Rachael Freedman’s work as a shopper for Instacart, an on-demand grocery delivery service, was a dream come true.
Freedman, who lives in San Diego, joined the service in November 2020 after years of staying at home to care for her children.
“I loved the flexibility. I liked the money. It was good exercise — I was enjoying it,” she told CNN Business.
However, in late March, Freedman was suddenly removed from the forum she had been using to shop for and distribute groceries on a regular basis. According to a copy of the correspondence shared with CNN Business, an email from Instacart told her that her account had been “connected” to another account on the site, which was a violation of the company’s contractor agreement.
According to Instacart, a “linked account” is the term the company uses to describe an account it has detected as having indications of fraud, but it does not mean there is a duplicate account using identifying information of the shopper, or that the shopper’s personal data has been compromised.
Freedman, who was informed in the email that she could appeal, insisted she had only one account and sent documents to Instacart to plead her case: “I have only one account with Instacart … This is either an error or my account has been hacked?” she wrote.
Despite several efforts, including via social media, to get the organization to review her situation, her account remains deactivated nearly a month later. Her appeal was dismissed without clarification, she learned via the app. Customers are directed to use a 24/7 chat function within the shopper app or communicate via email in the case of deactivations, while network contractors are directed to use a 24/7 chat function within the shopper app or communicate via email in the case of deactivations.
“It’s like a guillotine — you’re cut off,” she said. “Boom, that’s it.”
She suspects her deactivation could be due to a scam she fell victim to a few months ago as she tries to put together what happened. And she’s not the only one. CNN Business spoke with four other customers who recently received notices that their accounts have been deactivated, which they suspect is related to a period when they say they were scammed.
Instacart said the related account deactivations affected a limited number of people in a statement to CNN Business.
“We take the safety and security of the Instacart platform very seriously,” the company said. “There has not been a breach or hack of the Instacart platform. To ensure the safest possible experience for all members of the Instacart community, our Trust & Safety team is dedicated to ongoing security measures to eliminate any instances of fraudulent activity on the platform.”
An appeal will be accepted if a shopper can show they were deactivated for reasons outside their control, according to Instacart. It said it has steps in place to help customers who have been harmed by phishing schemes or other forms of unauthorized access recover access quickly.
The scenarios outlined to CNN Business by the shoppers illustrate the precarious nature of gig work: They will work when it is convenient for them, but they are at the mercy of the company’s whims and sometimes opaque or nonexistent grievance procedures.
The customers were among the over 300,000 independent contractors hired by the company since the outbreak started, as demand for food delivery services and staff to fill orders has increased dramatically.
The shoppers said that Instacart, which has over 500,000 customers and a market capitalization of $39 billion, has been unresponsive to their requests for assistance.
The shoppers said that Instacart, which has over 500,000 customers and a market capitalization of $39 billion, has been unresponsive to their requests for assistance.
The shoppers are left trying to make sense of what happened in the absence of straightforward answers from Instacart. Each of them reflected on scam-related events from months prior, assuming the deactivations were connected. The customers were briefly locked out of their accounts at the time, but Instacart quickly restored their access.
In January, Freedman received a batch order, which consisted of two or three small orders from various customers, one of which was for two orange juice packets. The customer instructed her to text his wife when she arrived at the location to drop off the order via the in-app chat feature. The place was a nursing home when I arrived, and no one by that name lived there. She texted the customer’s number and walked away with the juices.
A few days later, she got a call from someone claiming to be from Instacart and asking her to participate in a survey. The individual stated that he would send a verification code to her system in order to ensure that she received subsequent batches. The code, she claims, aided the individual in gaining access to her account. (Shoppers are warned not to share account details with someone pretending to be from Instacart or any other third-parties, according to Instacart.)
“Within 30 seconds, I was locked out of my account. I got an email saying my phone number had been changed. I panicked,” said Freedman, noting about $1,200 in earnings was sitting in her account.
