Be Careful w/ Instacart Shoppers/Drivers

[ltsddd]

Ordered about $70 worth of groceries. Shopper was able to locate 3 items totaling $15 and delivered it to the front porch without leaving a receipt. Just found out 17 extra items were added to the purchase that were not asked/received totaling about $65.

Security camera showed driver carried a single bag to the porch.

[zk]

That’s a drag. Thanks for the advice. So far no problems with them, but we’ll keep an eye out.

You have to figure they’re hiring like crazy right now. And even with 10 million newly unemployed people out there, it’s gotta be hard to hire so many people so quickly without a few scam artists and other kinds of sub par employees working their way in.

[ltsddd]

Thank goodness for credit card companies – I’ll let them sort it out. I was mindful of what’s going on (unemployment, risks that these folks are taking to do the shopping and delivering our stuff) and threw in a 20% tip on top of the $9.95 delivery fee (sigh).

Received an email from the store this morning to rate the service and took the opportunity to zero out the tip.

[Coronita]

that sucks. Hopefully you’re wiping down the groceries you get from some random person delivering groceries to you, since there’s no way if telling if the person is infected or not, instacart isnt screening people, and the virus can remain on surfaces for a longer time than people think.

I only order boxed food item or items that come prepackaged with a plastic bag, snd spray them disinfectant or rubbing alcohol, and unbox all cereal , packaged items outside into a container. No raw veggies or undercooked food. Have not ordered take out from anywhere because you don’t know how the handler of the food is guaranteeing food safety. Employees at Seafood city were infected while still serving food from the takeout. Now weeks later, they shut down the entire supermarket.

There are a few supermarkets around that people don’t show around as much about without the lines. Between 11-12pm, not many people, plenty of stocked food. Wear a mask and disposable gloves, bring your own plastic or paper bags and bag it yourself, toss the plastic bags (so much for the environment in the short term). Toss the disposable gloves, take a wet wipes and wipe down the steering wheel (that’s a gross event in itself). open doors by kicking it with your foot, or by hand with a wrapped paper towel. Fortunately, I was already a germa-phobe before all of this, so nothing really has changed. Aldi’s aren’t that well known and plenty of food, US grown, very little lines around noon when everyone else is eatting.

[ltsddd]

I spray pretty much everything, except for the meats, down with hydrogen peroxide and quarantine them in the garage for 72 hours.

A side note: finally found a video player that could play h264 video files on my computer.

[Coronita]

[quote=ltsddd]I spray pretty much everything, except for the meats, down with hydrogen peroxide and quarantine them in the garage for 72 hours.

A side note: finally found a video player that could play h264 video files on my computer.[/quote]

bueno.

[gzz]

VLC media player is free and plays everything.

It could play h264 years ago. I think there’s a newer 265 now too.

[ltsddd]

[quote=gzz]VLC media player is free and plays everything.

It could play h264 years ago. I think there’s a newer 265 now too.[/quote]

I have been a loyal VLC fan for years but it fails miserably with the .h264 files (those that I grab from my security cameras).
Upgraded to latest (3.x), nope.
Downgraded to some really old version (2.x), nope.
Set this, set that (demuxers, h/w accelerator), nope.

Tried GOM Player, nope.

Finally found PotPlayer, created by the same folks that created Kakao, that works like a charm without tweakings.

[svelte]

yeah, my experience this last month with instacart was not good either.

The shopper was great, kudos to her.

But since some of what I was buying was out of stock she tried to text me with alternatives and instacart kept me from responding.

She picked up some substitute chicken but told me instacart was trying to charge me $30 for a $10 pack of chicken. !!

She found a way around that but really irked me. Not a good first experience.

[ltsddd]

I am very unlikely to use instacart again.

There’s a major flaw with their system. I got notified via text messages for unavailable items. However, there’s no notification for the new items added by the shopper as substitute(?). I didn’t know shoppers can just add stuff to your “shopping cart” without the buyer’s authorization or knowledge.

[ucodegen]

[quote=ltsddd][quote=gzz]VLC media player is free and plays everything.

It could play h264 years ago. I think there’s a newer 265 now too.[/quote]

I have been a loyal VLC fan for years but it fails miserably with the .h264 files (those that I grab from my security cameras).
Upgraded to latest (3.x), nope.
Downgraded to some really old version (2.x), nope.
Set this, set that (demuxers, h/w accelerator), nope.

Tried GOM Player, nope.

Finally found PotPlayer, created by the same folks that created Kakao, that works like a charm without tweakings.[/quote]
It could be that the video file is actually violating the H264 format standard. VLC has gotten a little ‘anal’ about it because being ‘forgiving’ of invalid standards can make VLC exploitable by intentional tampering with the video file.

[ltsddd]

That could be the reason. My sec cams are the no frills 720p cameras I got on amzn for $39. I could play all the videos on my phone fine with the android app – including live view. Try to do anything with them on my desktop computer was a different story until now.

[plm]

[quote=Coronita]that sucks. Hopefully you’re wiping down the groceries you get from some random person delivering groceries to you, since there’s no way if telling if the person is infected or not, instacart isnt screening people, and the virus can remain on surfaces for a longer time than people think.

I only order boxed food item or items that come prepackaged with a plastic bag, snd spray them disinfectant or rubbing alcohol, and unbox all cereal , packaged items outside into a container. No raw veggies or undercooked food. Have not ordered take out from anywhere because you don’t know how the handler of the food is guaranteeing food safety. Employees at Seafood city were infected while still serving food from the takeout. Now weeks later, they shut down the entire supermarket.

There are a few supermarkets around that people don’t show around as much about without the lines. Between 11-12pm, not many people, plenty of stocked food. Wear a mask and disposable gloves, bring your own plastic or paper bags and bag it yourself, toss the plastic bags (so much for the environment in the short term). Toss the disposable gloves, take a wet wipes and wipe down the steering wheel (that’s a gross event in itself). open doors by kicking it with your foot, or by hand with a wrapped paper towel. Fortunately, I was already a germa-phobe before all of this, so nothing really has changed. Aldi’s aren’t that well known and plenty of food, US grown, very little lines around noon when everyone else is eatting.[/quote]

That’s very good advice. Kind of scared to go shopping except for Costco since the ethnic store I usually go to didn’t change anything but Costco did so much to keep people safe. So Aldi’s is safe? Never been there before. Or maybe I should try Vons? I doubt I could trust stores like 99 Ranch and Hmart.

I haven’t been anywhere but Costco since the lockdwon. Would the safety ranking be like Costco > Aldi > Vons > 99 Ranch?

[profhoff]

This is a great PSA video on how to keep you and your family safe after grocery shopping.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=ltsddd]I spray pretty much everything, except for the meats, down with hydrogen peroxide and quarantine them in the garage for 72 hours.
[/quote]

How long can you keep it up? (I mean “you” individually as well as “you” in general)
I am careful, but not to that extent. Plus I don’t have a garage. BTW, my cousin does the same thing you so…. but they are retired, never liked crowds or city life, so they keep it up forever.

What will you do when you have to go back to work, if a vaccine hasn’t yet be developed?

BTW, “flatten the curve” is just pulling on the right. Statistically, the total numbers will be the same, except extended into the future.

[Author]

Posts