Instacart vs Walmart

I have long chosen to do my basic shopping at Whole Foods. Before I became too ill to shop myself (I'm homebound now) I used to go either myself or with a friend.

I have some serious food restrictions and can't easily get my groceries at a store other than Whole Foods (WFs). Since my health has me needing to ask usually busy friends for too much Instacart gives me independence and the ability to relieve my friends from yet doing another needed chore for me.

There are 2 WFs near enough to me but one is closer. It is that store, when I put in an online order to Instacart that they use. Because one food item I always buy and I can't always be sure it will be stocked, I call WFs and order it so that it is there so that Instacart will be able to get it for me.

(I leave specific instructions on my Instacart order as to where they should go in the store to get it; that it's being held in my name with a note that Instacart will get it as part of the order I put it with them.

I do have some beefs with Instacart with respect to the way they handle a number of things, some of which cause me to have to call their "Happiness" central team to straighten out a problem that a sensible website could have avoided. BUT today it was so bad that I think they not only caused me such difficulty that one of their good natured Happiness people realized the system would not allow him to fix , to the point that he had to cancel my order. He apologized profusely and said he agreed with me for being annoyed that such a matter could happen but he couldn't fix it.

I think if in the context of litigous (sp?) this might be illegal.

But it clearly leaves me without a delivery service for me to continue to have my food delivered and thus get my food. (And complaining to WFs is useless re Instacart. They tell you that it is a totally different company and they take no responsibility for its practices (though I'm sure WFs makes more money from the increased shoppers Instacart allows them to have.

WHAT HAPPENED: Since Instart (ICart) has always shopped my order at the closest of the two nearby stores (always) it is of course that store that I call in my order for the one item I mentioned that I must have so that Icart will be certain to get it for me. Today I got a call from the shopper that they didn't have that order and quickly after that told me she had shopped my order at the other store and that I must call Icart Happiness headquarters and they'd work it out.

They couldn't. The sweet happiness guy said that he couldn't cancel the order and reassign it to be shopped where my ordered stuff was. They don't allow you to designate which branch of WFs you expect them to go and they can't control it. In sum, he called my city and found that all their shoppers in my two WFs stores were "in store" shoppers.

I was a bit frantic at that point and was refused a Happiness supervisor because the Happiness guy who was trying to help me told me the supervisor would not be able to do anything more.

My aide was in and I very much needed her help with stuff in my apartment but now had to use that time instead to send her to the WFs where my ordered and necessary food item was. She isn't allowed to walk that far (7 blocks) so of course I paid cabfare for her to make the trip. I don't have her regularly and cannot continue to use her as my food shopper to WFs and must get my food from WFs, meaning I am without resources for my ability to get the food I need, especially being homebound. This is of course beyond outrageous but I'm too ill to devote myself to escalating this as my basic health care needs are too demanding.

I would so love to have this policy of Icart challenged and reversed successfully. It is like so much else especially/uniquely unfair to those who are disabled and/or in poverty due to a rather long illness.