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People are baiting Instacart workers with huge tips then slashing them to zero:
Instacart workers are being wooed by orders with large tips only to find them dropped to zero after a delivery has been made, according to a new report by CNN. Instacart lets users set their own custom tip with each shopping request, but it also allows them to change it for up to three days after an order is completed to adjust for experience. Workers, however, claim that some users have been abusing this feature, baiting them with big tips to get their shopping requests completed sooner amid the pandemic rush — only to find the tip slashed afterward without much feedback.
One Instacart worker said their tip was dropped from $55 to $0 despite finding everything the customer needed. Another worker claimed their tip changed to $0 since they could not find toilet paper in stock, to which the customer described in the feedback report as "unethical."
[...] Instacart says shoppers who experience tip-baiting can report instances in-app, though some workers say this relies too much on their end and that the company should make a 10 percent-minimum tip mandatory for all orders during the pandemic.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday April 12 2020, @02:16PM (23 children)
How about we pay them what the market demands for the service and leave tipping completely out of it? Let customers bid on service price per order. Let the worker accept/reject orders based on service price. Do not allow modification of bids after a price agreement is made. Hold the money in escrow until delivery is made and accepted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @02:34PM (1 child)
They should be able to sue them in small claims court. If it agreed on before the service is rendered it is a fee, not a tip. A tip is something extra you give afterwards, for service above what was expected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @03:24PM
They probably could, but by the same token, the customers were promised that ability when they made their agreement for the delivery. So, I'd be curious as to how that would work out. On top of which, it would likely be a net negative even if you do win as you'd have to go to court, and those courts are closed right now.
(Score: 3, Funny) by EvilSS on Sunday April 12 2020, @03:13PM (7 children)
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 12 2020, @03:48PM (6 children)
Tech is not a complete solution for the human factors, including greed of the corporation. The corp will hire workers for as little as they can get away with, always.
30 years ago, I walked on as part-time stock help at my local grocery - I told them that minimum wage wouldn't cut it, but I could start tomorrow. They started me at $6/hr when minimum was $3.35. They also had to do a quick re-evaluation of all their other part-time stock wages, guys that had been working there 2 years and longer who were still in the mid to low 4s per hour. The labor was probably worth upwards of $20/hr to the store (they paid full-time stock $15/hr + benefits for the same work), but as long as they could get away with chiseling the workers down near minimum, they did.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Sunday April 12 2020, @04:05PM (1 child)
Corporations are like people. And the people corporations are most "like", are the free-range sociopaths and psychopaths.
...and Coincidentally [forbes.com]... (cough)
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Months of development work saves hours of up-front design.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @09:51AM
that forbes link seems to be describing progressives
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @04:19PM (2 children)
"Tech is not a complete solution for the human factors, including greed of the corporation."
While true, it looks like it isn't just the greed of the corporation that is an issue. It's also just as much about the greed of the customers. That needs to be addressed too.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 12 2020, @04:43PM (1 child)
Turnabout is fair play? Don't like being caught in the crossfire? I suggest a strike. If there's an infinite supply of idiots to take your position, maybe you're being unreasonable and/or need to find another line of work. If there's a legitimate issue and nobody steps up to take the raw deal you've pointed out - something will get fixed, or the business will rightly shrivel and die.
Where I come from "tip" is optional money to be offered in exchange for excellent service. In restaurants, they have perverted this to be a "standard" 15, now 20+% expected unless something is grossly sub-par. It really should go away, people should get what they need to live in exchange for showing up and doing an acceptable job, and get extra "tip" money when they have truly provided excellent service to someone who A) has some extra money to offer, and B) feels like giving it at the time. Scenes of pissed off waiters/waitresses haranguing customers who have "stiffed them" (often slightly less than 15% gratuity) are a ridiculous show of entitlement.
My suggestion in the specific instance of instacart's system is that the delivery people regard the "proposed tip" for exactly what it is: not a promise, not anything really since contractually it can be changed up to 3 days after delivery - it's a meaningless number that only fools chase with expectation of delivery - much like the top end of the "commission income range" in sales job applications, even more meaningless that that in reality.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @10:10PM
Maybe if the tip gets cancelled, InstaCart gets to send someone round to take back the groceries.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 13 2020, @01:03AM
Not to mention, that grocery shopping isn't something that can be automated at this time. Portions of it can be, like most items in the dry goods section, but in some areas like meat, seafood and produce in particular require some degree of knowledge to identify products that are of appropriate quality.
It really depends on the chain you're working with, having knowledgeable employees that the customers trust to make recommendations is incredibly valuable. Personally, I just got a job at the local grocery store in part because the experience shopping there was so good. They've been hiring people by the dozens trying to keep the stores clean to the higher than normal standard necessary and keep the shelves stocked as more people than usual are needing their food through a grocery rather than restaurants.
So, far, I'm being treated well and have a job that is incredibly important. But, if I'm ever unhappy, at least I've learned a ton about how to grocery shop for various meats and produce items. Not to mention that right now, this is one of the few sectors where I can just focus on being great at my job with little risk of being downsized.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @03:32PM (5 children)
Who came up with the idea of giving a tip in advance of a service? The whole point is an extra reward after the service is rendered. Yes, in USA tipping at restaurants has become expected, along with low base wages, but it is still given after the meal is over.
I say Instacart is responsible for this whole fiasco by allowing the tip to be added at the time the order is placed. Instead the app should hit the customer for a tip immediately after the order is delivered. And appreciative customers should also consider tipping in cash, avoiding Instacart and going direct to the worker.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @04:13PM
" And appreciative customers should also consider tipping in cash, avoiding Instacart and going direct to the worker."
Indeed. These days I usually try to tip in cash. There are too many employers who think nothing of reaching into their workers pockets to even steal the tip money.
(Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:23PM (1 child)
This was my take on the situation too. Why is this even a thing? I would love to see a transcript of the meeting where this "feature" was introduced and discussed. How did they not see this situation and if they did, what was said?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 12 2020, @06:40PM
One possibility for how this became "a thing".
Pay attention to a lot of online ordering pages for restaurants that offer pickup after an online order. There is often a "tip: _____" box on the form to allow the customer to add in a tip during the order process. The difference, of course, is that the restaurant online ordering page does not allow the customer to modify the tip amount after purchase.
So one possibility for how this is "a thing" is that the design was modeled after restaurant online ordering pages, where the purchase, and any tip, are all "booked" up-front. The flaw with instacart's design is allowing the tip amount to be modified up to three days after service is rendered.
So how did the "modify tip up to three days later" become a thing? Well, one possibility is that the UI design above was built, and then some VP of Marketing dept. X gets a grand idea of "why don't we allow the customer to add tips after delivery as well, then for really great service the customer can show their appreciation?" (VP's of marketing dept. X never seem to ever have the intelligence to see potential miss-use of their great ideas.
And so, the requirement that went to the dev's was: "allow customer to modify tip up to three days after service is rendered", and the dev's built that without asking questions (I've seen enough of this style development, the dev's never ask questions or point out miss-use holes, they just "build" what the customer asks, no matter how stupid the ask might be).
Result, we started out with an "up front" tip that could not be changed, some VP had a bright idea of "allow customer to show appreciation later" (without also specifying "show appreciation" to mean "increase tip only") and the dev's built "show appreciation" as "customer can modify tip up to three days later" without any constraints to limit "modify" to only the portion involving "increasing" the tip.
Well, that's one possible senario. Is it how it happened? That I don't know. It is one possible way this became a thing. Can you think of other possible ways it might have become a thing?
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday April 13 2020, @10:24AM (1 child)
I don't have an issue with the ability to offer a tip (that is, an above-minimum payment for service) beforehand, but in that case it should be considered part of the contract, and the customer should only be able to raise it afterwards, not to lower it. If you consider the possibility to later decide paying less, don't offer the tip up front.
The suggested requirement of 10% tip makes no sense. If it is required, then it is part of the standard fee, and not a tip.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday April 13 2020, @02:15PM
I would embrace and extend your remarks by renaming your "standard fee" to the "expedite fee", or for customers in the smaller number of syllable demographics, maybe they could call it the "speed fee"
I'm not seeing a problem with two separate fees, one to get them to show up quickly on time at the top of the priority list negotiated before they show up, and a second fee rewarding them for work well done.
Tradesmen do something like this with "truck fees" and so forth.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Sunday April 12 2020, @03:44PM (6 children)
Have you actually used instacart, or similar? I agree there should be a base pay level that covers the delivery person's mileage and a reasonable time for shopping and travel, however, on the deliveree's side of the experience we have gotten everything from groceries delivered more carefully selected and in better condition than we do for our own shopping (this, being a 1/10 rare experience) all the way down to missing items not noted as missing, substitutions not approved as substitutions (our local near monopoly grocery is particularly good at this "cramming" - giving you 2 of the $6.99 1lb cheese bags instead of the 1 $8.99 2lb cheese bag you ordered), and on rare occasions lovely experiences like somebody else's broken egg goo all over our stuff. Orders can arrive on time, days late, sometimes days earlier than promised - in the agreed upon time window or far outside.
So, I feel tipping is an appropriate component of the whole at-home delivery experience, but, yes, it should not be required for the workers to get tips just to meet their expenses.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Monday April 13 2020, @12:06AM (1 child)
I take your point, and it's why I was suggesting a mechanism to deny acceptance of deliveries that are not correct and timely.
But what about cheaters/lairs? That's an easy problem to solve for very expensive orders (not grocery items), but more difficult for smaller orders where the cost of arbitration for the escrow funds doesn't make it worth it. In these markets, I think publicly posted reputations for both buyers and sellers should solve most of this.
We could also try forfeiture of delivery fees. Hell, what does Eve Online do? It would probably be better than a "tip" that can be modified to 0 up to 3 days later. That "tip" is really just a bid for delivery fees, if we are honest about it. That's how it's being used.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 13 2020, @02:42AM
The position of being home with an empty pantry and a quoted 10-20% COVID infected rate out in the city leaves little choice but to accept what shows up and like it.
When I considered starting up an insta-cart like service back around 1998, the whole lynch-pin of the business was developing some kind of reputation for both drivers and customers, first timers were wild-cards who you desperately needed to recruit (on both sides) but who you knew nothing about. The preferred method of induction was to only send experienced drivers to new customers, and only send new drivers to experienced customers... that's probably impossible in the current situation.
The present problem is a difference in expectation of what that number means. To the legalistic/gamers of the crowd it's nothing - a number controlled by the customer to be whatever they want until 72 hours past delivery at which point they can decide... if the service had any decency toward their drivers they'd either flag it as such, or hide it from the drivers altogether. If they wanted to make it a binding bid for delivery... well, that's a service I as a customer would walk away from anytime the bid was up over about $2 - I'll put on the N95+gloves and get my own milk, thank you.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday April 13 2020, @06:17AM (3 children)
I'm on a different continent, but our (store-operated) grocery delivery programmes cap the price of substitutions at that of the original item you ordered - it's their loss if they have to substitute a more expensive item. Plus you have the ability to decline any substitutions you don't like, on delivery.
(There is also the option for them to say "sorry, it's out of stock", which I'm sure they'd do if the price difference is too vast.)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 13 2020, @01:14PM (2 children)
Yeah, so... our local near monopoly grocer generally prices one option (out of their selection of dozens) somewhere near competitive prices with the pitiful remaining competition (said competition is operating out of a primary distribution hub 3000 miles away while the local monopoly's central warehouse is 200 miles away.) The other ten to thirty options they offer are all generally at prices 25-60% higher, unless you want something labeled organic or gluten-free, which I understand costs more, but the competition upcharges may be in the range of 20-30% while the near-monopoly seems to think it's worth 200-400% markup. My favorite example being the gluten free frozen pizzas, starting at $12.99 at the monopoly where they also offer regular pizzas at $4.99 buy-one-get-one-free, and, yet, the competition has gluten free frozen pizzas starting at $3.99?
I'll take any excuse of a trigger to rant about what a shithole that grocer has turned into over the 5 decades I've been shopping there, they squeezed the competition out of the market by eliminating silly rebate games (they used to give "green stamps" that you could redeem at a line of single purpose stores for durable goods like toaster ovens, oscillating fans, etc.), providing better selection at better prices in cleaner stores. Now that the competition is gasping on the ropes, they're back at the BOGO games, contemplating a "discount membership club" annual fee to get lower prices, bargain bins of crap they need to unload in your face as you walk in and down the main aisles, and prices to the sky - just a tick lower than Whole Foods and Fresh Market, most of the time except when they're not.
The particular trigger was: well, we only order the cheap options from there, so under your store's policies we just wouldn't be eligible for any substitutions ;-)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Monday April 13 2020, @02:57PM (1 child)
Thanks for the added detail, but I think you may have misunderstood my explanation of the policy that most (all?) of our supermarkets follow:
If they need to substitute in an more expensive item (or multiple items) to fulfil your order, they typically do so, but will not charge more than the item you originally ordered.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday April 13 2020, @03:27PM
Ha, your country obviously lacks the capitalist value of: nothing comes for free.
There was a time, perhaps 10 years ago, when the local monopoly was in the process of squeezing out the competition that they would have done something like that. Now they're back to the "core values of society" where you "get what you pay for..."
Just to continue the rant... a couple of years ago, when I still shopped there on a regular basis, they offered just one bag of chips for less than $3. It was 12oz and had a picture of a Mexican on it (since the local populace is prejudiced and many simply wouldn't buy groceries "intended for Mexican families.") - well, that finally ended as they upped the price from $2 to $2.69, then a month later made the bag 16oz and raised the price again to $3.09. On one of my last trips into the store, they had the "Mexican Chips" "on sale" for $2 (you know, the regular price from the previous month). So, I threw two bags in the cart and checked out, only to see the price ring up as $2.69, even though there were signs all over for "Special Low Price! $2". So, to get them to make good on their error, you go stand at the "customer service" counter, wait while the homeless in front of you purchase their tobacco products and lottery tickets, and finally get to talk with the smiling manager who goes through seventeen gyrations at the register to hand you a store credit card for the difference, and if they're in a good mood they'll even kick in an extra buck or two to "thank you for pointing out the error". Now, it's not always their error - I ended up accidentally purchasing two half gallon tubs of sugar-substituted ice cream once, didn't notice the subtle difference in the packaging until I was loading it into the car, walked right back in and processed an exchange or refund, my choice, which they cheerfully did, as they put the ice-cream that I had walked out to the parking lot and back into "returns" because they can't resell refrigerated product that has left the store. Nice, but all in all the customer is usually not even making minimum wage for the time invested in processing the exchange.
So... to loop back somewhere near to where this diverged... the competition based 3000 miles away can manage to sell 32 oz bags of similar corn chips for $2.99, so I'm not sure why it was so impossible for our local chain to keep a $2 12 oz bag on the shelf, other than the fact that NOTHING in that store goes for less than $3 anymore, and it's rapidly heading for $5. Too bad that Amazon's Whole Foods is part of the inflationary process, rather than genuine competition. Oh, and we've got WalMart foods here, too, but somehow the "low price guarantee" store manages to not have even competitive prices on food.
🌻🌻 [google.com]