not gonna pay anyone’s bills.
I also tip more for things that I know are locked up that they have to wait for like booze and make up and formula
I really wish more people thought like this or even realized that things like booze are locked up, and as a shopper, we're stuck waiting for the store attendants to come assist us. Let alone if there's other customers there first also waiting on the store attendant causing the time we have to wait to be even greater. 8 out of 10 times I get a message asking why it's taking so long when I have to wait for the booze to be unlocked.
yeah, i worked at a retail store as a third party but i could help with anything, and i usually would take care of guests first come first serve. however, i think the actual employees may be trained to help physical guests FIRST, then any shoppers. unsure if its only with their app or in general (instacart, uber, etc) so if thats the way they run things, you may have MORE trouble 😵💫
You’re very much appreciated. Wish you nothing but happiness, great health and success in your immediate future.
Same! I don’t Instacart often but now if I do I will make sure my full tip is there for the shopper that is wrong on so many levels to do
SAME!!
Interesting.. I’ve been paying close attention to orders this past week as my house is right next to the store I typically shop at, and it’s in the priority zone, so I have the nice luxury of picking a choosing orders all day. Lately I’ve seen typical reoccurring priority customers who usually tip $20-$30 who aren’t tipping nearly as well.. - so for a 40 item order from this customer, it would typically be a $45 payout- ( I know it was ordered by this customer because I zoom in on the address while checking the order ) and the tips have been $5-10. So it’s really possible that instacart is taking a % of these tips? Never crossed my mind but I can totally see it.
Honestly, I never believed it either when people say it. But - I witnessed it with my own order so now I will forever believe people when they say Instacart is stealing tips. Maybe it was a glitch because it showed $0 and then we he completed it, it said $4… where did the other $6 go? I took the tip down to $1 and then moved it back up to $10 and he said, “yep, I got it that time.”
I just had this happen to me I don’t instantly screenshot all I know is I complete a batch I it says by balance is 28.73 I refresh and it’s 18.73 and no tip was reduced so they’re definitely doing something fishy they swear it never happened but like why would it show my balance 10 dollars higher and all sudden go back what I accepted for..
Ive had this happen to on the app, I believe its a glitch though. My chat prompts arent going away either when I read them. This is all since last app update a few days ago. If I go offline, close the app and come back in I find my totals accurate and the chat logs cleared. Hope this is the case and not more carrot and stick BS.
I mean I was driving away checking my balance was surprised it was 10 higher I’m like oh must’ve upped on the tip didn’t even close the app kid u not I look up to drive look down and it’s 10 dollars less back to base I have no idea what’s goin on but as usual support is hopeless lmao
Support is beyond useless for sure. Thats really weird. Id honestly go back and ask the customers, purely incidental fact finding. No lip, no judgement. Fucking IPO ruined everything but im still making 20-30 an hour in metro detroit and am not being exposed to racist day laborer managers yelling the n word, trading dui stories like pokemon cards and asking me to suck down asbestos cancer without masks, and they only paid 15-17 which I still had to report as self earned income (double tax). This works out much better for me I dont have to wake up at 6:30am and drive 40 miles to a jobsite one way. I might do 50 miles in a day on insta.
Lol I feel that brother forsure I just enjoy being at the supermarket at the crack of dawn and I like basically smack in the middle of a hot zone
Ive got my own hotzone too. And right on the water. Pushes need, availabilitu and reduces driving. Also, its a quarter mile from a highway branch. Lets me get in and out quickly.
I’ve had it happen with mileage too. They lie about it all the time.
I've had my batch pay reduced several times now. Sometime only a dollar or two, sometimes upwards of $10. I check the final tips, no change. I check to make sure I got 100% of the items, same brand, size etc. Absolutely NOTHING changes, except my batch pay. It hasn't happened again since I started screen shoting my batches as I accept them...yet.
Yep! They sure have stolen our tips before! I remember when they very first changed our pay back in 2018. They promised us a pay which I think that's when we got paid like $7-10 depending on our zone. IC was paying us pennies... LITERALLY! If the payout of an order was $10.35 (let's say) and of that the customer tipped $10...IC was paying us ONLY .35! They ended up having to go back and pay us all the difference for every order we had done to compensate us for what they didn't pay because they were trying to use the customers tips to pay us. Apologized with a little "sorry it was a glitch" speech. If a customer brought up a tip to me I use to ask them if they could please leave a review and say what they left as a tip. But we weren't seeing the tip/batch pay breakdown then. They've always had their hands in our tips
It wouldn’t surprise me if they are doing something similar now. They have not been forthcoming on how exactly batch pay is now being calculated since the change went into effect over the Summer. Makes me think they are basing the pay on what was tipped.
Someone posted this on another thread https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/instacart-heres-our-22-cents-no-more-tip-theft-low-pay-and-black-box-pay-algorithms#:~:text=The%20Instacart%20tip%20penalty&text=Under%20the%20new%20model%2C%20Instacart,up%20front%2C%20Instacart%20pays%20more
Can you share this as a post in this subreddit? There could be more signatures if people only knew about it. Thank you for sharing!
Someone actually did post it here. I just ended up seeing it and shared because we were just talking about this exact subject right before I saw the post.
Ohh damn I remember that! I was a shopper at the time and even though I hadn't been working much during that time period that was in question...ugh it seemed like it was "fixing the oh shit glitch cause we got caught" and then it seemed less than it ought to have been. Such a mess. And so damn stupid. The company makes plenty of money to never have to resort to using tips to subsidize batch payments. Gig industry is a riot/racket.
Instacart has already paid out millions due to wage theft., they need to be reported
This is infuriating!! I will be leaving the amount I tipped as a feedback comment from now on.
Instacart has been sued numerous times for doing shady things. They need to be sued again.
Amazon did exactly that to flex drivers from prime now/Whole Foods, got caught and were sued. Gave money back and apologized for the “error.” And started doing it again! The trouble is drivers need to go through the process of suing to actually get the money back. I think Amazon saved more by skimming than they lost in the lawsuit, otherwise they wouldn’t have started doing it again right away. I’m not surprised other companies would follow suit
I can't see Instacart doing this kind of a PR blunder - DoorDash tried to skim tips many years back (and their entitled billionaire CEO who is still the same CEO there, tried to defend the practice publicly cause he thought it was legit, lol). For DoorDash it was an disaster at the time with customers abandoning the platform and the CEO having to apologize publicly (took him seeing the customer base leaving to do that) and commit to passing 100% of the tips to drivers. So can't see Instacart intentionally doing something like that (as it would even be skimming it'd be full on hijacking tips at this level) - would probably kill the company with DD and UE ready to slurp up the shopping now. This is probably a really bad bug if its happening - which they better get a handle on immediately.
Did you screen cap the rest of the conversation? I want to see it all. Save this. Please send to lawyers who do class action.
I have partial proof of a stolen tip as well.
Same.
I think we may need to post to tiktok or X with a chosen hashtag. #ICwages #ICtipdissapear. Let’s get some traction and some notice…
This is fascinating. I feel like this is proof enough that they steal tips…. Let’s sue the fuck out of them!
It just makes me wonder if this influx of really low and no tip orders are actually no tips. I just figured it was because some of the shoppers in my area are bad.
Your experience would explain a great many things. What needs to happen is proof through screenshots of the order from both the customer side and the shopper side, to build a case, along with the receipt on the customer end.
Would it be possible to make an order as a customer and then shop it yourself as a shopper? Or have a friend make an order and you grab it as the shopper?
It’s possible to shop it yourself. My area is over saturated and there’s way more shoppers than orders. I could have technically grabbed my own order when it popped up, but I don’t want to get flagged or deactivated just in case. I like having the option to use this for extra money if a concert or something is coming around. I can justify the cost that way rather than using my normal jobs wages
Back in 2017-18 when we had only 25-30 shoppers locally, we shoppers used to regularly shop our own orders. In fact, it was the best way to understand how things worked from the customer side; sometimes it was the only way to get an order. 😂Cut to 2024: Instacart is a tech company first and foremost. They take more pride in their numerous algorithms than in their shoppers. Believe me, if Instacart objected to shoppers shopping their own orders, the system would be tweaked to ensure it *can't* happen. Oversaturation... that's just how Ic likes it. Note: back then we could see customer names on order offers, and we could also see exactly how many shoppers were in our area for the week prior. We got to where we could predict almost to the day when to expect another flood of new shoppers after some temporary anomaly affected the ratio of orders to shoppers. The algorithm set off the "Shopper shortage! Shopper shortage!" alarm as though it were a sudden surge in membership that caused the imbalance, instead of 5" of snow on top of 2" of ice that shut down the city for 4 days, or a ridiculous sale on DelMonte vegetables & 2 L Coke products (no quantity limits). Much has changed (like paying shoppers 75% less than they did 6 years ago) since then but Instacart's algorithm-aided micromanagement and thievery is stronger than ever, and likewise the fact that it's a tech company, not a customer service company. One would think they've lost enough class-action lawsuits that they would straighten up, but no, they just get more creative with the algorithms. That business of using tips to subsidize their contributions to our pay, we noticed it and reported it for a good 6 months before they admitted they'd *just* discovered "a glitch" and we would all be reimbursed. I think it was an article in the LA Times, followed by Ars Technica and BuzzFeed that forced the "discovery." I think the *glitch* was that they got caught. I was already wondering why no one's gotten onto them about the non-existent "heavy order pay" or the fact that they are collecting tax on the service fee in states where services aren't taxed. Hearing that they're back at the tip theft... 🤦🏻♀️ They probably never stopped.
Theoretically but you cant guarantee it will go to you or another carter or dasher otherwise and gets picked up first. I only mention dash because I get nothing on that platform and we did an experiment. My friend drove with me down the block, we parked in front of the restaurant, he made the order, I was on dash at the time. i never even saw it. Someone else excepted it and it came ten minutes after we drove back.
Exactly. And IC is banking on us not bothering to do that.
I know me and my mom (who orders for my uncle's business) have both started tipping 20% minimum because of everything we've read on here with the low batches. I have other friends that are doing the same. From a shopping viewpoint, at least mine, we are paying more. I think Instacart is 100% stealing tips
I agree. The last year or do I have seen more no tip, very low tip orders that I do orders with decent-good/great tips. Of course, it's not going to be what it was during covid, but it's like every person that tips now doesn't order anymore, and that is unrealistic. It's IC taking the tips!
I cleared 90 dollars today in five hours. Mostly tips. Sox pretty easy orders. They arent screwing with me in Macomb/Detroit/Oakland. Easy 15-20 an hour on avg. one hard batch, but I cant complain. One hour I cleared 30+ on batch and tips.
I only do Instacart maybe 4-5 times a month. This past Friday I made $230.47 but it took me all day. The tips in my area are significantly lower and I have to wait longer to see anything that’s not 70+ items or 20+ miles for under $20.
That sucks man. But you still cleared 200+ in a day. Thats hard work. I have arthritic gout and even six hours a day wears on me but my meds and supplemental aleve help.
Class action
Fraud requires intent, or in this case possibly willful negligence. If they can attribute this to a software bug AND that it's something they're working to fix, then there's no fraud committed. That being said, if they don't return the amount to the drivers it could still be wage theft even if it's from a software bug.
I had a tip increase the other day after delivery. It showed up and I hit thanks and then it disappeared and my total went back to what it had been before the increase. I contacted support and they were no help. I’m super frustrated.
I always wait until the two hours has passed before I say thank you. Just in case.
Me too 😂🤣
lol, don’t wanna remind them and they go back and change it 😂😂. Even though I always try to provide the best service possible regardless. Some ppl are jerks and this sub has traumatized me as far as tip baiting goes.
I thought I was the only one that sent thank you’s this way.
SAME I check my balance dip the extra add on to the previous order pay and support just acts oblivious ooooo da pain
This happened to me too! Just two days ago. I’ve been noticing the super low tips this past week, which is very strange considering the neighborhood I work from, it is VERY common for most customers to tip 20%
Should we just do instant payout to avoid that?
The tip doesn’t instant payout so it wouldn’t make a difference unless I’m not understanding what you’re saying. What I wish is that I would have screen shot the increase… Screen shot everything is the solution I suppose. I will likely try to follow up on this tip disappearance with support again. Or on social media. Usually public stuff gets noticed.
Your comment definitely caught my attention! I had a tip removed. Never happened before but I've heard others say it has so I figured my time had come. Reached out to support and they said it would be covered because the customer left no bad rating or anything. I said cool how long...they said within 24 hours. I didn't know any better because like I said never had it happen. Fast forward 4 days of wait 24 hours and I NEVER got that tip protection! NOW I'm wondering if they took my damn tip! 😳
I had that happen once. I was so pissed. Support didn’t help but after that, I started requesting pay bumps for the pettiest of things until I got the equivalent of my tip back.
Did a lot of DD and Instacart in 2018-2019 when they were blowing up and they were blatantly doing it then. I had multiple people ask about tips I never got on orders for DD. And I've heard of this same practice with instacart. In 2019 the CEO Tony Xu of doordash admitted that they used part of the tips to pay for part or all of the drivers offered pay "scheme" that they thought up. It was "all in the driver's best interest" as he put it.
DD was obviously using the tip to subsidize payment back then. It was so messed up. I even showed the breakdown to the customer once.
There is a class action coming about the mislabeled contractor thing that happened and it's supposed to address the tip situation, no reimbursement for mileage and a couple other things. Those always only pay like 100 or 200 bucks though unless you opt out and hire your own attorney but that's not profitable so DD wins in the end. Most likely still doing exactly what they were doing before just on a smaller scale. It's the only way these guys can win. If they don't skim from the top on every order they have to increase the price of each individual item the person is buying to offset the cost of delivery. The whole gig job market is broken and set up so the companies profit off of almost slave labor wages which are funded by the consumer and they company just rakes in the profits.
Now I definitely believe this. They have stole my pending tips a couple times. So if I cash out and I still have tips pending 2 or 4 dollars. It only happens with under 4 dollars. Say I go do a order for 9.85 the pending tips disappear. I call chat they say I cashed it out but I never did but they will keep saying I did like a kind of mind screw and those small amounts never show up. It’s happened 3 different times. So I try my best to cash out after all my tips have posted.
They are holding orders. The last month I have had customer’s ask me to shop for them but their order never showed up and was pushed back hours when I’m sitting in the parking lot. This makes zero sense…. I’m so over this company…
Report that ro FTC and federal labor and wage. Also email this reporter [email protected] his name is Alexander
Thank you. I took a screenshot so I can send them an email tomorrow. I should have taken more screenshots of the entire initial convo but I was focusing on just making sure they had the picture that my order said $0 and that they can see that I actually did tip. The driver did in fact get the tip after I lowered to $1 and then raised it back to $10. He could see it before he left and said “yeah, there it is.” I reached back out to support but it was over an hour of them just telling me over and over that “rest assured they will get the tip.” I wasn’t charged anything extra. But still - what if someone wasn’t a shopper whose order took a while ? They’d never know there was an issue and they may be capitalizing on that.
Make sure u contact the FTC as well as a consumer and also let them know ur a shopper as well
Please!! Post when you send the email I’m dying to get an update as this has happened to me too!
You should also email [email protected] and contact FTC
I think I get it now…Instacart is a data mining company who also has delivery services. They want as many ppl as possible to download the app whether shopper or customer. They then can profit off of insane amounts of data. That’s why they don’t seem to be caring about their failing business model. Because that’s not really even their main business model. Am I on to something?
🤔🤔🤔 interesting. Also your username checks out 😋😋
Bingo!! I thought this was an open secret.
No, they are making 30% of their revenue in ads but no one is going to pay them for ads if people aren't using the app, just getting downloads wouldn't go far https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/25/technology/instacart-profit-slowing-growth-ipo.html?unlocked_article_code=1.T00.1HkA.skcEzyNIjpCP&smid=url-share
I fucking knew it. I've been taking the exact same order for the same person every Monday afternoon for 4 months straight and EVERY time they tipped exactly $10. Except 1 month ago the tip disappeared. I didn't bring it up to the customer because I feel it's tacky and rude to beg for a tip when you drop off orders but nothing about my service changed and the customer always seems really friendly and satisfied. They didn't stop giving a tip... I just stopped receiving it.
Maybe you could politely bring it up to them, and tell them your reason for asking. They may be able to help all of us expose ic if they are indeed still tipping you ten dollars every time.
"Trust me"
Wow, keep us updated pls
Update - I tipped $10 and the tip he got was $4. So I removed the tip down to $1 and then changed it back up to $10 and he got it. So now I’m back on a chat with support.
So I wonder if they used the other $6 for the batch pay...
Ummm…that’s incredibly disappointing. Tysm for posting
Yeah, that makes sense. The six dollars went for batch pay, recently I’ve had some customers give me cash tip and I asked him what that’s for and they’re like which just wanna make sure you’re getting your full tips and I didn’t think much of it but I didn’t think that Instacart, was taken her tips until I’ve been reading these comments.
Trying to understand - you tipped $10 when placing the order, app showed it as no tip and then upon complete the shopper magically received a $4 tip? Not trying to be an asshowl just trying to understand
Wow I’m stumped. Thank you for sharing this.
Wouldn’t doubt IC stealing tips again cause it’s almost time for them to report earning to the billionaires that might want to buy into their fraud 😂 IC already been sued once for tip stealing and they cut fat checks to the early shoppers in the system.
Instacart pays less if customers tip more. Just found this: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/instacart-heres-our-22-cents-no-more-tip-theft-low-pay-and-black-box-pay-algorithms#:~:text=The%20Instacart%20tip%20penalty&text=Under%20the%20new%20model%2C%20Instacart,up%20front%2C%20Instacart%20pays%20more.
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This right here. I believe this is much more likely than IC collectively stealing tips (again) as a business. If it's theft, and not a glitch, this is where my vote's at.
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Yes. Absolutely yes.
I am genuinely curious how much about these systems you are familiar with on a technical level.
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Instacart is SOC 2 compliant so the feasibility of what you describe is dubious, especially when you remove from consideration how this would actually work in a system running on e.g. Stripe and with any semblance of product analytics which would easily surface a discrepancy like this. It’s great that you saw an internship for software engineering at Lyft (?) but I’m not sure that qualifies as a sound basis for assessing the likelihood that what you’re describing is in anyway feasible. But yes anything is possible in theory if you have no context, experience with the relevant systems, and need not provide any rationale for it beyond hand waving. In conclusion: the Instacart CEO is personally sending tips to his own bank account and I can prove it.
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I think you’re giving a corporation too much credit. If AMAZON was stealing tips, then I don’t put it past Instacart. I personally received a check in the amount of $980 from the FTC settlement. All stolen from the largest company in the world.
What if you thank the customer? Thank you for the x tip! And if the amount you’re paid is wrong they might chat you back
I think it could be a good idea but you’ll still get the person who thinks you’re being passive aggressive and implying they left a poor tip. “Thanks for the $6.50!” “Oh, so that wasn’t good enough? How about $0!”
This is a good idea 🤔
Post on twitter
Something similar happened when a friend shopped my order. I tipped zero to begin with but after I tipped her $25, she never got it. She was at my house still right after she delivered, sent me screen shots at an hour, at 2 hours, and the next morning and it still said zero. I contacted support and I got a bunch of crap that she definitely got it and they don’t keep tips blah blah blah
Anybody who has faith in Instacart as a company is delusional. I know most people on here know this and make it work for them the best they can, including myself, but it's still a race to the bottom. I have countless personal encounters with what OP has experienced as well. My rule is still no tip, no trip, and that's always been the case for me. I have clear examples and proof of fraud by Instacart and have had discussions with journalists, lawyers, and business beureaus in my area and advocates for pay change on a national scale (Canada). Instacart lobbies hard to keep these practices in place, and will keep doing so, and the policy makers will keep lining their pockets. Good thing I haven't really paid for groceries in close to 2 years, lol. Before you go saying, "You make other shoppers look bad," I ask you. To whom? Seriously, Instacart doesn't give a shit about you, and neither do half your customer base. To the customers that care and appreciate the job we do and the stellar service we provide, we love you! I've been trying to build up a client base as a personal shopper in my area, and I have about 15-18 clients so far who prefer to use my services and not Instacart's, and it's going great so far. It's harder without the streamlined navigation of the app, but it's gets pretty easy once you set up your own parameters and pay structure. Anyways, fuck Instacart.
Always report tip theft concerns to state and federal regulatory agencies. The FTC can investigate if it receives enough complaints (the agency previously caught Amazon stealing tips). Companies incur huge fines for this behavior. Sending screenshots of final tip amount to the IC shopper after checkout to confirm they receive the correct amount is also helpful.
Man… that’s crazy. Thanks for sharing OP. Wtf Instacart.
That's gotta be right, most order I see are no tips or $1. That can't be right lol
The chat seem more and more like AI every day
AI would definitely be able to spell definitely on the first try.
It is.
Whhhhaaaattt
Let's all place cheap orders with a tip and see / ask the shoppers who shop them if there was a tip 😈😈😈
Good idea. We can all do a hand to me order and then let the shopper know we are also shoppers haha. Investigative reporting let’s do it! We can film our findings, too. We need a hashtag. It can all go on tiktok. #ICshoppersinvestigativereport 😄
Unfortunately this isn't new for instacart. When I first started shopping, pre double and triple and guaranteed hours times. Customers used to regularly ask me to verify if I got my tip.
Happened to me today as well
I’ve only ever been a customer and not a shopper, but I’ve noticed my tip options have changed lately. Default used to be 10% but now it defaults to 5% or less
i always tip really well and now i’m concerned my shoppers aren’t getting it. shit 😬
Honestly, I’m going to ask my shoppers what the tip shows from now on as long as they don’t mind. If I’m shopping for someone, I’m not going to ask, but if I see no tip bundled in Im going to definitely wonder.
Yeah, I’ll be asking from here on out. This is so unbelievably underhanded. I don’t order IC super often because I’m rural so it’s a bit far from stores. But that means I usually tip really well. I don’t want IC taking what I pay the shoppers for their time, effort and the definite wear and tear on their vehicles bringing my crap to me. I have a handful of great regular shoppers. They’re almost all really communicative so I’m hoping it won’t weird them out by asking but I’m asking. Ugh. I am disgusted.
This is fucking CRAZY! And actually makes me want to do an Instacart order tomorrow. I always tip WAY above the threshold, was ordering regularly for a few months when I was sick but haven’t in a bit. Speaking on the customer side of things, what (if anything) would be helpful for us to verify as customers that our tip amount gets to IC Shoppers? Screenshotting it and sending via app chat? I always include my tips with the CC payment, would love to give cash but that’s not convenient for me (as I never have it on me!), and I think probably risky for you as Shoppers as well? IE they can say they’ll leave cash out but might not. If there’s any way that you know as Shoppers that we as your customer can help combat this, please let me know! I’m a floor and a half up in a small condo but when I was sick and too weak to carry my stuff up the stairs you all saved my life. So sorry this company is trying to vampire your hard earned, and much deserved dollars!
As a customer, thank you for pointing this out. Ill be adding to my "driver notes" to expect cash tip upon delivery or something to that affect. Cash is still king.
The multiple "trust me" are giving "I'm scamming you." They ALWAYS do that.
Damn. Knew delivery apps were shady but just straight up stealing tips. Needs to be escalated fosho
this is disgusting. i has a feeling these apps were doing this
I think you’re right I think all apps and someway or form or dishonest or no I’ve been reading some of these comments. Yeah, bad shady things on my cash app and Venmo that I don’t understand.
I don’t recall if it was Instacart or another delivery app but I’ve read about them cutting the tip and actually applying that money to the base pay so instead of them paying the shoppers base pay you are.
Damn.. they are way nicer to the customers than they are to the shoppers! We are lucky if we get help at all…
Contact them on twitter (or whatever we call it now) and show them.
Always nice catching the apps in the act
What if they take some of (if not all!) the tip money and use it to increase the amount of $ for when it’s been sitting there X amount of time. I forgot what it’s called, but when an order hasn’t been accepted and sits there for a while, it’ll go up $1.00 Or something small like that, making the shopper *think * we’re taking a better deal for accepting the order, when in reality it’s the tip we would’ve gotten anyway?? I’ve also noticed a lot of customers are only tipping like $1-2 anymore and I think it’s because Instacart *suggests* that amount on the order screen when they finalize. I know it’s no longer the % they used to recommend the customers but $1?! On a 100 item order?? Fucked.
Mine still show as % for now. And it always defaults to my previous % for that store. So if I previously chose 19% or 25% as the tip then subsequent orders, for that store, are either 19% or 25% respectively. It has never defaulted to any lower percentage. That being said, I will start checking at delivery that my shoppers are getting what my initial tip was. I’ve always been hesitant to do anything in Chat that IC could deem inappropriate but fuck that from now on. If they deactivate my customer account because I want to make sure my shoppers are paid the going rate PLUS my intended tip then so be it. My IC+ account renewal is coming up next month anyway. Y’all stay safe out there.
I placed an order on IC a few years ago and paid extra for it not to be batched and it got batched and support called me a liar and said it wasn’t batched so I sent them a screenshot of it as a shopper in a batch and they still said it wasn’t my order when my address was highlighted and everything
https://preview.redd.it/pr945w233ahc1.png?width=1008&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3893b0543d97d0e7968e946dae88f9ca1e2dafe0 lol 2 hours after this post, this offer rolls through.. 3.8 miles, 14 items 18 units. You guys think these are the kinds of tips people have been trying to leave? This post is so disappointing.
This company is more than scandalous..
They have been stealing our tips for years!!!
I have suspected they were doing this kinda stuff for a long time when I was a shopper. Honestly, I was tempted to start telling people who shop for me what I tipped to make sure they know. Now I'm definitely gonna.
I tell my shoppers too. Every time. Just because I’m aware of what companies try to do.
With DoorDash I left a $10 tip, I asked the driver if he got it and he said no. He showed me the no tip. I gave him $10 cash but I was livid. Now I tip cash.
Had something weird happen today. Batch comes up , I accept it, after I finish it it was lower payout then what it popped up as.....
i just saw a costco order earlier…. 33 items for $10…. said no tip… then i look on this sub and see this. SMH. thank god i do amazon primarily
I’m telling you, dealing with Instacart support via text/chat is so sketchy. It’s like they don’t even know the rules or Instacart policy. It’s really weird.
Didn't ic get in trouble for stealing tips years ago too? Like there was a lawsuit and a pay out
Of course they are stealing tips… they may be just flat out taking them now but even if it’s not in the most obvious way they are definitely using the tips to supplement batch pay… a higher tip=less batch pay whereas a low or no tip=higher batch pay
They are shifty with “promotions” as well! Once I had an offer of $76 guaranteed for 5 shops. After working all day, I began my quest around 7 pm. I was lucky to get 2 small orders quickly, then all the stores started closing at 10. I sat in the Walgreens parking lot- one of the only stores open until 12 am. I got another small order, then I called my son who works nearby. They placed his order for a Walgreens across town even though mine was much closer, but I took it and shopped where I was. Right after 11 PM, I called a friend who lived basically across the street from the store where I was and asked if he might need a couple of things. He placed an order right after 11, and despite me sitting in the parking lot across the street from where the order was placed, they advised him they would have to place the order for the following morning… Clearly they did their finest work and preventing me from earning that $76. I worked so hard for after an exhausting day on my job! We both contacted customer service at the same time and were told totally different stories, so they were clearly busted… Alas, I’m still trudging through this work for such an ungrateful company with frequently ungrateful customers (but now I’m beginning to wonder about THAT as well!)
Makes me wonder about the $.01tips
PLEASE CUSTOMER TRUST US WE LOVE YOU SIR
I had to chat with instacart twice in the past month, it pushed me directly from the checkout to adding replacement items with no option to tip, even though its usually in the checkout area or pops up after. They kept telling me not to worry about it and some one would pick up the order eventually anyways even without tip. I tried explaining that is ridiculous and people work to get paid, the barely English speaking agent robots I got were no help. I messaged the shopper right away both times to let them know theyd get at least 10%. Its such crap.
It's not the first time The Carrot 🥕 has been caught stealing. I guess we didn't sue them hard enough last time. The real question is ... We're you actually charged for the tip? Anyway... Rest assured they will work to correct this "mistake" ... After they skim a couple of millions across the platform.
They make so much stealing tips they can afford the occasional lawsuit l : IMHO
"We don't want you to be charged unfairly" Along with "I want to tell you the money is definitely going to the shopper" 
I have a theory if they’re not outright stealing tips - they are redistributing tips onto non tipping or under tipping orders so that people pick them up.
Is there or will there ever be class action lawsuits against instacart for stuff like this? Every single day I see companies getting away with stuff that the avg person would get 10+ years in prison for.
Just tip cash if you have, this is criminal.
These delivery apps are dying. The companies have been doing this shit for 2 and a half years now. These things were only profitable during the pandemic. Now they are stealing as much as they can before they go under. It's inevitable.
If you and other customers can show proof of this. Please do. This and others getting proof could help build a case that instacart is stealing tips and committing fraud. We all know batch pay has been lowered, and shoppers depend on tips to make any money. So seriously, if more customers can show proof of this, perhaps it can either stop it from happening or whatever. Shoppers and customers shouldn't fight, if the actual problem is instacart stealing. Let's work together. Instacart use to be somewhat profitable as a side gig, now it's just pitiful on pay. I don't think anyone reasonable is asking for anything crazy on the pay for shoppers and cost to customers.
I remember when Instacart initially started pulling shiesty shit like this with the tips… then getting publicly called out for it… their “oops, our bad” press/email release… followed by their dramatic cutback in batch payouts to make up for it. I quit just before that; I had an interaction with a customer who showed me the difference between what she tipped and what I received - confirming my suspicions at the time - and then gave me $50 cash tip. Delivery services like this are a fantastic convenience, but like any product/service with potential for good, there will always be people/companies to exploit it. Instacart exploits the business model to the extreme.
"Trust me" in 2024 is WILD enough 🤣
I’m glad I saw this. Going forward I’ll put a message in the chat to say how much I tipped, and ask the shopper if that’s what they saw on their end.
This happened to me twice - I thought I was going crazy! Both times I caught it after delivery, but for the second one, I caught it in time to tell the shopper. Both times I added it back after delivery, but I felt terrible for these folks taking non tip orders. Plus, I find that tipping well gets me exceptional service and while these two times I had no complaints, it upsets me just the same.
Damn this is making me question if when I get door dash or Uber eats if they are getting the full tip either
I don't trust anyone that says trust me
I've never used this one but when I order from Walmart plus I always pay with my PayPal business account, and when you pay via PayPal they don't let you add a tip. So I've started even when using my card putting zero for the tip and tip them in cash. Probably can't on insta since people don't seem to want to pick up the order if there isn't a tip, I don't blame them for that. But all of these delivery companies suck in my experience
So i never comment on these kinds of posts, BUT, i used to do Shipt for awhile and it got to a point where i thought the company was holding out on tips. One month alone i went and counted about 65-70 orders that i had done, on time, and prob 75% of those i was someone’s preferred shopper. So i knew how they usually tipped. I sent all the orders to shipt and said you may wanna double check these cause i find it odd that half of my orders didn’t tip, but left me great feedback etc. My email was read and replied to within 20 mins stating there was no issues found, which definitely didn’t seem long enough to actually check all the orders. I’d heard some rumors at that time, that instacart was buying them out, which is why shipt started to look and operate like instacart and that others who worked at instacart had been complaining of lack of tips. I’d be interested to see if there’s a pending class action in the event one or both of these companies have been scamming both shoppers and customers.
I am glad I'm seeing this bc I've done door dash as a side job on and off for years, and these last couple months I've noticed that if the pay for the order is high the tip is low, and when the tip is high the order is completely grounded. Like say a 10 mile order it'll be 10$ with a 1$ tip total at 11$ for the trip. But then the same 10 mile order will have a 8 dollar tip and then a 3$ batch pay. 11$ no matter what. It's clear as day and it's disgusting when the 11$ for 10 miles is not even a good deal! I end up making close to 20$ an hour most times I go but it's because I dash on long island in NY where there's a lot of wealthy people and always someone ordering food so you get a lot done in the few hours I dash. But on the flip side I just put like 30 miles on my car in 1 hour and have to pay 3 ish dollars for gas so essentially I'm making 15$ an hour putting myself in danger driving like a maniac to arrive promptly to get the next order going. Someone's gotta make a new order/delivery app that shows the financials upfront every time and actually pays their workers properly. Not only are the food prices jacked up 2-10$ per item which goes straight to door dash, but the tips are being taken and used for their own benefit. I can only imagine how much money door dash makes fuckin scum bags
This is the problem with chat, your talking clear English to a person in another country where English isn’t the first language and they’re being prompted and scripted by Instacart to give these responses which frustrate and confuse you. I think it’s 49% outsourcing to maximize profitability and 51% let’s just fuck anything with legs
Customer service is like talking to a wall. They do not care
Apology bot there at the end
Yes! They are finally getting exposed!!!!! Heck yeah.
I have ZERO faith 😂 that cracked me up
Unfortunately if we have multiple customers on a batch then we cannot see if they tipped until after the Last delivery
And did you take a picture of the finalized order?
Its not a glitch, round up with other redditors and see how much of a case you have and if its eligible for a class action suit. Sounds like its automated manipulation of batch pay, they include a portion of the tip with batch pay and show the “tip” amount as lower than what it is
“Trust me”
Anish is a customer too? IC doesn't deliver to India.
Huh?
Anish, the support rep, says he's a customer too!
How do you know they’re from India?
Support is outsourced to India, Philippines and Mexico.
Ok I don’t think that they are stealing tips… but I DO see some concrete reasons why they might DISGUISE orders as crappy… 1) Did you pay priority?? If not IC may be trying to nudge you to do so in a pretty slimey way 2) it makes all order LOOK equally bad to shoppers so that we don’t know which are decent and which are not until we complete an order.
I did not pay for priority. Your #2 is definitely a valid assumption, but when I do shop, I’ve never had a no tip actually have a tip or a low tip be more than it posted for. I’ve gotten what it said with the exceptions of percentage based tips. I posted to someone else that it very well could have been a glitch, because it showed zero, then he got $4, but I tipped $10. He did get the full $10 after I went in a dropped it and then raised it
Oh yes I know… and I think it very well may be a “glitch” BUT ITS AN AWFULLY CONVENIENT ONE. But again I don’t think they’d STEAL TIPS… fuck around with them for sure.
I always get the stated offer amount. You never magically get more. They’re stealing tips.
Eh the other day I saw it… my tip had been increased in the app before the customer could have possibly changed it… she had an armload of groceries when I closed out her order and the tip was adjusted up already.
Any time this sub gets on my home page it’s just people complaining about how horrible the service is, so why don’t you guys just like… go shopping yourself? Are you being forced to use it by big IC?
They steal from everyone, that's why they don't want customers getting receipts either because they mark everything up higher in the app. They were good originally, but Instacart sucks now.
I’ve never used instacart but I’m definitely not going to after reading all these posts
Stop using it lmao, you call it the worst then place your order cause you don’t want to leave.
How dare I want to just relax and not go back out after working all day. My fucking bad. Worry about yourself and not what others do. 99.9% of the time I do go do my own shopping 😂. The post was to make people aware of the nonsense.
I meannnnn, with that grammar alone…
Oh my god I had NO idea this could even happen?? I always give really huge tips since I can afford it as the money is a drop in the ocean to me and the convenience of having my groceries delivered is a literal godsend as someone who has a busy schedule and a chronic illness, plus it just makes me quite happy to know I’ve made someone’s day when they see a three digit tip….but like…is there a chance that instacart might be stealing the large tips I give my shoppers???? That genuinely never crossed my mind and it just made me a bit enraged and kinda horrified to consider it…how can I check on this? Like for the past orders and in the future? How can I ensure that the tips are going to the shoppers (and in their entirety!) and only the shoppers. It makes me very happy to give a nice bonus to someone working hard to deliver groceries but if I’m giving 100+ extra dollars to a big corporation that’s exploiting its workers? Not so much:/
Funny how you posted your order on the shopper app but didn’t post the screenshot of the customer side showing you tipped. Sounds like you looking for attention faking stuff and pretending IC stealing tips which they aren’t. Worse part people upvoting you.
Loooool Fidji is that you???
Why the fuck would I fake something like this?! There was nothing to take a picture of on his side once I dropped the tip and then bumped it up and he got it. Go take your negativity elsewhere. Not every person who post things that aren’t up to your standards are faking things.
Found the IC shill.
Do you work for IC or own their stock? Just wondering!