Instacart - Same day grocery delivery in San Francisco, Palo Alto and Mountain View

In the past 2 weeks, some of our customers were charged $99 for Instacart Express without advance notice. In addition, the terms of the plan were also changed - without them being informed. This was entirely our fault.

What Happened

In March we decided to change the terms of Instacart Express to include a $35 minimum purchase. We also decided to start charging for the service, which had been free to this group of early adopters since July 2012.

Our intention was to give these Instacart Express subscribers advance notice of the new terms and the choice of whether to convert their free trial into a paid subscription, or not.

We sent a notification via email to all subscribers, but 71 of these emails did not go out as a result of a bug.

That sucks, because these 71 customers were then charged, and also didn’t know about the change to the terms of Instacart Express! We are really sorry about that.

Next Steps

We accept responsibility for charging these customers, and here’s what we’re going to do about it.

First, we’re going to refund all delivery fees paid by the people affected by this bug.

Second, we’re going to give these customers the choice to either:

Receive a full refund of the Instacart Express subscription fee immediately Continue as a subscriber of Instacart Express for the next year. We’ll extend the end date of your subscription through April 30, 2014. This option includes unlimited free deliveries for orders over $35.

If you’re one of the affected customers, you will receive an email today with more details.

Again, we’re really sorry about this. We always try to go the extra mile to ensure that our customer experience is top notch -- and obviously here we failed.

If there is anything else we can do - please let us know:happycustomers@instacart.com or (910) 817-2278

Thank you,
Apoorva
CEO/Founder @ Instacart