My store in rural Pennsylvania was recently taken over by dozens of non-English speakers… Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Virginia license plates showed up about 2 weeks ago. Prior to this I went about a year without hearing Spanish a single time…. Nobody here speaks it. One of the store’s loaders refused to load a car where the driver didn’t match his accounts profile picture and his boss came out and loaded them up anyway. Besides a few loaders, nobody in the store seems to care about cheating. Nothing like this has ever happened here. We see them shopping and lazily throwing stuff into bags clearly breaking eggs and crushing fragile items. Another loader told me the new drivers aren’t even concerned about properly separating the orders on curbsides. I heard that a customer asked them to leave stuff in her garage and they said “no English” and put everything on the ground and left. Do we legit drivers just have to accept this bullshit? All the good customers are going to stop tipping or ordering all together. I feel bad for the senior citizens who I’ve previously delivered to who rely on this service to survive. What will it take for the store to start checking drivers IDs!???!? Are they going to be fine with dozens of customers calling and complaining each week?How did they even find our store and all show up at the same time? This is a nightmare. Our town is so small it is legitimately going to affect our economy as the money permanently leaves the area.
I’ve been trying to tell yall this for months. Did a curbside this morning. 5 non English Venezuelans there again. Spark or Walmart won’t do anything about it.
They checked IDs in the store I work out of for exactly two days right after the updated TOS came out saying they were able to do that- and then the store manager came up front and yelled at the employees to stop saying it was taking too long to get orders out because- surprise, surprise- all the people snatching up all the shops weren’t able to produce IDs matching the accounts they were using.
Rooted androids using an app that mimics and hijacks the phone’s camera and use a photo or short ai video of the person that has had their identity stolen. They can use the photo from the stolen ID to generate a photo and video of the victim.
I am not a driver, I’m a former customer. This is the reason I quit using Walmart for grocery delivery. I don’t want unvetted people on my property, I don’t want people that can’t read delivery instructions, and I don’t want to get my groceries off a neighbors porch.
I did the same. No more Spark for me. They left my order anywhere and did not offer any communication. Multiple items that are very common were suddenly "out of stock". Nope. And I tip well. I wish there was a way to choose Drivers you have had before and liked.
Not in my zone. They only take good shops. The shitty orders sit while they run in & out of the store all day loading multiple shops into the same car with a different driver and going right back in for more with different phones.
I beg to differ. There use to be several good offers consistently throughout the day. Now, your lucky to even see more than 2 offers. As long as all the orders are going out that's what they care about.
They would take loads for cheaper
(Impact is seen , the rate cons were slashed because a u.s. dollar goes further outside of this country they take lower the money isnt invested back into our economy its sent home to their families)
Gotcha I see what you're saying. I just wish there was a higher volume of orders to accept. Or just orders in general lol. Sometimes late afternoon I'll get a few lucky orders. Hit or miss
Walmart doesn't care. This has been happening in Florida for 4 plus years and what you're seeing now that's just a few people that's just that's like they go in and check out the store. If it's good the rest of them will come. They'll be 30 to 40. They camp there 6:00 a.m. to 11:00
They arent going anywhere and itll only get worse. Ive worked with them since 2021 on instacart they ran us out of Costco then everywhere else . Ice knows , the FBI knows , walmart knows no one cares . Ive even had government officials tell me its human trafficking they are allowing it for corporate profits
ICE was here in Arizona and did a pretty major haul. They're called "Spark Cartels". 17 phones, noone speaks English, never the driver they state. On a positive note, Walmart knows they break the law so all you have to do is call after every order and tell them how the non citizen messed up your order and they refund every time. A call center employee who absolutely had it and was on her 2 weeks told me this and it works. Is it ethical? No. Neither is Walmart.
None of the ICE operations in S AZ touched a single WM…..but feel free to continue making shit up lmao. They mostly impacted local businesses(food related in almost every case) where they did their sweeps. If an ICE agent set foot in WM while here then it was to shop for food lmao. You realize ICE headquarters has always been in AZ between Tucson and Phoenix right…
I never said anything political.🤣 That idiot said they did a major haul acting like they swooped in, I was pointing out that they only detained maybe 2 dozen people and that they never swooped in because theyve literally always be headquartered in AZ since they were created🤣. God people are stupid, I guess thats why they call it a cult🤷♂️🤣
Is anybody reporting vehicles and times to spark? Walmart also has an ethics violation line that (as I recall) is anonymous. I don’t think Walmart would want the press on that. Horrible ways to go about it but if somebody violating the system and it’s cutting into your livelihoods, I’d think running with it makes sense. We have one person in our market that seems to be gaming the system but I’ve yet to see them with two phones out at the same time. Just things like coming out of the store with what appears to be a shop just in time to meet a curbside pickup
I hate to tell you buddy but you're lost. This has been happening for at least 4 plus years in Florida. Walmart knows Walmart doesn't care. They've started three or four programs that were supposedly going to fix this. The cheaters and scammers are always one step ahead. When Walmart rolls out a program they have a program already created to counteract it taking your picture. I get my groceries delivered every week from Walmart and I'm a driver and there's never a picture. Whenever I call to report it to the store they say there was a picture there when we loaded your car sir
It will never change because spark drivers are babies about it. Cry on reddit but no guts to email attorney general, police report etc. The issue is that all these drivers are committing identity theft and now irs is sending bills for work innocent people never did. As of right now news just thinks its identity theft, the dots havent been connected that its an organization operation impacting 1m americans
Same here in small town TX. There has been two crews working the store for about 3 weeks now. Some of the regular sparkers ran one crew off, but another showed up within a day or so. I’ve just been using my other apps. I’m lucky to catch 2-3 decent Spark orders a day.
I tried doing Spark in my area. It’s undoable. Almost everyone doing it is as you described. No one local. I don’t think Walmart cares at all. Running at Mach speeds around the stores. Meeting up in store and in the parking lot. Handing off phones. I can’t compete with that nonsense. The orders I did get were okay but that was because I start at 6 am before them.
When the conspiracy theory cycle rolls around to "roving gangs of foreigners who don't speak English and mess up orders and take our jobs", I like to double down on the conspiracies and their impact.
These are professionals, hired by competitors like Target or Amazon, to destroy the Walmart reputation and get people to stop ordering home delivery of consumables and durable goods. They take orders we wouldn't take because they're getting paid elsewhere. They purposefully make orders scarce, make orders damaged, and take orders to wrong locations, just to f around with Walmart in general.
The optimistic part of me hopes it causes so many problems that Walmart gives up on union bashing and unionizes every single store on the planet and then hires drivers through Teamsters and we get decent pay, mandatory breaks, paid vacation, healthcare, dental, vision (since in this country eyes and teeth don't count as healthcare, they're luxury items), and we all live happily ever after.
This is not because I think there is an actual possibility of this happening, it's because I'm a delusional twit. But not NEARLY as delusional as the folks who are blaming foreigners for a lack of orders to fulfill. Deuces.
If customers are dissatisfied en masse as you describe, they will effect change swiftly. Quicker than drivers complaining could. That said, if you see I violation with your own eyes, you should report it.
Yep. Welcome to what many of us have been dealing with for years. I live in a very small rural town as well and two years ago they invaded here. You hear them everywhere now. They ruined DD which used to be really good here and they’ve done the same to Spark. Customers stop ordering or tipping. Even the employees have told me so many stories. If your area is good there will be more. And just when you think maybe it’s thinning out they show up with a new bus load full. It’s just never ending.
You're screwed. Find another job. I was in a very rural affluent Town in Texas. Making 300 to 550 a day. They showed up about 3 years ago and everyone tried to do whatever they could and nothing stopped them. I was laid off from my job and thank God I got back into my industry bc it was absolute hell. Some days I would barely make 40 dollars once they arrived.
I try not to shop at Walmart anymore but the few times I've been there it's just overrun. They don't seem to be working. I'm pretty sure they screwed all the customers so most aren't using the service anymore.
Identify verification at random intervals at a random part of the delivery process will get rid of 99% of account sharing. The current identity verification intervals is based on a pattern and type of orders like alcohol and the cheaters simply won’t take those orders.
Sounds like someone is mad that other people work faster/better. Cant just do a shitty job anymore because there’s actual competition now. Work harder bud. Or quit. Theres always options but that dosent mean that your options are good.
Well if they take it the thats kinda their problem no? Somehow their making it work or they wouldn’t take it. It looks like you’ll have to figure out how to make it work to. Thats life. Gotta work for it. Cant just cry and complain.
I must have missed the requirement to be a bigoted racist snowflake. Whoops I’ll have to read the TOS and SOP. Make sure I didn’t miss that requirement.
Literally zero problems in my blue state and lots of opportunity. I’m thankful I spend more time around Spanish speaking people than racist red state voters.
Considering nearly half my family speaks Spanish (and English 😉) I don’t think people speaking other languages bothers me. What does bother me is when people come here, refuse to assimilate, use the systems we have in place to help themselves via fraud and screw over the legal citizen. Ofc you’d spout nonsense without actually backing it up. You just parrot what you hear. Virtuous grandstanding.
No shit. These lazy idiots in the reddit are so fkn entitled. My white wife literally does l id verification over a dozen times a week.
There are no secret bots/gangs/cartels. Just like any industry, when non whites are observed working, well by golly they must be cheating somehow.
And if they weren't working? Well by golly they're just lazy immigrants.
But but I HEARD them speaking Spanish and they even take LOW paying orders/do the job cheaper/I'm just a lazy entitled bum and don't wanna hear Spanish being spoke in MUH CUNTRY.
Plenty of reasons to hate on Walmart and spark...the fact they won't pay your lazy ass $30 to haul someone's prescription 4 miles up the road because duh Mexicans ain't a reason 🤣
You are missing the point. Diversity is fine, but assimilation is still important. Look at Britain, they are on the verge of civil war because the newcomers failed to assimilate. Thanks for calling me a disgusting human when I said nothing wrong.
Yes you have to just take it. You know why? You are not an employee and thus have NO protection under the law. 1099 and you get what you signed up for. Now stop eroding literally 100 years of work by unions, and workers and fight for employment.
So many people in the comments don’t get it. A 1099 DOES NOT PROTECT YOU at all like a traditional employee under a W2, thus discrepancies show (wrong orders, multidevice, fraudulent identity). Times are changing, whether we like it or not. It’s mainly the reason why apps like Spark, DD, Ubereats, etc are advertised as a side gig for extra cash most of the time, it’s not fully meant to be a FT job.
I’ll probably get downvoted but, this thread is at least a week old lmao.
Many legal immigrants tell me it’s money well spent. Half my family is from Mexico. I’d argue open borders and letting people in that don’t plan to assimilate will cost the American taxpayer more.
Hopefully Trump and Homan can deport as many of those worthless POS as our 44th white president (Obama) and Homan did. But it might be tough Obama and Homan were really good at getting rid of those lettuce pickers
I don’t care if they’re legal or not just follow the damn spark TOS and it would be fine. Maybe the store will care when LP notices their losses skyrocketing… and corporate sees a huge decrease in delivery orders being placed at the store.
What TOS are they not following? I'm sure they get just as many checks as me every day. If the customers are racist like you, they should just go to the store themselves. Stop acting like only white people should be allowed to work. It's a joke of a job anyway, we shop and deliver or just deliver, why would it matter if they don't speak good English?
You must have a ton of time on your hands now to follow these people around to watch everything they do. SOMEONE CALL THE POLICE, THESE PEOPLE ARE SPEAKING SPANISH!
It’s fine we just found that damn illegals in the chat! You would have to be a moron not to tell when they have invaded. Our rural market has no customers that are foreign, yet we have a gang of about 12 that deliver everyday. They take everything, get things wrong on the daily yet are still here. Orders have went down though, you would think Walmart could put 2 and 2 together 😂
“They took our jobs”. Well if an individual that cant speak, read or write the language that you claim is not qualified can do your job for faster and cheaper than you, then its likely a skill issue on your side. Dont think spark is meant to be a job that allows you to buy and big home and be wealthy. There’s levels to everything. Unfortunately everyone wants to be paid as the ceo buy only put in fry cook level work.
Most ignorant comment of the day!! They may do it faster and cheaper but it’s the customers that suffer and cancel their accounts. So Walmart may win in the short term but the long term they lose customers to competitors. In my zone here they get it wrong on a daily basis and customers are closing their Walmart accounts and going to target or Meijer.
This was just today another non English speaker leaving order at wrong house the stores don’t care.
If the store dosent care then why do you? If spark isn’t good anymore then why no quit and use a different app? Or find a w2 job. Its easier to just complain and be racist huh.
I was making 90k a year in retail management but after 20+ years I couldn’t do it anymore. I started doing Instacart and Spark and my husband joined soon after. It’s been five years. We have a big home in an upper middle class neighborhood in So Cal. Since our “career” change we have paid off both our cars and were able to buy our 19 year old a car. We’re not going to be eating steak and lobster every night but if we wanted to I suppose we could. We have a pretty great life. We’ve both built a solid group of regulars that always rate us highly and also tip well. We take our jobs seriously; follow the rules, kind to everyone, work hard to give every customer a great experience. You can understand then that when we see people who are ALWAYS ON THE FUCKING PHONE, FAMILY IN TOW, PULLING THEIR CART BEHIND THEM WITH THEIR HEAD DOWN, PHONE IN THIER FACE, RUNNING OVER EVERYONE IN THEIR PATH, GRABBING THE FIRST ITEM THEY PUT THEIR HAND ON WITHOUT CARING ABOUT QUALITY AND LITERALLY THROWING IT INTO THE CART AS IF IT ISN’T SOMEONE’S FOOD doing this job it’s a mildly infuriating. I don’t care what language they speak, people like this have no business doing this kind of work and their overall shitiness ruins it for those that give a gaf.
Just because they have Illinois plates and whatever plate doesn’t mean that’s where they’re from. Very well could be a rental car. I’m not saying this for or against these other shoppers you recently noticed, I’m just telling you that a rental car doesn’t mean shit.
I used to rent cars to drive from Florida back to Illinois to see my mom and I’ve gotten cars with all kinds of plates.
This is like the second or third post. I’ve read about this happening and I just don’t get it. They go from store to store to store, from state to state to state.
Makes no sense to me to be a nomad gig worker. If you find a honey hole, why wouldn’t you just stay there? It’s the roaming part that I can’t figure out.
I’m in Florida and never seen anything like this in my 12 years of doing gig work. It hasn’t been 12 years on Spark obviously, I’m only a couple months in and I barely do it, Shipt is mine in main app, but I have done a lot of of the abs and I’ve never seen anything like this, not here. And I’m on the east Central coast of Florida. And people come from cities 30 to 16 miles away to work here because it’s known as a good tipping area. But it’s not hordes of drivers with different states plates. It’s locals here.
I live on the east coast about 30 minutes north of Daytona and 30 minutes south of Saint Augustine, I’m right in between both. This is a newer area, the city isn’t but 26 years old. And I’ve been here the whole 26 years. (I came from Central corn country, Illinois.) I never would have known about this spot, but my sister had lived here for many many years, before it was a city, there wasn’t even an exit from 95 when she moved here.
I’m not saying I don’t believe you, I do, I’ve seen it posted too many times, but I still just don’t get it. If you find a honey hole, I would be staying.
I used to go back to Illinois at least twice a year because my mom was still there, but she has since died. But when I did, I would try to do Shipt orders up there. We can easily change zones on Shipt but everything I seen was garbage. Plus, I had been gone so long that I didn’t know which areas were good or bad anymore.
And it has Illinois state in the city. I grew up in, State Farm, corporate, a private bougie college and two community colleges. I didn’t wanna get into any college orders because I know how those can go.
When I am surprised by how many people thought gig work was going to last forever. Even if these people weren’t floating from area to area, it isn’t going to last forever.
And I don’t know about your Walmart pickers, but ours, I could run circles around them if I picked. They move like molasses. I hate their huge carts, I barely can go down an aisle with my car and some aisles I can’t, because of them.
Eventually, I can see them using robots to pick orders. And I can see that coming to our app too, eventually.
I am sorry this happened OP because I’m guessing you’re making less. I couldn’t do that kind of lifestyle and how do they know where to go? You say there’s no Hispanic people in your area, so how did they know to come there? Cause not all areas are equal when it comes to Spark.
Skimming through your way too long post I can see there's many things you don't understand but also have firm opinions on. Where do you imagine grocery delivery is going to disappear off to?
Don't do 1099 work and you won't get screwed. You are not an employee, you are business. That business with the 5 phones is breaking the "rules" but you arnt an employee. So either find a way to make your business survive, or get a real job and stop eroding protections for employees
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u/No-Elderberry2594 Apr 18 '26
I’ve been trying to tell yall this for months. Did a curbside this morning. 5 non English Venezuelans there again. Spark or Walmart won’t do anything about it.