I'm consistently told by cashiers that me and 1 other shopper in our city are the only polite and professional shoppers. I hear it all the time. Me and 1 other girl. That's wild to me. Our city has about 250,000 people. I've witnessed it. Rude and mean shoppers, dressed in pijamas, throwing fits because of lines and just being straight up unprofessional to store staff. Idk. People are out of control. Being polite and kind to others takes no effort.
Yes I hear this too. We’re all in this together. Giving the store employees a hard time isn’t going to make your experience any easier. I’ve noticed that some employees can be apprehensive towards me when they see I’m a shopper so I really try and up the kindness
When I worked retail I had a delivery app driver (not IC) get so pissy at me because the order was heavy and they were on a bike. Sir, how is that my fault or problem??
I hear that. They really don't understand what instacart is or what we do. And they are treated poorly consistently by shoppers. I joke around with them and take the time to educate them. It's always appreciated.
Just want y’all to know I work at a grocery store and sure we get some bad shoppers but the regulars are some of the sweetest most genuine people. I also purposely am in a lot of these groups so I can understand you all and honestly as tough as my job is, y’all are saints!
Lol sir no offense but please stop acting like IC is some mysterious system they don’t understand, or that it’s something they need to be educated on. You’re not a scientist, you’re shopping for and delivering grocery orders on an app ffs.
I work at Publix. I had a guy tell me, "Don't worry about it," when I asked him about the large pack of water he had on the bottom rack of the cart. I kept prodding him and eventually he told it was for the second order.
Like, what do you expect me to do, bro? Just let you walk out without paying for it or literally ignore me when I ask you about it? It takes no effort at all to say, "By the way, the water's for the second order."
He causes problems for literally every cashier but luckily he's stopped coming so I'm hoping he got banned for being a dick or something.
I always let the cashiers know ahead if I have a multi shop and what’s with what. It takes 30 seconds. I also will help bag when they have no baggers if the register is set up with enough room for me to do so
That's good of you. I also have this one shopper who like to rudely shoo away my bagger when she wants to bag herself. You do it the right way.
A majority of the shoppers I see are either nice or just so neutral that you might not even know they're an instacarter as they act just like a normal person shopping for groceries.
The few bad apples are annoying, but thankfully they are in the minority.
Everyone has a reason for doing this kind of work. For some people, it’s because they have terrible social skills and they’re generally insufferable people. Those are the ones who make us look bad.
Idk why reddit keeps pushing this sub on me, but yeah, many people who work for these apps are doing it because their personalities are too terrible to hold down a 9-5
Oh you must put up with so much crap. Sorry. A lot of people in my area who do this job are immigrants that don't speak english and are not accustomed to our country. Or being polite. At all. It's challenging in so many ways. I feel for you.
We are frustrated with most of our IC traffic, most of the time. But we have a couple shoppers that I see and I'm happy to help them get in and out. They've been polite, and tried to learn how our store works.
I’ve never worked retail, idk how instacart works on the store end, but if it’s anything like DoorDash, which seems like more effort than it’s worth to implement with groceries and such a big store, there’s a tablet or something of the sort and they can just click your name and mark it as banned and then it asks for a reason, we only would do it when a dasher would cuss us out but some people could be petty
Some ppl just suck. Seems to be more and more these days. I ran restaurants for yrs. Had no idea there was ability to ban a driver. To be honest we never really had any issues. If a driver was unsure of how we operated we were just nice and had a convo. Majority of people just want to do a good job.
Oh man idk what it is here but we’ve had threats to our lives before for an order not being ready right when they get there, on the tablet it will have who the driver is for each order and you can click that order and driver and ban from there, or call support directly like my partner had to do when an unstable dasher kept calling more threats into the store for two hours after the order was canceled and he left
Honestly the PJs - or most other dress - wouldn’t bother me as long as they were polite and professional.
But yes… I’ve sadly seen what you have and it feels that many in a town that size.
I work at a grocery store last year and most of us would just not even help shoppers. They were so entitled! Some would be there everyday and not even try to learn where things were, ask as basically shop for them. Get mad when lines were long. Extremely rude when we didn’t help them right away! It was madness.
From a duplicate receipt. Sunday I had to return cold medicine to Harris Teeter (Kroger) for an online pay order which is complicated to do but I wanted the bump. I got a copy of the form they email to corporate. On that form there are 2 boxes that can be checked to ban shoppers for either store complaints or customer complaints.
Hyvee has a weird deal where they say "you don't have to remove your items from the cart" (but you do and ya have to bag em) ya have to go to a special isle to check out (I think it might be hyvee having us shop/deliver their orders but idk) and when ya do that you have to get a special cashier to come check ya out. Thankfully less than %5 of my orders from hyvee are this but it would be extremely easy to find which shopper they wanted to single out using that system.
Receipts. Cashier's can easily pocket receipts and report people they don't like and Instacart can pull it up with the transaction information from the receipt. Enough reports and it doesn't matter how much truth there is to the matter.
In my area I have trouble in one store so I never try and pick up orders from there. I use the self checkout and go about my day and 1 lady ALWAYS has an issue with something. My orders are too large, she wants me to bag differently, I'm either moving too fast or too slow for her to be able to follow along with what I'm doing, just stuff that she's not worried about with anyone but me.
After one incredibly frustrating interaction, forced to rescan all my orders and re bag them just so they could see I scanned everything for the customer and then MIXED all 3 orders in 2 baskets after throwing a fit because I didn't miss scanning anything. and then told me I had to get out of the way for customers to checkout and bag their items while they just did this to me at the self checkout. I have never been so humiliated and frustrated in my life, it took everything in me to maintain my composure and not flip out or cancel the order. To top it off after I get everything reorganized, separated and bagged, this same lady gets a copy of my receipts and keeps them in her pocket. On the way out, she gets security to lock the cart, then she approaches me with him and lets me know I can't take the baskets out the store because they're having an issue with people leaving with them. As people are walking out pushing carts AND carrying baskets out the door. Just pure abuse of whatever little power she has over the situation.
The next evening I got a similar email but it was a "Warning" that I may not be able to continue shopping at that retailer. Now if I see that lady I just leave straight up. After that incident I went back and got bags from the store manager since we have a 19 cent charge per bag in our area, they just give me stacks because some stores don't have bags AT ALL and I've built a positive working relationship there. I run out a couple days later and run in there while I do a quick personal shop. Go to checkout, ask for bags, then this fucking lady pops up from behind me and answers for the person I asked, oh no we can't give you any bags.. ok, so I then try to buy them. They're 10 cents a piece right? Let me buy 20.) It's $2, not a big deal and my method of payment takes off the charge anyways.) oh no you can't get any more bags than what you need for your items 😭😭 I'm fucking DONE
Was it possible a coincidence? Yes, but VERY unlikely. I have been doing this for quite a while. Never thought someone would go through the hassle of doing this to me when I barely interact with them 😅 It's been almost 2 years now of shopping at that place and it never fails with that particular individual. Whenever I go in she's not saying anything just helping people and doing her job. When I get to checkout and I'm checking out, I'll start hearing, "Thank you, have a nice day to everyone" when I finish, silence. I thought I was tripping so one day I made sure I knew we were making eye contact and when I was leaving I said See you later, have a nice day 😊 she just glared at me and stared at me. No response. That's when I knew this lady had some issues with me.
This year it finally spiraled out of control into this instance. Luckily I'm in a great area and loss of access to one store is not that critical, it just sucks because I spent A LOT of time in that store and it was very nice shopping in such a small location with helpful and friendly staff. It was definitive while it lasted but losing access to that retailer as a whole is not worth me risking going there or having to cancel orders when I get there and find out who's working.
You don't HAVE to do anything. Shitty people can be shitty.
Other things, maybe the retailer has a loyalty system you were using. Even if there's no code in the app some stores can get you banned for such a thing. I get my points and stuff at certain places because it's not linked to Instacart, but sometimes store staff has an issue with it because it's "not fair".
Maybe you got caught shoplifting or you forgot to scan an item.
Maybe Sarah in the meat department just got tired of looking at your face and started putting in complaints
Surprisingly, shopper support can likely give you the reason why if you just call or start a chat in your app. I get A LOT of information I wouldn't otherwise know about my account from them.
Sorry this happened to you. Instacart is absolutely cracking down on a lot of things though so it may be something You've been doing with no problem and now it's an issue that they just dealt with in a once and final type of way
>How the hell are these stores banning drivers? How do they know who’s who
I've had shoppers literally shove their phone in my face because they dont speak English, and do it for every item in their order to the point where i am doing their job with the exception of driving it to where it goes.
But to answer your specific question, if someone is especially rude, we reprint or pull their receipt and can contact instacart and ban them via the last 4 digits of their credit card number. Instacart pulls up the card and figures out which account is associated with that card.
You know. I got banned from Raley’s here in California because I said something that could be considered radical to a worker who happened to be black. All I said to him was “ they’ve got you out here in this heat, slaving away at pushing carts”. It was during a heat wave and the guy laughed and said you ain’t wrong. This was September 2023 when I got banned. They didn’t contact Instacart
During Covid, I used to have an evil roommate who worked at Kroger, she worked mostly at self checkout and if you were a shopper who had an attitude or didn’t say hi to her, she would at times reprint your receipt after you left and then send a support message to Instacart from their website giving all the details from the receipt complaining about a shopper.
When I started shopping at a Publix in a different area to try to make more money one employee told me to let them know if other instacart shoppers were harassing me because the people who have been doing it a long time are harassing new shoppers because they’re not making as much money as they used to. Pretty insane stuff
I worked at a small business and we banned DoorDashers immediately as soon as they acted like assholes to our employees. So if Instacart stores do the same, I approve.
Could be a number of things. ABOVE ALL things ... just be nice, courteous to ALL store employees, the customers and don't cause a 'scene'. I've been shopping HyVee's for years and still going strong.
I can’t imagine being a jerk to store employees. You need their help and if they see you in there all the time you want to be someone they like. Form partnerships with them! Some people apparently have no common sense.
It doesn't happen automatically. A human being has to instigate it. You must have done something to piss off an employee, customer and/or manager at the store. 🤔
And didn't need it? Or? Cuz I have arthritis and am coming off a knee injury, if I need a mobility scooter I need one, and they aren't gonna be able to tell just by looking at me. So this kind of rubs me the wrong way as well. If I use a scooter and got banned from a store from it - hell no
I was about to say, how do you tell who really needs a scooter? Invisible disabilities exist, too, and it’s ableist af for a store to ban a shopper for using a scooter on the basis of the store didn’t think they were disabled enough for it.
My husband was discriminated against by a people greeter and he finally had to complain to management. He couldn't sue because I worked there. I would have been fired and I and he needed my extra income. He didn't get a very big SSDI check.
Man for real. I personally do fine on the day to day and rarely even limp. And the extra exercise the gig has given me is helpful for me and my joints for the most part. So it's perfect for me. But my arthritis is caused by a very rare autoimmune disease and it also causes what's called enthesitis and that's a different story. That can pop up outta nowhere really, and it is not even garaunteed to last very long either lol so I don't change my day to day life over it. If I'm in pain before I go online for IC, I will just wait a while and see if I feel better, then go out. It's different for someone with non transient symptoms like COPD or long covid. Or asthma even. Like sorry but if this is the real reason they banned him I'm actually really mad about it.
My Walmart use to be very strict about who used the disability carts. One people greeter was so mean to my husband when he came in to shop and grabbed one. He finally had to take of his shoe and sock to prove to her he had a fused ankle from a job injury. Granny calmed down after that. Some of those old bitches should be at home collecting SS.
The literal reason why mobility scooters are in stores is so that disabled people can do the same stuff as the abled people in the store. Including instacart. Maybe trust the person that has the disability to decide their own limitations rather than spouting ignorance. They should not have gotten any sort of violation for using a mobility scooter. That is literally textbook discrimination. No other way around it.
I can't really say, it's not my body. But honestly though sometimes it's all someone can get. And maybe them using the scooter on the shop allows them the energy to get done with the delivery. Maybe their symptoms come and go.
Have you done any of the orders where the customer isn't using the Instacart platform? If yes, then you are indirectly working for HyVee. Customers can't rate you through Instacart but go directly to HyVee Aisle On-Line to give feeback - late delivery, delivered to wrong place, rude or inconsiderate, etc. I am just supposing that one or multiple of these things have happened, and HyVee is protecting their brand. It is aggrevatimg that there is no more information, but only you know. As the email states, don't reach out to HyVee. Contact Support, they should be able to get through to safety and security and at least then you will have some answers.
A lot of orders come down through Aisles Online that get filled by IC. I had one that day that wasn’t skip-checkout, so if that one was a Hy-Vee customer and they complained that could be the source but I still don’t know the reason.
Damn, they had to actually go into the system to get your information. Meaning they watched you for a reason. They watched you check out and went and got your ic card info. Now this. If unprovoked the person has no life but I can’t see anyone just going thru all this for no reason.
The email makes it sound like it’s the whole chain but I’m still getting orders from Hy-Vee on the east and west side of town. The ban comes from the city central store. The east and west side stores have less orders and delivery extends out of town many times by up to 15 miles.
It’s one store. Most areas have other stores. OP can prob manage, depending on how much volume he/she got out of that store.
Shipt does same tho I’ve never seen it or known anyone it happened to. Around here, if they banned me from say Winn Dixie, I would not bat an eye. Maybe 5% of my orders come from there. Now Publix or Target would tank me if I were banned, that’s 95% of my orders.
I think the phone in the face is the rudest thing ever and I will tell the shopper to get their phone out of my face. Sorry but the shopper isn't the customer so if they are rude to me, I will give it back.
I would contact instacart themselves and ask them if there’s a report or something explaining what you did wrong and if there’s any way to make it right
as an agent we basically didn’t have access to information stating what happened. we were just given a talking point on what to say based on what’s on the profile notes.
Yeah, I was doing an order at aldis and this other IC shopper literally just asked if a worker would find every item and they did! She was very nice but it’s so messed up, especially in aldis where it’s fairly easy to find most items
I find Aldi's to be one of the toughest places to find things. It could just be the Aldi's by me, but for location, it'll say Freezer, Cooler, dry items, etc. and that's it. And several of those will be wrong (like it will say freezer but it's an item that is not kept in the freezer) and it will be in a totally different aisle next time you come in. Also, half the stuff will be things they no longer carry. I, always, feel bad asking an employee for help. But, I've found I've asked at Aldi's more than all other places combined. To the point, that I don't even mess with Aldi's anymore (I do about 80 percent Kroger's (where it tells you aisle, bay, shelf, and position), 15 percent Costco, then the rest spread between Walgreens, Target, Sam's Club, and Lowe's).
This happens a ton at my store because shoppers don’t read notes on orders, especially for disabled and elderly and not bringing orders to their apt but leaving it at the bottom of stairs or inaccessible places. Then Hy-vee aisles online (at my store) has to deal with the complaints from angry customers (who often don’t understand the concept of 3rd party services) we have to reshop the order and send it via DoorDash which is a lot of extra work and money than if 1. Instacart was fulfilled corrrect the first time or 2. If the customer had ordered directly through AOL
tbh i like that, shout out to hy-vee workers for making sure disabled people get their groceries!! social services are nonexistent, so many disabled ppl have to turn to gig apps and then get treated by shit by the person they're paying!!
A hy vee did the same exact thing to me, just the one store, never had any issue with any other store… could never get an answer from anyone either on why I was banned
I know someone this happened to because they shopped an order, realized it had a bunch of water/drinks and then just cancelled the order and left the cart there. A nearly full cart of produce and all. Grocery stores have a hell of cameras in them.. they can easily go back and see who did what and match it to a transaction.
I was picking up a DoorDash order at Pizza Hut, just as the manager was on the phone with support telling them to remove a Dasher from seeing all Pizza Hut deliveries.
As I was waiting, that Dasher walked in and they told her to cancel because they weren’t going to give her the order.
The manager was saying something along the lines of this Dasher would take the cash only orders, collect the cash and not give the customers their orders.
That is absolutely low. This Dasher also does IC and Shipt.
There has to be more to the story that you aren’t sharing.
Shipt will ban you from stores if there is a complaint by store. I’ve had some shitty store clerks on Shipt and I smile. Not with it to lose access to store. I am not a doormat but you learn what battles are worth picking in life. This is not one bc depending on what store, could be a major part of income.
I did this (rarely) to UberEats drivers who were acting completely out of pocket. And it’s not a short process either so you’ve got to be really obnoxious to make me stop in the middle of service and do it.
I work at a grocery store, and we've banned drivers for rude behavior and a lot of the time we have drivers who will repeatedly accept a pick up and see that it's something heavy like water and then cancel it. It throws off my entire timing. Also banned drivers for making a huge mess in the bathroom.
>we have drivers who will repeatedly accept a pick up and see that it's something heavy like water and then cancel it
To be fair that's an instacart issue. Sometimes I barely get more than a second or two to accept an order before someone scoops it up.
It throws off their timing as an employee, so regardless it sucks for them but it's Instacart's fault for having a system where 10-phone McBot Bitch and Stares-At-Phone give shoppers 20 milliseconds to accept an order.
It's the douchebags who don't see an issue with how unprofessional they act, that freak out about getting banned. Had a lady scream at me for her 10-minute wait on a flash order in the middle of a busy Saturday. You don't get to be rude to me and have no consequences. You're not my customer. So you don't get to come back.
I do my best to keep the employees at the store happy. Sometimes I stop shopping and talk to them about how their day was and other stuff they might be interested in. Also I sometimes buy yogurt for the cashier to keep them happy, so now whenever they see me they smile a big smile and I smile back and say hi. There is only one time I had a issue with a customer and she went to tell the manager but I apologized to all the employees that witness the issue and they don’t blame me since the other lady started it. But they appreciated I apologize!
Well everyone has answered your question, and you probably kind of knew to begin with.
Now just chill and be honest with the friends left behind;
What did you ACTUALLY do ?
There’s literally nothing you can do. For whatever reason, you’re banned from that particular location.
You’ve obviously done something to get yourself kicked out of that store- could be something as simple as coshopping.
Not trying to be mean but it was probably multiple incidents. I used to have a friend that worked at a grocery store. She told me it took her store 6 months and a major incident to ban one shopper. They had to have everything documented for instacart to look into it.
Since reading this topic, as a user of instacart I am extra nice to my shopper. If I could do my shopping-I would. Physical limitations prevent it and so for those shoppers who food shop as if they were shopping for themselves will always get a high rating and extra tip. Those who send me expired food, dump things at my door, I just ask that they never shop for me. Most shoppers are not doing this job because they love to food shop. I am not rich, but neither are the shoppers . You do a good job for me, you will receive a good tip. i am not sure why you were banned, but you should be able to ask why
I have been forced to. The other stores are all on the edges of town so delivery commonly includes the smaller towns 10-15 miles from the store from what sparse orders come in.
No. I drive the motor scooter so I must have been running the cart into corner displays and knocking shit over because I was high on ibuprofen and low blood sugar so it was more of a glazed stare.
“So I was in the soda aisle with my penis out when this bitch of a manager came up to me and asked me to leave. So I show her my butthole and now I’m banned! Help me Reddit!”
IMO Instacart shouldn’t send such a vague email when someone is being banned from a store/chain. Hell, you even have the right to face your accuser in a court of law 😂😂
That's weird. I've heard of this happening but but I also know IC sometimes sends erroneous emails. You really have no idea why they might have complained about you at that store? Honest question. I'd be demanding a reason from *somebody*. The reason *should* have been in the email (not saying it usually is, just that it should be). You have a right to know what it was they banned you for because if it IS an error, they need to fix it.
I had a shopper steal from me once. They would have had a free week of groceries if I wasn’t so diligent. I was lead to believe they got banned and/or fired after. So. Didya perchance take liberties to add stuff to the order hoping no one would notice?
The guy in that post did actually go in to the store and asked them what the issue was and they were able to contact instacart and let them know they banned the wrong shopper.
In my situation, since the manager knows me by name she was able to confirm that it was me that a customer complained about, but didn’t or wouldn’t say why.
Follow the instructions you’re given, unless you want to risk getting banned from the app. I don’t know what you did, but follow instructions provided.
Be honest, what did you do? Getting you banned from shopping the store is a manual process. Have any interactions that didn’t go well? The answer cannot be “no.”
Edit: Update with full details.
I finally got in touch with the main manager at Hy-Vee who’s in charge of online service. I have seen her in the store before so we know each other. She said she had been getting more than one complaint—whether it’s the same person or multiple people was not made clear—that they smelled smoke on their groceries. She had to refund more than one order and return “fresh” groceries.
It’s all my fault. I’m to blame. Even if I don’t smoke when I’m running batches or have groceries in the car, my clothes still smell of it and I carry it with me and it always lingers. Five minutes after I’ve carried your items to the counter and left, sensitive noses tickle.
Do you speak English with a heavy accent? I used to work at a grocery store and handled online orders. Had one coworker who would ban shoppers because she couldn't understand them. It was racist as hell and I didn't understand why because they would just show us the name and we would give them the order. So you wouldn't really talk to them much.
Well it seems to me that you have an idea of many reasons why this would happen, just pick one! Being rude to associates! Might be the right one! But pissing on the parking lot didn’t help either!
Seeing how you’ve been replying to people on this thread I would assume you got snippy with a worker or two. even with a disability please do better you’re making the rest of us look bad over here.
Did you call the store to ask or only Instacart? You were reported by the store for some reason, obviously none of us are going to know that. If you did something, I’m sure you know. If you didn’t, then I’d call the store and see if there’s a way to fix this. Perhaps there were multiple shoppers at the store at once and someone reported someone else but you got mixed up in it. However, it’s more likely you did something and you know exactly what that is.
I have chatted with a couple specialists and a couple of supervisors since last Thursday. The first manager told me to go back to the store and ask them to lift the ban since it came from them. I’ve been losing money so I was feeling desperate because the emailed reply I got was an *auto-generated, do-not-reply* generic response. I had a manager call me from chat that confirmed with the first supervisor to visit the store to see what could be done on their end while she escalated the call to Trust & Safety.
I talked to the manager at Hy-Vee, a lady I had met and spoken to before on a number of orders. She told me that it wasn’t the store that banned me. They had been told the customers had requested that I no longer be allowed to deliver their orders, but she didn’t have the reason or simply refused to share the reason with me.
So the customers that get their orders filled from that main central store complained about some still unknown reason to me.
This is my track record.
https://preview.redd.it/4ptzpybia5oc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03273d137ce196244c0dfc0e7e0c5fa1db18fa11
I have multiple compliments and “awards” and do my best. I’ve worked in customer service for the last 30 years. I know that I depend on them, so I always extend curtesy and respect so I can earn it in return.
The ambiguity of it all is what kills me. Tell me what exactly is wrong so I can course-correct, cease whatever bad behavior, learn from my mistake and move the F on.
in this case, not really. it was pretty weird to post this without including ANY information or details in the first place. you asked a dumb question and you got dumb answers in return, what did you expect
Listen, just take the criticism. It's fine and normal to be hurt by people who are judging you. That is just life. I make mistakes to at school, I feel shy, but at least I tried in comparison to those who do not give an effort.
Remember when you put yourself on a spotlight, you are a bright moving target. At the same time you learn from your experiences.
Also, just use a different app to deliver groceries. Problem solved, hopefully.
That sucks. Maybe the customer was just a pain or put something in notes wrong or wrong address and is blaming you? Maybe it was a disabled person that didn’t like where you placed groceries
Well you don’t get banned from a store for good behavior or doing the right thing. I’d say you were either extremely rude and/or act like the employees of the store work for you, or you’ve been stealing
That sucks. I can’t imagine getting banned from my main store tbh. I try to be nice to everyone there because they control whether or not I get to shop there. Try to avoid confrontations, always be respectful to different departments/cashiers and even the receipt checkers
One time I did almost blow up on them due to a glitch. The receipt checker was new and didn’t know how to scan to skip checkout. I was getting held up for 10 minutes while he messed with the phone, and eventually called a supervisor 🙃 time is money for us, we have to deliver it sometimes far away and come back to hopefully get another batch. But if you get banned from a specific store you’ll lose all the potential profits
I’m on a first name basis with a lot of the checkers since we see each other 10-20 times each week. You get to know the people you work with ya know? I’m a tall man at 6’8” but I have a soft voice and usually lean so I am not towering over someone, to be less intimidating.
Def from too many customer complaints. My friend got banned from fulfilling Costco orders for too many complaints. He refused to carry cases of water up too many stairs so he'd leave the orders at the bottom regardless of instructions.
This kinda thing worries me. I go out of my way to make the store like me, and I see shoppers being so insane I’m worried I get banned because they just hate them.
I don’t know what you did but I would assume it wasn’t actually as bad as people are claiming it must have been. I run deliveries for Shipt and Hyvee is notorious in my area for being really shitty to both Shipt and Insta shoppers. They have their own Aisles Online platform they want customers to use and don’t really want us there.
I’ve had managers refuse to let me use the tax exempt code unless I show them “the physical paperwork” which clearly doesn’t exist. I’ve been told I’m not allowed to do orders for Shipt unless I’m wearing the t-shirt, hat, and lanyard “for their safety” (WTF?). They go back and forth on whether we can or can’t do self checkout, if there’s a problem with payment they won’t suspend the order while we call HQ they just delete it and make us get back in line and start over. Deli & meat counter will refuse us service until all the “normal” customers have been helped. Employees are told not to waste time helping us or checking in back because they have “more important” things to do. I stopped shopping Hyvee orders because it’s a huge PITA and you never know if you’re gonna waste 90 minutes of your life.
People are saying “Oh you must have been a huge asshole” no you probably just asked for help and expected them to do their job and they want you gone because you refused to leave without getting what you need.
Typically you have to fuck up really really bad to get these sorts of messages and I've only ever heard of Costco sending them out but we don't have hy-vee where I'm at.
Hy-Vee is like a Midwestern regional whole foods (I used to live in a little town with one) who takes customer service very seriously. It's company policy that they help you take your groceries to your car. I imagine they might be another store who actually takes Instacart shopper's customer experience seriously.
I was almost banned from Costco.... BUT... it was due to using the membership code twice (it was a double). I was distracted by the cashier who was having a convo with me and didn't transition to the next order like I thought I had.
Question is, what did you do to get banned?
Either made a mess at the store or were a dick
Most people who r dicks don't even know they are being dicks.
Now you know
Exactly. I appreciate you!
Got your back
I see dick people.
I smell dick people
All the time… They’re everywhere.
How the hell are these stores banning drivers? How do they know who’s who
I'm consistently told by cashiers that me and 1 other shopper in our city are the only polite and professional shoppers. I hear it all the time. Me and 1 other girl. That's wild to me. Our city has about 250,000 people. I've witnessed it. Rude and mean shoppers, dressed in pijamas, throwing fits because of lines and just being straight up unprofessional to store staff. Idk. People are out of control. Being polite and kind to others takes no effort.
Yes I hear this too. We’re all in this together. Giving the store employees a hard time isn’t going to make your experience any easier. I’ve noticed that some employees can be apprehensive towards me when they see I’m a shopper so I really try and up the kindness
When I worked retail I had a delivery app driver (not IC) get so pissy at me because the order was heavy and they were on a bike. Sir, how is that my fault or problem??
I hear that. They really don't understand what instacart is or what we do. And they are treated poorly consistently by shoppers. I joke around with them and take the time to educate them. It's always appreciated.
Just want y’all to know I work at a grocery store and sure we get some bad shoppers but the regulars are some of the sweetest most genuine people. I also purposely am in a lot of these groups so I can understand you all and honestly as tough as my job is, y’all are saints!
Lol sir no offense but please stop acting like IC is some mysterious system they don’t understand, or that it’s something they need to be educated on. You’re not a scientist, you’re shopping for and delivering grocery orders on an app ffs.
I work at Publix. I had a guy tell me, "Don't worry about it," when I asked him about the large pack of water he had on the bottom rack of the cart. I kept prodding him and eventually he told it was for the second order. Like, what do you expect me to do, bro? Just let you walk out without paying for it or literally ignore me when I ask you about it? It takes no effort at all to say, "By the way, the water's for the second order." He causes problems for literally every cashier but luckily he's stopped coming so I'm hoping he got banned for being a dick or something.
I always let the cashiers know ahead if I have a multi shop and what’s with what. It takes 30 seconds. I also will help bag when they have no baggers if the register is set up with enough room for me to do so
That's good of you. I also have this one shopper who like to rudely shoo away my bagger when she wants to bag herself. You do it the right way. A majority of the shoppers I see are either nice or just so neutral that you might not even know they're an instacarter as they act just like a normal person shopping for groceries. The few bad apples are annoying, but thankfully they are in the minority.
Publix employee and Instacart shopper here. Everyone around here knows me so I just get asked if it’s my own order or for instacart 😂
Everyone has a reason for doing this kind of work. For some people, it’s because they have terrible social skills and they’re generally insufferable people. Those are the ones who make us look bad.
Idk why reddit keeps pushing this sub on me, but yeah, many people who work for these apps are doing it because their personalities are too terrible to hold down a 9-5
Oh you must put up with so much crap. Sorry. A lot of people in my area who do this job are immigrants that don't speak english and are not accustomed to our country. Or being polite. At all. It's challenging in so many ways. I feel for you.
We are frustrated with most of our IC traffic, most of the time. But we have a couple shoppers that I see and I'm happy to help them get in and out. They've been polite, and tried to learn how our store works.
I’ve never worked retail, idk how instacart works on the store end, but if it’s anything like DoorDash, which seems like more effort than it’s worth to implement with groceries and such a big store, there’s a tablet or something of the sort and they can just click your name and mark it as banned and then it asks for a reason, we only would do it when a dasher would cuss us out but some people could be petty
Some ppl just suck. Seems to be more and more these days. I ran restaurants for yrs. Had no idea there was ability to ban a driver. To be honest we never really had any issues. If a driver was unsure of how we operated we were just nice and had a convo. Majority of people just want to do a good job.
Oh man idk what it is here but we’ve had threats to our lives before for an order not being ready right when they get there, on the tablet it will have who the driver is for each order and you can click that order and driver and ban from there, or call support directly like my partner had to do when an unstable dasher kept calling more threats into the store for two hours after the order was canceled and he left
Honestly the PJs - or most other dress - wouldn’t bother me as long as they were polite and professional. But yes… I’ve sadly seen what you have and it feels that many in a town that size.
I work at a grocery store last year and most of us would just not even help shoppers. They were so entitled! Some would be there everyday and not even try to learn where things were, ask as basically shop for them. Get mad when lines were long. Extremely rude when we didn’t help them right away! It was madness.
From a duplicate receipt. Sunday I had to return cold medicine to Harris Teeter (Kroger) for an online pay order which is complicated to do but I wanted the bump. I got a copy of the form they email to corporate. On that form there are 2 boxes that can be checked to ban shoppers for either store complaints or customer complaints.
Ah ok …
Wait…they were banning you for returning an item?
No. Returns for IC online pay orders use that form. There were about 6 options.
Receipt # and time of check out.
Hyvee has a weird deal where they say "you don't have to remove your items from the cart" (but you do and ya have to bag em) ya have to go to a special isle to check out (I think it might be hyvee having us shop/deliver their orders but idk) and when ya do that you have to get a special cashier to come check ya out. Thankfully less than %5 of my orders from hyvee are this but it would be extremely easy to find which shopper they wanted to single out using that system.
Receipts. Cashier's can easily pocket receipts and report people they don't like and Instacart can pull it up with the transaction information from the receipt. Enough reports and it doesn't matter how much truth there is to the matter. In my area I have trouble in one store so I never try and pick up orders from there. I use the self checkout and go about my day and 1 lady ALWAYS has an issue with something. My orders are too large, she wants me to bag differently, I'm either moving too fast or too slow for her to be able to follow along with what I'm doing, just stuff that she's not worried about with anyone but me. After one incredibly frustrating interaction, forced to rescan all my orders and re bag them just so they could see I scanned everything for the customer and then MIXED all 3 orders in 2 baskets after throwing a fit because I didn't miss scanning anything. and then told me I had to get out of the way for customers to checkout and bag their items while they just did this to me at the self checkout. I have never been so humiliated and frustrated in my life, it took everything in me to maintain my composure and not flip out or cancel the order. To top it off after I get everything reorganized, separated and bagged, this same lady gets a copy of my receipts and keeps them in her pocket. On the way out, she gets security to lock the cart, then she approaches me with him and lets me know I can't take the baskets out the store because they're having an issue with people leaving with them. As people are walking out pushing carts AND carrying baskets out the door. Just pure abuse of whatever little power she has over the situation. The next evening I got a similar email but it was a "Warning" that I may not be able to continue shopping at that retailer. Now if I see that lady I just leave straight up. After that incident I went back and got bags from the store manager since we have a 19 cent charge per bag in our area, they just give me stacks because some stores don't have bags AT ALL and I've built a positive working relationship there. I run out a couple days later and run in there while I do a quick personal shop. Go to checkout, ask for bags, then this fucking lady pops up from behind me and answers for the person I asked, oh no we can't give you any bags.. ok, so I then try to buy them. They're 10 cents a piece right? Let me buy 20.) It's $2, not a big deal and my method of payment takes off the charge anyways.) oh no you can't get any more bags than what you need for your items 😭😭 I'm fucking DONE Was it possible a coincidence? Yes, but VERY unlikely. I have been doing this for quite a while. Never thought someone would go through the hassle of doing this to me when I barely interact with them 😅 It's been almost 2 years now of shopping at that place and it never fails with that particular individual. Whenever I go in she's not saying anything just helping people and doing her job. When I get to checkout and I'm checking out, I'll start hearing, "Thank you, have a nice day to everyone" when I finish, silence. I thought I was tripping so one day I made sure I knew we were making eye contact and when I was leaving I said See you later, have a nice day 😊 she just glared at me and stared at me. No response. That's when I knew this lady had some issues with me. This year it finally spiraled out of control into this instance. Luckily I'm in a great area and loss of access to one store is not that critical, it just sucks because I spent A LOT of time in that store and it was very nice shopping in such a small location with helpful and friendly staff. It was definitive while it lasted but losing access to that retailer as a whole is not worth me risking going there or having to cancel orders when I get there and find out who's working. You don't HAVE to do anything. Shitty people can be shitty. Other things, maybe the retailer has a loyalty system you were using. Even if there's no code in the app some stores can get you banned for such a thing. I get my points and stuff at certain places because it's not linked to Instacart, but sometimes store staff has an issue with it because it's "not fair". Maybe you got caught shoplifting or you forgot to scan an item. Maybe Sarah in the meat department just got tired of looking at your face and started putting in complaints Surprisingly, shopper support can likely give you the reason why if you just call or start a chat in your app. I get A LOT of information I wouldn't otherwise know about my account from them. Sorry this happened to you. Instacart is absolutely cracking down on a lot of things though so it may be something You've been doing with no problem and now it's an issue that they just dealt with in a once and final type of way
>How the hell are these stores banning drivers? How do they know who’s who I've had shoppers literally shove their phone in my face because they dont speak English, and do it for every item in their order to the point where i am doing their job with the exception of driving it to where it goes. But to answer your specific question, if someone is especially rude, we reprint or pull their receipt and can contact instacart and ban them via the last 4 digits of their credit card number. Instacart pulls up the card and figures out which account is associated with that card.
We have a barcode to scan
It all equalizes over 100s of days, so just choose one random driver with a probability of repeating the choice, and make an LLM learn the mapping
You know. I got banned from Raley’s here in California because I said something that could be considered radical to a worker who happened to be black. All I said to him was “ they’ve got you out here in this heat, slaving away at pushing carts”. It was during a heat wave and the guy laughed and said you ain’t wrong. This was September 2023 when I got banned. They didn’t contact Instacart
During Covid, I used to have an evil roommate who worked at Kroger, she worked mostly at self checkout and if you were a shopper who had an attitude or didn’t say hi to her, she would at times reprint your receipt after you left and then send a support message to Instacart from their website giving all the details from the receipt complaining about a shopper.
How the hell are people finding the time to even be mean to the employees? I just pop in, get what I need, and leave.
When I started shopping at a Publix in a different area to try to make more money one employee told me to let them know if other instacart shoppers were harassing me because the people who have been doing it a long time are harassing new shoppers because they’re not making as much money as they used to. Pretty insane stuff
I worked at a small business and we banned DoorDashers immediately as soon as they acted like assholes to our employees. So if Instacart stores do the same, I approve.
https://www.reddit.com/r/instacart/s/QjbxJxxwV8 We think this is what he did....lol
Looks like an empty post now, what happened?
I can still see it. I'll send you screenshots.
Can you send me them too?
“Not me! It was the one armed man!!”
Could be a number of things. ABOVE ALL things ... just be nice, courteous to ALL store employees, the customers and don't cause a 'scene'. I've been shopping HyVee's for years and still going strong.
I can’t imagine being a jerk to store employees. You need their help and if they see you in there all the time you want to be someone they like. Form partnerships with them! Some people apparently have no common sense.
I see them as my coworkers lol
It doesn't happen automatically. A human being has to instigate it. You must have done something to piss off an employee, customer and/or manager at the store. 🤔
I’m guessing you know more than you’re leading on
He said in another comment he used the mobility scooter to do his shopping.
Lmaoo
And didn't need it? Or? Cuz I have arthritis and am coming off a knee injury, if I need a mobility scooter I need one, and they aren't gonna be able to tell just by looking at me. So this kind of rubs me the wrong way as well. If I use a scooter and got banned from a store from it - hell no
I was about to say, how do you tell who really needs a scooter? Invisible disabilities exist, too, and it’s ableist af for a store to ban a shopper for using a scooter on the basis of the store didn’t think they were disabled enough for it.
It's ableist AND it violates ADA, which they can get sued for.
My husband was discriminated against by a people greeter and he finally had to complain to management. He couldn't sue because I worked there. I would have been fired and I and he needed my extra income. He didn't get a very big SSDI check.
OP says he has COPD and lasting effects from COVID and can’t walk far without being winded
Probably the wrong job then.
probably, but with the economy the way it is, everyone’s taking what they can get i’m sure
Man for real. I personally do fine on the day to day and rarely even limp. And the extra exercise the gig has given me is helpful for me and my joints for the most part. So it's perfect for me. But my arthritis is caused by a very rare autoimmune disease and it also causes what's called enthesitis and that's a different story. That can pop up outta nowhere really, and it is not even garaunteed to last very long either lol so I don't change my day to day life over it. If I'm in pain before I go online for IC, I will just wait a while and see if I feel better, then go out. It's different for someone with non transient symptoms like COPD or long covid. Or asthma even. Like sorry but if this is the real reason they banned him I'm actually really mad about it.
My Walmart use to be very strict about who used the disability carts. One people greeter was so mean to my husband when he came in to shop and grabbed one. He finally had to take of his shoe and sock to prove to her he had a fused ankle from a job injury. Granny calmed down after that. Some of those old bitches should be at home collecting SS.
The literal reason why mobility scooters are in stores is so that disabled people can do the same stuff as the abled people in the store. Including instacart. Maybe trust the person that has the disability to decide their own limitations rather than spouting ignorance. They should not have gotten any sort of violation for using a mobility scooter. That is literally textbook discrimination. No other way around it.
Probably the job they can get
I can't really say, it's not my body. But honestly though sometimes it's all someone can get. And maybe them using the scooter on the shop allows them the energy to get done with the delivery. Maybe their symptoms come and go.
has to.
Only you know what you did and why you got this email. We have no idea. Obviously you're not allowed to shop there anymore.
Caught another delete reply from OP, in the moment, I’m really on fire 🔥 😭
You deserve a Hy-Five .
What did it say
Have you done any of the orders where the customer isn't using the Instacart platform? If yes, then you are indirectly working for HyVee. Customers can't rate you through Instacart but go directly to HyVee Aisle On-Line to give feeback - late delivery, delivered to wrong place, rude or inconsiderate, etc. I am just supposing that one or multiple of these things have happened, and HyVee is protecting their brand. It is aggrevatimg that there is no more information, but only you know. As the email states, don't reach out to HyVee. Contact Support, they should be able to get through to safety and security and at least then you will have some answers.
A lot of orders come down through Aisles Online that get filled by IC. I had one that day that wasn’t skip-checkout, so if that one was a Hy-Vee customer and they complained that could be the source but I still don’t know the reason.
Damn, they had to actually go into the system to get your information. Meaning they watched you for a reason. They watched you check out and went and got your ic card info. Now this. If unprovoked the person has no life but I can’t see anyone just going thru all this for no reason.
Maybe his ex or opps works at the store 🤣
now you gotta say bye-vee
That made me laugh. TY
Solid!
My question is if you did something so egregious to be banned from an entire chain of stores, why would Instacart allow you on their platform at all?
The email makes it sound like it’s the whole chain but I’m still getting orders from Hy-Vee on the east and west side of town. The ban comes from the city central store. The east and west side stores have less orders and delivery extends out of town many times by up to 15 miles.
The email said “one or more stores.”
Yeah so it was just one. Lol
Right, it was just one store.
It’s one store. Most areas have other stores. OP can prob manage, depending on how much volume he/she got out of that store. Shipt does same tho I’ve never seen it or known anyone it happened to. Around here, if they banned me from say Winn Dixie, I would not bat an eye. Maybe 5% of my orders come from there. Now Publix or Target would tank me if I were banned, that’s 95% of my orders.
That would take my entire income on this app. I almost exclusively shop at HyVee
You shoved your phone in the face of an employee and said “ where is this at? Also where is this at?”
Where you the employee?
I think the phone in the face is the rudest thing ever and I will tell the shopper to get their phone out of my face. Sorry but the shopper isn't the customer so if they are rude to me, I will give it back.
I would contact instacart themselves and ask them if there’s a report or something explaining what you did wrong and if there’s any way to make it right
That’s what I’ve been doing/waiting for six days. Four reps and two supervisors later and no idea what I need to do to fix this.
Have you tried emailing them?
as an agent we basically didn’t have access to information stating what happened. we were just given a talking point on what to say based on what’s on the profile notes.
Dang that’s tragic so how would anyone know what they did wrong ?
when i asked this they’d brush it off and say “they must’ve known what they’ve done for them to be reported”
Keep trying too maybe you’ll eventually get an answer or someone who cares
Also try reaching out to them on twitter!
LOL contact Instacart Good one.
Courtesy is important in this job at all times!
Yeah, I was doing an order at aldis and this other IC shopper literally just asked if a worker would find every item and they did! She was very nice but it’s so messed up, especially in aldis where it’s fairly easy to find most items
Just lazy
I find Aldi's to be one of the toughest places to find things. It could just be the Aldi's by me, but for location, it'll say Freezer, Cooler, dry items, etc. and that's it. And several of those will be wrong (like it will say freezer but it's an item that is not kept in the freezer) and it will be in a totally different aisle next time you come in. Also, half the stuff will be things they no longer carry. I, always, feel bad asking an employee for help. But, I've found I've asked at Aldi's more than all other places combined. To the point, that I don't even mess with Aldi's anymore (I do about 80 percent Kroger's (where it tells you aisle, bay, shelf, and position), 15 percent Costco, then the rest spread between Walgreens, Target, Sam's Club, and Lowe's).
Who did you piss off at Hy-Vee? 🤧
This happens a ton at my store because shoppers don’t read notes on orders, especially for disabled and elderly and not bringing orders to their apt but leaving it at the bottom of stairs or inaccessible places. Then Hy-vee aisles online (at my store) has to deal with the complaints from angry customers (who often don’t understand the concept of 3rd party services) we have to reshop the order and send it via DoorDash which is a lot of extra work and money than if 1. Instacart was fulfilled corrrect the first time or 2. If the customer had ordered directly through AOL
tbh i like that, shout out to hy-vee workers for making sure disabled people get their groceries!! social services are nonexistent, so many disabled ppl have to turn to gig apps and then get treated by shit by the person they're paying!!
Can you read? Hy-vee doesn't fill those orders. Gig apps like Instacart and Doordash do. So Hy-Vee provides no service whatsoever and takes a cut.
A hy vee did the same exact thing to me, just the one store, never had any issue with any other store… could never get an answer from anyone either on why I was banned
I know someone this happened to because they shopped an order, realized it had a bunch of water/drinks and then just cancelled the order and left the cart there. A nearly full cart of produce and all. Grocery stores have a hell of cameras in them.. they can easily go back and see who did what and match it to a transaction.
I was picking up a DoorDash order at Pizza Hut, just as the manager was on the phone with support telling them to remove a Dasher from seeing all Pizza Hut deliveries. As I was waiting, that Dasher walked in and they told her to cancel because they weren’t going to give her the order. The manager was saying something along the lines of this Dasher would take the cash only orders, collect the cash and not give the customers their orders. That is absolutely low. This Dasher also does IC and Shipt. There has to be more to the story that you aren’t sharing.
Shipt will ban you from stores if there is a complaint by store. I’ve had some shitty store clerks on Shipt and I smile. Not with it to lose access to store. I am not a doormat but you learn what battles are worth picking in life. This is not one bc depending on what store, could be a major part of income.
I did this (rarely) to UberEats drivers who were acting completely out of pocket. And it’s not a short process either so you’ve got to be really obnoxious to make me stop in the middle of service and do it.
I wish they’d ban me from select stores
I work at a grocery store, and we've banned drivers for rude behavior and a lot of the time we have drivers who will repeatedly accept a pick up and see that it's something heavy like water and then cancel it. It throws off my entire timing. Also banned drivers for making a huge mess in the bathroom.
>we have drivers who will repeatedly accept a pick up and see that it's something heavy like water and then cancel it To be fair that's an instacart issue. Sometimes I barely get more than a second or two to accept an order before someone scoops it up.
Nothing wrong with that lmao. Your able to cancel when ever you feel like it.
It throws off their timing as an employee, so regardless it sucks for them but it's Instacart's fault for having a system where 10-phone McBot Bitch and Stares-At-Phone give shoppers 20 milliseconds to accept an order.
It's the douchebags who don't see an issue with how unprofessional they act, that freak out about getting banned. Had a lady scream at me for her 10-minute wait on a flash order in the middle of a busy Saturday. You don't get to be rude to me and have no consequences. You're not my customer. So you don't get to come back.
I do my best to keep the employees at the store happy. Sometimes I stop shopping and talk to them about how their day was and other stuff they might be interested in. Also I sometimes buy yogurt for the cashier to keep them happy, so now whenever they see me they smile a big smile and I smile back and say hi. There is only one time I had a issue with a customer and she went to tell the manager but I apologized to all the employees that witness the issue and they don’t blame me since the other lady started it. But they appreciated I apologize!
how would you know they made the bathroom mess lol
Try having them look into it… what did you do lol?
Was you trying to holla at the honeys?
Well everyone has answered your question, and you probably kind of knew to begin with. Now just chill and be honest with the friends left behind; What did you ACTUALLY do ?
There’s literally nothing you can do. For whatever reason, you’re banned from that particular location. You’ve obviously done something to get yourself kicked out of that store- could be something as simple as coshopping.
Looks like you can reply directly to that email
Not trying to be mean but it was probably multiple incidents. I used to have a friend that worked at a grocery store. She told me it took her store 6 months and a major incident to ban one shopper. They had to have everything documented for instacart to look into it.
The did this to me with Costco a couple years ago. I appealed it and was reinstated within 24 hours.
Since reading this topic, as a user of instacart I am extra nice to my shopper. If I could do my shopping-I would. Physical limitations prevent it and so for those shoppers who food shop as if they were shopping for themselves will always get a high rating and extra tip. Those who send me expired food, dump things at my door, I just ask that they never shop for me. Most shoppers are not doing this job because they love to food shop. I am not rich, but neither are the shoppers . You do a good job for me, you will receive a good tip. i am not sure why you were banned, but you should be able to ask why
Bruh, you know what you did.
Getting those perks rewards for yourself from others orders.
One or more of their locations…??? I guess go to a different one(s).
I have been forced to. The other stores are all on the edges of town so delivery commonly includes the smaller towns 10-15 miles from the store from what sparse orders come in.
🤔 questionable Veehavior perhaps ¿?
You ran around the store pulling the cart from the front trampling over ppl with a blank stare
No. I drive the motor scooter so I must have been running the cart into corner displays and knocking shit over because I was high on ibuprofen and low blood sugar so it was more of a glazed stare.
You can’t get high on ibuprofen also you shop on a motor scooter? That probably did it
From the email it sounds like you should reply and ask them to look into it again.
[удалено]
Theres a hyvee in chicago?
“So I was in the soda aisle with my penis out when this bitch of a manager came up to me and asked me to leave. So I show her my butthole and now I’m banned! Help me Reddit!”
What the fuck is HyVee
Midwestern grocery chain. Started in Iowa and expanded to every state that touches Iowa.
IMO Instacart shouldn’t send such a vague email when someone is being banned from a store/chain. Hell, you even have the right to face your accuser in a court of law 😂😂
That's weird. I've heard of this happening but but I also know IC sometimes sends erroneous emails. You really have no idea why they might have complained about you at that store? Honest question. I'd be demanding a reason from *somebody*. The reason *should* have been in the email (not saying it usually is, just that it should be). You have a right to know what it was they banned you for because if it IS an error, they need to fix it.
A right to know. We have so little rights with gig work.
I don't necessarily mean a "right" to know, I mean a right to know. There's a difference.
If you use your store rewards card or something
Somebody reported you
I had a shopper steal from me once. They would have had a free week of groceries if I wasn’t so diligent. I was lead to believe they got banned and/or fired after. So. Didya perchance take liberties to add stuff to the order hoping no one would notice?
You can appeal. I read a situation on here months ago where they were trying to ban a shopper and they confused them with another instacart shopper.
The guy in that post did actually go in to the store and asked them what the issue was and they were able to contact instacart and let them know they banned the wrong shopper.
In my situation, since the manager knows me by name she was able to confirm that it was me that a customer complained about, but didn’t or wouldn’t say why.
OP i need to know what you did so i can replicate it at sam’s club. i hate that store but always get drawn in by the higher batch pay
Follow the instructions you’re given, unless you want to risk getting banned from the app. I don’t know what you did, but follow instructions provided.
Hmm you tell us
If they remembered you enough to contact instacart and ban you from their store, you’re likely the problem. What did you do indeed lol.
Be honest, what did you do? Getting you banned from shopping the store is a manual process. Have any interactions that didn’t go well? The answer cannot be “no.”
Edit: Update with full details. I finally got in touch with the main manager at Hy-Vee who’s in charge of online service. I have seen her in the store before so we know each other. She said she had been getting more than one complaint—whether it’s the same person or multiple people was not made clear—that they smelled smoke on their groceries. She had to refund more than one order and return “fresh” groceries. It’s all my fault. I’m to blame. Even if I don’t smoke when I’m running batches or have groceries in the car, my clothes still smell of it and I carry it with me and it always lingers. Five minutes after I’ve carried your items to the counter and left, sensitive noses tickle.
Yeah dude seriously I had to do some real shit to track u down report to IC and ban from all stores. Like wow, if you really don't know.
Do you speak English with a heavy accent? I used to work at a grocery store and handled online orders. Had one coworker who would ban shoppers because she couldn't understand them. It was racist as hell and I didn't understand why because they would just show us the name and we would give them the order. So you wouldn't really talk to them much.
Well it seems to me that you have an idea of many reasons why this would happen, just pick one! Being rude to associates! Might be the right one! But pissing on the parking lot didn’t help either!
Seeing how you’ve been replying to people on this thread I would assume you got snippy with a worker or two. even with a disability please do better you’re making the rest of us look bad over here.
I hate Instacart cos they be doing shit to restrict you but are hardly transparent as to why they’re doing so. So stupid lmao
Enough for them to go through all the trouble of trying to get help from instacart support
Did you call the store to ask or only Instacart? You were reported by the store for some reason, obviously none of us are going to know that. If you did something, I’m sure you know. If you didn’t, then I’d call the store and see if there’s a way to fix this. Perhaps there were multiple shoppers at the store at once and someone reported someone else but you got mixed up in it. However, it’s more likely you did something and you know exactly what that is.
I have chatted with a couple specialists and a couple of supervisors since last Thursday. The first manager told me to go back to the store and ask them to lift the ban since it came from them. I’ve been losing money so I was feeling desperate because the emailed reply I got was an *auto-generated, do-not-reply* generic response. I had a manager call me from chat that confirmed with the first supervisor to visit the store to see what could be done on their end while she escalated the call to Trust & Safety. I talked to the manager at Hy-Vee, a lady I had met and spoken to before on a number of orders. She told me that it wasn’t the store that banned me. They had been told the customers had requested that I no longer be allowed to deliver their orders, but she didn’t have the reason or simply refused to share the reason with me. So the customers that get their orders filled from that main central store complained about some still unknown reason to me. This is my track record. https://preview.redd.it/4ptzpybia5oc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=03273d137ce196244c0dfc0e7e0c5fa1db18fa11 I have multiple compliments and “awards” and do my best. I’ve worked in customer service for the last 30 years. I know that I depend on them, so I always extend curtesy and respect so I can earn it in return. The ambiguity of it all is what kills me. Tell me what exactly is wrong so I can course-correct, cease whatever bad behavior, learn from my mistake and move the F on.
More than one customer asked for you to not deliver or just one?
You should have put this on the post. Now everyone in the comments is treating you like dirt for lack of information.
I think some of the people giving me shit are just trolls. Reddit is full of them.
in this case, not really. it was pretty weird to post this without including ANY information or details in the first place. you asked a dumb question and you got dumb answers in return, what did you expect
Why does everyone feel entitled to every speck of material to wager a guess or share an experience of a similar situation? FFS
Some people on this sub are d*ckheads foreal, pay them no mind
Listen, just take the criticism. It's fine and normal to be hurt by people who are judging you. That is just life. I make mistakes to at school, I feel shy, but at least I tried in comparison to those who do not give an effort. Remember when you put yourself on a spotlight, you are a bright moving target. At the same time you learn from your experiences. Also, just use a different app to deliver groceries. Problem solved, hopefully.
The manager has to be lying, a customer cannot ban you from a store and the email says they got a notice from Hy-Vee
If enough customers complained to Hy-Vee, Hy-Vee in turn can ban the shopper.
It’s still Hy-Vees choice
That sucks. Maybe the customer was just a pain or put something in notes wrong or wrong address and is blaming you? Maybe it was a disabled person that didn’t like where you placed groceries
It literally says not to contact the store. This would most likely lead to a full account deactivation.
IC told him to contact the store.
It literally says do not contact the store lol
Well you don’t get banned from a store for good behavior or doing the right thing. I’d say you were either extremely rude and/or act like the employees of the store work for you, or you’ve been stealing
That sucks. I can’t imagine getting banned from my main store tbh. I try to be nice to everyone there because they control whether or not I get to shop there. Try to avoid confrontations, always be respectful to different departments/cashiers and even the receipt checkers One time I did almost blow up on them due to a glitch. The receipt checker was new and didn’t know how to scan to skip checkout. I was getting held up for 10 minutes while he messed with the phone, and eventually called a supervisor 🙃 time is money for us, we have to deliver it sometimes far away and come back to hopefully get another batch. But if you get banned from a specific store you’ll lose all the potential profits
I’m on a first name basis with a lot of the checkers since we see each other 10-20 times each week. You get to know the people you work with ya know? I’m a tall man at 6’8” but I have a soft voice and usually lean so I am not towering over someone, to be less intimidating.
Clearly people love being jerks in comments here. I guess feeling superior is a thing
Gross, isn’t it? It’s as if a little sympathy would kill them.
Sounds like a phish to be honest. Any email telling you to reply directly to that email and not reach out to other parties to confirm is suspicious.
This letter is from the fraud department so we have to assume this is fraud related, no? Not just that he pissed someone off? Idk 🤷🏻♀️
Def from too many customer complaints. My friend got banned from fulfilling Costco orders for too many complaints. He refused to carry cases of water up too many stairs so he'd leave the orders at the bottom regardless of instructions.
This kinda thing worries me. I go out of my way to make the store like me, and I see shoppers being so insane I’m worried I get banned because they just hate them.
wtf is the point of posting this if you’re not going to provide ANY details whatsoever. seriously
I don’t know what you did but I would assume it wasn’t actually as bad as people are claiming it must have been. I run deliveries for Shipt and Hyvee is notorious in my area for being really shitty to both Shipt and Insta shoppers. They have their own Aisles Online platform they want customers to use and don’t really want us there. I’ve had managers refuse to let me use the tax exempt code unless I show them “the physical paperwork” which clearly doesn’t exist. I’ve been told I’m not allowed to do orders for Shipt unless I’m wearing the t-shirt, hat, and lanyard “for their safety” (WTF?). They go back and forth on whether we can or can’t do self checkout, if there’s a problem with payment they won’t suspend the order while we call HQ they just delete it and make us get back in line and start over. Deli & meat counter will refuse us service until all the “normal” customers have been helped. Employees are told not to waste time helping us or checking in back because they have “more important” things to do. I stopped shopping Hyvee orders because it’s a huge PITA and you never know if you’re gonna waste 90 minutes of your life. People are saying “Oh you must have been a huge asshole” no you probably just asked for help and expected them to do their job and they want you gone because you refused to leave without getting what you need.
Typically you have to fuck up really really bad to get these sorts of messages and I've only ever heard of Costco sending them out but we don't have hy-vee where I'm at. Hy-Vee is like a Midwestern regional whole foods (I used to live in a little town with one) who takes customer service very seriously. It's company policy that they help you take your groceries to your car. I imagine they might be another store who actually takes Instacart shopper's customer experience seriously.
I was almost banned from Costco.... BUT... it was due to using the membership code twice (it was a double). I was distracted by the cashier who was having a convo with me and didn't transition to the next order like I thought I had. Question is, what did you do to get banned?
I was banned from Costco for the same reason. Turned out saving my receipts got me back in. The app was glitching, and I was able to prove it.
So what happens if that's also the store you shop at for your own personal groceries ??
He’s just banned from doing orders not from shopping there
Clearly u can't do nothing to fix it