Shopper shocked by nearly $2,800 grocery bill: ‘Panic mode’

An Ohio woman was shocked when what was meant to be a routine order for a few hundred dollars of groceries from Kroger turned into a nearly $2,800 bill.

The incident occurred last week when Jill McCormick, who lives in the Cincinnati area, placed a pickup order for $282 in groceries through the Kroger app – which she uses routinely for convenience given her work schedule and her daughter’s physical therapy. She was stunned when her bank notified her of a charge in excess of $2,500 as she was being billed for $2,783.25 in groceries.

“My heart stopped because I’m thinking panic mode,” McCormick told WCPO. “Something is happening, and I have to react very quickly, and I didn’t even know where to start.”

The outlet reported that the order McCormick was being billed for wasn’t what she ordered and differed from what she received. It included six packs of Butterball turkey bacon for $26.94, five bottles of Dawn Platinum dish soap for $73.43, plus 15 bottles of Gain laundry detergent for $239.85.

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McCormick said her designated shopper stopped responding before she was notified by the bank about the charge to her account and she reached out to Kroger’s customer service team to cancel the erroneous grocery order.

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“After trying for an hour, trying to get in touch with someone, they were finally able to get in touch with Instacart to cancel the order because they never canceled the order as the shopper originally told me,” McCormick said to WCPO.

Kroger said in a statement to FOX Business, “We understand a customer was overcharged for an order placed on August 9, 2023. We rectified the incident as soon as it was brought to our attention with an expedited refund to the customer’s original form of payment and a gift card to apologize for the inconvenience.”

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Instacart told FOX Business that it works closely with partners like Kroger to ensure customers have the best shopping and delivery experience possible. 

The company added that its shoppers – independent contractors who pick up orders for customers – must undergo a background check that includes a search of state and county criminal records, checks against the federal registry and sex offender registry, the national criminal database and global watch list, plus a Social Security Number trace.

McCormick told WCPO that Kroger initially offered her a $20 gift card as compensation for the incident, which the company later upped to $250. She said she’s “looking for a fix and outcome” to prevent overcharging for erroneous grocery orders to ensure that “someone else, another family, is not going through this.”

McCormick added that she filed a report with the local Butler County Sheriff’s Department.