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Instacart: We're Sorry
- m2mapps 14y agoKudos for the apology, unfortunately it took for this to go to the top of Hacker News before an apology arrived.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- magic5227 14y agoBecause it shouldn't take publish shaming.
- eridius 14y agoIt didn't. I think the original article jumped to public shaming far too quickly. The author made no attempt to resolve this through other mechanisms. I have no problem believing Instacart was not even aware that a number of their express customers never received the email.
- mstz 14y agoDid you read the same article I did? The author emailed instacart... He even pasted the full email correspondence. The representative did not accept responsibility for the email not making it to him ("I apologize if for some reason you did not receive it.") which we now know _was_ instacart's fault, and did not offer any refunds. It took the public shaming before Apoorva showed up on the thread and offered his money back.
- eridius 14y agoWe know _now_ that it was Instacart's fault. The only fault I take with the email is the use of the word "if" instead of "that". Given a single case of an email not being received it's not unreasonable to assume it was caught in a spam filter. As for refunds, sure, Instacart could have offered one, but honestly I don't think they should. As an Express member who was surprised by the delivery fee, there's no way I could have missed the fact that I was being charged one before I placed the order. The very dropdown you use to pick when you want the delivery also tells you what the fee will be. The fact that Caleb went ahead and placed the small orders that had a delivery fee is entirely his own fault. And I also disagree that it required public shaming to be offered a refund on his express membership. He never asked for one in the first place. If he had responded to Mike and said that, given the changes to Express, he would prefer to have his membership cancelled, Instacart most likely would have gone ahead and done that for him.
- calebio 14y agoI'll comment on this just to clarify a few things and we can agree to disagree, but these are just my thoughts: 1) I'll admit I didn't notice the fee being added because I don't schedule my deliveries for future times, I just select "Immediately" and go on with my day. I don't and shouldn't ever have to expect to read to the side to see a $7.99 fee being added because I paid $99 a year to have that fee removed. Sure, I could have noticed the total amount of the bill but I didn't. 2) I also didn't place significantly small orders ($10 minimum). I placed a few orders usually in the $25-$30 range that was enough ingredients for one or two nights dinner. Two of my orders in question were under this $35 limit but not a significant amount like you seem to have claimed as a fact. 3) I didn't want a refund for my express membership nor did I want a refund of the $7.99 delivery fees associated with those orders.. I wanted an answer on why I was receiving this fee after subscribing to Instacart Express. If I would have wanted either of those things I would have expressed them in the email or blog post. The answer I got was basically that they changed the policy, charged my debit card, and it was unfortunate that I didn't receive an email. This is just shady as can be. I went through their Twitter feed, their homepage, their blog, their terms and policies, and scanned all of my email accounts to see if I could possibly have missed the email or notification. There was nothing related to this policy change anywhere which I find wrong. I felt that informing other users about this was beneficial. I'm was sure I wasn't the only one that it affected (two co-workers were affected, I learned of the second one after writing the post) and if I would not have posted this blog post I'm almost positive that Instacart would have paid no more attention to this nor informed the public that there could have been a mistake and informed them.
- angryasian 14y agoThe fact that this company was charging cards without notifying their customers of a charge is very dubious. A simple email every time they charged a customer's card without explicit consent is all that is needed at a minimum. I think its more of a public service more than anything. How many other people were they charging unknowingly ?
- realdlee 14y agoA simple text or email after every charge seems pretty reasonable (like Sidecar and similar apps).
- ajju 14y agoLess than 4 hours after finding out about the issue here's a complete explanation of what happened, a public apology, and an appropriate fix. This is good customer service.
- chollida1 14y ago> Less than 4 hours after finding out about the issue here's a complete explanation of what happened, a public apology, and an appropriate fix. Or it indicates that they knew about it before hand and were working on it. Either way, I agree with you. Good customer service.
- angryasian 14y agogood customer service would have been to notify their customers every time they are going to charge against their card vs having to have the customer monitor explicitly what charges instacart is making.
- tptacek 14y agoThey made a mistake. They admitted it. Your argument is an appeal either to time travel or omniscience. It is hard to understand what you expect from them at this point.
- angryasian 14y agoso when companies knowingly hide credit card charges, and doesn't notify users of term changes that may affect customers especially when it comes to hidden charges.. I don't expect anything, other than to bring to public what kind of company this is. Is it really a mistake to charge people's credit cards without notification ?
- tptacek 14y agoYou're right. You get the stake, I'll get the kindling.
- Diamons 14y agoWait, so you knew about the 71 emails not being sent and did nothing? Also, I find it hard to believe it was only 71 emails because of the number of complaints I saw in the original thread, unless the majority of your customers are HN members.
- ryderm 14y agoThey probably just found out.
- 3am 14y agoI was in QA at a retail company. It's hard to do targeted notifications and updates. You miss one condition in a WHERE clause when defining your target and something like this happens. It is also fairly easy to figure out the size of the group you missed from a single example.
- Uchikoma 14y agoBut it seems they had no problem with the WHERE clause when making those pay.
- 3am 14y agoThat's a cute response, but that's not how applications are written and presumably you know that. I'm not excusing this. If they did it the right way they'd have 1. Set a date to cancel the existing program 2. Sent a targeted email to everyone enrolled in it which said, "We have major changes to the unlimited delivery plan effective xx/yy, if you would like to continue please follow this link and accept the changes or you will be opted out" 3. Cancel the old plans across the board on date xx/yy But hindsight's 20/20, their explanation is more that plausible, and their response is more than adequate. Do they need to put on hairshirts and scourge themselves?
- mmmmax 14y agoWhat happened is that we made a mistake querying for the email addresses, causing us to miss a group of the first people to sign up for Instacart Express. This skewed heavily towards HN members. We knew a few people had been missed (because they emailed us after seeing the charge, and said they didn't get an email) but not why or how many.
- speedyrev 14y agoSomebody at Instacart read Hacker News?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jacalata 14y agoand responded in the thread, yes.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- magicseth 14y agoThis fix seems a little lackluster. It would seem more upstanding to honor the agreement they had made, and collected money for: i.e. let the 71 users continue the delivery-fee-free plan (with no minimum) for the end of the term.
- tptacek 14y agoIt does not seem reasonable for a tiny startup to accept an unbounded downside risk just for PR purposes. The refund they're offering is fine.
- magicseth 14y agoI don't think it's just for PR purposes, but I understand your concern of an unbounded downside. Even a few free deliveries would be something. They were caught having made a mistake: unilaterally changing the terms of a renewing contract without written notice. The bare minimum they can do is to offer a refund. Mistake or no mistake, if their goal is to "always try to go the extra mile," they are failing to do so here.
- asperous 14y agoThe bare minimum they can do is nothing, offering a refund on all of the delivery charges is an important step above, but offering a refund on the entire service so far?! That's quite an extra mile.
- magicseth 14y agoI'm afraid I didn't make it clear. I meant a refund for the most recent $99 auto renew charge that had changed the terms of service without notifying the customers.
- fnordfnordfnord 14y agoNo, Instacart made an agreement which they need to honor more faithfully. If the 71 customers had decided to change the terms of a business agreement similarly, their accounts would probably be closed and referred for debt-collection. The fact that Instacart is a tiny startup has no bearing on whether they should honor their agreements.
- aeon10 14y agoI think this is a really good response from Instacart. Heroku could learn a few things from them I suppose. But again, good response from the Instacart team. well done.
- Systemic33 14y agoRelevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u0EL_u4nvw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u0EL_u4nvw
- guiseppecalzone 14y agoInstacart is one of my favorite services. I use them every week. I want them to build a sustainable business and last forever, since I never want to visit a grocery store again. When I saw this on HN this morning, my reaction was that it's easy for things to get missed in the chaos of startups. Remember, these guys run a startup. They're juggling a million things, including a company that's growing fast due to high demand. These things will happen. It's how the team deals with issues like this that will make them a great company.
- jacalata 14y ago"They're a startup, things will go wrong" is a valid argument to use for anyone not charging things to my credit card.
- guiseppecalzone 14y agoSprint makes credit card errors all the time. It's business as usual. Instacart makes a mistake and writes an apology on its company blog. I wish I lived in a world where there were more Instacarts and less Sprints. People are fallible. Companies are fallible. The real indication of character is what they do to fix things when they go wrong.
- mbrameld 14y agoThis isn't a credit card error. This would be like signing a contract with Sprint for 500 minutes a month for $20, getting charged the $20, and then being charged an extra per-minute fee that wasn't in the contract.
- res0nat0r 14y agoKind of like when you get your latest Comcast bill, Sprint bill, natural gas bill and see that "effective $DATE we will be increasing our price by $X% due to $Y". Happens all the time unfortunately.
- magikbum 14y ago> If there is anything else we can do - please let us know: happycustomers@instacart.com or (910) 817-2278 I wonder what it is like to be really upset and then email an alias called happycustomers when you really aren't happy.
- trhtrsh 14y agoIt's incredibly annoying and offputting, much like when Tech/Billing Support at my phone company plays hold "music" filled with cross-sell/up-sell advertising.
- rburhum 14y agoMy gf started using Instacart and I completely fell in love with it. A few days ago, my gf started complaining about some sort of $3 extra charges she noticed. Being a startup founder myself, I reminded her that they are trying to build a sustainable business model because I absolutely hate having to deal with parking after going out for groceries. The word "parking" made her switch her mind immediately. The truth is that changing pricing structure is hard for any company, but I sincerely applaud what these guys are doing and don't mind at all if I have to order more to make it a sustainable business. I don't want another thing I liked destroyed by the silly Kozmo.com business model.
- tptacek 14y agoYes, this: add to the fact that upward price moves will make your users revolt irrationally (that is, they'll revolt without considering whether any substitutable good or service would be less expensive), but that you have to execute the change perfectly to avoid transforming your customers into an angry aggrieved mob. Bumping up prices is the Triple Axel of startup moves.
- tvladeck 14y agoconsidering that this is coming as a response to the fact that they charged people without notice, it's not enough to just refund the money (as that option should have been available in the first place when they changed their terms). making up for something like this requires that you go above and beyond just "catching up" to where you should have been before. imo, since this is coming after the fact, they should refund the money and honor the terms of the arrangement their customers thought they were getting into.
- tjbiddle 14y agoWell done. Always good to see a startup take real responsibility for their actions.
- kaoD 14y agoNever, never, never, NEVER, NEVER, NEVER EVER charge people when they didn't explicitly agree to the charge. NEVER. This is a huge NO-NO for any business. Big red flag. Stay away from Instacart.
- tomash 14y agoThey'll probably learn it themselves after a first wave of chargebacks.
- tomash 14y agoOffering a refund after asking? Awww, how cute. But since a customer needs to explicitly ask for returning money that she hasn't authorized taking, why not just start a chargeback process at the credit card issuer? Seriously, automatic refund should be their first and default action AND THEN offering some kind of compensation for the inconvenience.
- jlgaddis 14y agoAgreed. If I were one of the 71, I wouldn't bother requesting a refund. I'd just call up the number of the back of my card and say "I didn't authorize this charge."
- timv 14y agoWhy only the 71? 71 people got no notification that the charges were coming. That's terrible. As far as I can tell, everyone else got an email saying "we're about to charge you $99 unless you ask us not to". Not responding != authorizing If I had any charges from Instacart relating to this mess I'd be claiming them back (but I might be nice and give IC the chance to refund it first)
- georgemcbay 14y agoIf any company I did business with changed the terms of the business such that I would be charged when I previously wasn't, and then they automatically charged me, I'd be absolutely livid, regardless of whether they sent me an email (that may or may not be sitting in the bottom of a spam folder) or not. I don't think they should be on the hook for providing people with free service that costs them money if they need to change the terms, but it should be 100% manual opt-in (with people who don't opt-in having their service canceled) if it involves a price increase or wholly new charges where there were previously none. Based on the fact that their apology seems centered around the email bug and not the initial premise of adding charges without users having to opt-in to them, I have to disagree with some of the comments here that this proves they "get" customer service.
- chc 14y agoI see it the opposite way — I do not want my service arbitrarily canceled just because I didn't see an email sitting in the bottom of my spam folder. Unless we're talking about some exceptionally expensive service here, any plausible price increase is unlikely to be more upsetting than total loss of a service that I apparently considered worthwhile in the first place. IMO, the best thing is to grandfather people in. The next best thing is to just let people know what's going on, move them over and offer a refund if they are dissatisfied with the new plan.
- georgemcbay 14y agoWe'll have to agree to disagree. I will always fall on the side of companies not charging me unless I explicitly agree to the terms. Partly because I'm just wired that way and partly because I'm sick of companies trying to get in on that "gym membership"/AOL billing where they have a huge percentage of customers that don't even use the service but have just forgot they are being charged. I've had it up to here with companies pulling shit like making joining one click on the web and cancelling a multi-hour phone call. So yeah I may be a bit sensitive and reactionary about billing matters but I believe it is justified given how poorly most companies handle these issues these days.
- kaoD 14y ago
- saddino 14y agoAnyone who remembers Kozmo should know that the original pricing model is doomed to failure. Grocery delivery doesn't scale well, and 14 years of technological advancement doesn't change this fact.
- rocky1138 14y agoOff-topic, but if you're in the Kitchener/Waterloo Canada area and are looking for an Instacart type service, try http://www.grocerygateway.com http://www.grocerygateway.com. I've been using it for months and am quite happy with it.
- ruswick 14y agoThis is an excellent piece of strategic PR inasmuch as it refocuses the debate on the email issue (as is evidenced by the below posts), and obfuscates the real issue, which is that Instacart changed the terms of service and proceeded to charge people, something to which they never consented. Whether or not Instacart bothered to inform their customers about this fact is irrelevant; they shouldn't have done it. From a customer standpoint, their actions are appalling and the apology is obviously unfulfilling and fails to recognize or rectify the true issue. But, from a business standpoint, this post is very strategic and effective at mitigating public outrage. Although I'm still upset by the choices that Instacart made, I can't help but appreciate the effectiveness of their response tactics.
- SilentStump 14y agoFor some reason this strikes me as the rule "it's better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission." If I'm being pessimistic, I would assume they decided to automatically opt users in, charge them, and create this hubbub and just apologize about it later. However, the good person in me decides to believe that they are sincerely apologizing for a bug.
- smegel 14y agoI don't think that rule applies to credit card thieves.
- res0nat0r 14y agoAnyone commenting here actually know if there ever was a contract with the early adopters? It could have said for all anyone knows that "this is a beta service, it most likely won't remain free forever and we reserve the right to change the pricing model at any time."
- kevingibbon 14y agoGood apology but I don't think its enough. Grandfathering the 71 people wouldn't cost Instacart more than 10-20k. There will still be a lot of people with a bad taste in their mouth. Public perception to a service like this is key.
- thejosh 14y agoDo you want to be charged $99? YES / NO
- benatkin 14y agoAs with Joyent and TextDrive's lifetime hosting, this company going out of business is a valid solution to what they claim is an unsustainable promise they made. Reneging on their promises is not. P.C. Hodgell - "That which can be destroyed by the truth should be." In these cases I doubt that faithfully keeping the promises they made would destroy either company. They just feel they can get away with it, and so they break their promises to save some money.
- Uchikoma 14y agoThe also on HN Instacart post by a user says: "Did not receive an email about this change of policy. Not only did I not receive this email, neither did my wife nor a colleague, who also is a Instacart Express user." + in this thread "A few days ago, my gf started complaining about some sort of $3 extra charges she noticed." This makes the 71 user remark looking suspicious, except the 71 were based on some geographical selection error.
- benatkin 14y agoThat does sound suspicious. I thought there were 71 total who bought the deal, but it does say "71 of these emails" which seems to indicate that it's a proper subset of the total emails that were to go out. It seems like an unusual coincidence. Another possibility would be that the selection was based on when the orders were placed, and that the three of them all bought it at the same time because they decided together to buy it.
- dmak 14y agoThe right thing to do would be to grandfather those users and move them off the plan by trying to upsell them in someway. This is an okay solution, but I'm still tainted by the thought of arbitrarily changing terms instead of grandfathering everyone.
- psionski 14y agoWhy don't they let people see their website? When you go to their homepage an ugly login box pops up in front of the content and you can't close it without removing its DOM element... Even if you do, the site becomes non-functional, you can browse the menus but they don't work... I'm not giving access to my Facebook account to someone I don't know and I'm definitely not registering just to check them out.
- ritonlajoie 14y agoIMHO Compagnies should not change their TOS just by sending an email. On logging in the site, users should be updated, on the screen, with the new TOS and should accept them. That's what Apple does on the iOS devices and I find it acceptable.
- beshrkayali 14y agoI can see that there are many different opinions about this, but I think this raises an important question to startups that start free and plan to convert into a paid service on how it should be done the right way, without upsetting customers. IMO, I think it depends on when they made these plans. If this was their path from the beginning and the service was free for a specific reason, I think it should be clearly pointed out on the website that the service is free for only a specific period of time. If the plan of charging customers was added later on (after customers stared using the service), the solution would be to: definitely don't charge customers without them opting in, even if you send them an email, even if you wait for some days after to start charging. Changing customers to a temporary "trial" phase would be a good idea I think. This way, customers will know that they need to pay when they use the service the next time.
- awayand 14y ago"we charged your credit card without your permission so we will keep the money and continue charging you unless you tell us to stop" - lol WUT?