Utah woman orders headphones from Costco. Then the Instacart driver messes up spectacularly. Now people are convinced a man’s to blame
The rise of delivery apps like DoorDash and Instacart has made life easier—mostly.
While the convenience of these apps cannot be overstated, there are still a variety of issues that make ordering from them an (occasionally) frustrating experience.
For example, even though these apps provide shoppers with an exact list of items, many orders arrive with items missing or with significant changes made. Even if all of the requested items are present in the order, there can be issues with how the delivery is actually made. One customer says her shopper threw her order over a fence, while another said their shopper’s decision to leave their order on an icy walkway caused it to slide away.
Now, TikToker has the internet talking after ordering headphones via Instacart—and receiving cardboard.
What Went Wrong With This Headphone Order?
Across a series of videos, TikTok user Marilla Del Rey (@marilladelrey) explains that she recently ordered groceries and a pair of headphones from Costco via Instacart. Although she received her groceries, her “headphones” were actually just a piece of cardboard with a picture of the headphones printed on it.
In her first video, Del Rey takes a closer look at the cardboard.
“It says, ‘To purchase this item, please take this card to the cash register. Do not remove this card from the store. This card has no monetary value,’” Del Rey reads.
In short, this card was supposed to be exchanged for the actual item in-store. The Instacart shopper did not do this—something Del Rey thought was near-impossible.
“Every time I leave Costco, they check every single item in my cart, like, as if I am stealing,” she explains. She then holds up the card. “How did this person make it through the register and [walk] out with this?”
Instacart Says It’s Not A Problem
Following this video, Del Rey posted another video. In this video, Del Rey shows an email from Instacart denying her request for a refund or redelivery.
“We reviewed your request and order information. We maintain our decision to not give you a refund, credit, or re-delivery,” the email reads.
Instead, Del Rey decided to go to Costco and attempt to resolve the issue herself.
To start, she went to a different Costco location. As they were unable to do anything about it, she had to go to another location—specifically, the Costco in Salt Lake City, which is the biggest in the world.
Actually getting the headphones, she says, was an ordeal. First, the staff had to review security camera footage to ensure the Instacart shopper actually purchased the item. It was confirmed that the shopper did buy the headphones, purchasing them in line with a cashier.
From there, Del Rey was given the headphones. However, as she did not have a proper receipt, she could not shop freely. Instead, she had to be escorted out—preventing her from doing any additional shopping at the store.
“I was kind of sad because I wanted to go shop around and get Slim Jims, because this is the biggest Costco in America, apparently, or in the world,” she says. “It’s huge. They have literally everything.”
Not only did she eventually get her headphones, but Del Rey writes in a comment that Instacart has since reached out to her to resolve the issue.
Is This Common?
It’s uncertain how often this happens as a result of an Instacart shopper. However, it’s not unheard of to accidentally bring home the cardboard advertisement instead of the item.
On Reddit, several users have told stories about accidentally bringing home or receiving a cardboard card instead of their item. Typically, this is caught by receipt checkers. However, there are always cases where someone manages to accidentally sneak a cardboard card by them.
Thankfully, as long as one keeps their receipt, they should be able to exchange the card for the actual item in-store. That said, as Del Rey showed, it may take a bit of time and effort.
Commenters Are Annoyed
In the comments section, users shared their thoughts on the situation.
Several said that the Instacart shopper must have been a man, referencing the “male Instacart shopper” meme.
“A man did it,” declared a user in a highly-favorited comment.
Others simply offered their own delivery experiences.
“Instacart hasn’t been willing to refund anything recently. They charged me for like 10 pestos when i ordered 2 and they were like sorry no can do. so i stopped using them,” wrote a user.
“Reminds me of when I did Walmart delivery for a pregnancy test and they delivered it still in the security box, so I had to go to Walmart anyway to customer service for them to open it,” recalled another.
@marilladelrey @Instacart / Costco headphones saga has come to an end! We used instacart so we didn’t have to leave the house but ended up leaving it more ? never again! #instacart #costco #shokzheadphones #shokz ♬ original sound – marilla?
We’ve reached out to Instacart and Del Rey via email and Costco via media relations contact form.
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