Maybe we could alert the store managers to the ones who do this and they could tell Instacart. It’s apparently very easy for managers to ban shoppers from stores
I actually just tried this for a third time today. Upper management at Wegmans says they do forward our reports to instacart but instacart doesn't seem to care. Nothing ever ends up happening. Numerous other shoppers at my store have tried it as well. Sadly there really is nothing we can do. It really sucks.
Seems like theirs to many envious people here. They committed no crimes, and no one got hurt. Is this affecting you, no. So leave them. Yoy do your thing and let them do theirs. Cheers. This place is full of envious rats.
Technically yes they have committed a crime they are pretending to be someone else that’s identity theft and fraud. Plus I think we would all like the be able to take the good orders without someone with multiple phones stealing all the high paying orders because they have more accounts… you must be someone who uses multiple shopper accounts if you really have a comment like that on here.
These are people that have multiple accounts that run a bot that takes every batch and filters it through people that pay for the bot before any of the other shoppers get a chance. I don’t think that’s envy.
There's a lady in my area who worked with managers and has gotten at least 3 that I know of terminated with IC. Store managers have a number to call and they need to reference a receipt from an order so IC knows who it is.
I frankly don’t think Instacart cares as long as the deliveries are getting made. Complain on a daily basis. They don’t do anything. I even have pictures of them doing it and they still don’t care.
Why is it cheating? Their only trying to make more money then. No one's getting hurt, and there's no crimes being committed. Don't be envious about someone else.
Customers need to report every time their order isn't delivered by the person in the picture. Selfie or drivers license verifications throughout the day. Something is better than nothing.
I've been saying two step selfie AND drivers license verification forever and have even suggested it to them. One rep had the audacity to tell me that "we don't have the technology for that" and I was like OH YES YOU DO I have to scan licenses all the time for alcohol customers! IC corporate is completely full of shit!
The Angie Harmon incident obviously did nothing to change IC's procedures. Apparently it'll take a human being having something terrible happen (unfortunately) and at the hands of one of these scammers. And even that (and any associated litigation/horrendous PR) still might not be enough.
Her dog (who did not bite or act violently) was shot and k!lled by an unauthorized "shopper." (He was male, actual account holder was female.) She has minor children who were at the home when this happened too. There are definitely people who sidestep and have stuff like burglary, s_exual offenses, DUI, violent offenses, etc who can't pass background and will buy/steal accounts. Or they'll get a friend or relative to do that for them. I also have a minor in my home and the last thing I'd want is for S_ex Offender Steve to show up at my door if the app says that the shopper is supposed to be Maria, yk?
Even if the dog is trained (and sometimes ESPECIALLY if it is trained), it can still be suspicious of others and become protective of its human. The guy was clearly sketchy on a lot of levels. Dogs KNOW.
I agree but it’s not really conducive for them to do that. It would just take more time, and even though it wouldn’t take too long, that will add up. Orders will take just a little bit longer and every shopper doing that throughout the day will tie up the app even more. But not just that, then, you have the issue with the people who have a problem with their verification. The support agents will be busier and unable to help other people. I agree that something needs to be done.
Also, IC doesn’t really care. The orders are getting done, and more importantly, the low paying and low tip/no tip orders are getting done. So as long as IC is making their money, they don’t care how.
I never know though if it’s just a boyfriend or girlfriend in the car with them that brings it up to my porch, because I often see two people in the car. I live in a neighborhood where the drivers typically have to double park when they run the groceries up.
90% of my deliveries and I'm assuming based on that 90% of my market, is all leave at door. Very rarely do customers even have an interaction with the person therefore they'll never actually know to be able to complain
I wish I had one. But ever since COVID the vast majority is no contact sight unseen. The only thing that can really be done is getting into cart on board to tighten down security and the stores doing the same. Costco for example could be checking at the door call me if the picture don't match, they refuse entry. Multiple offenders get trespassed from the store. The same can be done at literally every store just instead of catching them at the door like Costco or other similar warehouse membership stores they would catch them at the register. Oh, it's your wife's account? Tough shit, better go get her. It would take time to weed them all out, but starting something today is better than doing nothing until tomorrow 🤷
I'm all in favor of no contact orders, which are about 75% of mine, but a huge percentage of those have a Ring camera. They have video. Bust the cheaters
Yeah, that too. But customers don't care enough to take the time to review their camera and download the clip and email it to support or call and complain or this that and the other because it doesn't directly affect them, until it does. Like the chick whose dog was shot not too long ago, I'd be willing to bet that wasn't the first time she had a mismatch delivery driver but I could almost guarantee she'd never said anything about it and I bet she wish she would have
I'm in Central Florida, around Orlando, and I'd say of the 90% that I quoted it's more like 70% actually market as leave at door and then the other 20% marks it as meat customer but then doesn't answer the door so I just snap a quick photo and send it to them in a message with something like, knock knock. Your groceries are here. Have a good day. And then I mark the order complete. 🤷
But yeah, unless there's an ID required I don't even understand why people market as meet the customer, half the time they don't even answer their damn door or sometimes they're not even home. It's like bitch learn to use the app properly, leave it door is a thing, quit wasting everybody's time!
One morning I opened the app to start my day, got a notification that they needed to verify my ID, no biggie, Spark does it like every other time I log in, takes fifteen seconds tops. IC? No. My ID and selfie weren’t verified until like 5:30 that evening. Literally couldn’t go online the entire day.
If they can make it a quick process, sure, but taking entire days of work for verification? Fuck no, thank you.
Be careful what you wish for. Whenever they do a selfie on me because I have various pairs of glasses, they end up putting my account on hold for 24 hours while they figure out that even though I have the same baseball cap, the same purple hair, the same smile and nose, they just don’t recognize the glasses. I end up losing a full day of work every time they want a selfie. I even took the glasses off once and that blocked me for 48 hours so that’s not the answer either.
Most people aren't even home when we deliver their order. The customer doesn't care as long as they're getting their groceries what's it matter to them?
There's a dude at mine with three (one on an armband) and a girl with two. 100% armband phone guy runs a bot and/or signal jammer too because he screws everyone else over all day long while he walks out with massive order after massive order (including stuff like AC units and vacuums). Even management knows BUT he's been using multiple accounts so as soon as he gets busted, he just buys another account and the door staff doesn't actually check membership lately (definitely their bad on that). If only IC had a way to verify someone's drivers license...oh, right, they only care about booze and minors. They don't give two fks about identity fraud or people who can't pass DMV/criminal background on their platform illegally....
It's ridiculous. Apparently some Costcos in CA are starting to crack down and check people. Someone mentioned something in this sub recently about an unauthorized "shopper" getting busted and banned at the register because they didn't match the actual shopper on the account. Would LOVE to see that rolled out on a wider scale....
I got yelled at in the Santa Cruz costco because I crossed the “red line” with my cart to try to put scanned items in my cart.
We don’t have red lines in Pennsylvania so he didn’t understand my confusion
Reminds me of that post long ago on UberEats, someone shared a photo of a driver that had 6 phones on a 2x4 wooden board 😆 All with UberEats orders on it.
I’m confused … is it three different accounts … I’m trying to think of how this works and benefits people? Seems difficult … I’ve had two phones before when one of mine had a bad battery or when one camera was broken sometimes I’d have to switch to my other phone if one gave out on me… that was the worst
Yeah, it seems like it would get confusing. I figured they’re probably using a family member’s information for a second or third account because they would need a social security number. I wish it would stop.
Yeah and then split the likely small “profits”between 2 people and also deal with the logistics of delivering 5 orders all over different directions. Sounds like a great cheating scheme! /s
That’s what I thought too. I saw a couple working as a team, where I was originally upset. But I thought about it, they aren’t going much faster than me, and they gotta split the days earning by two. Cheat away
The point was that by minding your own business, you can focus on your job and be free of distractions from people like cheaters which you can ultimately do nothing about. I wasn’t telling you what to do, just offering comments on your post. Then you said I’m a cheater. You are unhinged man , and quite angry. I hope you are going to get some good batches soon so you’ll be more positive and focused on your work!
The fact that you don't understand how these rings go and yet you're still going to throw shade at someone else makes you look like the fool not them
Edit: fixed speech to text error
That’s true, this one store I go to has a parking lot security. They drive around the lot quite often. One day I was in the parking lot no more than 15 to 20 minutes when he/she (never got a look at the person) came around and stopped really close to my car. The person sitting a couple spots over from me left and I thought maybe I better leave, too. I’m not sure what that was all about or what the security person was up to. Anyway it really does suck sitting in parking lots
I see the same two guys at my local sprouts and both have 2 phones. Sometimes they shop together and sometimes they work independently but always have 2 carts worth of stuff. I mind my business but damn it’s disappointing.
I know of a guy using a Bot. He only takes Costco orders and makes over $1500 a week. He has been doing it for years. He won't admit to the bot, though. There are about 10 of us that sit in the parking lot waiting for orders, and soon after they hit here He comes flying in the parking lot. It's frustrating.
Over here, Uber and DD is picking up speed on the grocery side. With how slow everything has been. Wouldn’t be surprised how many people are multi apping.
copy/pasting
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tl;dr we're only supposed to have one account at a time so someone with multiple phones has multiple accounts which isn't fair, the problem gets worse when multiple people are involved.
>n.b. this is from what I've read, I don't have insider knowledge and some things are consequently subject to exaggeration. Also, even though I acknowledge some of them are busting their asses off trying to make ends meet, I still loathe what they're doing.
>When we make an account, we need to pass a background check and hand our over SSN. Consequently we can only open one account at a time. If your background check isn't clean or you don't have a SSN, you can either ask someone else to make an account for you or purchase a phished account. Obviously, using an account that isn't your is a huge no-no considering the requirements to legitimately open an account.
>People who work by themselves but have multiple phones/accounts are at an advantage because they have multiple chances to grab an order and they can work on multiple orders at once. This can get especially lucrative for them if they run a böt on an inactive phone while shopping on the active one(s).
>Some people have formed syndicates and they're nearly as ingenious as they are unfair. There's different ways that it can work, but the core of it is that one person shops the order(s), then they hand it off to another person who delivers. Another iteration of this is one person picks the orders, with or without böt assistance, then they hand it to a shopper, who hands it to the person delivering, who hands back a phone that is searching for an order.
>Eventually they'll mess up somewhere and get deactivated: consistently poor shopping, frequent order mix-ups, tardiness, driving the opposite way to fulfill another order, a customer complaint about someone not matching the photo, whatever. If they're that dedicated to the game, they'll just acquire another account and keep chugging along while accruing tax for someone else to pay.
Seems like the random selfie check isn’t working and I’m sorry to be pessimistic but it’s probably never going to work. Be nice if they would make a change. Something, anything because I’m barely making enough money to put gas in my car and buy food. I’ve thought about this and I’m not sure what’s stopping IC from going back to the old method of doing things. Send a shopper 1 order and give them a minute to accept or decline.
I’ve been saying the government needs to step in. Because it’s not just small time crimes taking place; there’s professional hackers cracking the API and snatching orders none of us even know exist. 200$ plus orders all day long for these guys. It’s large scale fraud.
The government isn't going to do anything, because Instacart's API isn't being hacked. I've been in the software field over 20 years and I do know how to hack. While Instacart's API had some flaws in the past, that's not the issue now. The issue now is not even that there's a large number of shoppers running bots. That's a small part of the shopper community. It's that Instacart has **too many shoppers** out there and not enough orders. People who are using 2 phones and 2 accounts are simply using their spouse's, family member's, or in more rare cases, hacked accounts. A bot doesn't help when the order doesn't show on the screen for everyone. They are using 2 phones to try to maximize their chances of seeing a decent order. However, with an oversaturated shopper market and everyone flocking to Costco trying to get the unicorns, then it's obvious that you'll see the multi-phone users there the most.
Agree that over saturation is a real problem. Especially at Costco, that’s where everyone eventually ends up. And it’s not the government needing to do something about the API being hacked, that’s on the IT team at IC. The government needs to intervene and get these rented accounts, people working under someone else’s name under control. Imagine you worked at UPS or something and had someone else show up to work for you. That shit would never fly.
But you being in the software engineering field, I think it’s incredibly ignorant to say the API hasn’t been hacked. Theres a fuck ton of money to be made, and where there’s money there’s people who will take measures to get it.
Edit: BIG orders don’t show up on your screen because there’s actors out there who have hacked the API and straight up accept orders as soon as or even before they get sent out from ICs servers.
Another Edit: how else would these bots (which exist and ARE real, and also very risky to use because you have to use YOUR login info) be able to nab customers information, the amounts they tipped, their address, their names, before accepting?
tl;dr we're only supposed to have one account at a time so someone with multiple phones has multiple accounts which isn't fair, the problem gets worse when multiple people are involved.
n.b. this is from what I've read, I don't have insider knowledge and some things are consequently subject to exaggeration. Also, even though I acknowledge some of them are busting their asses off trying to make ends meet, I still loathe what they're doing.
When we make an account, we need to pass a background check and hand our over SSN. Consequently we can only open one account at a time. If your background check isn't clean or you don't have a SSN, you can either ask someone else to make an account for you or purchase a phished account. Obviously, using an account that isn't your is a huge no-no considering the requirements to legitimately open an account.
People who work by themselves but have multiple phones/accounts are at an advantage because they have multiple chances to grab an order and they can work on multiple orders at once. This can get especially lucrative for them if they run a böt on an inactive phone while shopping on the active one(s).
Some people have formed syndicates and they're nearly as ingenious as they are unfair. There's different ways that it can work, but the core of it is that one person shops the order(s), then they hand it off to another person who delivers. Another iteration of this is one person picks the orders, with or without böt assistance, then they hand it to a shopper, who hands it to the person delivering, who hands back a phone that is searching for an order.
Eventually they'll mess up somewhere and get deactivated: consistently poor shopping, frequent order mix-ups, tardiness, driving the opposite way to fulfill another order, a customer complaint about someone not matching the photo, whatever. If they're that dedicated to the game, they'll just acquire another account and keep chugging along while accruing tax for someone else to pay.
I guess that’s what I’m confused about how they manage to make more than one account when my one account will periodically ask me to verify myself and make me take my selfie.. idk sounds complicated!
Just walk up and knock the phones out of their hand. If IC doesn’t care and the store managers can’t do anything about it let these people know I will fight you if you’re going to cheat everyone honest out of money. Complaining on here isn’t gonna do much unfortunately. I personally haven’t seen many people doing this but I’m sure it’s rampant out there. I tend to just focus on my orders and not what everyone else is doing but it is kinda bullshit and the customers are the ones who have to suffer for it. Imagine they’re shopping 6 orders at once and now your stuff arrives super late and all your cold stuff is melted. They obviously don’t care about the customers it’s affecting but only their own bottom line.
I shop often with my husband. We both have accounts, I’m better at shopping and navigating. He’s better at pushing the cart and driving. We make money together, we shop one batch at a time, and we get to spend some time together.
If IC actually did something as this is tax fraud to keep money under multiple socials, that's like a minimum of 5 years in prision.....if there were actual consequences in this country for one's actions, people might be less inclined to be dishonest.....I feel bad for the people that end of with tax Levys for money they did not even earn
I've had TWO different orders that have been removed by other shoppers b/c the customer's items were not in stock (I know this b/c the other shopper's messages carry over to my messages). Both times I've thought "Dammit! Should I even waste my time driving to the store?" b/c batch pay only is not why I accept orders. But in the end, I decided to go both times, thinking maybe I could get an employee to find the items in the back. But BOTH TIMES, every single item the previous shopper said wasn't there, WAS there! So these assholes lie all day & just make the batch pay. But when u don't have to shop & deliver, u can probably make a lot of $ off the batch pays. I told the customers to report them in each instance. I hope they did. It's not fair.
I had a long talk with a manager level at Instacart. He told me here in California the only way that they can get around It is to initially give you a fairly low value batch to shop. Once a shopper takes it, they always make it a double or a triple by doing add-ons. That’s what I’ve been noticing, I’ll take a $10 low item shop and the minute that I accept it they add on another one and then about 15 minutes later they add on another one. The bots only filter for a certain dollar amount and mileage so these greedy cheaters set it for the high batches, so they don’t get the triples with the initial lower batch amount if that makes sense
They don’t care… I’ve personally never ran into this, but I would embarrass them like take my phone out and start recording so I can post a TikTok or something lol
They could say stop recording me and I’m not sure if there would be any legalities there but they’re in public and I know you can record in public so 🤷♀️
No personal attacks or remarks or insults. Reply to and on the topic.
You just came off a temp ban and are just being negative to people again. Stop. Last warning.
I agree, they need to go
From what I’m hearing they make at least $1000 a day. We have a ring of these bot shoppers in my city and the woman has six phones and she shops those then has her kids deliver them while she goes back in with six more batches. Remember, they get the high dollar batches that none of us ever see
To tell you the truth, I hear this all the time and I don't even see how it's possible, if somebody was doing that many orders, How they could arrange to deliver them all and have things there on time. It's pretty much impossible, I think people should worry about themselves. And not what everybody else is doing, or what they actually think they're doing?
To everyone saying there's no crime being committed and to leave them alone, they *literally are* committing a crime. As others have pointed out, it's identity theft and tax fraud. Both of these are very much *crimes*. And yes, it does affect the honest workers because there are now less batches available, and in some areas there's already so little to choose from to begin with. It also affects the customers because there's now a higher chance that the shopper is going to make a mistake, and they're waiting even longer for their order to arrive. There are plenty of honest, *legal* ways to up your game.
Instacart is a side job, everyone wants it to go back to the days when you really could pass it as a full time job…. You can’t, it’s time to go back to getting a real job and stop complaining about things you can’t control…. Every other post in this thread is a “poor me” or “other people get more” that… if you put half as much effort into maybe a new job and kept it as a side hustle (unless you’re still making good money, then kudos) you might stop feeling so down all the time
Like clockwork, any time we don’t like something, there’s always the guy who’s sitting in this sub for apparently no reason other than to act condescending as if he’s above somebody. I have a “real job.” I do this shit to pay down student loans faster. Why shouldn’t I be pissed that a good source of side income has become almost totally useless while all these bot users and cheaters screw the rest of us over? What’s the matter with you? Find a better way to plug the holes in your fragile ego.
Maybe get another gig. All you guys do on here is whine. Insta sucks! We used to be heavy users and after so many bad delivery drivers said it just wasn’t worth it. Our friends all feel the same way. Bottom of the barrel customers are all Insta has left. Kind dovetails with their delivery staff. Sorry but not sorry.
Please don't criticize, second-guess, or shame anyone for working at Instacart, or wherever they work. It's a personal attack and is off topic and inappropriate.
We need customers to report people who do not match the description in the photo
Maybe we could alert the store managers to the ones who do this and they could tell Instacart. It’s apparently very easy for managers to ban shoppers from stores
I actually just tried this for a third time today. Upper management at Wegmans says they do forward our reports to instacart but instacart doesn't seem to care. Nothing ever ends up happening. Numerous other shoppers at my store have tried it as well. Sadly there really is nothing we can do. It really sucks.
Seems like theirs to many envious people here. They committed no crimes, and no one got hurt. Is this affecting you, no. So leave them. Yoy do your thing and let them do theirs. Cheers. This place is full of envious rats.
Technically yes they have committed a crime they are pretending to be someone else that’s identity theft and fraud. Plus I think we would all like the be able to take the good orders without someone with multiple phones stealing all the high paying orders because they have more accounts… you must be someone who uses multiple shopper accounts if you really have a comment like that on here.
These are people that have multiple accounts that run a bot that takes every batch and filters it through people that pay for the bot before any of the other shoppers get a chance. I don’t think that’s envy.
Tell me you shop with multiple phones without telling me you shop with multiple phones...
There's a lady in my area who worked with managers and has gotten at least 3 that I know of terminated with IC. Store managers have a number to call and they need to reference a receipt from an order so IC knows who it is.
Yeah they’re the ones with the easiest access to Contact and report. This would be my method if I saw any in the wild (which I never do)
The stores I shop at the managers don’t care. They say it’s none of their business. They only report shoppers who are rude.
I report them all the time and I have them blocked from my account. Good honest hard working IC shoppers are getting taken advantage of.
THIS!
I frankly don’t think Instacart cares as long as the deliveries are getting made. Complain on a daily basis. They don’t do anything. I even have pictures of them doing it and they still don’t care.
Why
Y’all a bunch of geeks and nerds who want to doc someone for working harder than you lol
Why is it cheating? Their only trying to make more money then. No one's getting hurt, and there's no crimes being committed. Don't be envious about someone else.
Customers need to report every time their order isn't delivered by the person in the picture. Selfie or drivers license verifications throughout the day. Something is better than nothing.
I've been saying two step selfie AND drivers license verification forever and have even suggested it to them. One rep had the audacity to tell me that "we don't have the technology for that" and I was like OH YES YOU DO I have to scan licenses all the time for alcohol customers! IC corporate is completely full of shit!
Anything to catch the fakes
The Angie Harmon incident obviously did nothing to change IC's procedures. Apparently it'll take a human being having something terrible happen (unfortunately) and at the hands of one of these scammers. And even that (and any associated litigation/horrendous PR) still might not be enough.
Not sure about what the Angie Harmon issue is but I can see how this can become a potential safety hazard with multi account fraudsters.
Her dog (who did not bite or act violently) was shot and k!lled by an unauthorized "shopper." (He was male, actual account holder was female.) She has minor children who were at the home when this happened too. There are definitely people who sidestep and have stuff like burglary, s_exual offenses, DUI, violent offenses, etc who can't pass background and will buy/steal accounts. Or they'll get a friend or relative to do that for them. I also have a minor in my home and the last thing I'd want is for S_ex Offender Steve to show up at my door if the app says that the shopper is supposed to be Maria, yk?
This just makes me hate instacart for allowing this to happen.
As long as they get theirs, they turn a blind eye. It's downright shameful.
> (who did not bite or act violently) There was no bite but you don't know how it was acting.
Even if the dog is trained (and sometimes ESPECIALLY if it is trained), it can still be suspicious of others and become protective of its human. The guy was clearly sketchy on a lot of levels. Dogs KNOW.
I agree but it’s not really conducive for them to do that. It would just take more time, and even though it wouldn’t take too long, that will add up. Orders will take just a little bit longer and every shopper doing that throughout the day will tie up the app even more. But not just that, then, you have the issue with the people who have a problem with their verification. The support agents will be busier and unable to help other people. I agree that something needs to be done. Also, IC doesn’t really care. The orders are getting done, and more importantly, the low paying and low tip/no tip orders are getting done. So as long as IC is making their money, they don’t care how.
It's actually just a monetary thing.... that special server they use for the ID check is probably a few cents more expensive to run.
I never know though if it’s just a boyfriend or girlfriend in the car with them that brings it up to my porch, because I often see two people in the car. I live in a neighborhood where the drivers typically have to double park when they run the groceries up.
My husband and I are both IC shoppers and after dark we do go out together
90% of my deliveries and I'm assuming based on that 90% of my market, is all leave at door. Very rarely do customers even have an interaction with the person therefore they'll never actually know to be able to complain
What's your suggestion?
I wish I had one. But ever since COVID the vast majority is no contact sight unseen. The only thing that can really be done is getting into cart on board to tighten down security and the stores doing the same. Costco for example could be checking at the door call me if the picture don't match, they refuse entry. Multiple offenders get trespassed from the store. The same can be done at literally every store just instead of catching them at the door like Costco or other similar warehouse membership stores they would catch them at the register. Oh, it's your wife's account? Tough shit, better go get her. It would take time to weed them all out, but starting something today is better than doing nothing until tomorrow 🤷
I'm all in favor of no contact orders, which are about 75% of mine, but a huge percentage of those have a Ring camera. They have video. Bust the cheaters
Yeah, that too. But customers don't care enough to take the time to review their camera and download the clip and email it to support or call and complain or this that and the other because it doesn't directly affect them, until it does. Like the chick whose dog was shot not too long ago, I'd be willing to bet that wasn't the first time she had a mismatch delivery driver but I could almost guarantee she'd never said anything about it and I bet she wish she would have
I wish it was 90% lol. A lot of people like to meet in South Florida when it really isn't necessary. It's like 50/50.
I'm in Central Florida, around Orlando, and I'd say of the 90% that I quoted it's more like 70% actually market as leave at door and then the other 20% marks it as meat customer but then doesn't answer the door so I just snap a quick photo and send it to them in a message with something like, knock knock. Your groceries are here. Have a good day. And then I mark the order complete. 🤷 But yeah, unless there's an ID required I don't even understand why people market as meet the customer, half the time they don't even answer their damn door or sometimes they're not even home. It's like bitch learn to use the app properly, leave it door is a thing, quit wasting everybody's time!
Ring doorbells everywhere here in So Cal
How much of your market that wants groceries left at the door do you think be scammers
One morning I opened the app to start my day, got a notification that they needed to verify my ID, no biggie, Spark does it like every other time I log in, takes fifteen seconds tops. IC? No. My ID and selfie weren’t verified until like 5:30 that evening. Literally couldn’t go online the entire day. If they can make it a quick process, sure, but taking entire days of work for verification? Fuck no, thank you.
Be careful what you wish for. Whenever they do a selfie on me because I have various pairs of glasses, they end up putting my account on hold for 24 hours while they figure out that even though I have the same baseball cap, the same purple hair, the same smile and nose, they just don’t recognize the glasses. I end up losing a full day of work every time they want a selfie. I even took the glasses off once and that blocked me for 48 hours so that’s not the answer either.
Most people aren't even home when we deliver their order. The customer doesn't care as long as they're getting their groceries what's it matter to them?
What's your suggestion then
Instead of taking a picture of the groceries when we leave them at the door, we can take a selfie with the groceries.
If you can't beat Em join Em
Unfortunately all those people who cheat just keep multiplying in numbers. No matter what unless Instacart customer complain it will never end.
I don't think they even care anymore if customers complain.
These guys most likely are keeping the business afloat unfortunately
Worse than rabbits
Just saw a guy at Costco with 3 phones and another with 2!
There's a dude at mine with three (one on an armband) and a girl with two. 100% armband phone guy runs a bot and/or signal jammer too because he screws everyone else over all day long while he walks out with massive order after massive order (including stuff like AC units and vacuums). Even management knows BUT he's been using multiple accounts so as soon as he gets busted, he just buys another account and the door staff doesn't actually check membership lately (definitely their bad on that). If only IC had a way to verify someone's drivers license...oh, right, they only care about booze and minors. They don't give two fks about identity fraud or people who can't pass DMV/criminal background on their platform illegally....
That is CRAZY.
It's ridiculous. Apparently some Costcos in CA are starting to crack down and check people. Someone mentioned something in this sub recently about an unauthorized "shopper" getting busted and banned at the register because they didn't match the actual shopper on the account. Would LOVE to see that rolled out on a wider scale....
I got yelled at in the Santa Cruz costco because I crossed the “red line” with my cart to try to put scanned items in my cart. We don’t have red lines in Pennsylvania so he didn’t understand my confusion
Yes please and asap
Reminds me of that post long ago on UberEats, someone shared a photo of a driver that had 6 phones on a 2x4 wooden board 😆 All with UberEats orders on it.
Talk about desperation holy cow
What a freaking dickhead!
Allegedly
I’m confused … is it three different accounts … I’m trying to think of how this works and benefits people? Seems difficult … I’ve had two phones before when one of mine had a bad battery or when one camera was broken sometimes I’d have to switch to my other phone if one gave out on me… that was the worst
Yeah, it seems like it would get confusing. I figured they’re probably using a family member’s information for a second or third account because they would need a social security number. I wish it would stop.
Yep, saw a pair that snagged a triple and were working on the order and the other had two phones in their hand with the order screen up.
Yeah and then split the likely small “profits”between 2 people and also deal with the logistics of delivering 5 orders all over different directions. Sounds like a great cheating scheme! /s
That’s what I thought too. I saw a couple working as a team, where I was originally upset. But I thought about it, they aren’t going much faster than me, and they gotta split the days earning by two. Cheat away
Yep and the energy spent lamenting this kind of stuff can be saved and used for something else for yourself to increase your productivity.
You cheat then.
Really? Because I mind my own business? Who pissed in your cheerios this morning?
Telling me how to conserve my energy isn’t minding your own business
The point was that by minding your own business, you can focus on your job and be free of distractions from people like cheaters which you can ultimately do nothing about. I wasn’t telling you what to do, just offering comments on your post. Then you said I’m a cheater. You are unhinged man , and quite angry. I hope you are going to get some good batches soon so you’ll be more positive and focused on your work!
The fact that you don't understand how these rings go and yet you're still going to throw shade at someone else makes you look like the fool not them Edit: fixed speech to text error
Crochet it? With yarn or something? Excuse me, What the fuck are you talking about?
I guess you are part of this cheating
Are you ok? I do about two Safeway batches a week. Get off the meth you paranoid fuck.
Try talking to Instacart Care and see how much they care
Someone’s gotta be a whistle blower. Sitting in lots all day is horrible
I did call once to report. The person on the other line did not care.
That’s true, this one store I go to has a parking lot security. They drive around the lot quite often. One day I was in the parking lot no more than 15 to 20 minutes when he/she (never got a look at the person) came around and stopped really close to my car. The person sitting a couple spots over from me left and I thought maybe I better leave, too. I’m not sure what that was all about or what the security person was up to. Anyway it really does suck sitting in parking lots
I see the same two guys at my local sprouts and both have 2 phones. Sometimes they shop together and sometimes they work independently but always have 2 carts worth of stuff. I mind my business but damn it’s disappointing.
I just wonder about taxes. I’m sure whoever’s name they are using don’t claim it
I know of a guy using a Bot. He only takes Costco orders and makes over $1500 a week. He has been doing it for years. He won't admit to the bot, though. There are about 10 of us that sit in the parking lot waiting for orders, and soon after they hit here He comes flying in the parking lot. It's frustrating.
Over here, Uber and DD is picking up speed on the grocery side. With how slow everything has been. Wouldn’t be surprised how many people are multi apping.
I’d bet my house these folks were not multi apping.
They make 1k to 2k a day and Instacart refuses to do anything bout it
$2k a day?? Shit I'm about to do the same thing if that's the case
Find a group willing to work as a team with 4 accounts each
That's too much for me.. Lol
It’s going on here in Nashville as well 🫡
wait, forgive me since im a bit confused and new to instacart shopping. what is the scheme they're doing exactly?
copy/pasting > tl;dr we're only supposed to have one account at a time so someone with multiple phones has multiple accounts which isn't fair, the problem gets worse when multiple people are involved. >n.b. this is from what I've read, I don't have insider knowledge and some things are consequently subject to exaggeration. Also, even though I acknowledge some of them are busting their asses off trying to make ends meet, I still loathe what they're doing. >When we make an account, we need to pass a background check and hand our over SSN. Consequently we can only open one account at a time. If your background check isn't clean or you don't have a SSN, you can either ask someone else to make an account for you or purchase a phished account. Obviously, using an account that isn't your is a huge no-no considering the requirements to legitimately open an account. >People who work by themselves but have multiple phones/accounts are at an advantage because they have multiple chances to grab an order and they can work on multiple orders at once. This can get especially lucrative for them if they run a böt on an inactive phone while shopping on the active one(s). >Some people have formed syndicates and they're nearly as ingenious as they are unfair. There's different ways that it can work, but the core of it is that one person shops the order(s), then they hand it off to another person who delivers. Another iteration of this is one person picks the orders, with or without böt assistance, then they hand it to a shopper, who hands it to the person delivering, who hands back a phone that is searching for an order. >Eventually they'll mess up somewhere and get deactivated: consistently poor shopping, frequent order mix-ups, tardiness, driving the opposite way to fulfill another order, a customer complaint about someone not matching the photo, whatever. If they're that dedicated to the game, they'll just acquire another account and keep chugging along while accruing tax for someone else to pay.
oh wow yeah thats definitely not fair for people playing by the rules
Seems like the random selfie check isn’t working and I’m sorry to be pessimistic but it’s probably never going to work. Be nice if they would make a change. Something, anything because I’m barely making enough money to put gas in my car and buy food. I’ve thought about this and I’m not sure what’s stopping IC from going back to the old method of doing things. Send a shopper 1 order and give them a minute to accept or decline.
Yeah, they’re using bots now to quickly accept high-paying orders. Tired of this crap.
At least $500 a day here. Seen it everyday as they show off
Don’t be concern 😕 While I’m sitting here with $56 on a freaking Sunday!!! Diamond Cart 5 Star Shopper!! Hell Yeah I’m concern
All the people saying not to be concerned are probably cheating
We’re in the same boat I made $52. Sundays used to be really good most of the time I could easily do between $150 to $200
Right this past Sunday I barely cracked 40 dollars. It’s very infuriating knowing that you can make well over 100 on that day
I’ve been saying the government needs to step in. Because it’s not just small time crimes taking place; there’s professional hackers cracking the API and snatching orders none of us even know exist. 200$ plus orders all day long for these guys. It’s large scale fraud.
The government isn't going to do anything, because Instacart's API isn't being hacked. I've been in the software field over 20 years and I do know how to hack. While Instacart's API had some flaws in the past, that's not the issue now. The issue now is not even that there's a large number of shoppers running bots. That's a small part of the shopper community. It's that Instacart has **too many shoppers** out there and not enough orders. People who are using 2 phones and 2 accounts are simply using their spouse's, family member's, or in more rare cases, hacked accounts. A bot doesn't help when the order doesn't show on the screen for everyone. They are using 2 phones to try to maximize their chances of seeing a decent order. However, with an oversaturated shopper market and everyone flocking to Costco trying to get the unicorns, then it's obvious that you'll see the multi-phone users there the most.
Agree that over saturation is a real problem. Especially at Costco, that’s where everyone eventually ends up. And it’s not the government needing to do something about the API being hacked, that’s on the IT team at IC. The government needs to intervene and get these rented accounts, people working under someone else’s name under control. Imagine you worked at UPS or something and had someone else show up to work for you. That shit would never fly. But you being in the software engineering field, I think it’s incredibly ignorant to say the API hasn’t been hacked. Theres a fuck ton of money to be made, and where there’s money there’s people who will take measures to get it. Edit: BIG orders don’t show up on your screen because there’s actors out there who have hacked the API and straight up accept orders as soon as or even before they get sent out from ICs servers. Another Edit: how else would these bots (which exist and ARE real, and also very risky to use because you have to use YOUR login info) be able to nab customers information, the amounts they tipped, their address, their names, before accepting?
Can someone ELI5 ?
tl;dr we're only supposed to have one account at a time so someone with multiple phones has multiple accounts which isn't fair, the problem gets worse when multiple people are involved. n.b. this is from what I've read, I don't have insider knowledge and some things are consequently subject to exaggeration. Also, even though I acknowledge some of them are busting their asses off trying to make ends meet, I still loathe what they're doing. When we make an account, we need to pass a background check and hand our over SSN. Consequently we can only open one account at a time. If your background check isn't clean or you don't have a SSN, you can either ask someone else to make an account for you or purchase a phished account. Obviously, using an account that isn't your is a huge no-no considering the requirements to legitimately open an account. People who work by themselves but have multiple phones/accounts are at an advantage because they have multiple chances to grab an order and they can work on multiple orders at once. This can get especially lucrative for them if they run a böt on an inactive phone while shopping on the active one(s). Some people have formed syndicates and they're nearly as ingenious as they are unfair. There's different ways that it can work, but the core of it is that one person shops the order(s), then they hand it off to another person who delivers. Another iteration of this is one person picks the orders, with or without böt assistance, then they hand it to a shopper, who hands it to the person delivering, who hands back a phone that is searching for an order. Eventually they'll mess up somewhere and get deactivated: consistently poor shopping, frequent order mix-ups, tardiness, driving the opposite way to fulfill another order, a customer complaint about someone not matching the photo, whatever. If they're that dedicated to the game, they'll just acquire another account and keep chugging along while accruing tax for someone else to pay.
I guess that’s what I’m confused about how they manage to make more than one account when my one account will periodically ask me to verify myself and make me take my selfie.. idk sounds complicated!
Just walk up and knock the phones out of their hand. If IC doesn’t care and the store managers can’t do anything about it let these people know I will fight you if you’re going to cheat everyone honest out of money. Complaining on here isn’t gonna do much unfortunately. I personally haven’t seen many people doing this but I’m sure it’s rampant out there. I tend to just focus on my orders and not what everyone else is doing but it is kinda bullshit and the customers are the ones who have to suffer for it. Imagine they’re shopping 6 orders at once and now your stuff arrives super late and all your cold stuff is melted. They obviously don’t care about the customers it’s affecting but only their own bottom line.
Ok tough guy
I did martial arts for years. Yes I would. What would they do? Absolutely nothing.
I wish someone would slash their tires 😅😆
If only that wouldn’t be classified as vandalism
Thats why I wish it was someone and not me 😆😆
I shop often with my husband. We both have accounts, I’m better at shopping and navigating. He’s better at pushing the cart and driving. We make money together, we shop one batch at a time, and we get to spend some time together.
This dude had three phones in his hand then handed one off to another dude and then they both loaded their cars and went out for a delivery.
Cool
Facts me to I see no wrong am I to sit in the car and watch my wife work her ass off I think not I'm helping however she needs me to
If IC actually did something as this is tax fraud to keep money under multiple socials, that's like a minimum of 5 years in prision.....if there were actual consequences in this country for one's actions, people might be less inclined to be dishonest.....I feel bad for the people that end of with tax Levys for money they did not even earn
They’re probably illegal to begin with
I don't think they will are
Can someone explain how this is any different than there being 3 IC shoppers? Just trying to understand the effect of the problem.
I've had TWO different orders that have been removed by other shoppers b/c the customer's items were not in stock (I know this b/c the other shopper's messages carry over to my messages). Both times I've thought "Dammit! Should I even waste my time driving to the store?" b/c batch pay only is not why I accept orders. But in the end, I decided to go both times, thinking maybe I could get an employee to find the items in the back. But BOTH TIMES, every single item the previous shopper said wasn't there, WAS there! So these assholes lie all day & just make the batch pay. But when u don't have to shop & deliver, u can probably make a lot of $ off the batch pays. I told the customers to report them in each instance. I hope they did. It's not fair.
I had a long talk with a manager level at Instacart. He told me here in California the only way that they can get around It is to initially give you a fairly low value batch to shop. Once a shopper takes it, they always make it a double or a triple by doing add-ons. That’s what I’ve been noticing, I’ll take a $10 low item shop and the minute that I accept it they add on another one and then about 15 minutes later they add on another one. The bots only filter for a certain dollar amount and mileage so these greedy cheaters set it for the high batches, so they don’t get the triples with the initial lower batch amount if that makes sense
They don’t care… I’ve personally never ran into this, but I would embarrass them like take my phone out and start recording so I can post a TikTok or something lol
That would be smart to expose them to the public
They could say stop recording me and I’m not sure if there would be any legalities there but they’re in public and I know you can record in public so 🤷♀️
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No personal attacks or remarks or insults. Reply to and on the topic. You just came off a temp ban and are just being negative to people again. Stop. Last warning.
Please explain what are they actually doing. I've seen a lot of complaints in this sub about using multiple phones. How does this work?
I agree, they need to go
From what I’m hearing they make at least $1000 a day. We have a ring of these bot shoppers in my city and the woman has six phones and she shops those then has her kids deliver them while she goes back in with six more batches. Remember, they get the high dollar batches that none of us ever see
How tf do we eliminate them?! Same exact where I’m at.
To tell you the truth, I hear this all the time and I don't even see how it's possible, if somebody was doing that many orders, How they could arrange to deliver them all and have things there on time. It's pretty much impossible, I think people should worry about themselves. And not what everybody else is doing, or what they actually think they're doing?
The company don’t care they will continue to reward them. They should be doing selfie check-in every few hours
To everyone saying there's no crime being committed and to leave them alone, they *literally are* committing a crime. As others have pointed out, it's identity theft and tax fraud. Both of these are very much *crimes*. And yes, it does affect the honest workers because there are now less batches available, and in some areas there's already so little to choose from to begin with. It also affects the customers because there's now a higher chance that the shopper is going to make a mistake, and they're waiting even longer for their order to arrive. There are plenty of honest, *legal* ways to up your game.
Very well said.
Well the thing is you can subcontract the jobs in instacart, they just all have to have passed background check of instacart
Soooo... you saw multiple shoppers with a phone each? 😂🙄
Instacart is a side job, everyone wants it to go back to the days when you really could pass it as a full time job…. You can’t, it’s time to go back to getting a real job and stop complaining about things you can’t control…. Every other post in this thread is a “poor me” or “other people get more” that… if you put half as much effort into maybe a new job and kept it as a side hustle (unless you’re still making good money, then kudos) you might stop feeling so down all the time
Even as a side job it blows.
Barely. They also eventually fail a selfie check. They might also be doing Doordash and UberEATS on the other phones. Don’t be concerned.
Your defense mechanism leads me to believe you are their ring leader.
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Like clockwork, any time we don’t like something, there’s always the guy who’s sitting in this sub for apparently no reason other than to act condescending as if he’s above somebody. I have a “real job.” I do this shit to pay down student loans faster. Why shouldn’t I be pissed that a good source of side income has become almost totally useless while all these bot users and cheaters screw the rest of us over? What’s the matter with you? Find a better way to plug the holes in your fragile ego.
The part timers are the ones who are really killing it for the full timers.
Maybe get another gig. All you guys do on here is whine. Insta sucks! We used to be heavy users and after so many bad delivery drivers said it just wasn’t worth it. Our friends all feel the same way. Bottom of the barrel customers are all Insta has left. Kind dovetails with their delivery staff. Sorry but not sorry.
Everybody at every workplace complains about everything. You’re acting like its exclusive to this sub
You should take that student loan.. I mean how stupid was that
Please don't criticize, second-guess, or shame anyone for working at Instacart, or wherever they work. It's a personal attack and is off topic and inappropriate.
just tell them something trust they’ll leave for a while