An Instacart shopper’s claim that the grocery delivery service’s customer service arm canceled an order she had already completed just to spite her has drawn over 57,000 views on TikTok.
User Shazz Rey (@shazzrey) says she was retaliated against for giving honest feedback and locked out of her account for 24 hours, resulting in lost wages as she was prevented from working.
“Tonight I was working on a number of orders and they were going amazingly before I started shopping at Aldi,” she says. “There are a lot of rules you have to follow and when questions come up you contact Instacart support. As it gets later in the evening this changes from people who are in California to people who have English as a second language and they’re in remote call centers. I work late at night often, so I often end up with people who really don’t understand.”
@shazzrey It was a rough night #instacart #instacartshopper #instacartdelivery #deliverydriver #aldi #aldis #aldishopping #shopper #help #fyp #fypシ ♬ original sound – Shazz Rey
One of these rules that she says she had to follow is the exclusive use of $0.10 paper bags at Aldi. However, as the store was sold out of those bags, Rey had to get special permission to use the $0.98 bags, so that there would be no alarm for the extra cost. When she called Instacart support, she says her call was not answered, putting strain on the Aldi employee at checkout whose work is timed.
As her calls went unanswered, she says she reached out to Instacart support via text for permission to use the more expensive bags or find another solution. Once she reached a member of the support team, she says the customer service representative began addressing concerns about trying to reach a customer, which was not what she had been communicating. Hoping to reach a different representative to better assist her, Rey says she ended the chat and gave feedback that she did not feel that he understood what she was saying, to the effect that she did not believe he understood English.
“I didn’t mean that in a mean way, it was just a purely functional—this added more stress to a stressful situation by his inability to understand the prompt,” she explains.
Rey was eventually able to reach another customer representative who gave her approval to use the more expensive bags. However, after she had completed the order, the previous representative for whom she had shared negative feedback canceled the order. She says this is the third time this has happened to her.
In canceling her order, Rey claims the representative effectively caused her to be locked out of her account as an Instacart shopper, increased her cancelation rate as if she herself had declined the order, and prevented her from being paid for that delivery. She says she was directed to return everything she had purchased for the order, despite the store being closed. After contacting a supervisor within the support department, the supervisor was able to verify that the order had been canceled “for no reason.”
“This puts us in the impossible position of having to give dishonest feedback or face the retaliation of the support representatives who have the power to enforce and supervise themselves,” she says.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Rey via TikTok direct message as well as to Instacart directly via email regarding the video.
Some viewers who also work as Instacart shoppers shared that they had similar experiences while working.
“I work for IC and I really think that they need ONLY USA based support reps,” one commenter wrote. “I’ve been in your position a few times.”
“That’s awful,” another stated. “I continuously use ‘there was a clear language barrier and unfortunately my issue remained unsolved’ because of this reaction.”
“Instacart full on deactivated my wife’s account when she had nothing negative in her history with no notice, no reason and no further response,” a third claimed.
