Woman says Instacart shoppers bought groceries for themselves

While Instacart has allowed customers to have groceries delivered with ease, some users claim that drivers have stolen or altered their orders.

In 2022, a woman on TikTok went viral after claiming that an Instacart shopper tried to add additional items to her order and mistakenly marked it as delivered. Later in the year, another user claimed that an Instacart driver ran away with her order while she was in the middle of Thanksgiving preparations.

Now, another user on TikTok has sparked a discussion after claiming an Instacart shopper used her $200 Kroger order as an excuse to shop for herself.

In a video with over 48,000 views, TikTok user Rachael (@hairandhay) shares her expected Instacart yield of 55 items, before revealing what she thinks the shopper bought and kept instead.

She tried buying things like cat food, fresh veggies, and Pedialyte Freezer Pops, but her Instacart shopper instead bought things like laundry detergent, which she’s allergic to, men’s deodorant, chips, and dum dums.

@hairandhay At least they have what matters. Dum Dums 🍭 #instacart #instacartscam #instacarthaul #groceryhaul #greenscreen ♬ Chill Vibes – Tollan Kim

“Then they marked my order as complete and delivered, but of course they didn’t even come to my house and didn’t provide the photo they were supposed to have,” she explained in a comment.

In response, Rachael says she reached out to Instacart.

“Instacart told me they would be banned from ever delivering to my house again and I thought, ‘Shouldn’t they be banned from delivering to anyone’s house considering they have 200 something worth of groceries right now stole from the grocery store? ? They will just be able to keep going.”

Rachael claims in another comment that Instacart issued a refund even though she hadn’t received it by January 23 – 3 days after the video was posted.

She also says that she is still not sure how the whole process will be resolved on Instacart’s side.

“I’m not confident that this person will be completely banned from Instacart,” she wrote. “Your protocol for this [is] unclear to me.”

Other commenters expressed disbelief that something like this could happen.

“As an Instacart buyer, I think this is crazy! It makes me sad because people will stop using it when there are still really good buyers out here,” wrote one user.

“I’m so sorry as an IC buyer this happened to you, I didn’t even know buyers could do all this,” added another. “Your support is rubbish and I hope you get your money back!”

“As a buyer of a 5 star diamond cart, I am sorry. I don’t even understand how that happens. You need to get rid of these people,” repeated a third.

The Daily Dot contacted Instacart and Rachael via email.

We crawl the web so you don’t have to.

Sign up for the Daily Dot newsletter to get the best and worst of the web delivered to your inbox every day.