FTC: Instacart To Refund $60M Over Deceptive Subscription Tactics

alternative_right writes: Grocery delivery service Instacart will refund $60 million to settle FTC claims that it misled customers with false advertising and unlawfully enrolled them in paid subscriptions. Instacart partners with over 1,800 retailers to provide online shopping, delivery, and pickup services from nearly 100,000 stores across North America. Its platform serves millions of customers and is also used by roughly 600,000 independent shoppers across thousands of cities in Canada and the United States.

In a complaint filed on Thursday, the FTC claimed Instacart engaged in multiple deceptive tactics that raised costs for customers, including failing to provide advertised refunds and falsely advertising "free delivery" while still charging mandatory service fees that added up to 15% to order costs. The FTC said Instacart also advertised a "100% satisfaction guarantee," but typically offered only small credits toward future orders rather than full refunds to customers experiencing problems with deliveries or service. The company allegedly hid refund options from "self-service" menus, leading customers to believe credits were their only option.

Another love tap on the wrist

[TheMiddleRoad]

I can't wait for Democrats to get back in power and start ripping these evil companies to shreds.

Re:

[smooth wombat]

What I'm waitig for is when a Democratic president is in office and starts making wholesale changes. The howls from Republicans will be glorious. Sending their whines to the Supreme Court will be even funnier because if the Court says the president can't do that after they've let Trump do whatever he wants, they just outed themselves as partisan hacks and can be ignored.

As Jackson remarked, let them try and enforce it.

Re:

[alvinrod]

They've been in control of government about as much as Republicans over the last 20 years. If they were going to do anything shouldn't those evil companies already have been ripped to shreds? The evil companies contribute to Democrats and Republicans alike, employ their friends and relatives, and take other steps to ensure that neither party will make any serious efforts to root them out. The truly insidious ones even get legislation passed that gives the appearance of reining them in while actually achievi

"Free delivery" pisses me off

[viperidaenz]

DoorDash, DeliverEasy and Uber are guilty of it too

A deal for "Free Delivery" through a delivery provider, gets you all the way to "checkout", then adds on service charges, a delivery fee, the credits back the delivery fee.

"Free delivery" is free. Not an arbitrary percentage of the delivery cost they've decided to split between delivery fee and service charge. They're both delivery fees. It's a delivery service. All their fees are delivery fees.