Legal Investigation: Were Instacart Shoppers Denied Proper Pay?
Last Updated on June 1, 2026
At A Glance
- This Alert Affects:
- Anyone who worked for Instacart for more than 40 hours in any week during the past three years and was classified as an independent contractor.
- What’s Going On?
- Attorneys working with ClassAction.org have reason to believe Instacart may have misclassified its full-service shoppers as independent contractors, thereby depriving them of certain employment benefits such as minimum and overtime wages. The attorneys are now gathering shoppers to take legal action against Instacart.
- What You Can Do
- If you shopped, drove and delivered for Instacart as an independent contractor, join others taking action by filling out the form linked below.
- What Am I Signing Up For, Exactly?
- You’re signing up for what’s known as mass arbitration, which involves hundreds or thousands of consumers bringing individual arbitration claims against the same company at the same time and over the same issue. This is different from class action litigation and takes place outside of court.
- Does This Cost Anything?
- It costs nothing to sign up, and the attorneys will only get paid if they win your claim.
- How Much Could I Get?
- While there are no guarantees, it’s possible you could recover money for unpaid wages, expenses or other denied employment benefits.
Attorneys working with ClassAction.org suspect that Instacart may have illegally underpaid some of its shoppers and are now looking to take legal action against the grocery delivery service.
Specifically, they believe Instacart may have misclassified its full-service shoppers as independent contractors – rather than employees – and therefore illegally deprived them of the minimum wage, overtime pay and other benefits of bona fide employment.
What Am I Signing Up For? Is This a Lawsuit?
You are not signing up for a lawsuit, but rather a process known as mass arbitration. This is a relatively new legal technique that, like a class action lawsuit, allows a large group of people to take action and seek compensation from a company over an alleged wrongdoing. Here is a quick explanation of mass arbitration from our blog:
“[M]ass arbitration occurs when hundreds or thousands of consumers file individual arbitration claims against the same company over the same issue at the same time. The aim of a mass arbitration proceeding is to grant relief on a large scale (similar to a class action lawsuit) for those who sign up.”
Attorneys believe Instacart shoppers are subject to an arbitration clause that requires them to resolve disputes via arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution that takes place outside of court before a neutral arbitrator, as opposed to a judge or jury. It’s for this reason that attorneys working with ClassAction.org have decided to handle this matter as a mass arbitration rather than a class action lawsuit.
How Much Does This Cost?
It costs nothing to sign up, and you’ll only need to pay if the attorneys win money on your behalf. Their payment will come as a percentage of your award.
If they don’t win your claim, you don’t pay.
How Much Money Could I Get?
There are no guarantees as to how much money you could get or whether you will win your claim. In a successful matter, however, shoppers could recover the difference between what they were paid and what they should have been paid had they been classified as employees.
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