Gig worker app Instacart is opening up a new “tip protection” program to compensate drivers for tips customers removed without good reason, the company announced today. Bait-and-switch tipping is one of the issues Instacart shoppers complain about most — making it all the more surprising that the company has actually taken steps to mitigate the problem.
The biggest promise of the tip protection program is that Instacart will cover tips withdrawn after an order has been completed. There are caveats to this compensation, though. Instacart will only pay out a maximum of $10, and it will only pay even that if the customer has removed their tip without filing a complaint through the app.
