Unsung Heroes: Mom of 6 was among Instacart’s biggest shoppers. Now she can’t find work

Margaretta Givens rose at 5 a.m. each day to pack lunches and get her children to school and daycare before shopping for groceries all day. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, and she got busy.

Givens’ job as one of Instacart’s most prolific Sacramento-area shoppers took on a different level of importance during the first month of the pandemic as immunocompromised people relied on grocery-delivery apps to stay fed. The 32-year-old completed more than 150 Instacart orders from March 15 through April 20, according to a company spokeswoman, making her one of the region’s top shoppers despite having to take care of six children, ages 3 to 10.

“I feel like an octopus juggling balls in all the different directions, trying to manage my time and adapt,” Givens said in late April. “It’s a juggling act, trying to find time to go out there and be that hero for someone else with (also) being a mom and having to be home right now because the kids are out of school.”

Yet Givens has had more time off than desired recently. She hasn’t shopped for an Instacart “batch” since April 20 and is down to her last $20, she said. Free school lunches and food banks keep her own kids fed while she waits for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance money to come in.

The culprit, Givens says, is third-party bots that instantly claim Instacart batches and redistribute them to their own network of shoppers, who pay the bots for access to those orders. These apps are often in languages other than English and will create shopper profiles for immigrants without proper documentation, TechCrunch reported.

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Instacart disputed the bots’ prevalence in a May 8 Medium post and said a team removes them as they come up. Some third-party bots Instacart has booted, however, have quickly popped back up on the platform under different names. A former shopper told TechCrunch how he claimed batches through a Spanish-language bot called Ninja Hours, which was reborn as Hours For You, then Sushopper, then another unknown third-party app upon being caught.

“The safety and security of the entire Instacart community is our top priority. We have several robust security measures in place to ensure the security of the Instacart platform,” Instacart wrote in a statement to The Bee. “Selling or purchasing batches is not an authorized use of the Instacart platform and is a violation of our Terms of Service. Anyone found to be engaged in any type of inappropriate or fraudulent use of the Instacart platform, including selling or purchasing batches or utilizing any of these types of services, will have their accounts immediately deactivated.

“We advise shoppers not to engage with any individual or company that claims to provide priority access to batches on the platform, particularly those that request sensitive information such as Instacart usernames, passwords and/or credit card information.”

The only orders Givens has seen are out in Placer County or for a couple of inexpensive items, which leaves little commission for the shopper. A Facebook page for Sacramento-area Instacart shoppers bears dozens of similar gripes, with many others faulting the bots as well, and a Change.org petition to ban the third-party apps has collected nearly 9,000 signatures in the last month.

“I feel out of sync in a way. I can’t give to my children in the way I used to,” Givens said. “I’d be more than eager to get back to work. I’d be doing cartwheels. But right now, I’m staring at a blank screen saying ‘batch is not available.’”

Shopping for elderly and immunosuppressed ‘makes my day’

Givens crossed to the other side of the checker’s aisle in January 2019 after working at Sam’s Club for eight years, and made Instacart shopping her full-time job in June.

Her grocery runs during the shelter-in-place order began at 6 a.m. to take advantage of stores’ freshly-stocked shelves. She was home by 9 a.m. to help teach her three school-aged children until 2:30 p.m., keeping her 4-year-old twins and 3-year-old simultaneously entertained as well. Her boyfriend often came to watch the kids around 4, giving Givens time for up to four more hours of shopping and delivery.

Grocery delivery demand has skyrocketing during the pandemic, prompting Instacart to add 250,000 more workers between California and five other states. Customers relied on people like Givens to do their shopping using what some claim is inadequate personal protective equipment. Meanwhile, many shoppers worried about bringing the virus home.

Givens wore a mask and gloves, sanitized her hands every time she changed out the latter and wiped down entire carts — not just the part being pushed — prior to using them. The Natomas resident wouldn’t touch her kids after shopping until she had showered, changed clothes and cleaned her car’s interior, a 40-minute ordeal.

The pay (normally about $1,000 for 27 to 35 hours per week) made shopping worth the risk, Givens said. And helping the elderly and immunosuppressed was its own reward.

“One time I got to the door and this lady started to cry because she hadn’t had milk for over a week, tomatoes for over a week, pineapple for over a week,” Givens said. “It touched my heart. If I can do that, it makes my day.”

Yet Givens now finds herself out of work, and her boyfriend’s real estate job isn’t generating much in commissions. She’s asked landlords, her cellphone carrier and SMUD for bill extensions. Her mental health is suffering as her financial situation worsens, she said.

“I put my kids to bed and there (are) nights that I cry because I’m so frustrated,” Givens said. “It’s tough when bill collectors keep coming and there’s no income or revenue. I just try to stay positive and hope that one day it’ll get better.”