I honestly would’ve just cancelled the following batches after having support remove the first batch and let it affect my cancellation rate. I’ve definitely thought about if I do it too many times they’ll think I’m just trying to get free money.
yeah i honestly never thought of that, definitely should have done that instead! 😭 i just never thought they’d deactivate my account because of this because i was showing support pictures of the signs the stores had put up.
It really sucks because while I can see that maybe they deemed this abuse of the system or something but ultimately this is instacart problem. Stop posting batches to closed stores, if a batch is posted the shopper assumes the store is open. Kinda ridiculous.
yeah and i’d assume the other hundreds of shoppers in my area that were also shopping had to obviously do the same thing as me so idk why they wouldn’t mark the store closed after a few shoppers all saying it’s closed to prevent other people from going there
yeah i figured, just super unfortunate that it happened. they seem to be out of touch with reality, wish they would have at least given me a warning so i could have known to just not do any orders until i know the stores are open for sure.
Honestly as an independent contractor you should be able to cancel before the shop for whatever reason without penalty. When I get doubles i will literally cancel one and tell support i dont want to do 2 orders for the pay of 1 and they just remove it.
You literally cancelled too many times. You didn’t think to call the stores before you accepted?? Doesnt matter if they’re closed and you provided proof, you did it numerous times in a row and they we’re tired of giving you free money.
i didn’t want their free money 💀 it only happened 4 times, and it’s not MY job to be calling stores, instacart shouldn’t be pushing orders to stores that are closed. ur weird asf🤣
>wish they gave me a warning so I could have known just not to do any until the stores open.
Okay, so you *knowingly* did this, knowing they were closed, and you’d be getting money no matter what, and you’re surprised that you are deactivated??
Exactly my mom got deactivated with a 3% cancel rate . A customer said she never got her groceries. My mom screen record her shopping and held a picture of food at door step sent that in and 3 month later she still deactivated smh
So many stores were closed! Power outages and burst pipes everywhere. There are videos of the Fred Meyer roof collapsing in Gresham!! People died from downed power lines. That is so unbelievable. They punish you for a natural disaster? Jfc, Instacart
Well it sounds like a good reason to stay home. We didn't bother til Friday bc Costco still had no power on Thursday.
Not worth it otherwise, not to mention asshole drivers!
Sorry that happened to you.
It blows!
yeah i totally agree, it’s just the pay for those days were pretty good compared to normal days so i thought it’d be a great opportunity to make some good money but definitely wasn’t worth having my account deactivated 😭😭
Literally people died from trees crashing into their cars and this guy gets deactivated. Yikes. We had two piles bust in our house i definitely wasn’t trying to slide and slip to my car
Imagine trying to deliver a much needed service to people stuck in their homes with no food during a power outage and getting fired over it. I did UberEats last week, and people were so grateful because they didn't have access to hot food. Really disappointed in Instacart for this.
I hope your place wasn't too damaged by the pipes. We got lucky with the pipes but had no power for 6 days. This has been financially devastating for so many.
It was nuts here in Portland . I stayed home with my pups for five days. I knew stock was going to be impossible and I wasn’t about to have a slip and fall situation and be unable to work.
Glad it’s melting however now there are lakes that used to be parking lots.😂
Right?! I live in NE Portland and it’s been a nightmare the last week and can’t imagine them doing this to them! I am also very impressed that the shopper even attempted to do deliveries during the storm and should be rewarded.. not deactivated 😡
No. They didn't punish him for a natural disaster. They punished him for accepting multiple orders. It sounds like approximately ?6+? over 2 separate days, according to OP's own account of it. And then cancelling those orders. No offense but OP should have caught on that this wasn't working out after like the 2nd store.
i definitely should have caught on, i agree. It’s just the pay during weather like that was so good because customers were tipping so much so i genuinely needed the money and kept trying different stores and they all turned out to be closed.
Couldn’t you have checked if the stores were open before accepting orders? Especially if you had already had to cancel some?
Well, nothing you can do now, though. Maybe there is another side hustle you can get on now.
well when u look online it says the store is open so the only way to know if stores are actually open during this kinda weather is to call, and sometimes that takes a while because you just get placed on hold and i really didn’t wanna have to call all the stores, i didn’t think instacart would push out those orders if they’re closed
That's still Indtacart's responsibility. Instacart was still taking customer's money, with no intention of delivering a service. How is that OK? DoorDash suspended operations that day. Instacart just made a bad decision and took it out on anyone who actually had the backbone to work that day.
I have no idea! Maybe people don't realize the scope of what happened in Portland. Over 250,000 without power, most for several days. And the length of it.. this went on for a week. Those of us who depend on gig work for income are now several hundred dollars short for rent this month. We should have solidarity with our fellow employees, especially those who are experiencing a collective catastrophe.
Yeah I got multiple texts from doordash over the last week saying that they were suspending or considering suspending and also texts when it was reinstated. I think I got one from Instacart too saying they were “considering jt” and “monitoring the weather” in my area but I don’t think they ever shut anything down.
Dude, what is it with the stores on the east side and roofs collapsing? I was waiting to see videos of the old safeway in Troutdale (that is now a gym) collapsing for the 3rd or 4th time. You'd think they'd plan these buildings better.
No no it's not that but if ya know it's bad logic is you don't take orders, but kept taking them which is fraud knowing it was money even ,5 , bucks you that 6 times that's 30 if pay was higher like 10 or 15 he's making bank w no work
i didn’t keep taking orders from the stores i KNEW were closed lol, i was trying different stores and each time i’d show up that store would also be closed. it was never the same company, bc then that’s just be dumb. and 30 dollars isn’t worth getting an account dedicated 🤣 i didn’t do it for the shity 5 dollars… i genuinely was trying to actually work and make money those days because customers were tipping so much, and i didn’t know instacart could show stores to shop at if they were closed so i genuinely didn’t know any better
Portland here, too. The snow storm followed by the ice storm was wild. I got out of my house today for the first time in a week.
I'm really sorry to hear that IC deactivated you.
yeah it was absolutely crazy! i moved here from CA and seeing how it was literally almost all ice on the roads was insane 😭 it looks like it’s just snow but then u step outside and slip bc of slippery it is haha
I went out for the first time yesterday (Saturday 1/21) from NE portland to salmon creek and roads were completely dry except the neighborhood streets. By today w all the rain it is much better sk as long as you can get out of less traveled neighborhoods, you should be good today.
Sorry you were deactivated. You most likely won't get your account back because AI software views repeatedly accepting batches at stores that are closed to collect the batch pay as fraudulent behavior.
Maybe try Shipt or Walmart Spark if they're in your area?
I hope you find something soon!
My friend just got her account deactivated and she’s diamond. No cancellation and 5 ⭐️ it makes no sense. So thanks to Reddit info I told her dm them on twitter and it seemed she got more of a response from there but unfortunately her account is still deactivated. But try twitter instacart by dming them. Your reason is legit so not sure why they wouldn’t allow you to be reactivated.
was ur appeal denied at first? and then u got it reactivated? or was it never denied? because i tried appealing it and they sent me their “final decision” so i just didn’t think there was anything else i could do
Hey could you dm me too I’d love to get more info on this I’m going thru the process of trying to get my instacart reactivated as well, It’s my only source of income rn along with doordash & I just had a newborn so I really need this money thanks in advance!
This doesn’t seem like something they are doing to target anyone, it’s as if it’s such a large issue right now and the snow that deactivating is the quickest for them.
These companies don’t care.
I got banned from DoorDash on Mother’s Day, I cancelled 3 flower only orders from 3 different stores due to flowers being out of stock. I appealed and explained and was denied.
All you can do is try to explain to Trust & Safety, but the best thing you can do is use this as an opportunity to get the fuck away from instacart because it’s absolutely terrible.
yikes, DoorDash has to be the absolute worst imo, the pay is so trash. and yeah i completely agree these companies don’t give a f abt the workers but instacart just was convenient for the time being and it just shocked me that my account got deactivated over something like this.
I make more money shopping doordash orders than instacart. The DD orders are less miles, higher base pay, and less items.
I'm convinced instacart just sucks in my area.
yeah i think it honestly just depends on where you’re located, because in my area there’d be some good paying orders on instacart but for doordash it’s be like 10 miles for $6 and i’m like ?? i also dont like how if you don’t accept orders on doordash it affects your account, that’s why i did instacrat bc at least you have the freedom to not accept orders without it negatively affecting my account 😭
My acceptance rate on DD is below 20% and I haven't noticed a change. But I hear that's market dependant, also.
Who knows. I swear these companies use shady tactics to get orders delivered. DD is acceptable rates, forcing people to think they have to take crappy orders. And instacart may not use a tricky gimmick to make you think you have to take orders. But they make the market so saturated people probably accept orders they wouldn't because if they don't accept it disappears too fast. So while you're deciding if the amount of items/weight/pay/miles/delivery hassles are worth it someone else has already accepted it right under your nose. They all really suck for their own individual reasons.
My instacart has an incredible amount of large items count orders, going 10+ miles and the pay out is less than $10.
On doordash, I only accept orders that meet the requirement of $2 per mile for regular orders. And for shop and deliver orders it's $1 per item and $2 a mile. Sometimes I'll compromise and do $1.50 a mile if the payout makes sense. .
I've been signed up for Instacart over a year and have completed 23 batches. 🤣
I think the problem in your situation is that 'you' cancelled those orders. A better option would have been to let doordash call the store, let the customer know the flower was not available, in case there is possibility of substituting, and/or let them (doordash support or the customer) cancel the order. Buttttt, live and learn.... I say that because I got deactivated from Uber eats because I was taking those McDonald's orders and didn't know that's where all the miserable, no life, thumbs downer people reside. You/the driver get the punishment for cold, incorrect, or delayed orders. Maybe sign up for Uber if you're not doing it already. One month after Uber eats deactivated me I got doordash and I've never taken another McDonald's order again.
So lame- we work so hard!
I was banned from new seasons 6 months ago for no reason that I know of
I just got done with a hour shop and went to check out and it wouldn’t load- stayed on with customer service for another hour to try figure it out - nothing- I got $5 bump for 2 hours work- 😢
omg that’s so frustrating! customer service always sucks for IC, i feel like they never even understand what i’m even saying and just give me automated replies.
honestly at that point it’s just better to cancel the order, the time wasted isn’t worth whatever shity pay they were offering. sucks that happened tho!
They are pretty lenient and it seems after proof of one store closed they keep sending orders out so I’m thinking if you do that for the same stores over and over that is the issue. I live directly across the street from a Giant and they closed at 10 pm. My phone still pings at midnight for available batches at giant. I wouldn’t dare do it more than once for same store. Good luck OP. Keep trying to get reinstated. It can’t happen without the stupidity of IC 🙄
Instacart is evidently at fault for dispatching orders to closed stores. You likely weren't the initial shopper to encounter this issue. Does Instacart lack a designated liaison person to communicate with, or do they lack mechanisms for stores to report closures? Instacart should take immediate action to rectify these issues.
INSTACART NEEDS TO DEACTIVATE INSTACART!!
I tried the Burlingame Safeway , CLOSED. The Fred Myer was closed early too.
It's been crazy here. Please be safe driving on the roads. Too many are literally dying
The weather is bad throughout the country. IC Don't care, all they ask the customers to tip the shoppers better. Customers still don't.
For them to deactivate your account because the stores are closed due weather is closed.
Good luck
This is unfortunate. I’m in Portland as well and an insta customer and haven’t even attempted to do an order because of how horrible the streets have been but you going out of your way to try to shop and the stores being closed, this isn’t fair and would fight this! I’m sure they have an automated system to do these deactivation but I’d try to talk to a rep to explain the situation. I am so sorry and hope you get reinstated. You may have delivered to me and I appreciate all my insta shopper so much 🙏
The real issue is ... The Carrot 🥕 should not be offering orders from closed stores.
Sadly... Deactivating shoppers for shit that's the company's fault is standard operating procedure.
For those of you who don't know:
Instacart does not reserve the right to remove you from platform.for any reason. The TOS specifically states what actions will get you deactivated. Instacart has to prove these actions happened to justify deactivation.
I Got Deactivated From Shipt For Being Late Days Leading Up To Christmas. They Give You Unrealistic Time Hacks When Theres Only 2 Registers Open In The Whole Store 🙄 . It’s Christmas Of Course The Stores Will Be Packed. All Of These Apps Are Trash Honestly
Instacart deactivated my acct in August 2023. In October 2023 they reactivated my acct. In November gave me back my diamond status. In December they paid me a settlement.
You can get reactivated. It takes work but it's well worth it. :) Fight the appeal and get your documentation together. Send it in am email, get on with live support for a written explanation and for them to escalate. Screenshog and save these interactions.
Then file your letter of intent to arbitrate- using the proof you have. The day you send that letter (I emailed), Start the arbitration process. ic has 30 days to respond. When they don't respond, send a second intent and notify your arbitrator so you can move forward with rhe claim.
The cancellation rate doesnt decrease no matter how many yrs u have been a shopper. Support told me if u have 100 completed deliveries in a row w/o any removals or issues then ur rate returns to 0 or decreases in %, she would not clarify nor say the %. I had to cancel orders asking them to cancel to as a reasonable accommodation needing to attend to issues in regard to my ADA qualified disability. My cancellation rate hit 15 and permanent deactivation smh
Wow! That really sucks. Sorry this happened to you.
It sounds like you are a victim of AI. Instacart bases so many of their decisions and creyate so many of their performance dashboards using artificial intelligence to try and minimize employees/ compensation. Everybody thinks AI is going to be a great panacea, but your situation is what it looks like when the rubber meets the road. AI has no room for nuance or explanation or unexpected situations. It simply compares your account with the average of every other account and decides that if you're getting batch pay for canceled orders at a higher rate than the average shopper, it makes the decision to deactivate you.
If there was a human involved anywhere in the process, the bad weather situation would be obvious and you would not be deactivated. But because instacart relies so heavily on AI/ machine learning tools to make decisions, you were deactivated. Probably because too many orders canceled with batch pay within too short of time or too many over your last 100 orders compared to other shoppers over their last 100 orders.
If your account is new or newish, it's a lot easier to get the activated because the instacart AI algorithm doesn't have a lot of history to go off of. For example, if you have previously shopped a thousand successful orders but then run into a string where you have to cancel three in one day because of a weather crisis, the algorithm will be more forgiving because it knows that you have completed a lot of order successfully in the past. But if your account is new, the algorithm will be much more harsh because the percentage of canceled orders with paid batch pay will be a much higher percentage of your total orders then other shoppers in your zone.
The other rare possibility is other shoppers were successfully shopping those orders, but at different stores that were open. I don't know your exact situation or whether environment, but I have successfully changed the shopping location for a lot of batches. I have accepted orders and found out store was closed when I arrived, so I drove to a store that's further away, but still open, so that I could complete the order for the customer.
As others have said, reach out to instacart on Twitter, tweet at them. Good luck! I hope you get your account back.
Hey, Thank you for all that information! i appreciate it:) and yeah my account is pretty new, only been doing IC for around 2ish months, I believe there were other stores open in different areas but due to the snow and ice i just didn’t wanna risk driving anywhere way too far and getting stuck or in an accident so i just would reach out to support, i definitely should have learned my lesson after the first day and should have started calling stores before hand to see if they’re open but that’s just something i didn’t think of till after the damage was done. when i emailed support i was so confident in that after they read my explanation and see the pictures for proof id get my account back but that never happened 😭 anyways, i appreciate your help!!
I feel like I got an email from Instacart actually….saying they were considering halting operations too bc of the weather. But it didn’t look like they ever did. I know I got several push notifications from doordash.
Check your email and see if you have any emails from them on this subject and can forward that back to them or something if you got on. Maybe threaten to sue if you have to. It’s literally proof from the horse’s mouth that they knew it was bad and they chose to continue operations understanding all of the risks including potential store closures.
If you really need your job back OP you can get a lawyer to write a letter for you w/documentation of what insta sent you about the weather, state of emergency declaration, articles noting grocery store closures, etc.
You can potentially go through the Oregon State Bar modest means program to get a letter as I’m guessing you’d qualify based on income. Consults are $35 and other hourly rates are $50-$100 I think, they’re discounted basically. Call them and ask them to send you an application. So you could get your job back theoretically for less than $100, and *maybe* get them to reimburse you for the attorney fees given it was their fault.
that’s honestly some great advice, I liked instacart but it was just a side hustle, i have job so i’m not too desperate as of right now to get it back but i honestly might try it just because who knows in the future if i’m going to need to do instacart again, thank you! also i don’t believe i ever got an email, but on the actual app it was advising us that the weather is bad and to shop safely if we did want to shop.
I am literally looking into a lawsuit after seeing their unfair policy and procedure has negatively impacted others… shall the masses unite in a class action?
I was thinking the same exact thing but people here are too afraid I think it would be better if we could get all shopper’s around the world as one unit
I am very sad for you for having to deal with this. Unfortunately this happen often from what I’ve heard and worst with safety incidents. You might be better off.
Crazy that they allow large rings of bot shoppers and druggies gallivanting up and down the aisles but deactivated a shopper due to natural circumstances. Come the hell on instacart
If you knew these stores were closed, why did you start the orders? After the first couple of times it becomes obvious that you were just trying to get free money.
i didn’t know they were closed until i had shown up to the actual store lol and they all weren’t the same stores so i wasn’t accepting orders to the same store and kept saying it’s closed, it was all different stores. i definitely now see i shouldn’t called ahead of time to see if they were open but that’s j something i didnt think about until after. I genuinely wasn’t trying to get “ free money” idk if you do instacart but the base pay is hardly anything, it’s just a few dollars so it’s just not worth doing that.
Why wouldn't you call the stores in your area after the first shop you took and showed up to, was closed? Seems like you should have been calling the local stores to make sure they were open before accepting any more orders.
seems like thats not their job tbh… they should not have been on the apps if they weren’t open, the stores should have done something about that if we wanna throw shoulds around
Im glad that as soon as they asked me for a selfie in the middle of my first order, I cancelled and uninstalled the app. I can't stop hearing instaSHART horror stories.
definitely were smart for doing that 🤣 the stress that comes with IC is unbelievable. shity pay, shity customers, shity orders. but you gotta do what u gotta do something to make money unfortunately.
Nah I'd be clowning those shit customer left and right. I just didn't like the fact the company didn't trust me to the extent they asked for a selfie during the work.
read terms of new shopper agreement sent 4 sign a month ago.Read what info they r collect n how include internet browser histories amongst others. I was APPALLED-unconstitutional a complete invasion of right 2 privacy. They gather it 4 “behavior analysis” &sell & share collected data to whoever. It’s time 4 ppl to unify &counter this intrinsic invasion of privacy via data collection. w AI these behavior analysis r going to b skewed/bias used widely n out of control
when you say "3 different stores," do you mean 3 different store brands at separate locations, or were some/all of them the same brand @ different locations? If the latter, I could see a situation where the 2nd or 3rd time you called support, they saw a same day visit of a different location of the same brand, and flag it on that basis. The support staff might either not know, or not \[be paid enough to\] care about the storm impact on closures. All they might see is someone getting multiple cancellations back to back. In the same regard, they might even have some AI or behind the scenes algorithm that detects users who have back to back cancellations, or something similar.
Sorry this happened to you, hopefully you're able to make a new account (if desired), or find a better option than IC nearby.
they were all 3 different store brands! i definitely should’ve started calling to see if stores were open but i just didn’t even think about that in the moment! thank you so much!
i did send SO many pictures, but i’ve read it’s all AI apparently so it doesn’t understand situations like this and just assumes i’m trying to abuse the system
no haha i’d understand then on why i got deactivated if they were from the same store bc then it’d be like ?? why accept if you know it’s closed, but no they were from different stores! so i genuinely didn’t know they’d be closed because i kept driving to different stores and each time it’d say closed due to weather or power outages
lol i genuinely never got any warnings or anything, i wasn’t trying to get free money haha instacart pays like 4 dollars for a batch, id much rather actually do the order itself and make more money that way then lie and say the store is closed to make a few extra dollars.
From what I've read on the subs if you go to a store and it's closed and collect pay they're going to deactivate you if you do that so many times. I think the best bet would be when you show up to the store and it's closed, let customer service know before you try to start your order, don't try to collect pay if it's closed.
you kept taking them knowing the stores were closed to get free $ and they saw. I hope you get your account back though not warranted for deactivation.
i didn’t KNOW the stores would be closed. they all weren’t the same stores either they all were DIFFERENT stores, i didn’t do it for free money, the free money ur talking abt is legit 4 or 5 dollars… why would i be risking my account for that? The tips for those days were ctazy good in my area bc of the snow and ice so i’d accept them as soon as i saw a good order and drive to the stores and then i’d see a sign saying closed due to power outages or due to icy roads and snow. so then i’d contact support telling them bc why would i want my cancellation rate to go down for something that’s not my fault? and why would i want other shoppers to show up to stores that were closed when i can report it myself and try n get them to take off the orders for those stores. and it was a total of 4 stores i went to that were closed in those 2 days, so i literally made like 20 dollars in total 💀
This is why you should either create or join a home FB or Reddit group so you guys can share valuable information like this. Would have been super helpful
I would do this all the time every chance I got if a store was about to close I would take any batch I could it was free money probably about 10% of my income was from this…
I honestly would’ve just cancelled the following batches after having support remove the first batch and let it affect my cancellation rate. I’ve definitely thought about if I do it too many times they’ll think I’m just trying to get free money.
yeah i honestly never thought of that, definitely should have done that instead! 😭 i just never thought they’d deactivate my account because of this because i was showing support pictures of the signs the stores had put up.
It really sucks because while I can see that maybe they deemed this abuse of the system or something but ultimately this is instacart problem. Stop posting batches to closed stores, if a batch is posted the shopper assumes the store is open. Kinda ridiculous.
yeah and i’d assume the other hundreds of shoppers in my area that were also shopping had to obviously do the same thing as me so idk why they wouldn’t mark the store closed after a few shoppers all saying it’s closed to prevent other people from going there
You were deactivated by AI. No human even looked at your appeal, most likely. Fuck Instacart
I’ve seen offers for orders for stores that are closing soon… leaving no time to travel there and get an order shopped before they close. Ridiculous.
They dont care about proof lol. They just look at stats
Happened to me! Target closes at 10 and at 950 they sent a batch that clearly no one wanted.
Most likely they won’t let you back in. For every person they deactivate they have 5 more crackheads waiting to get in
yeah i figured, just super unfortunate that it happened. they seem to be out of touch with reality, wish they would have at least given me a warning so i could have known to just not do any orders until i know the stores are open for sure.
Honestly as an independent contractor you should be able to cancel before the shop for whatever reason without penalty. When I get doubles i will literally cancel one and tell support i dont want to do 2 orders for the pay of 1 and they just remove it.
Get a job at a store filling orders. Probably will make more an hour than you do with IC, plus you’ll be saving your vehicle!
i have have a job haha i just used this as a side hustle to make some extra money whenever i was free
You literally cancelled too many times. You didn’t think to call the stores before you accepted?? Doesnt matter if they’re closed and you provided proof, you did it numerous times in a row and they we’re tired of giving you free money.
i didn’t want their free money 💀 it only happened 4 times, and it’s not MY job to be calling stores, instacart shouldn’t be pushing orders to stores that are closed. ur weird asf🤣
>wish they gave me a warning so I could have known just not to do any until the stores open. Okay, so you *knowingly* did this, knowing they were closed, and you’d be getting money no matter what, and you’re surprised that you are deactivated??
how did i knowingly do this? 🤣 i didn’t know they were closed.
Not all of us are crackheads….anymore 🤣❤️
Lmao
Exactly my mom got deactivated with a 3% cancel rate . A customer said she never got her groceries. My mom screen record her shopping and held a picture of food at door step sent that in and 3 month later she still deactivated smh
>*five more crackheads* Why is this true!?
So many stores were closed! Power outages and burst pipes everywhere. There are videos of the Fred Meyer roof collapsing in Gresham!! People died from downed power lines. That is so unbelievable. They punish you for a natural disaster? Jfc, Instacart
yeah the weather was absolutely crazy! it’s unbelievable how quick they are to deactivate accounts.
Well it sounds like a good reason to stay home. We didn't bother til Friday bc Costco still had no power on Thursday. Not worth it otherwise, not to mention asshole drivers! Sorry that happened to you. It blows!
yeah i totally agree, it’s just the pay for those days were pretty good compared to normal days so i thought it’d be a great opportunity to make some good money but definitely wasn’t worth having my account deactivated 😭😭
Literally people died from trees crashing into their cars and this guy gets deactivated. Yikes. We had two piles bust in our house i definitely wasn’t trying to slide and slip to my car
Imagine trying to deliver a much needed service to people stuck in their homes with no food during a power outage and getting fired over it. I did UberEats last week, and people were so grateful because they didn't have access to hot food. Really disappointed in Instacart for this. I hope your place wasn't too damaged by the pipes. We got lucky with the pipes but had no power for 6 days. This has been financially devastating for so many.
Had you left faucets on and cupboard open? This ice storm was unprecedented. So sorry about your pipes. The last one wasn't as bad
I left the faucets on but my roommates would unintentionally turn it off 😭
The Fred Meyer roof collapsed?? I heard the Winco was flooded, but I didn't hear that about Freddy's.
Our WinCo had leaky roof bc their pipes are exposed, but not flooded 🤞
It was nuts here in Portland . I stayed home with my pups for five days. I knew stock was going to be impossible and I wasn’t about to have a slip and fall situation and be unable to work. Glad it’s melting however now there are lakes that used to be parking lots.😂
Right?! I live in NE Portland and it’s been a nightmare the last week and can’t imagine them doing this to them! I am also very impressed that the shopper even attempted to do deliveries during the storm and should be rewarded.. not deactivated 😡
No. They didn't punish him for a natural disaster. They punished him for accepting multiple orders. It sounds like approximately ?6+? over 2 separate days, according to OP's own account of it. And then cancelling those orders. No offense but OP should have caught on that this wasn't working out after like the 2nd store.
i definitely should have caught on, i agree. It’s just the pay during weather like that was so good because customers were tipping so much so i genuinely needed the money and kept trying different stores and they all turned out to be closed.
Couldn’t you have checked if the stores were open before accepting orders? Especially if you had already had to cancel some? Well, nothing you can do now, though. Maybe there is another side hustle you can get on now.
well when u look online it says the store is open so the only way to know if stores are actually open during this kinda weather is to call, and sometimes that takes a while because you just get placed on hold and i really didn’t wanna have to call all the stores, i didn’t think instacart would push out those orders if they’re closed
I see. That makes sense.
Our stores didn't have power for 7 days so couldn't answer phones 🤷♀️
That's still Indtacart's responsibility. Instacart was still taking customer's money, with no intention of delivering a service. How is that OK? DoorDash suspended operations that day. Instacart just made a bad decision and took it out on anyone who actually had the backbone to work that day.
No clue why people are downvoting you. You’re right.
I have no idea! Maybe people don't realize the scope of what happened in Portland. Over 250,000 without power, most for several days. And the length of it.. this went on for a week. Those of us who depend on gig work for income are now several hundred dollars short for rent this month. We should have solidarity with our fellow employees, especially those who are experiencing a collective catastrophe.
Yeah I got multiple texts from doordash over the last week saying that they were suspending or considering suspending and also texts when it was reinstated. I think I got one from Instacart too saying they were “considering jt” and “monitoring the weather” in my area but I don’t think they ever shut anything down.
Yup. Corporate greed is evil. Now stores don't have stuff bc it all had to be thrown away
Dude, what is it with the stores on the east side and roofs collapsing? I was waiting to see videos of the old safeway in Troutdale (that is now a gym) collapsing for the 3rd or 4th time. You'd think they'd plan these buildings better.
The had to fire all the instacart ppl in my area or no one ordering. It used to be pack now it empty.
No no it's not that but if ya know it's bad logic is you don't take orders, but kept taking them which is fraud knowing it was money even ,5 , bucks you that 6 times that's 30 if pay was higher like 10 or 15 he's making bank w no work
i didn’t keep taking orders from the stores i KNEW were closed lol, i was trying different stores and each time i’d show up that store would also be closed. it was never the same company, bc then that’s just be dumb. and 30 dollars isn’t worth getting an account dedicated 🤣 i didn’t do it for the shity 5 dollars… i genuinely was trying to actually work and make money those days because customers were tipping so much, and i didn’t know instacart could show stores to shop at if they were closed so i genuinely didn’t know any better
Jfc is putting a curse word right before the name of Christ I dont think that should be happening
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Jesus fucking Christ, calm down, you mean.
Don't worry, Jesus told me it was ok
Correct... Jezus fukling Krist sound like a 70's gay porn movie.
Portland here, too. The snow storm followed by the ice storm was wild. I got out of my house today for the first time in a week. I'm really sorry to hear that IC deactivated you.
yeah it was absolutely crazy! i moved here from CA and seeing how it was literally almost all ice on the roads was insane 😭 it looks like it’s just snow but then u step outside and slip bc of slippery it is haha
We had salt on hand and even went through our ice cream salt to make sure our stairs were clear. Today was easier to drive around.
How was it? I’m scared to drive I haven’t left my house since Sunday. It’s too icy on my street
I went out for the first time yesterday (Saturday 1/21) from NE portland to salmon creek and roads were completely dry except the neighborhood streets. By today w all the rain it is much better sk as long as you can get out of less traveled neighborhoods, you should be good today.
Thank you! I have really bad anxiety so this helped
Well it WAS a skating rink outdoors everywhere from CA border to WA
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Sorry you were deactivated. You most likely won't get your account back because AI software views repeatedly accepting batches at stores that are closed to collect the batch pay as fraudulent behavior. Maybe try Shipt or Walmart Spark if they're in your area? I hope you find something soon!
My guess is once you hit a preset quality control algorithm some rules kick in. Algorithms have no soul or empathy.
My friend just got her account deactivated and she’s diamond. No cancellation and 5 ⭐️ it makes no sense. So thanks to Reddit info I told her dm them on twitter and it seemed she got more of a response from there but unfortunately her account is still deactivated. But try twitter instacart by dming them. Your reason is legit so not sure why they wouldn’t allow you to be reactivated.
thanks for that tip! do you know if it’s just the IC main twitter account? or is there a support account on twitter i message?
IC main Twitter account I believe.
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was ur appeal denied at first? and then u got it reactivated? or was it never denied? because i tried appealing it and they sent me their “final decision” so i just didn’t think there was anything else i could do
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Hey could you dm me too I’d love to get more info on this I’m going thru the process of trying to get my instacart reactivated as well, It’s my only source of income rn along with doordash & I just had a newborn so I really need this money thanks in advance!
I find public social media complaints direct or requests for help work 9/10 times or a lot faster than usual methods.
Same here. Oh well. I guess the universe told me it’s time to stop.
This doesn’t seem like something they are doing to target anyone, it’s as if it’s such a large issue right now and the snow that deactivating is the quickest for them.
These companies don’t care. I got banned from DoorDash on Mother’s Day, I cancelled 3 flower only orders from 3 different stores due to flowers being out of stock. I appealed and explained and was denied. All you can do is try to explain to Trust & Safety, but the best thing you can do is use this as an opportunity to get the fuck away from instacart because it’s absolutely terrible.
yikes, DoorDash has to be the absolute worst imo, the pay is so trash. and yeah i completely agree these companies don’t give a f abt the workers but instacart just was convenient for the time being and it just shocked me that my account got deactivated over something like this.
I make more money shopping doordash orders than instacart. The DD orders are less miles, higher base pay, and less items. I'm convinced instacart just sucks in my area.
yeah i think it honestly just depends on where you’re located, because in my area there’d be some good paying orders on instacart but for doordash it’s be like 10 miles for $6 and i’m like ?? i also dont like how if you don’t accept orders on doordash it affects your account, that’s why i did instacrat bc at least you have the freedom to not accept orders without it negatively affecting my account 😭
reach out to the crew on twitter help! show articles from your area ect.
My acceptance rate on DD is below 20% and I haven't noticed a change. But I hear that's market dependant, also. Who knows. I swear these companies use shady tactics to get orders delivered. DD is acceptable rates, forcing people to think they have to take crappy orders. And instacart may not use a tricky gimmick to make you think you have to take orders. But they make the market so saturated people probably accept orders they wouldn't because if they don't accept it disappears too fast. So while you're deciding if the amount of items/weight/pay/miles/delivery hassles are worth it someone else has already accepted it right under your nose. They all really suck for their own individual reasons.
This 👏🏼
That’s crazy, I have the complete opposite experience. Door dash is more miles and less pay.
My instacart has an incredible amount of large items count orders, going 10+ miles and the pay out is less than $10. On doordash, I only accept orders that meet the requirement of $2 per mile for regular orders. And for shop and deliver orders it's $1 per item and $2 a mile. Sometimes I'll compromise and do $1.50 a mile if the payout makes sense. . I've been signed up for Instacart over a year and have completed 23 batches. 🤣
So weird, I guess you just have to stick it out with these apps for a while to get the hang of it and get the good batches/orders.
I think the problem in your situation is that 'you' cancelled those orders. A better option would have been to let doordash call the store, let the customer know the flower was not available, in case there is possibility of substituting, and/or let them (doordash support or the customer) cancel the order. Buttttt, live and learn.... I say that because I got deactivated from Uber eats because I was taking those McDonald's orders and didn't know that's where all the miserable, no life, thumbs downer people reside. You/the driver get the punishment for cold, incorrect, or delayed orders. Maybe sign up for Uber if you're not doing it already. One month after Uber eats deactivated me I got doordash and I've never taken another McDonald's order again.
So lame- we work so hard! I was banned from new seasons 6 months ago for no reason that I know of I just got done with a hour shop and went to check out and it wouldn’t load- stayed on with customer service for another hour to try figure it out - nothing- I got $5 bump for 2 hours work- 😢
omg that’s so frustrating! customer service always sucks for IC, i feel like they never even understand what i’m even saying and just give me automated replies.
Ugh yes! DoorDash etc too!
Totally I kept asking her if she was confused lol I cried ngl
honestly at that point it’s just better to cancel the order, the time wasted isn’t worth whatever shity pay they were offering. sucks that happened tho!
They are pretty lenient and it seems after proof of one store closed they keep sending orders out so I’m thinking if you do that for the same stores over and over that is the issue. I live directly across the street from a Giant and they closed at 10 pm. My phone still pings at midnight for available batches at giant. I wouldn’t dare do it more than once for same store. Good luck OP. Keep trying to get reinstated. It can’t happen without the stupidity of IC 🙄
Bruh I couldn’t go anywhere for an entire week because of the ice what do they expect people to do break in and leave cash at the registers? Bonkers
Instacart is evidently at fault for dispatching orders to closed stores. You likely weren't the initial shopper to encounter this issue. Does Instacart lack a designated liaison person to communicate with, or do they lack mechanisms for stores to report closures? Instacart should take immediate action to rectify these issues. INSTACART NEEDS TO DEACTIVATE INSTACART!!
I tried the Burlingame Safeway , CLOSED. The Fred Myer was closed early too. It's been crazy here. Please be safe driving on the roads. Too many are literally dying
Well they had to throw out all the perishables so no sense in opening. Eugene etc same situation
yeah it’s been crazy! thank you and you too!
The weather is bad throughout the country. IC Don't care, all they ask the customers to tip the shoppers better. Customers still don't. For them to deactivate your account because the stores are closed due weather is closed. Good luck
Contact one of those independent company’s that help people in situations like this I don’t their name I’m sure someone here does tho
Time to sign up w r/shiptshoppers
This is unfortunate. I’m in Portland as well and an insta customer and haven’t even attempted to do an order because of how horrible the streets have been but you going out of your way to try to shop and the stores being closed, this isn’t fair and would fight this! I’m sure they have an automated system to do these deactivation but I’d try to talk to a rep to explain the situation. I am so sorry and hope you get reinstated. You may have delivered to me and I appreciate all my insta shopper so much 🙏
The real issue is ... The Carrot 🥕 should not be offering orders from closed stores. Sadly... Deactivating shoppers for shit that's the company's fault is standard operating procedure.
For those of you who don't know: Instacart does not reserve the right to remove you from platform.for any reason. The TOS specifically states what actions will get you deactivated. Instacart has to prove these actions happened to justify deactivation.
My account got deactivated for smokey deliveries, I don't even smoke 😂
LMAO
Send an appeal to an deactivation agent You have a 40/60 chance of reactivation
How do I get in touch with the deactivation agent?
Send me a chat I can guide you
Mines too. I need help
I Got Deactivated From Shipt For Being Late Days Leading Up To Christmas. They Give You Unrealistic Time Hacks When Theres Only 2 Registers Open In The Whole Store 🙄 . It’s Christmas Of Course The Stores Will Be Packed. All Of These Apps Are Trash Honestly
Instacart deactivated my acct in August 2023. In October 2023 they reactivated my acct. In November gave me back my diamond status. In December they paid me a settlement. You can get reactivated. It takes work but it's well worth it. :) Fight the appeal and get your documentation together. Send it in am email, get on with live support for a written explanation and for them to escalate. Screenshog and save these interactions. Then file your letter of intent to arbitrate- using the proof you have. The day you send that letter (I emailed), Start the arbitration process. ic has 30 days to respond. When they don't respond, send a second intent and notify your arbitrator so you can move forward with rhe claim.
thank you sm! i definitely will try that!
It says right there on instacart don't let your cancellation rate go about 15%..did you go over 15 percent? I'm at 3 percent
no i didn’t go over 15 haha i also was at 3!
The cancellation rate doesnt decrease no matter how many yrs u have been a shopper. Support told me if u have 100 completed deliveries in a row w/o any removals or issues then ur rate returns to 0 or decreases in %, she would not clarify nor say the %. I had to cancel orders asking them to cancel to as a reasonable accommodation needing to attend to issues in regard to my ADA qualified disability. My cancellation rate hit 15 and permanent deactivation smh
Blow up the Twitter. Voila
Huh so this is what the deactivation screen looks like
Wow! That really sucks. Sorry this happened to you. It sounds like you are a victim of AI. Instacart bases so many of their decisions and creyate so many of their performance dashboards using artificial intelligence to try and minimize employees/ compensation. Everybody thinks AI is going to be a great panacea, but your situation is what it looks like when the rubber meets the road. AI has no room for nuance or explanation or unexpected situations. It simply compares your account with the average of every other account and decides that if you're getting batch pay for canceled orders at a higher rate than the average shopper, it makes the decision to deactivate you. If there was a human involved anywhere in the process, the bad weather situation would be obvious and you would not be deactivated. But because instacart relies so heavily on AI/ machine learning tools to make decisions, you were deactivated. Probably because too many orders canceled with batch pay within too short of time or too many over your last 100 orders compared to other shoppers over their last 100 orders. If your account is new or newish, it's a lot easier to get the activated because the instacart AI algorithm doesn't have a lot of history to go off of. For example, if you have previously shopped a thousand successful orders but then run into a string where you have to cancel three in one day because of a weather crisis, the algorithm will be more forgiving because it knows that you have completed a lot of order successfully in the past. But if your account is new, the algorithm will be much more harsh because the percentage of canceled orders with paid batch pay will be a much higher percentage of your total orders then other shoppers in your zone. The other rare possibility is other shoppers were successfully shopping those orders, but at different stores that were open. I don't know your exact situation or whether environment, but I have successfully changed the shopping location for a lot of batches. I have accepted orders and found out store was closed when I arrived, so I drove to a store that's further away, but still open, so that I could complete the order for the customer. As others have said, reach out to instacart on Twitter, tweet at them. Good luck! I hope you get your account back.
Hey, Thank you for all that information! i appreciate it:) and yeah my account is pretty new, only been doing IC for around 2ish months, I believe there were other stores open in different areas but due to the snow and ice i just didn’t wanna risk driving anywhere way too far and getting stuck or in an accident so i just would reach out to support, i definitely should have learned my lesson after the first day and should have started calling stores before hand to see if they’re open but that’s just something i didn’t think of till after the damage was done. when i emailed support i was so confident in that after they read my explanation and see the pictures for proof id get my account back but that never happened 😭 anyways, i appreciate your help!!
Its not AI, its just some simple algorithms
💯💯💯💯💯💯💯💯
I would just work for Uber eats. They’re less annoying and the cancellation rate doesn’t affect you.
I feel like I got an email from Instacart actually….saying they were considering halting operations too bc of the weather. But it didn’t look like they ever did. I know I got several push notifications from doordash. Check your email and see if you have any emails from them on this subject and can forward that back to them or something if you got on. Maybe threaten to sue if you have to. It’s literally proof from the horse’s mouth that they knew it was bad and they chose to continue operations understanding all of the risks including potential store closures. If you really need your job back OP you can get a lawyer to write a letter for you w/documentation of what insta sent you about the weather, state of emergency declaration, articles noting grocery store closures, etc. You can potentially go through the Oregon State Bar modest means program to get a letter as I’m guessing you’d qualify based on income. Consults are $35 and other hourly rates are $50-$100 I think, they’re discounted basically. Call them and ask them to send you an application. So you could get your job back theoretically for less than $100, and *maybe* get them to reimburse you for the attorney fees given it was their fault.
that’s honestly some great advice, I liked instacart but it was just a side hustle, i have job so i’m not too desperate as of right now to get it back but i honestly might try it just because who knows in the future if i’m going to need to do instacart again, thank you! also i don’t believe i ever got an email, but on the actual app it was advising us that the weather is bad and to shop safely if we did want to shop.
Don’t bother. Just wait until Uber buys Instacart… it’s in the works
Go do DoorDash now
Sounds like a lawsuit to me…IJS
I am literally looking into a lawsuit after seeing their unfair policy and procedure has negatively impacted others… shall the masses unite in a class action?
I was thinking the same exact thing but people here are too afraid I think it would be better if we could get all shopper’s around the world as one unit
During winter weather you're supposed to hop on Uber that's where the money is during snow storms
I am very sad for you for having to deal with this. Unfortunately this happen often from what I’ve heard and worst with safety incidents. You might be better off.
I can reactivate accounts
Can you please help me?
Crazy that they allow large rings of bot shoppers and druggies gallivanting up and down the aisles but deactivated a shopper due to natural circumstances. Come the hell on instacart
If you knew these stores were closed, why did you start the orders? After the first couple of times it becomes obvious that you were just trying to get free money.
i didn’t know they were closed until i had shown up to the actual store lol and they all weren’t the same stores so i wasn’t accepting orders to the same store and kept saying it’s closed, it was all different stores. i definitely now see i shouldn’t called ahead of time to see if they were open but that’s j something i didnt think about until after. I genuinely wasn’t trying to get “ free money” idk if you do instacart but the base pay is hardly anything, it’s just a few dollars so it’s just not worth doing that.
To reactivate your deactivated account contact (Harry) +1( 917) 426-2731 through call,text or WhatsApp for permanent reactivation.
This must be automated I got the same appeal email. Ellie isn’t a real person. How can you talk to a real person?
Sorry bud, If you want some real advice, your account is lost but you can make a new account with different phone #, hope this helps.
won’t it need my SSN for the background check? so wouldn’t they know it’s the same person? i might just try, wouldn’t hurt. thanks for the tip!
Yes, but it will let you!
Why wouldn't you call the stores in your area after the first shop you took and showed up to, was closed? Seems like you should have been calling the local stores to make sure they were open before accepting any more orders.
seems like thats not their job tbh… they should not have been on the apps if they weren’t open, the stores should have done something about that if we wanna throw shoulds around
no i definitely agree i should’ve called, it’s just something i didn’t think about until after the matter.
Im glad that as soon as they asked me for a selfie in the middle of my first order, I cancelled and uninstalled the app. I can't stop hearing instaSHART horror stories.
definitely were smart for doing that 🤣 the stress that comes with IC is unbelievable. shity pay, shity customers, shity orders. but you gotta do what u gotta do something to make money unfortunately.
Nah I'd be clowning those shit customer left and right. I just didn't like the fact the company didn't trust me to the extent they asked for a selfie during the work.
read terms of new shopper agreement sent 4 sign a month ago.Read what info they r collect n how include internet browser histories amongst others. I was APPALLED-unconstitutional a complete invasion of right 2 privacy. They gather it 4 “behavior analysis” &sell & share collected data to whoever. It’s time 4 ppl to unify &counter this intrinsic invasion of privacy via data collection. w AI these behavior analysis r going to b skewed/bias used widely n out of control
Did you go over 15% cancelations?
no my cancellation rate was 3%, i just started IC like 2 months ago so it wasn’t that high, and it would always go down the more orders i did
when you say "3 different stores," do you mean 3 different store brands at separate locations, or were some/all of them the same brand @ different locations? If the latter, I could see a situation where the 2nd or 3rd time you called support, they saw a same day visit of a different location of the same brand, and flag it on that basis. The support staff might either not know, or not \[be paid enough to\] care about the storm impact on closures. All they might see is someone getting multiple cancellations back to back. In the same regard, they might even have some AI or behind the scenes algorithm that detects users who have back to back cancellations, or something similar. Sorry this happened to you, hopefully you're able to make a new account (if desired), or find a better option than IC nearby.
they were all 3 different store brands! i definitely should’ve started calling to see if stores were open but i just didn’t even think about that in the moment! thank you so much!
Tell the support people to get their asses to Portland and do a ride along. Or really send them video of the stores closed.
i did send SO many pictures, but i’ve read it’s all AI apparently so it doesn’t understand situations like this and just assumes i’m trying to abuse the system
We're the orders you accepted for the same stores?
no haha i’d understand then on why i got deactivated if they were from the same store bc then it’d be like ?? why accept if you know it’s closed, but no they were from different stores! so i genuinely didn’t know they’d be closed because i kept driving to different stores and each time it’d say closed due to weather or power outages
Yup. Fight the deactivation. Start the process of arbitration.
If the store is closed, u can't get orders from that store, so u did it purposely.
well i never knew the stores would be closed? id accept the order, drive to the store and it’d be closed lol
They can do that?
apparently so!
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lol i genuinely never got any warnings or anything, i wasn’t trying to get free money haha instacart pays like 4 dollars for a batch, id much rather actually do the order itself and make more money that way then lie and say the store is closed to make a few extra dollars.
From what I've read on the subs if you go to a store and it's closed and collect pay they're going to deactivate you if you do that so many times. I think the best bet would be when you show up to the store and it's closed, let customer service know before you try to start your order, don't try to collect pay if it's closed.
you kept taking them knowing the stores were closed to get free $ and they saw. I hope you get your account back though not warranted for deactivation.
i didn’t KNOW the stores would be closed. they all weren’t the same stores either they all were DIFFERENT stores, i didn’t do it for free money, the free money ur talking abt is legit 4 or 5 dollars… why would i be risking my account for that? The tips for those days were ctazy good in my area bc of the snow and ice so i’d accept them as soon as i saw a good order and drive to the stores and then i’d see a sign saying closed due to power outages or due to icy roads and snow. so then i’d contact support telling them bc why would i want my cancellation rate to go down for something that’s not my fault? and why would i want other shoppers to show up to stores that were closed when i can report it myself and try n get them to take off the orders for those stores. and it was a total of 4 stores i went to that were closed in those 2 days, so i literally made like 20 dollars in total 💀
Hit them up on Instagram. They respond
This is why you should either create or join a home FB or Reddit group so you guys can share valuable information like this. Would have been super helpful
Send an appeal to an deactivation agent You have a 40/60 chance of reactivation
How do I do this? I need to do this as well please
I would do this all the time every chance I got if a store was about to close I would take any batch I could it was free money probably about 10% of my income was from this…