The end of the year is a good time to be an Instacart shopper.

During the holiday season, many people find themselves needing to make eleventh-hour purchases. Whether you’re picking up some last minute gifts, ordering ingredients you forgot to pick up at the store, or compensating for a ruined holiday meal, delivery apps like DoorDash and Instacart have made these holiday stresses a lot easier for the average person.

Plus, the drivers themselves can make a bit more money via all the extra orders that are coming in. According to DoorDash, there are 90% more grocery orders on Thanksgiving than the average day, and Christmas and other holiday celebrations are sure to be no different.

Still, some of these holiday orders can put drivers in an awkward position. One TikTok user and Instacart shopper says she received a suspicious order. Then, things got weirder.

What Went Wrong With This Instacart Delivery?

In her TikTok with over 7,400 views, TikTok user Emily Meyer (@meyer.shire) recounts a bizarre experience she had while doing some Holiday Instacart shopping.

According to Meyer, she decided to go driving for Instacart as a way to make a little extra money during the Holiday season. As soon as she logged on, she saw an order with a $33 payout at the nearest Meijer. While the delivery location was 15 miles away, she says the high payout was worth the travel.

“It’s for one item. Sure, I will take it. So, I took it,” she shares.

On her way to the store, she noticed something strange. She received a request for an order from the same store with the same payout, even though she had already accepted the previous order. 

Upon arrival, she discovered that she was not the only person shopping for this order. In fact, she reveals there were seven other people all at the same store looking for a single item: a $199 JBL speaker.

What Happened Next?

Confused, Meyer asked the other Instacart shoppers who they were shopping for.  

“Are you guys all picking up for [customer’s first name]?” They affirmed that they were.

Meyer sensed an issue. Consequently, she reached out to the customer to clarify what was happening.

“It was a brand new customer, and so I messaged the customer and I said, ‘Hey,

I just wanna double check, because there are a lot of people here, that you actually wanted this many of the speakers’ — because they were out of the one that they ordered, and there were, you know, there’s other comparable ones, but they were out of that specific one that they ordered,” Meyer says. 

However, she didn’t receive a response from the customer. From there, Meyer reached out to Instacart customer service to inform them that something was likely amiss. 

“They basically said, ‘No.’ They said, ‘Please continue shopping. Shop as directed,’” she recalls.

Instacart Refuses To Cancel The Order

Meyer took it upon herself to cancel the order. However, neither the automated system nor the customer service agent allowed her to do so. She also attempted to call the customer, but the app would not let her do so.

Seeing no other option, Meyer bought a comparable replacement item and headed off to make the delivery. Once she got there, the delivery experience got even weirder.

“I made the delivery, and there are nine other bags from Meijer’s clearly holding JBL speakers at this place,” Meyer says. 

She then overlays an image as proof which features multiple Meijer shopping bags on the doorstep. All the bags had speakers inside them. 

“It was a drop off only order, and there are at least three other drivers who were parking actively and, like, getting out of their cars to go and make the same delivery,” Meyer shares. 

This whole experience bothered Meyer as she was just trying to get clarity around a mishap. 

“I’m still, like, wrestling with it. But, I promise you I really did try…It was one of the craziest orders that I’ve ever had,” she reveals.

The TikToker also speculates that sharing this information could get her fired.

So What Happened Here?

It’s unclear what caused this bizarre series of events. 

There’s a chance that this could be a glitch in the Instacart app. Some users on Reddit have noted that, occasionally, Instacart will assign different drivers to the same order. None of the users are certain why this is the case. Others have reported cases of receiving orders from the same customer for the same item one right after the other.

Even more users have questioned whether orders like these are a scam. There are cases of users buying high price items across multiple orders all going to the same address. 

Commenters on one thread about a similar issue with DoorDash speculated that the customer could be using stolen credit cards or creating multiple accounts to take advantage of a promotion. Another thread about Instacart suggests that shoppers could be buying promotional items and reselling them.

The Commenters Have Theories

In the comments section of the TikToker’s video, users offered their own explanations for what could have happened.

“Maybe they’re Christmas gifts,” wrote a user.

“Sounds like fraud to me,” countered another.

Further users simply provided advice on how to handle such situations in the future.

“Shop and mind your business,” suggested a commenter. 

“I’ve had this happen. It’s not your job to fix an instacart glitch or an issue a customer had. As long as your not doing anything wrong just shop, drop off, move on to the next,” one shared.

I Just Hope It Gets Resolved

Meyers told MotorBiscuit, “Had never seen anything like it. My main concern was that there were so many. I felt like it had to be a glitch or possibly,” she writes.

Meyer speculated it could’ve been someone’s kids doing the order on accident.

“Somebody’s kid was on their phone just ordering these, or maybe it [was] some sort of credit card fraud,” she continued.

“It was a brand new account. You can see that on Instacart, so that’s what makes me think that something fishy was happening. But people in the comments are telling me just to mind my business and shop as normal, so that is what I plan to continue doing,” she explains.

Even though she followed Instacart’s own directions, she expressed concern about what happened.

“All I could think was, from what I saw — because when I dropped mine off, there were ten speakers. Mine made number ten, and then there were more people coming,” she detailed.

“At two hundred dollars a pop — let’s say they got twelve [speakers]. Then, you add in [that] I was getting more than $30 for delivering…I have no idea what Instacart gets for every order, but let’s say [the customer was] paying $250 a piece. That’s over $3000 that they were paying,” she added.

“I just hope it gets resolved,” she concluded in her statement.

We’ve reached out to Instacart and Meijer via email.

@meyer.shire I don't know what more I could have done. I hope they can return them #InstacartShopper #instacart ♬ original sound – Meyer Shire