Slater Vecchio LLP has filed a class action against Instacart for allegedly failing to disclose at the outset of the purchasing process certain mandatory fees that Instacart charges for their grocery delivery services.
It is alleged that Instacart’s conduct constitutes “drip pricing” and “double ticketing” in violation of Canada’s Competition Act, and breaches consumer protection legislation in various provinces across Canada.
Drip pricing occurs when the first price that a company advertises for a product or service does not equal the final price at checkout because the company adds non-government-imposed fees on top of the originally represented price. The fees are typically called a “service fee”, a “process fee”, or an “improvement fee”.
Double ticketing occurs when a company represents two different prices for a product (i.e. one price excluding mandatory fees and a second price inclusive of mandatory fees) and charges the higher of the two prices (i.e. the price inclusive of the mandatory fees).
A class action is a legal case through which one person makes a claim to the Court on behalf of a similarly situated class of people who have the same or a similar legal claim. A class action seeks to hold a defendant or defendants responsible for their conduct that affects each member of the class by resolving issues that are common to the class in the same legal proceeding, instead of each class member bringing a claim individually.
The individual who first files the claim must ask the Court for permission to proceed as a class action. If permission is granted (referred as “authorized” in Quebec, and “certified” in all other Canadian provinces) and the case may proceed as a class action, the Court will appoint an individual as “Representative Plaintiff” to represent the best interests of the class during the litigation and define the class group. Each person who meets the criteria of the class group is considered a “Class Member”.
If Instacart charged you a Service Fee, Delivery Fee, Regulatory Response Fee, Long Distance Fee, Pickup Fee, Heavy Item Fee, and/or Convenience Fee that was not disclosed at the outset of the purchasing process, please fill out the form on this webpage.
