Instacart Chicanery, Part 2

In the previous installment of this blog, I commented on Instacart's bullshit pricing model and how I find it entirely sleazy and bordering on dishonest. That was yesterday. Today, I went to cook some of the food that was a part of yesterday's order, and I noticed something that has me even more cheesed-off.

I pulled my steak out of the refrigerator and noticed that the price label on it said $16.59. Note that this was not a substituted item; it was, or at least it should have been, exactly the item that I placed an order for. This seemed low, so out of curiosity I fired up the Instacart app and reviewed my most recent order. They charged me almost $26 for this steak, and it actually isn't the item that I ordered. I asked for 0.75lb of Niman Ranch Prime NY Steak, which apparently is supposed to sell for $30.79 per pound. What I got was USDA Prime NY Steak, which sells for $19.99 per pound. I'm sure this steak is going to be tasty when I cook it up after finishing this blog post, but that's not the fucking point. The point is that these fuckers charged me an extra $10 and didn't even give me what I asked for.

So then I looked at my other meat counter items. Turns out that the actual cost of my chicken was almost two bucks less than what they charged me, and the actual cost of my sausage was 44 cents less. What the fuck is going on here? I went on the Instacart website and looked at the pricing policy for Whole Foods, and it says that pricing varies from in-store^[1]. OK, so that probably accounts for the chicken and the sausage, but there is no fucking way that it explains the steak.

Let's recap. Instacart charges what appears to be about 10% more for items sold by weight, at least when it comes to Whole Foods in the SF area. I'm OK with that. In fact, I think that's probably how they should make their money - tack on a little extra to each item - but then they also want you to pay a delivery fee? And then they also want you to pay that scandalous "service fee"? And then they give you the option to tip your shopper? What the fucking fuck?! It's like American Airlines (and United and Delta - all three of them can eat a bag of dicks for their bullshit fees) up in this bitch. You want that chicken? You must PAY! And then you must PAY AGAIN! And then PAY ONE MORE TIME!! Oh, and if you're really feeling up to it, PAY AGAIN!!! Seriously...

Original cost of chicken: $18.67 ..... PAY!!
Instacart premium: $1.80 ..... PAY AGAIN!!!
Delivery fee (the chicken's percentage): $0.89 ..... PAY ONE MORE TIME!!
Service fee (which I cancelled): $2.05 ..... PAY AGAIN!!!
Tip: $3.07 ..... Wait, I missed one ..... PAY!! PAY!!! PAY!!!!

What actually was $18.67 could have cost me as much as $26.48 if I hadn't said "fuck off" to the service fee. You shitbags are already charging me an extra 10%, and then you want 10% more on top of that? FUCK THAT. I hate going to the grocery store, I'm not going to lie, but I'm not going to pay an extra 30% premium for my items, either. I'm lazy, but I'm not that lazy.^[2] And I'm sure as hell not going to pay $25 for a $16 steak that isn't even from the right goddamn cow!^[3]