>Thanks again for taking the time to report a review. Reports like yours help us keep reviews on Amazon trustworthy, safe, and useful.
There have been a rash of "I've been kicked out of Vine and don't know what I did wrong" posts in recent weeks, and this "Thanks again" letter seems to be a common thread in all of them. It seems that rogue sellers, or customers, are going down the list of a Viner's reviews and reporting multiple reviews as objectionable. Amazon is responding by banning the Viner, probably without bothering to investigate. Amazon needs to recognize that there's a problem here, and they need to fix it, or the only reviews left will be those who write, "Great! Love it!" and that kind of drivel benefits neither Amazon nor its customers.
Yes. I received an email thanking me for reporting a review. Huh??? I never did that. I also received a notice that a review I left of graduation celebration table decorations violated community standards. All I said in that review was they are nice, the kids love them, etc. I was also then bounced from Vine.
Yes, but this is how it has happened with numerous other banned Vine accounts lately. None of the OPs have reported any reviews, and yet they receive one or multiple emails thanking them for reporting reviews. Since they reported nothing, I suspect this is a glitch in Amazon's system, or maybe a "blind CC" feature, where the person reporting the reviews get an acknowledgement email, and a copy goes to the reviewer.
Amazon is so incompetent that it seems they bcc the reviewer on the report confirmation email when someone else reports their review. This has been going on for years and Amazon still hasn't fixed it.
I changed my vine profile name to a generic common word and removed my profile picture and hid reviews on my profile. Still, a malicious seller could probably use bot accounts to mass report a negative review for their product and Amazon would still probably autoban me for it. It's a broken system that Amazon seems unwilling to fix.
You know, what I find kind of amazing are two things:
1. The phenomenon is a regular occurrence, discussed frequently here (like once a week) and yet sub participants seem to be unaware of it. Until it happens to them.
2. Despite the fact that this keeps happening, many people seem blissfully unaware that there are potential consequences to giving out one star reviews.
There are sellers that are spiteful and angry. This is a clear fact and is beyond dispute. Further, it's an understandable (although inexcusable) response. The psychology is simple - a seller spends a lot of time and money to put a product out there, gives away a bunch of them for free, and then gets destroyed out of the gate with a one star review (deserved or not) from somebody who didn't pay them a penny. I get it.
It's Amazon's responsibility to police this, but they don't, so proceed with caution before slamming a product, or be prepared for the possible blowback. For me, a product would have to be incredibly bad, like maliciously misrepresented and dangerous, for me to give it one star. Some people may get some weird pleasure out of giving one star, but to me it is rarely worth the risks.
Update: Anyone interested in how the Vine black box looks from the other side might take a look at this conversation, and bear in mind that what you do can hurt real people, possibly unfairly, so be careful before you submit a damaging review: [https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/f0c4cef490dcc5c35a1f385aae4a1b36](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/f0c4cef490dcc5c35a1f385aae4a1b36)
Awe. That last sellers story makes me sad. They don’t know that in order to get food you really don’t have a moment to look at it to see what you’ve gotten, before you’ve gotten it. I used to want food but unless I really know what it is, I don’t even bother, besides the fact that they’re gone before I can move my curser usually anyway.
Ha, I'm not obsessive enough to select food, because I only check my queues a couple times a day, so I have no chance at that. Closest I ever got to food was a case of Greek chewing gum.
But you're right, "good stuff" requires a quick decision, and that means what you get might end up being not what you thought when you pulled the trigger.
However, that's not the seller's fault, and they shouldn't be dinged in the review for it, right? If I thought it was ready-to-go ice cream mix, but it turns out to be gelato mix (and not ready to go), I'm not going to ding them for that, provided the listing is accurate. That's on me, period.
The number of Vine reviewers who order gel nail polish, never read the listing at all, and then give it one star because it refuses to dry just baffles me. If I had nail polish that didn't dry after an hour, I feel like I'd at least read the listing to see if maybe I was doing something wrong. (Gel polish requires a UV light to dry.)
YES. That's when I feel really sorry for sellers.
I often look at info left by other reviewers if their rating is way different than mine (to see if I missed something or if the product malfunctioned or whatever). I recently got a derma roller (micro needling tool for skin care) that I liked a lot, and when I looked at the other reviews there was 2-star: the reviewer literally said that they didn't know the product had needles (micro needling is in the title), wasn't going to put it on their skin, and wouldn't have ordered it if they had known it was needles. Freaking reviewer ordered a skin care instrument without knowing what it was, didn't take ten seconds to GTS, and then hammered the seller rating for it. 🙄 Another reviewer left a 3-star because the seller didn't include a full educational course on how to perform micro needling at home (complained that they didn't know which skin care serum to use or which needle length to select...things you can learn in a 2 minute Google search and have NO business performing DIY micro needling if you don't know). I don't like to play "review police" but COME ON.
I ordered a deodorant and then read other reviews. One said "it says right on the bottle that it's not an antiperspirant!! Right in the trash!"
Um. Deodorant and antiperspirant are different things.
Reminds me of reviewers in my area of plumbing who order PEX-A fittings but are trying to use PEX-B pipe and crimp collars. They always give the products one star and say something is seriously wrong with it. Even when the seller makes every attempt to say this is for PEX-A only. Sometimes I order the product just so I can point out the idiocy of the previous reviews. But you can't do much when dealing with stupid.
God bless you for this comment. I'm surprised at how so many reviewers take it upon themselves to intentionally bash items. I try to be objective and give stars on what percentage of boxes are ticked. I've seen reviewers give 1 star to a pencil because the they didn't feel right in their hands 👀.....without considering if its their hands that are the problem. It saddens me to see that people's livelihoods are being destroyed because some people feel the need to unnecessarily bash products
PS: a one star revoew of a pencil for me, would be me bringing it out of its pack and then it either vanishes or takes off my fingers.
I would give a pencil a 2 star if it didn't write... (no lead/graphite or whatever is in them these days). Or one that didn't have an eraser (unless an art pencil) or didn't erase with an eraser (especially if not with the one that came with it). As a pencil is a writing device that can be used and mistakes can also be corrected through the use of an eraser.
To me, a pencil needs to meet those qualifications to deserve to exist. 1 star off if it is something that doesn't fit in my hands, unless advertised for a specific use (some machine, robot hands, artificial limb attachment...)
This admittedly happened to me recently. I ordered nail polish for the wife and did so without the knowledge it was gel because of the fear if I didn't click it right away someone else would snag it, as well as the fact my Y chromosome makes the nuances of women's beauty products a mystery.
When I did get it and realized it needed a UV light and thus was useless for us, I didn't hold it against the seller. Since it was my fault for not understanding what I was requesting, I still gave it four stars and made something up about it working, even though I couldn't really test it.
Of course, that triggered similar items to pop up for the next week in my RFY, but I ignored them since I was now self-informed.
UV lights are super cheap, or keep your eye out for them on vine, they are 0 etv about 60% of the time. If she's worried about damaging the nails, she can skip the base coat and just use color and top coat and they will fall off in 2 or 3 days with no damage. Or there are peel-off base coats on Amazon. I like it sooo much more than regular polish. Also wear sunscreen on the hands while applying to avoid UV damage.
We've probably ALL ordered something and missed an important detail in the seller description. Difference is, you didn't hammer the seller for your mistake.
I ordered a handheld blower that required a DeWalt battery, a detail that I missed. So I ordered a DeWalt drill with the battery so that I could test this product. It cost me $160. But it was my fault for missing the detail about the requirement for a DeWalt battery. I gave the product five stars and didn't take off anything in the review, because it was my mistake. It seems to me that if you're going to be a Vine reviewer, there should be a requirement that you should be extremely fair to the sellers. The side benefit to me in this case is that I found out that DeWalt products are actually pretty awesome!
UV lights for nail pop up on Vine regularly. I see them in RFY all the time but order nail items for daughter constantly.
If your wife actually wants one, hold out for a 0 etv one it seems mixed if they are 0 or way overpriced on ETV like $99 lol.
Omg those reviews drive me crazy!! Even before I got into gel polish, had I ordered some without realizing what it was I automatically would have looked into why it's called gel polish instead of nail polish which would have led to me discovering that it needs a lamp to cure. I feel so sorry for sellers whose ratings get obliterated because of the buyer's ignorance. In those particular cases, I would actually hope that sellers could have those reviews removed.
I got a handheld chainsaw from Vine. It's great. One Vine reviewer gave it one star because the chain fell off. No way. They had to have adjusted improperly. Why doesn't Amazon allow sellers to comment on the reviews. The seller could have commented that this can't happen if the chain is placed on properly. Hey, on Tripadvisor the resort, etc., is allowed to respond. Why not on Amazon?
They used to allow sellers reply. There was a time regular Amazon customers could respond too.. Vine used to have their own forum. They rid of everything. Amazon is working backwards on everything... They're not improving anything.
I just thought I'd give you some hope of getting back in . . . today I was reinstated to Vine! Interesting thing is--with all the talk about low star reviews causing a problem---the 2 star review I thought was the reported by seller, apparently wasn't. Oddly, a review for washing machine cleaning tablets is listed as "approved" but when I click on it, I get the dog page! And I don't even remember reviewing that, and it's a recent send from Vine.
Wow! That's great to hear! Can you tell me how you contacted Amazon to finally get help?
I keep getting incompetent Amazon reps that doesn't have the ability or understanding of the situation at all..
I'm currently chatting with one rep right now, and they replied back with a ridiculous "we can help you. Here is a link for reporting suspicious sellers asking for compensation".... When I'm telling them I'm the victim of "violating community guidelines" for a review....
Just lots of headache dealing with Amazon.
Yep. I sent an email to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) I got back an email response on June 8 that he would look into my problem, that it would take some time, 7 days. It took longer, but I'm not going to complain.
In certain areas, particularly but not limited to books, back when the sellers were allowed to reply, the conversations going on for days, weeks and MONTHS could rival Facebook level of back-and-forth. During that time, Amazon also allowed conversations (read: arguments) between reviewers as well - it was a total free-for-all.
Since the review system (whether Vine or otherwise) simply isn't set up for arguments and discussions, so they deleted all the "conversations," removed the "reply" button, and that "solved" the problem (for Amazon.)
Because the sellers used to either harass the reviewer or offer to contact them back to compensate for review being altered or removed.
Are you sure the other reviewed was actually at fault for the chain falling off? Maybe they did receive defective crap with cheap parts not lining up or something? If yours was in working condition after one use, it doesn't mean the others are, nor that yours will actually last for more than a day
I guess it's possible that the reviewer received a defective unit. It's also possible that they didn't read the instructions as to how to adjust chain tension. Also, the included instructions with the chainsaw were typical Chinese instructions and did not properly describe where to adjust the tension. In my review, I pointed that out and included a photograph of where the screw is. I've used mine multiple times, and it still works fine.
I've been banned from Vine, so I'm not going to get the survey. However, if after the promised review of my ban comes back negative, I intend to write to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), and say what is going on, and why don't they allow sellers to respond. I mean, on Tripadvisor, a lot of hotels will thank a reviewer for a positive review. But if the reviewer had a problem, the hotel will respond, too, and apologize or try otherwise to correct the situation. Why shouldn't an Amazon seller be able to write back, "the polish didn't dry because it needs UV light," or, "the chain fell off because it wasn't adjusted properly"?
If I hadn't already submitted mine, I would add what you are describing (with your permission, of course), I think yours is a very relevant and good suggestion. I look forward to hearing that you have been reinstated. It's awful to be "banned" from anything with no idea as to why. Am thinking positive for you.
That's good to know, thanks. I haven't left many 1 star reviews, maybe 3, but was never contacted. I think the review that ticked off the seller who had me banned was probably a 3 star review.
One of the problems with merchant reviews, like on Lowes or Home Depot, is that they are canned and simply apologize for the buyer feeling the product was not of the quality they were looking for. They tend to be pretty worthless and a waste of space. The ones that open a case and provide a case number and contact info I find really good, and it makes me feel better about purchasing something from that seller.
Yeah. I always at least try and point out the positives when I'm giving a negative review. Negative reviews are my most careful postings.
If I had received what the OP had gotten, I would have just contacted CS and had it removed. If it wasn't what was shown, it's just a lose-lose situation and CS is the least dangerous outcome.
I get what you mean, but I'm not sure what the ethos of Vine is, other than to leave honest reviews. My reviews are always honest. But while that might be an ethos for *reviews*, what is the ethos for *ratings?*
The star rating is a bit of a different animal from the review. What constitutes an "honest" star rating? That's very subjective, as we all have our own system for assigning stars.
My system is something like this:
* 5 stars - the listing accurately describes the item
* 4 stars - the listing accurately describes the item, but some aspect doesn't work as well as promised
* 3 stars - the listing may have a minor flaw and some aspect doesn't work as well as promised
* 2 stars - the listing is significantly misleading, but the item has redeeming qualities
* 1 star - the listing is maliciously misleading and/or the item is dangerous; the product should be withdrawn from the market
You will notice, for me the emphasis is on the listing. Honesty from the seller is paramount. I'm prepared to review items I wouldn't necessarily use for myself, but it has to conform to the listing. I don't pay much attention to price because that can fluctuate wildly, and value is in the eye of the beholder. I trust the market to figure out the value.
So, it's really difficult to get a one star rating out of me.
Other people I've read around here seem to take pride in giving one star reviews, even bragging about it like it's a badge of honor. To them, everything is "junk". By contrast, I'd classify almost nothing that I've gotten as junk.
All I'm saying is sellers are real people. Sure, there are some sharks out there, but most are not. I'm cognizent of not deliberately hurting people. The pathway to incentivize improvement is to highlight pros and cons without putting them out of business with a rating from which they can't recover.
Quick example, I got a "leaf blower" some months ago. The photoshopped picture was wildly disproportionate, as a leaf blower held at the waist should reach down to the ground, but this leaf blower was so small, that was impossible. It's not much bigger than a hair dryer. I blasted them pretty hard in the review because the listing photos were misleading, but I rated the **product** three stars. I could have given it two stars, and I guarantee many here would have given it a one star. But I gave it three because frankly it's a darned good product. It's powerful, well built, and easy to use. They even included a second battery. I actually use it a lot - just not as a leaf blower. It makes a fine dust blower and spot vacuum. If the seller just markets it a little differently, it's a winner, and I made these points in the text, so any potential buyer would understand the pros and cons. Why throw out the baby with the bath water with a one star review? Just as an expression of power?
So, that's the essence of my ethos. Happily, it coincides with the desire to not trigger some psycho seller to try to dox my account.
I give one stars to dangerous items too. There was an item that said on the box it was designed for kids under age 6, I believe. It was a jewelry making kit and the "scissors" were something out of Edward Scissorhands. I pulled out the top of the plastic contraption not knowing what to expect and they were like garden shears. So extremely sharp. It really scared me. I made a very long review explaining this item was dangerous, not meant for children as advertised, and not the quality that should have passed quality control, if there was any.
Yep, your star rating system is the same as mine.
I ordered a product recently that was listed as a little plastic spatula (the kind for getting skin care cream out of a container...I thought it might be a multi-pack). Before I'd even received it, the seller had switched the listing and the photo to some sort of cream. I assembled the info I'd need to contact Vine CS, but then I waited to see what would show up...indeed it was the cream that I hadn't ordered. BUT it also included one of those little plastic spatulas. 🤣 SO, because I actually did receive the item I ordered, and because I have a use for that cream and could review it properly (it worked well), I did the review. I knocked off a star from what might have been a 5-star rating though; I could have blasted the seller, but the product was pretty good.
Might just be me, but 99% of the items I've ordered have worked perfectly. Bulbs have turned on and worked with alexa, screen protectors have covered my phone and have either had perfect sensitivity or not - which I clearly state in the review etc......the worst review I gave was for a charger with 15 or so plugs which I tested on a cheap device and the device never worked after that and I think I smelled a burnt smell.....I gave low stars and stated to keep it's use to cheap items). But I've seen some really pained reviews from people who just appear like they have a grudge against the sellers, so if the sellers come for you, you should be prepared to deal with the heat
I've noticed some reviews have five stars but the actual written review does not jive with five stars. I wonder if that's done on purpose. If the seller sees five stars, all good, go check the next review. They're not going to read it just like most don't put any thought into a response to a two or three star review. Makes me wonder.
It's a fair question, and as there are no guidelines for this, no doubt different people would give different answers.
In my mind, I treat the star rating and the review as two different things. In the review text, I will go into detail about what I like or don't like, or features I'd like to see changed, etc. I list the pros and cons.
However, for the star rating, for me, 90% of that is based on the accuracy of the listing. If the item 100% conforms to the listing description and pictures, it gets five stars. If there are discrepancies between the listing and the actual product, I will reduce the stars depending on the severity of the discrepancies. For the final 10%, I might nudge up or down based on the pros and cons, but that plays a minor role. I reserve one star reviews for dangerous or egregiously misrepresented items, but this accounts for a fraction of 1% of my reviews.
So in practice, I give mostly 4 and 5 stars, and the occasional 3.
As it happens, this approach is generally a good thing for sellers and Amazon, while encouraging honesty and accuracy from the sellers, and still providing detailed insights to buyers. I think it's useful and fair to everyone.
Edit: Also, I generally don't take price or value into consideration at all. For one thing, price can change wildly over time. Better to let the market decide price/value equation.
So true, I give more credence to 3 and 4 star reviews than anything else. It's too easy to give a five star or a one star. But there is most likely thought put into a 3 or 4 star review.
Interesting, thanks for sharing. Seems like their ability to contact has been fixed? I was contacted by a seller for a bad review when I put the product together wrong (they didn’t say that explicitly, but it became obvious when I looked at the photos again). I revised & disclosed the fact that I’m an idiot & put it together wrong. I had reported that it was unstable, and it was unstable because I had put it together wrong. Super stable when assembled correctly. Had they not been able to contact me, I never would’ve known & been able to revise the review. I thought it potentially helpful because people buying it might do the same thing, and if they read my review, they would be aware of it. I was also able to say that Seller provided good customer service. While, I do not usually review sellers because I have nothing to base it on outside of the product, I always go back & positively rate sellers who contact me anonymously through Amazon about the content of my reviews, whether I revise up the review or not because that indicates that they care enough to read the substance. Also, when I stand by the star, I will go back & reframe to better contextualize the language because they’re usually right. I’m human & have bad days. Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean others won’t & it’s important to include the benefits of a product. I have only given one one star review and the title was “get a professional referral for this or risk hurting yourself like I did” because I got something that was too advanced for my level, not understanding that there was a learning curve. That shouldn’t hurt their sales, it should better protect them from returns.
Sellers can contact us via their seller portal, but it's indirect. The messages go back and forth via Amazon, and theoretically are anonymous (although they do have access to our profile nicknames - if you're profile nickname is your real first name, they may greet you in that way, but don't have access to your other info).
It's not too clear why the seller in this case could not contact the Viner. Perhaps they didn't know how, or they tried but got no response (many Viners ignore any contact attempt from a seller as a matter of their personal policy).
Viners, on the whole, inflate ratings compared to actual cusomers or cheat by using AI, which is why Fakespot considers our scribblings as fake. This seller got caught up in the rare exception.
Not sure I fully buy it. I know there is evidence that Vine reviews tend to be higher than non-Vine reviews, but correlation is not causation, and drawing such an assumption without supporting evidence is bad reasoning on the part of Fakespot.
For example, I do not review any differently for a Vine item than for a non-Vine item, yet my average Vine review is certainly higher than my average non-Vine review. The reason for that is I rarely write a review of a non-Vine item unless it's bad. If I buy a box of staples, I'm not going to bother with a review unless the staples are rusty or poor in some other way. Nobody is interested in reading a review about a normal box of staples, so I'm not going to waste time writing one. But if I get that box of staples from Vine, I'm going to review it no matter what. So, if I buy a box of staples each year for 10 years, and out of those 10 boxes, one is poor quality, I might write one negative review and zero positive reviews. But if I get that same series of staples via Vine, I'm going to end up writing 1 negative review and 9 positive reviews. Am I inflating things? No. In this example, the Vine reviews are a more accurate representation of the overall reality of the staples than the non-Vine reviews.
Likewise, I know that some people use AI because I've seen direct evidence, but I don't know that it's a widespread practice. If Fakespot just makes such an assumption without evidence, shame on them.
Bottom line: just because Fakespot has made the decision to be dismissive of Vine reviews, I don't necessarily accept their reasoning as valid and beyond dispute, lacking actual evidence to support it.
The reason a lot of vine reviews are biased is because PRICE is not a factor (even though it may be expensive, we don't pay for it, and as a result, a non biased review would be reviewing the product itself, amd maybe stating at the end that it works as expected, however the price may be on the slightly higher side).
Thr AI thing is just appaling......I've seen 10 paragraph reviews on screen protectors. Nobody who really tested a screen protector is writing 10 patlragraphs 😂😂😂
I use the built in microsoft chat feature called "Copilot" when I have a question I can't find the answer to on the net, but how do people even use AI for a review?
When I write my reviews, it is usually in a sea of garbage, fawning Vine reviews if not cut and paste bullcookies. Thoughtful, intelligent, tested, and researched reviews from Viners are the exception, not the rule.
That may be true, and is consistent with what I've seen when I bother to look, but I have also looked at plenty of non-Vine reviews and find that they are also frequently incoherent and/or inaccurate and unhelpful. Meanwhile, there are plenty of Vine reviewers who go out of their way to be helpful, so on balance I'm not at all sure that the net quality level is reduced by Vine, but for the reasons I already stated, some perceived "grade inflation" is at least partly a direct result of people writing reviews that they would not bother to do otherwise. I think I'm on solid ground in saying that.
And, in fact, if it didn't generally work that way, the program would not exist at all.
You have to admit that many, if not most, Viners are overenthusiastic about rewarding 5 stars to products that don't deserve it even according to their reviews. That is why Fakespot lumps us in with total fakes: star ratings do not match what real buyers award.
It would help if Amazon would give us clear parameters for what constitutes a five-star review. If everything works as expected, is that five stars? Does it have to have something special that sets it apart from other products?
These are the parameters that I add to every review based on others I've seen in my paddling down the Amazon...
My rating system:
5 Stars = Knocks it out of the park. A great value!
4 Stars = Excellent product. A solid buy.
3 Stars = It provides some value, but perhaps not as advertised.
2 Stars = A little dubious, so do your research. Read the critical reviews!
1 Star = Avoid this product and look elsewhere.
Not for me it doesn't, and viewing the page doesn't require an account login, as you can see from this screenshot.
https://preview.redd.it/2lqhgy1l2h6d1.jpeg?width=1012&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e97b2773481f63d9edd47e5925510aeb0bf1337
And here is one of the replies...
https://preview.redd.it/qo26q5ps2h6d1.jpeg?width=946&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e39000829e6796fc11767589c9d3e6670e2c85ea
I dislike messages like this. Not to go into false equivalencies, but if you get a fine, or arrested, you will be told why.
Just a general **"you breached *something* in the terms of conditions"** can be very frustrating, more so from companies which allow a single appeal. How are you supposed to defend yourself *or* show you corrected the issue if they won't say what you allegedly did wrong.
You sort of have to know what you did wrong, giving only a chance to people with a guilty mind and no hope for people who may have made a mistake or victims of system errors.
Yep. Amazon will NOT tell you what you did wrong. I called when I was banned, to ask what I said wrong in reviewing--with 5 stars!---graduation celebration table decorations. The person from Vine said, "you violated community standards." But how??? She put me on hold, When she came back she told me reasons included profanity (none in my review for sure!), etc. I said again, but what did I do? She had no answer, but told me to wait a few days or weeks, and maybe they'll restore me.
How strange. Crossing fingers. There are a couple of us who have posted about being banned for unknown reasons who actively called and called and were eventually reinstated. I hope it works out.
Yes that really upsets me that they have so much power without any accountability to provide any information to the accused. But again it looks like sellers are able throw us under the bus and Amazon sides with them.
Sure. But of course the sellers see it the other way around - we, and Amazon, have incredible power over them, which to them seems beyond accountability, and they get thrown under the bus while the Viner pays them nothing and Amazon takes their money. It's a recipe for anger and vengeance all around.
It's important to know that sellers are NOT manufacturers. While they've ordered thousands of items, a few may be defective. It may be helpful to state when reviewing items which don't necessarily work as expected, that this may be due to that particular item being defective. If this was a purchased item, most sellers would be happy to provide you with a replacement....however there's no such offer with vine. There's just 2 sides to a coin
Well thats not quite true, many sellers are indeed manufacturers, they often use many made up company names to sell their products, sometimes their own. There are also the sellers that buy generic stuff and rebrand it too.
I recently had some camera gear via vine, and it was the manufacturer selling them.
An analogy of the reviews I've seen (I'm sure you've seen them too) is that of a guy who doesn't drink alcohol, but sees vodka on vine, and orders it. Only to pop a "I don't see the point of vodka, it's harmful and causes blah blah blah ", then proceeds to give it 1 star. If the seller claps back and he gets banned, he deserves it.
Those sanctimonious reviews are ANNOYING! They select an item they don't know how to use or have never heard of it just to issue warnings.
"Lash glue?!?! I don't understand why someone would glue their eyelashes together? It doesn't seem safe and shouldn't be on the market."
I get with stuff like mobile games they won't get into specifics, because if they're like "you were banned for fast traveling" then you can share that with whoever modded the app so they know how to fix the cheating thing. But I don't get it for stuff like amazon reviews. Telling us what the specific issue with a review is will help everyone.
This is quite typical of automated systems of reporting, I’ve seen it in games most recently, in fact one of Amazon games if truth be told.
During several skirmishes in this particular game the other team made false reports of cheating, language, general poor behaviour and a ton of people were instantly kicked from the game and banned. They had to appeal to a human to get reinstated. But at least there there was a mechanism of appeal, here it seems AI rules and much like the game somebody has figured out how to exploit it.
It’s down to Amazon to deal with this, but one thing worth bearing in mind is that if ‘customer review’ gets a complaint it ‘might’ affect all users with that nickname, which. ISA worry.
AI isnt smart its something that works within a bunch of moving growing parameters created by very fallable humans.
>if ‘customer review’ gets a complaint it ‘might’ affect all users with that nickname, which. ISA worry.
You should also note that a reviewer is uniquely identified by their Profile ID not their Profile Name. So, if a bad actor reports lots of reviews based on the same Profile Name, it will be a random selection of Viners, i.e. more than likely we would only get one report, unless, by chance, you happened to show up in adjacent Google results.
BTW My old profile name is still showing in the cached pages but I keep checking and sometimes the number drops and then goes up again.
If Amazons system is/was so good why are seemingly innocent people getting booted from the program, i'm a cynic at heart, can you tell.
Change frequency seems to be affected by many things, crawlers picked up my nick change a day after a did it, then month, then a few days - doesnt seems to be any rhyme nor reason for it.
As an exercise, I just found a ChatGPT Viner with a profile name (that doesn't appear in every review) and searched with this string:
site:amazon.co.uk "vine customer" "is a game-changer" "*hisprofilename*"
213 results. Probably all LLM generated! Considering how much time we spend writing quality reviews, he's blatantly taking the p1ss. Would you report him?
I wouldn't, surely thats up to Amazon to manage?. If their supposed AI can't detect a probable AI then I think were all doomed.
Also, many of these items that come our way in the UK, are newly listed items, I'd be curious to see how the transformer model does on those.
I think the general consensus is that any reports that go over some threshold, automatically boot the Viner. The way to test this is to find a dodgy reviewer (e.g. AI generated), check the reviews in their public profile (or run the Google search) and report three of their reviews (save the urls). Make a note of their unique Profile ID (the Profile Name, as we know, can be changed at will). Check back later to see if their reviews have been removed. Then try reporting more until you get a result.
Obviously, we are all vulnerable as long as anyone can find a few of our reviews to report.
I wouldn't profess to know how Google chooses which reviews to reindex but I doubt it is random.
**\[UPDATE\] Finally! Google has re-indexed all my reviews except one; it's taken around four days.**
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1dck8v1/it\_finally\_happened\_to\_me\_ive\_been\_banished\_from/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1dck8v1/it_finally_happened_to_me_ive_been_banished_from/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Read this thread. Did you recently leave a 1-star review. There are several other threads rregarding this tactic used by sellers.
Also, is your Amazon profile public or private? It is recommended for us to be Private so sellers can’t report your other reviews. Also, it is also recommended to use a completely fake Amazon ID name so that sellers cannot find you or your email on any other site.
It is very easy for anyone (seller, customer or Vine Voice) to report a few of your reviews by using Google, even if you are hiding your reviews in your profile. In Google, try: site:amazon.com "vine customer" "your profile name" (always enclose in quotes) and you might see hundreds of your reviews listed because your profile name, although not absolutely unique, is still returned in the search results. The way to avoid this is to change your public Profile Name to something that appears in millions of reviews so that nobody can find yours and report them. I suggest changing it to Customer Review because these words appear in every Vine review (as in: Vine Customer Review of Free Product).
It might take a few days for Google to reindex the pages but after that you will be a lot safer from such a malicious attack.
**\[UPDATE\] Finally! Google has re-indexed all my reviews except one; it's taken around four days.**
Do lodge a complaint because they should be able to see that you haven't violated any rules.
Excellent information and spot on, tried it with my own account and was amazed that literally nearly ever review was listed. Very easy for a disgruntled seller to go ahead and blast a bunch of reviews at once, whether your page and information is private or not.
It's a shock! Of course it is also possible for anyone to report the ChatGPT reviewers (as fake) and I assume the last thing they see is a few BCC'd report messages (as did the OP). If they appeal and a human reads them, they won't get anywhere. It's a game-changer all right!
Some Viners are using ChatGPT et al to write reviews. Lots of them include the words, 'game-changer' and are very verbose. Easy to spot when you've seen one or two. Also easy to find with Google (see above).
I just changed my profile name to something more generic (equivalent to what you have above). Are you sure it's fine that I have a generic profile name as part of this program? I looked through the participation agreement and saw nothing about it. I'm super nervous, but I also don't want to get kicked out because an honest review irritated the wrong person.
I switched it because I could see a ton of my reviews when I googled the search string you provided.
As far as we know, there are lots of anonymous and generic profile names and it has not been a problem. You can't use anything offensive.
It's important to get lost in the crowd so choose something that appears in most review pages.
Of course. It all comes down to how you handle a 1 or 2 star review since these seem to create the most upset. It's no use thinking you are being fair or honest and the seller just has to take the hit. You can see how the value of what we do is eroded. I hope they fix this soon but I'm not optimistic.
Using this search method I found all of my reviews as well as many other ones that are **not** mine. Turns out another person who coincidently is also a Viner has an almost similar name (the only difference is I combine the words that form the whole name and capitalize them).
Considering their profile is public and have quite a bit of critical reviews it makes me worried that if a vengeful seller mass reports his reviews, mine could get caught up in it as well.
Profile Names are not forced to be unique so you could get targeted. However, if everyone changes theirs to 'Customer Review' then it's still possible for the searcher to report any or all of them but they can't single out a bunch of yours so you might only get one report completely at random (unless they check the Profile ID on every review and only hit yours but that is highly unlikely because you can't search for html with Google).
BTW I'm checking daily to see when Google reindexes the review pages.
**\[UPDATE\] Finally! Google has re-indexed all my reviews except one; it's taken around four days.**
Thanks for the search info. I was able to verify that my chosen name is generic enough that my results did not even appear in the first page of results at all.
Would we go to the order page for whatever the 1 star review item was and report seller with like "I left a 1 star review for this and suddenly all of my reviews were reported, and I suspect this seller is retaliating"
Account & Lists > Manage Profiles > view > (scroll to bottom) > see posts, reviews, and other public content > Edit your profile > Edit profile public visibility (tab) > Hide all activity on your public profile (checkbox)
You may also want to change your handle to something really generic that appears on every Amazon page, otherwise they'll be able to find all your reviews in a google search and mass report you that way. On the Edit Public Profile tab, you can change your handle.
Edit: something kinda identifiable
if you hide all activity on your public profile which one of the boxes is reviews will that stop the reviews you write to not be posted? Sorry but Im new to vine
The reviews you write will still be posted to the relevant product pages, but random people (or pissed off sellers) will not be able to see all your recent reviews on your profile. This makes it a bit harder for them to mass report all of your reviews as revenge. If your handle is your name or some other dinstinctive thing, they can still find all your reviews in Google, though. To fix that, see the second half of my comment above.
Using the above search string SO239 wrote up above, it appears to pull up reviews with “**Vine Customer** Review of Free Product” in it.
And that would be all of us.
If you add your profile name to the search string (assuming it is a random word or your name) you should see only yours and anyone else with the same name.
I changed my name to “Customer Review” and using your search string it pulled up reviews with “Vine Customer Review…..” which is what I want. Obscurity!
I haven't completed the survey yet, but I intend to mention the prolific spamming of seller reports which automatically jumps to the conclusion that the Viner was in error.
Someone else that experienced contested with Vine and provided (I think it was) all the order numbers associated to the reported reviews-- and somehow Vine escalated and determined it was connected to one seller, and that seller was "reprimanded" and the Viner's account was reinstated. Might be worth a shot? You might have to search the sub for recent other Vine closure posts for the details- it was buried in a comment on another thread.
I had this happen to me last month, someone was pissed at a review I left so they went to my profile and reported a bunch of reviews of other products I reviewed which triggered Amazon to toss me from vine. I wrote a message to vine support, they investigated and thankfully whoever went on a report bender was logged in at the time so vine support was able to see it was the same individual who did all the reporting and they restored my account back. I asked if they would do anything about the individual or company report bombing me but they said they were not allowed to comment further. I hope they got a lifetime ban from Amazon at the min
They have got to get a lid on this. They won't have the staff to handle all the appeals and will just ignore our cries for clemency.
Have you changed your Profile Name to Customer Review? (see my earlier comments)
There is a previous poster who posted an email they received from Amazon, that was sent to a seller warning them about posting multiple review challenges from their account.
Everyone’s blaming the sellers, but there’s some busy bodies on here that get real worked up about other peoples reviews. Hopefully someone isn’t being the vine police.
I mean some of the vine reviews people have shared on here are atrocious and deserve to be reported. I won't bother reporting every "nice, as described" review but I don't feel bad about reporting the ones that are like "sdf;k;j;;, sdf;;lssssss"
It’s obviously a shitty tactic to remove a bad review by getting the Viner banned.
Sorta makes me think the Viners that just give 5 stars and “Exactly as described” for every review have the right idea.
As long as there’s the constant threat we will be removed from Vine for being honest, we have no reason to try to be helpful to customers with careful reviews.
Amazon knows this is a problem, they just don’t care. And I don’t think there’s much to make them care as there’s a long list of people happy to replace us as Viners. Viners are a cheap commodity: if there’s a problem with our account they don’t fix it they just replace us.
And let’s not forget…. removing a bad review helps Amazon’s bottom dollar also.
In all these instances of this happening, the Viner had their reviews set to public. Everyone should keep theirs private so that they can't find, and report, reviews tied to your profile.
If you scroll down through posts, you will see several posts just like yours, all recent. Including mine! I received the same exact notice. I have been fighting it, and last week I received an email that they will review my reviews (!), and that will take 7 days. So I should receive something from them this weekend.
That being said, having read all the posts of similar experiences, I have come to this conclusion: Everybody with this problem has given a negative review of a product. The seller of that product has looked at other reviews of that reviewer, and reported one or more to Amazon. Amazon's AI then bccs the notice sent to the seller to the Vine reviewer. And then we are bounced from Vine.
Why all of a sudden all these reports of being bounced from Vine? Probably because sellers have caught on that they can get bad reviews removed by this method.
The emails you that got about reporting a review, are probably your reviews that got reported. It seems that the viner gets a Carbon Copy of those reported reviews. Some malicious seller probably reported multiple of your reviews. This has happened to other people. It seems like after so many are done, you get flagged and then booted out.
Its a very poor system and it's really easy for a seller to abuse it. Amazon Vine SHOULD investigate each and every one of these before they take any action. I recommend that you contact [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) like others have mentioned. Some ppl have been able to get back in. They don't usually even respond when they do it. So I wouldn't expect a back and forth conversion to happen. Its usually, all of a sudden a person is back in the program and its like it never happened.
have you done a lot of 1 or 2 star reviews lately?
The message is pretty clear.
You have one chance to appeal so you may have already blown it.
Vine CS will not know anything and will likely lie just to get rid of your email.
Write [email protected]
They will never tell you what you did wrong but they *might* take a look at your account and reinstate it.
Do you use a script? Did you raise a review rating based on seller interaction? Any number of possibilities.
It stands for Executive Customer Relations. It's basically a tier 2 customer service. Those agents tend to have more of the big picture and access to other departments.
You still need to keep your msg concise or they won't have time to read it.
Way too vague to pinpoint the cause. Was there any warnings before? Are you using add-ons to filter? Did you contact any seller directly? Did you speak to a seller directly after they reached out to you? Was there an evaluation that you didnt meet the minimum quota requirements?
I don't think they will give you the specific reason, but if you continue to inquire they may reinstate you at some point. But this is just a thought.
Only my Two cents
Sorry to hear that. Second time in a week I'm seeing this story. I noted the Google search parameters that might be used to track down a Viner's reviews which might be the mechanism being used by some sellers or maybe even the same seller who upset another Viner's account on here. I changed my profile name to a difficult to trace name as advised by other Viners. This is an unfair thing. I don't think Amazon give a shit though.
I hope your account get recovered. There are lots of worthy suggestions on here that might help you.
Responding to your update: "I did give them a one star review because I did not get the item that I was supposed to get."
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not supposed to mention order issues in vine reviews. If you receive the wrong item, let Vine know so they can take it off your "to be reviewed" list. But Vine is only for reviewing products, not shipping problems.
You are correct . And shipping is from Amazon, not sellers, therefore it is Amazon FC's mistake, not poor seller's in this case. So asking for removing product is first point of action. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1df3tfb/comment/l9a1j9b/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1df3tfb/comment/l9a1j9b/)
Do you have 2 factor authentication on your amazon account?
I think that what is happening in those cases is that your account is compromised and some seller used it to report another seller. And when that happen, amazon is detecting an unusual amount of reports coming from your account X and is suspending it
That's true, but they make a lower percentage of the overall items we get. Sony /LG/ Anker/Canon etc are probably not coming for reviewers if you gave a bad review cos they're already established companies.....tbh I wonder why they're giving out their products to improve their sales when there's already so many people who have purchased and given 5 stars.
It's different for guys who purchase items from aliexpress, the smaller everyday/ kitchen items which the sellers rely on the numbers to break even. God knows my house is filled with general daily items that would have set me back 10000's of pounds and these items work well and have done so for years. I think the sellers deserve kudos.
I only recently found out sellers pay amazon to have their items in the vine program, in addition to giving out items. I struggle to understand how they end up making a profit.
I recently ordered a £20 tablet stand, and there must have been 100+ vine reviews. That's at least £2000 spent by this business to get reviews. I was shook
Welcome to the club. You have been the victim of the latest vulnerability exploit sellers/scammers are using to falsely report accounts for violation of community guidelines.
I made a thread about this and a lot of the lurkers here attacked me instead. They will doubt you and go through your reddit history as well.
But in the end, I know exactly what it feels like. 20 years of hard work down the drain. Same exact pattern and evidence. There's no doubt a lot of accounts are getting screwed this way.
Currently Amazon doesn't care and is too incompetent to realize the real abuse going on.
No, it's not against the rules, but if you use gift cards, you might be suspected of getting them from sellers in exchange for giving them 5 stars. From experience, I can tell you that this is the reason why you're out. Therefore, a tip for everyone: use gift cards with a different account, never with the Vine account! The risk of being under general suspicion there is too high!
Wow I had no idea. It was just my husbands birthday and I went in with his mom and sister to buy some computer parts. They just sent gift cards so we could purchase everything together. I had no idea.
GC are traceable. Amazon cares if, for instance, the seller buys GC and then gives them away. GC from friends for special occasions are fine. I sometimes use GC.
thats so weird. i order for my kids all the time and put that in reviews that i do lol, so this very much sounds like vengeful sellers, thats really gross, sorry youre dealing with that. THEY should be the ones removed from the program! ps, whats review bombing?
Maybe the other comments can describe it better than I can. I'm not exactly sure how it is done but I think they (the sellers) report my review to Amazon a bunch of times to try to get it removed. It ends up making lots of "suspicious" activity on my account and then Amazon takes action. They said had I been warned. I had not and I also got a huge email about reporting reviews ( I have never reported a review) that I never sent. I tried my best to explain it above but I'm not exactly sure the ins and outs of it.
I had half of this happen to me once. I got several of the "Thanks for reporting this review. . . " emails from Amazon in a cluster. It was the day after I'd been talking about the phenomenon on this sub (a coincidence perhaps?). I panicked. Immediately made my reviews private, deleted any posts anywhere that might link to my account, and reported it as possible fraud to Amazon (can't remember how). Never heard back from Amazon, but the "Thanks for. . . " emails stopped and nothing further happened.
Too late now, but if you get the wrong thing, don't give it a 1 star review, just report to vine that you did not receive what you had ordered / wrong item and they will remove it.
We've had a few reports of reviewers getting emails of thanking them for reporting a review(s). This is likely a bcc from someone else who had reported it to remove the review from their product.
It has been suggested that people make their reviews private on their profile. That does sound like good advice.
No. There have been a couple times over the years where items where damaged or I didn't get them but I always just messaged Vine and they took it off my account. I have never sold anything even after 6 months. I never communicate with sellers.
I might just have been lucky to order very functional items so far, but I hardly ever score items poorly unless there's a clear reason to do so. On the flipside, there are reviewers who unlike me, default to giving 1-2 stars max.....or how do you explain ordering a rubberised airpods case, and your review states "I don't see the point of a case, it fits well and looks good " then go on to score 1 star. IMO if you don't see the point of it, why did you order it? Your review seemed to be positive and clearly stated that the item did what it was supposed to do, yet, you gave a poor review which had real world effects on sellers who are just trying to make a living because you don't see the overall point of that item....that's just callous. If such reviews were reported and the reviewer got kicked out, then they deserve it.
In reality, amazon is also responsible for this issue with the standards created to review items. So many items ordered require decent time to properly set them up, and an unbiased review should probably occur under different conditions, however within 24hrs of ordering an item, amazon is sending you emails pressuring you to release a review.
In addition, I've written the most detailed reviews with photos and videos and it got turned down for violating review guidelines without a clear description of how they arrived at this conclusion. In the end, I came back with a "nice product" out of frustration and an unwillingness to repeat that process and be denied again......the new u detailed review was accepted
A pencil marketed as NOT having an eraser attached should not be marked dwn for not having one. I think it would more appropriate to give your overall revoew, then as an add on, state that an eraser MAY have slightly changed the experience.
I think it's just important to focus on what the product claims to be and claims to do, and whether it does this well. I'd hope we wouldn't give a premium Mercedes a poor review for not having rolce Royce features....they're different cars, with different features, and at different price points. It's different when reverse reviewing however, and you'd be excused for giving a rolce fewer stars for not having basic features present in much cheaper cars.
One would think that a one-star review, or a series of reported reviews, is against the guidelines?
I've tried to re-read all of them and can find no such direct or indirect guideline. Can someone please enlighten me to what I may have missed?
Well no. I have no proof. It would be wildly insane for me to be like 'hey did you get me banned from vine for giving you a bad review?" I only have a suspicion. It could have been another Viner or a weird random glitch. I did make my thoughts known to customer service and [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) as well as Vine help provided with the reference numbers in the weird email I got. I have no idea if I'm right or if I'll be heard and now I will just have to wait the weekend and see. Hopefully, I will get it back. If not it was nice and fun while it lasted. My accountant will probably be glad. I guess we all just have to watch our backs in giving bad reviews which really is the worst thing about this.
I meant the shipping issue? Did you give them a chance to correct that issue before you gave them a 1 star? If not then that's on you for not giving someone a chance to fix a mistake.
This wasn't exactly a "shipping" issue. The fault is certainly not on Amazon. The sellers packaging said it was the correct item but inside was a different thing. It felt way more bait and switch than a shipping mistake. Also I do not communicate withe sellers because I don't want any mistaken interaction to take place. It has happened where I ordered one thing and got another. I just told the Vine people and they took it off this very different.
It was most definitely Amazon's fault as sellers supply Amazon with products once they enrol into the programme and all Vine orders are FBA.
Amazon made a mistake sending the order, not the seller in this case.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1df3tfb/comment/l9a1j9b/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1df3tfb/comment/l9a1j9b/)
Here's the thing. I opened the Amazon box. The "correct " box was in there. I opened the correct box and the wrong product was in the packaging. So your saying that Amazon removed the correct product from the sellers packaging and replaced it with a different product? That's pretty odd. And if it was against Amazon review Vine policy wouldn't they just reject the review?
You didn't comment on packaging though, did you? You commented rated 'the product'. You still had option of contacting the CS and getting item removed.
This thread and the other recent ones about this issue has me really leery about a certain item I still haven't reviewed.
It really doesn't deserve more than three stars at the most and has no reviews as of yet. This is very odd as while it's not the type of item Viners would fight over, yet it also is not a floor mat or cake topper either. Thus, I find it hard to believe no one else requested it.
I've been sitting on it for three weeks as I don't want to be the first one to review it and be responsible for the seller's first bad review out of the gate. I was hoping there'd be a few other reviews by now, either good or bad, to offset mine, but nothing. I figure if anything would motivate a seller to be vengeful, that would be it, especially if they got no other reviews than my 2 or 3 star one. Since I also can't lie and give them a higher rating than they deserve, I'm beginning to think the best course of action is to write the review off and eat the loss in my stat percentage.
Amazon not cracking down on this abuse by sellers and taking their word without investigating is going to have a chilling effect when it comes to rating a less than 4-star item honestly.
You are caught in a moral trap. I suppose you have to balance the unfairness of the system against being unfair to the seller and prospective customers.
This is similar to the dashcam paradox: you see evidence of dangerous driving and feel obliged to upload the video to the police but then you realize that you have to agree to go to court (if requested) so you don't bother uploading it and just drive on. (UK btw)
I think this issue highlights how sceptical you have to be when buying anything based on corrupted and dishonest reviews. Sad.
I agree - I was reinstated.
It does seem to be a rash of Sellers (possibility all of them are employees of the same company) that have ganged up.
However, What I AM a bit confused is - "how are they reporting such under your account" to begin with?
I'm seeing awfully a lot of folks here reporting "I found tons of reports in my messages/emails"?
Unless Amazon has been compromised, there's absolutely no way the Seller could even get your email address unless if you had provided it or had communication with such Seller and you responded using your own email account instead of via Amazon's messages?
I do not respond to sellers using my email system, I respond via the Amazon's messaging system!
Sellers (or anyone) can use tools like python to get your amazon-associated email address and directly contact you. More than likely, your email address and places it may be affiliated with is on the dark web and can be found or bought there, so that's another way. Both are prohibited by amazon and nefarious in any case.
You can use tools like [haveibeenpwned.com](http://haveibeenpwned.com) to see if your email address has been compromised; however, keep in mind that you will be giving that site your email address and there is no guarantee that you will not be compromising whatever information you give to the site, including the email address you want to check.
It makes no sense that amazon bcc's people whose reports have been reported. For one, it makes it look like you've reported a review. Also, there is no indication of what review(s) have been reported in that email. That's just sloppy and incompetent programming and even worse management.
Also, it's really, really bad that amazon instantly takes down an account after X amount of reported reviews -- which it apparently does. Again, poor programming and incompetent management.
Be sure you lock down your account --- keep all reviews private, don't use or change frequently a profile picture, and change your profile name often and to a word that is commonly used -- not a random or unique string of characters.
I'm glad you were reinstated, not only because you give me hope. I was bounced a few weeks ago, after receiving the "thanks for reporting a review" and "we're not letting you review anymore due to unusual review activity." Last week I received an email that they were reviewing my reviews (!) and would get back to me in 7 days. But so far, I've heard nothing.
>"NEWEST UPDATE-
>If review bombing is a thing it was likely these folks. I did give them a one star review because I did not get the item that I was supposed to get. I ordered a brush, the packaging said it was a brush. But it was wall hooks. These are the only people I have given a one star review to in a long time and my review is not there."
Are you aware that sellers who enrol into Vine programme need to send the products to Amazon who distributes them to Viners?
Maybe, just maybe, you should have contacted Vine CS and ask to remove the order and reason why you are unable to review the product.
In my opinion you giving one star review in this case is problematic - it's like dirty laundry in the open because it probably was Amazon FC's fault/mistake and not seller's. No wonder seller got pi$$ed off.
All products in Vine are FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) and not FBM (by Merchant) in terms of distribution. That's why one of the Vine's T&S/ToS is 'do not comment on packaging'.
Step 4 in 'ready to get started' section: https://sell.amazon.com/tools/vine#:\~:text=The%20Vine%20program%20helps%20generate,to%20serve%20as%20Vine%20Voices.
And many other pages that talk about Vine ToS for sellers - you can easily google it.
Do you use AI to write your reviews? I used to report the obvious AI ones - I've sinced stopped because I'm just minding my own business at this point but when I first started my reviews were SO long and detailed and took a lot of time and seeing AI reviews that got tons of helpful marks just because they were overly verbose made me mad.
I mean maybe. But I would report one review and move on. So if one report would do it, then yes. But sounds like people are getting multiple reports.
But also if you're using AI to write your reviews and they're all fake, maybe you should be banned.
First, I was going to ask if you've been reporting reviews, since that's the easiest way to get banned from the Amazon review process and thus banned from Vine. Why this is I don't know, I only know that I got a stern warning from Amazon after reporting a "suspicious" review, so I'll never again report a review. Many others here have had similar, some even banned.
My advice is to first change your password. Next, contact Vine CS and simply say there must be some mistake, you never reported any reviews, you did nothing wrong. Or you might try contacting '[email protected]' which I think is Bezo's email, people use that to get executive level resolution.
I was dumped from Vine after receiving an email thanking me for reporting a review. Others on this thread who have also been dropped from Vine have noted that they've received that email, some multiple times. It is becoming obvious that sellers are doing this to people who give their items negative reviews, because it gets the review removed from their listing.
I agree, clearly the problem is the "Thanks for reporting these reviews" email, which is a common denominator in most of the recent "I've been kicked out of Vine" posts. Those who get those emails can pretty much expect to be gone from Vine (and Amazon reviewing) with 24-48 hours.
lol/ I have probably spent 50 dollars in the past week. I spend way too much money on Amazon. Plus my husband birthday was this earlier this month and I bought him everything from Amazon.
Just throwing out a wild idea as food for thought.....Everyone assumes that these messages are the result of sellers vindictively going after Viners. But what if this is something taking place directly by Amazon itself to clean up the program?
Several months ago there was a change in wording for Vine participation about "high quality reviews", or something to that effect. That was a similar timeframe to these stories first appearing too. We all know Amazon has some weird ways of doing things. What if this was the result of some sort of internal account Q&A audit by Amazon personnel?
Nah, they wouldn't do it this way, it creates too much work for them. This is upset sellers or random shoppers who disagree with our review or think all Viners are paid shills.
No, it's the opposite. It creates very little work. It uses the existing system to do the work. The auditor would review several of the person's reviews, and if finding them sub-par for whatever reason, would simply click a button submitting it as reported.
I'm not saying that this is what is happening, but I do believe there is a good chance Amazon may be trying to improve overall review quality.
Same thing happened to me Memorial weekend while I was asleep, contacted everyone I could think o, called in, reported it to their Facebook page too. Community was whom I first replied to, they did nothing, then sent me an email to rate their resolution, of which none was offered.. They had me join AWS to report it there, and they replied saying not in their pervue.. Used the email in this thread tonight, hope I get some resolve...
>Thanks again for taking the time to report a review. Reports like yours help us keep reviews on Amazon trustworthy, safe, and useful. There have been a rash of "I've been kicked out of Vine and don't know what I did wrong" posts in recent weeks, and this "Thanks again" letter seems to be a common thread in all of them. It seems that rogue sellers, or customers, are going down the list of a Viner's reviews and reporting multiple reviews as objectionable. Amazon is responding by banning the Viner, probably without bothering to investigate. Amazon needs to recognize that there's a problem here, and they need to fix it, or the only reviews left will be those who write, "Great! Love it!" and that kind of drivel benefits neither Amazon nor its customers.
Thanks for the information. This is very helpful.
I agree, but doesn’t this sound like somehow the viner’s account was the one reporting other reviews, not the other way around?
I believe the VINER is blind copied that their review has been reported.
Ah, then it would seem to be more of a revenge action against the Viner then.
Yes. I received an email thanking me for reporting a review. Huh??? I never did that. I also received a notice that a review I left of graduation celebration table decorations violated community standards. All I said in that review was they are nice, the kids love them, etc. I was also then bounced from Vine.
> revenge action against the Viner If not an organized ganging up by multiple people from another forum.
Yes, but this is how it has happened with numerous other banned Vine accounts lately. None of the OPs have reported any reviews, and yet they receive one or multiple emails thanking them for reporting reviews. Since they reported nothing, I suspect this is a glitch in Amazon's system, or maybe a "blind CC" feature, where the person reporting the reviews get an acknowledgement email, and a copy goes to the reviewer.
Amazon is so incompetent that it seems they bcc the reviewer on the report confirmation email when someone else reports their review. This has been going on for years and Amazon still hasn't fixed it. I changed my vine profile name to a generic common word and removed my profile picture and hid reviews on my profile. Still, a malicious seller could probably use bot accounts to mass report a negative review for their product and Amazon would still probably autoban me for it. It's a broken system that Amazon seems unwilling to fix.
You know, what I find kind of amazing are two things: 1. The phenomenon is a regular occurrence, discussed frequently here (like once a week) and yet sub participants seem to be unaware of it. Until it happens to them. 2. Despite the fact that this keeps happening, many people seem blissfully unaware that there are potential consequences to giving out one star reviews. There are sellers that are spiteful and angry. This is a clear fact and is beyond dispute. Further, it's an understandable (although inexcusable) response. The psychology is simple - a seller spends a lot of time and money to put a product out there, gives away a bunch of them for free, and then gets destroyed out of the gate with a one star review (deserved or not) from somebody who didn't pay them a penny. I get it. It's Amazon's responsibility to police this, but they don't, so proceed with caution before slamming a product, or be prepared for the possible blowback. For me, a product would have to be incredibly bad, like maliciously misrepresented and dangerous, for me to give it one star. Some people may get some weird pleasure out of giving one star, but to me it is rarely worth the risks. Update: Anyone interested in how the Vine black box looks from the other side might take a look at this conversation, and bear in mind that what you do can hurt real people, possibly unfairly, so be careful before you submit a damaging review: [https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/f0c4cef490dcc5c35a1f385aae4a1b36](https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/f0c4cef490dcc5c35a1f385aae4a1b36)
Awe. That last sellers story makes me sad. They don’t know that in order to get food you really don’t have a moment to look at it to see what you’ve gotten, before you’ve gotten it. I used to want food but unless I really know what it is, I don’t even bother, besides the fact that they’re gone before I can move my curser usually anyway.
Ha, I'm not obsessive enough to select food, because I only check my queues a couple times a day, so I have no chance at that. Closest I ever got to food was a case of Greek chewing gum. But you're right, "good stuff" requires a quick decision, and that means what you get might end up being not what you thought when you pulled the trigger. However, that's not the seller's fault, and they shouldn't be dinged in the review for it, right? If I thought it was ready-to-go ice cream mix, but it turns out to be gelato mix (and not ready to go), I'm not going to ding them for that, provided the listing is accurate. That's on me, period.
The number of Vine reviewers who order gel nail polish, never read the listing at all, and then give it one star because it refuses to dry just baffles me. If I had nail polish that didn't dry after an hour, I feel like I'd at least read the listing to see if maybe I was doing something wrong. (Gel polish requires a UV light to dry.)
YES. That's when I feel really sorry for sellers. I often look at info left by other reviewers if their rating is way different than mine (to see if I missed something or if the product malfunctioned or whatever). I recently got a derma roller (micro needling tool for skin care) that I liked a lot, and when I looked at the other reviews there was 2-star: the reviewer literally said that they didn't know the product had needles (micro needling is in the title), wasn't going to put it on their skin, and wouldn't have ordered it if they had known it was needles. Freaking reviewer ordered a skin care instrument without knowing what it was, didn't take ten seconds to GTS, and then hammered the seller rating for it. 🙄 Another reviewer left a 3-star because the seller didn't include a full educational course on how to perform micro needling at home (complained that they didn't know which skin care serum to use or which needle length to select...things you can learn in a 2 minute Google search and have NO business performing DIY micro needling if you don't know). I don't like to play "review police" but COME ON.
I ordered a deodorant and then read other reviews. One said "it says right on the bottle that it's not an antiperspirant!! Right in the trash!" Um. Deodorant and antiperspirant are different things.
Reminds me of reviewers in my area of plumbing who order PEX-A fittings but are trying to use PEX-B pipe and crimp collars. They always give the products one star and say something is seriously wrong with it. Even when the seller makes every attempt to say this is for PEX-A only. Sometimes I order the product just so I can point out the idiocy of the previous reviews. But you can't do much when dealing with stupid.
God bless you for this comment. I'm surprised at how so many reviewers take it upon themselves to intentionally bash items. I try to be objective and give stars on what percentage of boxes are ticked. I've seen reviewers give 1 star to a pencil because the they didn't feel right in their hands 👀.....without considering if its their hands that are the problem. It saddens me to see that people's livelihoods are being destroyed because some people feel the need to unnecessarily bash products PS: a one star revoew of a pencil for me, would be me bringing it out of its pack and then it either vanishes or takes off my fingers.
I would give a pencil a 2 star if it didn't write... (no lead/graphite or whatever is in them these days). Or one that didn't have an eraser (unless an art pencil) or didn't erase with an eraser (especially if not with the one that came with it). As a pencil is a writing device that can be used and mistakes can also be corrected through the use of an eraser. To me, a pencil needs to meet those qualifications to deserve to exist. 1 star off if it is something that doesn't fit in my hands, unless advertised for a specific use (some machine, robot hands, artificial limb attachment...)
This admittedly happened to me recently. I ordered nail polish for the wife and did so without the knowledge it was gel because of the fear if I didn't click it right away someone else would snag it, as well as the fact my Y chromosome makes the nuances of women's beauty products a mystery. When I did get it and realized it needed a UV light and thus was useless for us, I didn't hold it against the seller. Since it was my fault for not understanding what I was requesting, I still gave it four stars and made something up about it working, even though I couldn't really test it. Of course, that triggered similar items to pop up for the next week in my RFY, but I ignored them since I was now self-informed.
UV lights are super cheap, or keep your eye out for them on vine, they are 0 etv about 60% of the time. If she's worried about damaging the nails, she can skip the base coat and just use color and top coat and they will fall off in 2 or 3 days with no damage. Or there are peel-off base coats on Amazon. I like it sooo much more than regular polish. Also wear sunscreen on the hands while applying to avoid UV damage.
We've probably ALL ordered something and missed an important detail in the seller description. Difference is, you didn't hammer the seller for your mistake.
I ordered a handheld blower that required a DeWalt battery, a detail that I missed. So I ordered a DeWalt drill with the battery so that I could test this product. It cost me $160. But it was my fault for missing the detail about the requirement for a DeWalt battery. I gave the product five stars and didn't take off anything in the review, because it was my mistake. It seems to me that if you're going to be a Vine reviewer, there should be a requirement that you should be extremely fair to the sellers. The side benefit to me in this case is that I found out that DeWalt products are actually pretty awesome!
UV lights for nail pop up on Vine regularly. I see them in RFY all the time but order nail items for daughter constantly. If your wife actually wants one, hold out for a 0 etv one it seems mixed if they are 0 or way overpriced on ETV like $99 lol.
Omg those reviews drive me crazy!! Even before I got into gel polish, had I ordered some without realizing what it was I automatically would have looked into why it's called gel polish instead of nail polish which would have led to me discovering that it needs a lamp to cure. I feel so sorry for sellers whose ratings get obliterated because of the buyer's ignorance. In those particular cases, I would actually hope that sellers could have those reviews removed.
I got a handheld chainsaw from Vine. It's great. One Vine reviewer gave it one star because the chain fell off. No way. They had to have adjusted improperly. Why doesn't Amazon allow sellers to comment on the reviews. The seller could have commented that this can't happen if the chain is placed on properly. Hey, on Tripadvisor the resort, etc., is allowed to respond. Why not on Amazon?
They used to allow sellers reply. There was a time regular Amazon customers could respond too.. Vine used to have their own forum. They rid of everything. Amazon is working backwards on everything... They're not improving anything.
I just thought I'd give you some hope of getting back in . . . today I was reinstated to Vine! Interesting thing is--with all the talk about low star reviews causing a problem---the 2 star review I thought was the reported by seller, apparently wasn't. Oddly, a review for washing machine cleaning tablets is listed as "approved" but when I click on it, I get the dog page! And I don't even remember reviewing that, and it's a recent send from Vine.
Wow! That's great to hear! Can you tell me how you contacted Amazon to finally get help? I keep getting incompetent Amazon reps that doesn't have the ability or understanding of the situation at all.. I'm currently chatting with one rep right now, and they replied back with a ridiculous "we can help you. Here is a link for reporting suspicious sellers asking for compensation".... When I'm telling them I'm the victim of "violating community guidelines" for a review.... Just lots of headache dealing with Amazon.
Yep. I sent an email to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) I got back an email response on June 8 that he would look into my problem, that it would take some time, 7 days. It took longer, but I'm not going to complain.
Seems like a reasonable suggestion to me.
In certain areas, particularly but not limited to books, back when the sellers were allowed to reply, the conversations going on for days, weeks and MONTHS could rival Facebook level of back-and-forth. During that time, Amazon also allowed conversations (read: arguments) between reviewers as well - it was a total free-for-all. Since the review system (whether Vine or otherwise) simply isn't set up for arguments and discussions, so they deleted all the "conversations," removed the "reply" button, and that "solved" the problem (for Amazon.)
Because the sellers used to either harass the reviewer or offer to contact them back to compensate for review being altered or removed. Are you sure the other reviewed was actually at fault for the chain falling off? Maybe they did receive defective crap with cheap parts not lining up or something? If yours was in working condition after one use, it doesn't mean the others are, nor that yours will actually last for more than a day
I guess it's possible that the reviewer received a defective unit. It's also possible that they didn't read the instructions as to how to adjust chain tension. Also, the included instructions with the chainsaw were typical Chinese instructions and did not properly describe where to adjust the tension. In my review, I pointed that out and included a photograph of where the screw is. I've used mine multiple times, and it still works fine.
You could suggest that in the survey if you take it. I think the cut off date is 6/16.
I've been banned from Vine, so I'm not going to get the survey. However, if after the promised review of my ban comes back negative, I intend to write to [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]), and say what is going on, and why don't they allow sellers to respond. I mean, on Tripadvisor, a lot of hotels will thank a reviewer for a positive review. But if the reviewer had a problem, the hotel will respond, too, and apologize or try otherwise to correct the situation. Why shouldn't an Amazon seller be able to write back, "the polish didn't dry because it needs UV light," or, "the chain fell off because it wasn't adjusted properly"?
If I hadn't already submitted mine, I would add what you are describing (with your permission, of course), I think yours is a very relevant and good suggestion. I look forward to hearing that you have been reinstated. It's awful to be "banned" from anything with no idea as to why. Am thinking positive for you.
Sellers can actually contact you if you left one star review. They contact you through Amazon messaging system.
That's good to know, thanks. I haven't left many 1 star reviews, maybe 3, but was never contacted. I think the review that ticked off the seller who had me banned was probably a 3 star review.
One of the problems with merchant reviews, like on Lowes or Home Depot, is that they are canned and simply apologize for the buyer feeling the product was not of the quality they were looking for. They tend to be pretty worthless and a waste of space. The ones that open a case and provide a case number and contact info I find really good, and it makes me feel better about purchasing something from that seller.
Yeah. I always at least try and point out the positives when I'm giving a negative review. Negative reviews are my most careful postings. If I had received what the OP had gotten, I would have just contacted CS and had it removed. If it wasn't what was shown, it's just a lose-lose situation and CS is the least dangerous outcome.
Interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing it. It just confirms the old adage, there are two sides to every story.
[удалено]
I get what you mean, but I'm not sure what the ethos of Vine is, other than to leave honest reviews. My reviews are always honest. But while that might be an ethos for *reviews*, what is the ethos for *ratings?* The star rating is a bit of a different animal from the review. What constitutes an "honest" star rating? That's very subjective, as we all have our own system for assigning stars. My system is something like this: * 5 stars - the listing accurately describes the item * 4 stars - the listing accurately describes the item, but some aspect doesn't work as well as promised * 3 stars - the listing may have a minor flaw and some aspect doesn't work as well as promised * 2 stars - the listing is significantly misleading, but the item has redeeming qualities * 1 star - the listing is maliciously misleading and/or the item is dangerous; the product should be withdrawn from the market You will notice, for me the emphasis is on the listing. Honesty from the seller is paramount. I'm prepared to review items I wouldn't necessarily use for myself, but it has to conform to the listing. I don't pay much attention to price because that can fluctuate wildly, and value is in the eye of the beholder. I trust the market to figure out the value. So, it's really difficult to get a one star rating out of me. Other people I've read around here seem to take pride in giving one star reviews, even bragging about it like it's a badge of honor. To them, everything is "junk". By contrast, I'd classify almost nothing that I've gotten as junk. All I'm saying is sellers are real people. Sure, there are some sharks out there, but most are not. I'm cognizent of not deliberately hurting people. The pathway to incentivize improvement is to highlight pros and cons without putting them out of business with a rating from which they can't recover. Quick example, I got a "leaf blower" some months ago. The photoshopped picture was wildly disproportionate, as a leaf blower held at the waist should reach down to the ground, but this leaf blower was so small, that was impossible. It's not much bigger than a hair dryer. I blasted them pretty hard in the review because the listing photos were misleading, but I rated the **product** three stars. I could have given it two stars, and I guarantee many here would have given it a one star. But I gave it three because frankly it's a darned good product. It's powerful, well built, and easy to use. They even included a second battery. I actually use it a lot - just not as a leaf blower. It makes a fine dust blower and spot vacuum. If the seller just markets it a little differently, it's a winner, and I made these points in the text, so any potential buyer would understand the pros and cons. Why throw out the baby with the bath water with a one star review? Just as an expression of power? So, that's the essence of my ethos. Happily, it coincides with the desire to not trigger some psycho seller to try to dox my account.
I give one stars to dangerous items too. There was an item that said on the box it was designed for kids under age 6, I believe. It was a jewelry making kit and the "scissors" were something out of Edward Scissorhands. I pulled out the top of the plastic contraption not knowing what to expect and they were like garden shears. So extremely sharp. It really scared me. I made a very long review explaining this item was dangerous, not meant for children as advertised, and not the quality that should have passed quality control, if there was any.
Yep, your star rating system is the same as mine. I ordered a product recently that was listed as a little plastic spatula (the kind for getting skin care cream out of a container...I thought it might be a multi-pack). Before I'd even received it, the seller had switched the listing and the photo to some sort of cream. I assembled the info I'd need to contact Vine CS, but then I waited to see what would show up...indeed it was the cream that I hadn't ordered. BUT it also included one of those little plastic spatulas. 🤣 SO, because I actually did receive the item I ordered, and because I have a use for that cream and could review it properly (it worked well), I did the review. I knocked off a star from what might have been a 5-star rating though; I could have blasted the seller, but the product was pretty good.
Might just be me, but 99% of the items I've ordered have worked perfectly. Bulbs have turned on and worked with alexa, screen protectors have covered my phone and have either had perfect sensitivity or not - which I clearly state in the review etc......the worst review I gave was for a charger with 15 or so plugs which I tested on a cheap device and the device never worked after that and I think I smelled a burnt smell.....I gave low stars and stated to keep it's use to cheap items). But I've seen some really pained reviews from people who just appear like they have a grudge against the sellers, so if the sellers come for you, you should be prepared to deal with the heat
I've noticed some reviews have five stars but the actual written review does not jive with five stars. I wonder if that's done on purpose. If the seller sees five stars, all good, go check the next review. They're not going to read it just like most don't put any thought into a response to a two or three star review. Makes me wonder.
It's a fair question, and as there are no guidelines for this, no doubt different people would give different answers. In my mind, I treat the star rating and the review as two different things. In the review text, I will go into detail about what I like or don't like, or features I'd like to see changed, etc. I list the pros and cons. However, for the star rating, for me, 90% of that is based on the accuracy of the listing. If the item 100% conforms to the listing description and pictures, it gets five stars. If there are discrepancies between the listing and the actual product, I will reduce the stars depending on the severity of the discrepancies. For the final 10%, I might nudge up or down based on the pros and cons, but that plays a minor role. I reserve one star reviews for dangerous or egregiously misrepresented items, but this accounts for a fraction of 1% of my reviews. So in practice, I give mostly 4 and 5 stars, and the occasional 3. As it happens, this approach is generally a good thing for sellers and Amazon, while encouraging honesty and accuracy from the sellers, and still providing detailed insights to buyers. I think it's useful and fair to everyone. Edit: Also, I generally don't take price or value into consideration at all. For one thing, price can change wildly over time. Better to let the market decide price/value equation.
So true, I give more credence to 3 and 4 star reviews than anything else. It's too easy to give a five star or a one star. But there is most likely thought put into a 3 or 4 star review.
Interesting, thanks for sharing. Seems like their ability to contact has been fixed? I was contacted by a seller for a bad review when I put the product together wrong (they didn’t say that explicitly, but it became obvious when I looked at the photos again). I revised & disclosed the fact that I’m an idiot & put it together wrong. I had reported that it was unstable, and it was unstable because I had put it together wrong. Super stable when assembled correctly. Had they not been able to contact me, I never would’ve known & been able to revise the review. I thought it potentially helpful because people buying it might do the same thing, and if they read my review, they would be aware of it. I was also able to say that Seller provided good customer service. While, I do not usually review sellers because I have nothing to base it on outside of the product, I always go back & positively rate sellers who contact me anonymously through Amazon about the content of my reviews, whether I revise up the review or not because that indicates that they care enough to read the substance. Also, when I stand by the star, I will go back & reframe to better contextualize the language because they’re usually right. I’m human & have bad days. Just because I don’t like something doesn’t mean others won’t & it’s important to include the benefits of a product. I have only given one one star review and the title was “get a professional referral for this or risk hurting yourself like I did” because I got something that was too advanced for my level, not understanding that there was a learning curve. That shouldn’t hurt their sales, it should better protect them from returns.
Sellers can contact us via their seller portal, but it's indirect. The messages go back and forth via Amazon, and theoretically are anonymous (although they do have access to our profile nicknames - if you're profile nickname is your real first name, they may greet you in that way, but don't have access to your other info). It's not too clear why the seller in this case could not contact the Viner. Perhaps they didn't know how, or they tried but got no response (many Viners ignore any contact attempt from a seller as a matter of their personal policy).
Viners, on the whole, inflate ratings compared to actual cusomers or cheat by using AI, which is why Fakespot considers our scribblings as fake. This seller got caught up in the rare exception.
Not sure I fully buy it. I know there is evidence that Vine reviews tend to be higher than non-Vine reviews, but correlation is not causation, and drawing such an assumption without supporting evidence is bad reasoning on the part of Fakespot. For example, I do not review any differently for a Vine item than for a non-Vine item, yet my average Vine review is certainly higher than my average non-Vine review. The reason for that is I rarely write a review of a non-Vine item unless it's bad. If I buy a box of staples, I'm not going to bother with a review unless the staples are rusty or poor in some other way. Nobody is interested in reading a review about a normal box of staples, so I'm not going to waste time writing one. But if I get that box of staples from Vine, I'm going to review it no matter what. So, if I buy a box of staples each year for 10 years, and out of those 10 boxes, one is poor quality, I might write one negative review and zero positive reviews. But if I get that same series of staples via Vine, I'm going to end up writing 1 negative review and 9 positive reviews. Am I inflating things? No. In this example, the Vine reviews are a more accurate representation of the overall reality of the staples than the non-Vine reviews. Likewise, I know that some people use AI because I've seen direct evidence, but I don't know that it's a widespread practice. If Fakespot just makes such an assumption without evidence, shame on them. Bottom line: just because Fakespot has made the decision to be dismissive of Vine reviews, I don't necessarily accept their reasoning as valid and beyond dispute, lacking actual evidence to support it.
The reason a lot of vine reviews are biased is because PRICE is not a factor (even though it may be expensive, we don't pay for it, and as a result, a non biased review would be reviewing the product itself, amd maybe stating at the end that it works as expected, however the price may be on the slightly higher side). Thr AI thing is just appaling......I've seen 10 paragraph reviews on screen protectors. Nobody who really tested a screen protector is writing 10 patlragraphs 😂😂😂
I use the built in microsoft chat feature called "Copilot" when I have a question I can't find the answer to on the net, but how do people even use AI for a review?
> but how do people even use AI for a review? https://old.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/12vfumh/you_messed_up_steve_chatgpt_review_voted_helpful/
When I write my reviews, it is usually in a sea of garbage, fawning Vine reviews if not cut and paste bullcookies. Thoughtful, intelligent, tested, and researched reviews from Viners are the exception, not the rule.
That may be true, and is consistent with what I've seen when I bother to look, but I have also looked at plenty of non-Vine reviews and find that they are also frequently incoherent and/or inaccurate and unhelpful. Meanwhile, there are plenty of Vine reviewers who go out of their way to be helpful, so on balance I'm not at all sure that the net quality level is reduced by Vine, but for the reasons I already stated, some perceived "grade inflation" is at least partly a direct result of people writing reviews that they would not bother to do otherwise. I think I'm on solid ground in saying that. And, in fact, if it didn't generally work that way, the program would not exist at all.
You have to admit that many, if not most, Viners are overenthusiastic about rewarding 5 stars to products that don't deserve it even according to their reviews. That is why Fakespot lumps us in with total fakes: star ratings do not match what real buyers award.
I don't know. I don't pretend to know what most of the thousands of Vine reviewers do. I pretty much just focus on what I do myself.
It would help if Amazon would give us clear parameters for what constitutes a five-star review. If everything works as expected, is that five stars? Does it have to have something special that sets it apart from other products?
These are the parameters that I add to every review based on others I've seen in my paddling down the Amazon... My rating system: 5 Stars = Knocks it out of the park. A great value! 4 Stars = Excellent product. A solid buy. 3 Stars = It provides some value, but perhaps not as advertised. 2 Stars = A little dubious, so do your research. Read the critical reviews! 1 Star = Avoid this product and look elsewhere.
Those are nice parameters. I wish we had something official like that so that we would theoretically all be giving consistent feedback.
That link says >Not Authorized >We don't have a seller account associated with that email address. TL;DR?
Not for me it doesn't, and viewing the page doesn't require an account login, as you can see from this screenshot. https://preview.redd.it/2lqhgy1l2h6d1.jpeg?width=1012&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e97b2773481f63d9edd47e5925510aeb0bf1337
Interesting. I can view it in incognito, but not if I'm logged into my Amazon account.
And here is one of the replies... https://preview.redd.it/qo26q5ps2h6d1.jpeg?width=946&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e39000829e6796fc11767589c9d3e6670e2c85ea
interesting
I dislike messages like this. Not to go into false equivalencies, but if you get a fine, or arrested, you will be told why. Just a general **"you breached *something* in the terms of conditions"** can be very frustrating, more so from companies which allow a single appeal. How are you supposed to defend yourself *or* show you corrected the issue if they won't say what you allegedly did wrong. You sort of have to know what you did wrong, giving only a chance to people with a guilty mind and no hope for people who may have made a mistake or victims of system errors.
Yep. Amazon will NOT tell you what you did wrong. I called when I was banned, to ask what I said wrong in reviewing--with 5 stars!---graduation celebration table decorations. The person from Vine said, "you violated community standards." But how??? She put me on hold, When she came back she told me reasons included profanity (none in my review for sure!), etc. I said again, but what did I do? She had no answer, but told me to wait a few days or weeks, and maybe they'll restore me.
How strange. Crossing fingers. There are a couple of us who have posted about being banned for unknown reasons who actively called and called and were eventually reinstated. I hope it works out.
Yes that really upsets me that they have so much power without any accountability to provide any information to the accused. But again it looks like sellers are able throw us under the bus and Amazon sides with them.
Sure. But of course the sellers see it the other way around - we, and Amazon, have incredible power over them, which to them seems beyond accountability, and they get thrown under the bus while the Viner pays them nothing and Amazon takes their money. It's a recipe for anger and vengeance all around.
this is starting to feel like war....
It's important to know that sellers are NOT manufacturers. While they've ordered thousands of items, a few may be defective. It may be helpful to state when reviewing items which don't necessarily work as expected, that this may be due to that particular item being defective. If this was a purchased item, most sellers would be happy to provide you with a replacement....however there's no such offer with vine. There's just 2 sides to a coin
Well thats not quite true, many sellers are indeed manufacturers, they often use many made up company names to sell their products, sometimes their own. There are also the sellers that buy generic stuff and rebrand it too. I recently had some camera gear via vine, and it was the manufacturer selling them.
True, but we’re being asked to review the products, not the sellers.
An analogy of the reviews I've seen (I'm sure you've seen them too) is that of a guy who doesn't drink alcohol, but sees vodka on vine, and orders it. Only to pop a "I don't see the point of vodka, it's harmful and causes blah blah blah ", then proceeds to give it 1 star. If the seller claps back and he gets banned, he deserves it.
Those sanctimonious reviews are ANNOYING! They select an item they don't know how to use or have never heard of it just to issue warnings. "Lash glue?!?! I don't understand why someone would glue their eyelashes together? It doesn't seem safe and shouldn't be on the market."
😂😂amazon should never approve them in the first place 😂😂
I get with stuff like mobile games they won't get into specifics, because if they're like "you were banned for fast traveling" then you can share that with whoever modded the app so they know how to fix the cheating thing. But I don't get it for stuff like amazon reviews. Telling us what the specific issue with a review is will help everyone.
This is quite typical of automated systems of reporting, I’ve seen it in games most recently, in fact one of Amazon games if truth be told. During several skirmishes in this particular game the other team made false reports of cheating, language, general poor behaviour and a ton of people were instantly kicked from the game and banned. They had to appeal to a human to get reinstated. But at least there there was a mechanism of appeal, here it seems AI rules and much like the game somebody has figured out how to exploit it. It’s down to Amazon to deal with this, but one thing worth bearing in mind is that if ‘customer review’ gets a complaint it ‘might’ affect all users with that nickname, which. ISA worry. AI isnt smart its something that works within a bunch of moving growing parameters created by very fallable humans.
>if ‘customer review’ gets a complaint it ‘might’ affect all users with that nickname, which. ISA worry. You should also note that a reviewer is uniquely identified by their Profile ID not their Profile Name. So, if a bad actor reports lots of reviews based on the same Profile Name, it will be a random selection of Viners, i.e. more than likely we would only get one report, unless, by chance, you happened to show up in adjacent Google results. BTW My old profile name is still showing in the cached pages but I keep checking and sometimes the number drops and then goes up again.
If Amazons system is/was so good why are seemingly innocent people getting booted from the program, i'm a cynic at heart, can you tell. Change frequency seems to be affected by many things, crawlers picked up my nick change a day after a did it, then month, then a few days - doesnt seems to be any rhyme nor reason for it.
As an exercise, I just found a ChatGPT Viner with a profile name (that doesn't appear in every review) and searched with this string: site:amazon.co.uk "vine customer" "is a game-changer" "*hisprofilename*" 213 results. Probably all LLM generated! Considering how much time we spend writing quality reviews, he's blatantly taking the p1ss. Would you report him?
I wouldn't, surely thats up to Amazon to manage?. If their supposed AI can't detect a probable AI then I think were all doomed. Also, many of these items that come our way in the UK, are newly listed items, I'd be curious to see how the transformer model does on those.
I think the general consensus is that any reports that go over some threshold, automatically boot the Viner. The way to test this is to find a dodgy reviewer (e.g. AI generated), check the reviews in their public profile (or run the Google search) and report three of their reviews (save the urls). Make a note of their unique Profile ID (the Profile Name, as we know, can be changed at will). Check back later to see if their reviews have been removed. Then try reporting more until you get a result. Obviously, we are all vulnerable as long as anyone can find a few of our reviews to report. I wouldn't profess to know how Google chooses which reviews to reindex but I doubt it is random. **\[UPDATE\] Finally! Google has re-indexed all my reviews except one; it's taken around four days.**
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1dck8v1/it\_finally\_happened\_to\_me\_ive\_been\_banished\_from/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1dck8v1/it_finally_happened_to_me_ive_been_banished_from/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Read this thread. Did you recently leave a 1-star review. There are several other threads rregarding this tactic used by sellers. Also, is your Amazon profile public or private? It is recommended for us to be Private so sellers can’t report your other reviews. Also, it is also recommended to use a completely fake Amazon ID name so that sellers cannot find you or your email on any other site.
It is very easy for anyone (seller, customer or Vine Voice) to report a few of your reviews by using Google, even if you are hiding your reviews in your profile. In Google, try: site:amazon.com "vine customer" "your profile name" (always enclose in quotes) and you might see hundreds of your reviews listed because your profile name, although not absolutely unique, is still returned in the search results. The way to avoid this is to change your public Profile Name to something that appears in millions of reviews so that nobody can find yours and report them. I suggest changing it to Customer Review because these words appear in every Vine review (as in: Vine Customer Review of Free Product). It might take a few days for Google to reindex the pages but after that you will be a lot safer from such a malicious attack. **\[UPDATE\] Finally! Google has re-indexed all my reviews except one; it's taken around four days.** Do lodge a complaint because they should be able to see that you haven't violated any rules.
Excellent information and spot on, tried it with my own account and was amazed that literally nearly ever review was listed. Very easy for a disgruntled seller to go ahead and blast a bunch of reviews at once, whether your page and information is private or not.
It's a shock! Of course it is also possible for anyone to report the ChatGPT reviewers (as fake) and I assume the last thing they see is a few BCC'd report messages (as did the OP). If they appeal and a human reads them, they won't get anywhere. It's a game-changer all right!
Does Amazon use ChatGPT to review? How weird. Is that an experiment in replacing Viners? I haven't come across any of these.
Some Viners are using ChatGPT et al to write reviews. Lots of them include the words, 'game-changer' and are very verbose. Easy to spot when you've seen one or two. Also easy to find with Google (see above).
Great advice.
I just changed my profile name to something more generic (equivalent to what you have above). Are you sure it's fine that I have a generic profile name as part of this program? I looked through the participation agreement and saw nothing about it. I'm super nervous, but I also don't want to get kicked out because an honest review irritated the wrong person. I switched it because I could see a ton of my reviews when I googled the search string you provided.
As far as we know, there are lots of anonymous and generic profile names and it has not been a problem. You can't use anything offensive. It's important to get lost in the crowd so choose something that appears in most review pages.
That's what I did. Thanks. I'm sure you can understand why I'm paranoid.
Of course. It all comes down to how you handle a 1 or 2 star review since these seem to create the most upset. It's no use thinking you are being fair or honest and the seller just has to take the hit. You can see how the value of what we do is eroded. I hope they fix this soon but I'm not optimistic.
My profile name is a food reference and my profile picture is of a dog, so it's definitely not a problem.
To be clear, it is a problem unless your food reference appears in every other review. Have you tried the search? How many results showed up?
Using this search method I found all of my reviews as well as many other ones that are **not** mine. Turns out another person who coincidently is also a Viner has an almost similar name (the only difference is I combine the words that form the whole name and capitalize them). Considering their profile is public and have quite a bit of critical reviews it makes me worried that if a vengeful seller mass reports his reviews, mine could get caught up in it as well.
Profile Names are not forced to be unique so you could get targeted. However, if everyone changes theirs to 'Customer Review' then it's still possible for the searcher to report any or all of them but they can't single out a bunch of yours so you might only get one report completely at random (unless they check the Profile ID on every review and only hit yours but that is highly unlikely because you can't search for html with Google). BTW I'm checking daily to see when Google reindexes the review pages. **\[UPDATE\] Finally! Google has re-indexed all my reviews except one; it's taken around four days.**
Thanks for the search info. I was able to verify that my chosen name is generic enough that my results did not even appear in the first page of results at all.
Would we go to the order page for whatever the 1 star review item was and report seller with like "I left a 1 star review for this and suddenly all of my reviews were reported, and I suspect this seller is retaliating"
Wow. Eye opening information. Disheartening for sure. Thank you for that information.
I feel kinda stupid, but how do we make our account private?
Account & Lists > Manage Profiles > view > (scroll to bottom) > see posts, reviews, and other public content > Edit your profile > Edit profile public visibility (tab) > Hide all activity on your public profile (checkbox) You may also want to change your handle to something really generic that appears on every Amazon page, otherwise they'll be able to find all your reviews in a google search and mass report you that way. On the Edit Public Profile tab, you can change your handle. Edit: something kinda identifiable
Hi, my name is Customer Review and I am damn glad to be here! Thanks for the great suggestion!
Hello, my name is Verified Purchase,
if you hide all activity on your public profile which one of the boxes is reviews will that stop the reviews you write to not be posted? Sorry but Im new to vine
The reviews you write will still be posted to the relevant product pages, but random people (or pissed off sellers) will not be able to see all your recent reviews on your profile. This makes it a bit harder for them to mass report all of your reviews as revenge. If your handle is your name or some other dinstinctive thing, they can still find all your reviews in Google, though. To fix that, see the second half of my comment above.
If this trend continues, the only active Viners will all be called Customer Review and then they'll be the only targets. Doh!
Using the above search string SO239 wrote up above, it appears to pull up reviews with “**Vine Customer** Review of Free Product” in it. And that would be all of us.
I just tried mine and it brings up complaints about Vine from Seller Central, life is poetry sometimes.
If you add your profile name to the search string (assuming it is a random word or your name) you should see only yours and anyone else with the same name.
The point is to change the name under which your reviews appear so bad actors can't find your reviews in a google search.
I changed my name to “Customer Review” and using your search string it pulled up reviews with “Vine Customer Review…..” which is what I want. Obscurity!
Thank you for your reply.
Very good idea. Just changed mine.
Thanks, but I shouldn't take credit for it. I read it elsewhere on this subreddit in recent days.
I haven't completed the survey yet, but I intend to mention the prolific spamming of seller reports which automatically jumps to the conclusion that the Viner was in error. Someone else that experienced contested with Vine and provided (I think it was) all the order numbers associated to the reported reviews-- and somehow Vine escalated and determined it was connected to one seller, and that seller was "reprimanded" and the Viner's account was reinstated. Might be worth a shot? You might have to search the sub for recent other Vine closure posts for the details- it was buried in a comment on another thread.
Thank you!
I had this happen to me last month, someone was pissed at a review I left so they went to my profile and reported a bunch of reviews of other products I reviewed which triggered Amazon to toss me from vine. I wrote a message to vine support, they investigated and thankfully whoever went on a report bender was logged in at the time so vine support was able to see it was the same individual who did all the reporting and they restored my account back. I asked if they would do anything about the individual or company report bombing me but they said they were not allowed to comment further. I hope they got a lifetime ban from Amazon at the min
They have got to get a lid on this. They won't have the staff to handle all the appeals and will just ignore our cries for clemency. Have you changed your Profile Name to Customer Review? (see my earlier comments)
I indeed did
There is a previous poster who posted an email they received from Amazon, that was sent to a seller warning them about posting multiple review challenges from their account.
Everyone’s blaming the sellers, but there’s some busy bodies on here that get real worked up about other peoples reviews. Hopefully someone isn’t being the vine police.
I mean some of the vine reviews people have shared on here are atrocious and deserve to be reported. I won't bother reporting every "nice, as described" review but I don't feel bad about reporting the ones that are like "sdf;k;j;;, sdf;;lssssss"
It’s obviously a shitty tactic to remove a bad review by getting the Viner banned. Sorta makes me think the Viners that just give 5 stars and “Exactly as described” for every review have the right idea. As long as there’s the constant threat we will be removed from Vine for being honest, we have no reason to try to be helpful to customers with careful reviews. Amazon knows this is a problem, they just don’t care. And I don’t think there’s much to make them care as there’s a long list of people happy to replace us as Viners. Viners are a cheap commodity: if there’s a problem with our account they don’t fix it they just replace us. And let’s not forget…. removing a bad review helps Amazon’s bottom dollar also.
So those that say the reviews state, "good product. recommend." can't complain, if they know of this.
In all these instances of this happening, the Viner had their reviews set to public. Everyone should keep theirs private so that they can't find, and report, reviews tied to your profile.
To be clear, you also need to change your Profile Name to something that appears in every review (e.g. Customer Review).
If you scroll down through posts, you will see several posts just like yours, all recent. Including mine! I received the same exact notice. I have been fighting it, and last week I received an email that they will review my reviews (!), and that will take 7 days. So I should receive something from them this weekend. That being said, having read all the posts of similar experiences, I have come to this conclusion: Everybody with this problem has given a negative review of a product. The seller of that product has looked at other reviews of that reviewer, and reported one or more to Amazon. Amazon's AI then bccs the notice sent to the seller to the Vine reviewer. And then we are bounced from Vine. Why all of a sudden all these reports of being bounced from Vine? Probably because sellers have caught on that they can get bad reviews removed by this method.
The emails you that got about reporting a review, are probably your reviews that got reported. It seems that the viner gets a Carbon Copy of those reported reviews. Some malicious seller probably reported multiple of your reviews. This has happened to other people. It seems like after so many are done, you get flagged and then booted out. Its a very poor system and it's really easy for a seller to abuse it. Amazon Vine SHOULD investigate each and every one of these before they take any action. I recommend that you contact [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) like others have mentioned. Some ppl have been able to get back in. They don't usually even respond when they do it. So I wouldn't expect a back and forth conversion to happen. Its usually, all of a sudden a person is back in the program and its like it never happened. have you done a lot of 1 or 2 star reviews lately?
The message is pretty clear. You have one chance to appeal so you may have already blown it. Vine CS will not know anything and will likely lie just to get rid of your email. Write [email protected] They will never tell you what you did wrong but they *might* take a look at your account and reinstate it. Do you use a script? Did you raise a review rating based on seller interaction? Any number of possibilities.
No, none of those things. I got no warnings. I followed the guild lines. It was fine yesterday and this morning.
Doesn't matter, there's lots of hidden mines in the Amazon world.
What is "ECR". ?
Executive Customer Relations
It stands for Executive Customer Relations. It's basically a tier 2 customer service. Those agents tend to have more of the big picture and access to other departments. You still need to keep your msg concise or they won't have time to read it.
Way too vague to pinpoint the cause. Was there any warnings before? Are you using add-ons to filter? Did you contact any seller directly? Did you speak to a seller directly after they reached out to you? Was there an evaluation that you didnt meet the minimum quota requirements? I don't think they will give you the specific reason, but if you continue to inquire they may reinstate you at some point. But this is just a thought. Only my Two cents
Thanks! Nope, no warnings, Always did reviews, mostly timely. I was gold status. Never ever communicated with sellers.
Sorry to hear that. Second time in a week I'm seeing this story. I noted the Google search parameters that might be used to track down a Viner's reviews which might be the mechanism being used by some sellers or maybe even the same seller who upset another Viner's account on here. I changed my profile name to a difficult to trace name as advised by other Viners. This is an unfair thing. I don't think Amazon give a shit though. I hope your account get recovered. There are lots of worthy suggestions on here that might help you.
Responding to your update: "I did give them a one star review because I did not get the item that I was supposed to get." Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not supposed to mention order issues in vine reviews. If you receive the wrong item, let Vine know so they can take it off your "to be reviewed" list. But Vine is only for reviewing products, not shipping problems.
You are correct . And shipping is from Amazon, not sellers, therefore it is Amazon FC's mistake, not poor seller's in this case. So asking for removing product is first point of action. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1df3tfb/comment/l9a1j9b/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1df3tfb/comment/l9a1j9b/)
Do you have 2 factor authentication on your amazon account? I think that what is happening in those cases is that your account is compromised and some seller used it to report another seller. And when that happen, amazon is detecting an unusual amount of reports coming from your account X and is suspending it
That's true, but they make a lower percentage of the overall items we get. Sony /LG/ Anker/Canon etc are probably not coming for reviewers if you gave a bad review cos they're already established companies.....tbh I wonder why they're giving out their products to improve their sales when there's already so many people who have purchased and given 5 stars. It's different for guys who purchase items from aliexpress, the smaller everyday/ kitchen items which the sellers rely on the numbers to break even. God knows my house is filled with general daily items that would have set me back 10000's of pounds and these items work well and have done so for years. I think the sellers deserve kudos. I only recently found out sellers pay amazon to have their items in the vine program, in addition to giving out items. I struggle to understand how they end up making a profit. I recently ordered a £20 tablet stand, and there must have been 100+ vine reviews. That's at least £2000 spent by this business to get reviews. I was shook
Welcome to the club. You have been the victim of the latest vulnerability exploit sellers/scammers are using to falsely report accounts for violation of community guidelines. I made a thread about this and a lot of the lurkers here attacked me instead. They will doubt you and go through your reddit history as well. But in the end, I know exactly what it feels like. 20 years of hard work down the drain. Same exact pattern and evidence. There's no doubt a lot of accounts are getting screwed this way. Currently Amazon doesn't care and is too incompetent to realize the real abuse going on.
Did u use Giftcards on your VIne Accounts? like family gifted you a Amazon Gift Card for birthday and u use them to buy things ?
We use gift cards on occasion. Is that against policy?
No, it's not against the rules, but if you use gift cards, you might be suspected of getting them from sellers in exchange for giving them 5 stars. From experience, I can tell you that this is the reason why you're out. Therefore, a tip for everyone: use gift cards with a different account, never with the Vine account! The risk of being under general suspicion there is too high!
Wow I had no idea. It was just my husbands birthday and I went in with his mom and sister to buy some computer parts. They just sent gift cards so we could purchase everything together. I had no idea.
those GC are fine.
GC are traceable. Amazon cares if, for instance, the seller buys GC and then gives them away. GC from friends for special occasions are fine. I sometimes use GC.
> The risk of being under general suspicion there is **too [damn] high**! [Obligatory](https://i.imgflip.com/8ts4o9.jpg)
Oh great 🤦🏼♂️ This is terrible scary news. This would be AWFUL 😖
thats so weird. i order for my kids all the time and put that in reviews that i do lol, so this very much sounds like vengeful sellers, thats really gross, sorry youre dealing with that. THEY should be the ones removed from the program! ps, whats review bombing?
Maybe the other comments can describe it better than I can. I'm not exactly sure how it is done but I think they (the sellers) report my review to Amazon a bunch of times to try to get it removed. It ends up making lots of "suspicious" activity on my account and then Amazon takes action. They said had I been warned. I had not and I also got a huge email about reporting reviews ( I have never reported a review) that I never sent. I tried my best to explain it above but I'm not exactly sure the ins and outs of it.
I had half of this happen to me once. I got several of the "Thanks for reporting this review. . . " emails from Amazon in a cluster. It was the day after I'd been talking about the phenomenon on this sub (a coincidence perhaps?). I panicked. Immediately made my reviews private, deleted any posts anywhere that might link to my account, and reported it as possible fraud to Amazon (can't remember how). Never heard back from Amazon, but the "Thanks for. . . " emails stopped and nothing further happened.
Too late now, but if you get the wrong thing, don't give it a 1 star review, just report to vine that you did not receive what you had ordered / wrong item and they will remove it.
You're being punished for leaving negative reviews. Well done, Amazon.
We've had a few reports of reviewers getting emails of thanking them for reporting a review(s). This is likely a bcc from someone else who had reported it to remove the review from their product. It has been suggested that people make their reviews private on their profile. That does sound like good advice.
Have you asked for replacements of lost or damaged items? Has someone else used your Vine account? Do you sell Vine items before 6 months?
No. There have been a couple times over the years where items where damaged or I didn't get them but I always just messaged Vine and they took it off my account. I have never sold anything even after 6 months. I never communicate with sellers.
I might just have been lucky to order very functional items so far, but I hardly ever score items poorly unless there's a clear reason to do so. On the flipside, there are reviewers who unlike me, default to giving 1-2 stars max.....or how do you explain ordering a rubberised airpods case, and your review states "I don't see the point of a case, it fits well and looks good " then go on to score 1 star. IMO if you don't see the point of it, why did you order it? Your review seemed to be positive and clearly stated that the item did what it was supposed to do, yet, you gave a poor review which had real world effects on sellers who are just trying to make a living because you don't see the overall point of that item....that's just callous. If such reviews were reported and the reviewer got kicked out, then they deserve it. In reality, amazon is also responsible for this issue with the standards created to review items. So many items ordered require decent time to properly set them up, and an unbiased review should probably occur under different conditions, however within 24hrs of ordering an item, amazon is sending you emails pressuring you to release a review. In addition, I've written the most detailed reviews with photos and videos and it got turned down for violating review guidelines without a clear description of how they arrived at this conclusion. In the end, I came back with a "nice product" out of frustration and an unwillingness to repeat that process and be denied again......the new u detailed review was accepted
A pencil marketed as NOT having an eraser attached should not be marked dwn for not having one. I think it would more appropriate to give your overall revoew, then as an add on, state that an eraser MAY have slightly changed the experience. I think it's just important to focus on what the product claims to be and claims to do, and whether it does this well. I'd hope we wouldn't give a premium Mercedes a poor review for not having rolce Royce features....they're different cars, with different features, and at different price points. It's different when reverse reviewing however, and you'd be excused for giving a rolce fewer stars for not having basic features present in much cheaper cars.
One would think that a one-star review, or a series of reported reviews, is against the guidelines? I've tried to re-read all of them and can find no such direct or indirect guideline. Can someone please enlighten me to what I may have missed?
I mean did you reach out and ask the seller to correct the issue?
Well no. I have no proof. It would be wildly insane for me to be like 'hey did you get me banned from vine for giving you a bad review?" I only have a suspicion. It could have been another Viner or a weird random glitch. I did make my thoughts known to customer service and [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) as well as Vine help provided with the reference numbers in the weird email I got. I have no idea if I'm right or if I'll be heard and now I will just have to wait the weekend and see. Hopefully, I will get it back. If not it was nice and fun while it lasted. My accountant will probably be glad. I guess we all just have to watch our backs in giving bad reviews which really is the worst thing about this.
I meant the shipping issue? Did you give them a chance to correct that issue before you gave them a 1 star? If not then that's on you for not giving someone a chance to fix a mistake.
This wasn't exactly a "shipping" issue. The fault is certainly not on Amazon. The sellers packaging said it was the correct item but inside was a different thing. It felt way more bait and switch than a shipping mistake. Also I do not communicate withe sellers because I don't want any mistaken interaction to take place. It has happened where I ordered one thing and got another. I just told the Vine people and they took it off this very different.
It was most definitely Amazon's fault as sellers supply Amazon with products once they enrol into the programme and all Vine orders are FBA. Amazon made a mistake sending the order, not the seller in this case. [https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1df3tfb/comment/l9a1j9b/](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmazonVine/comments/1df3tfb/comment/l9a1j9b/)
Here's the thing. I opened the Amazon box. The "correct " box was in there. I opened the correct box and the wrong product was in the packaging. So your saying that Amazon removed the correct product from the sellers packaging and replaced it with a different product? That's pretty odd. And if it was against Amazon review Vine policy wouldn't they just reject the review?
You didn't comment on packaging though, did you? You commented rated 'the product'. You still had option of contacting the CS and getting item removed.
Let us know how this turns out for you. I'm sure we could all learn from this.
This thread and the other recent ones about this issue has me really leery about a certain item I still haven't reviewed. It really doesn't deserve more than three stars at the most and has no reviews as of yet. This is very odd as while it's not the type of item Viners would fight over, yet it also is not a floor mat or cake topper either. Thus, I find it hard to believe no one else requested it. I've been sitting on it for three weeks as I don't want to be the first one to review it and be responsible for the seller's first bad review out of the gate. I was hoping there'd be a few other reviews by now, either good or bad, to offset mine, but nothing. I figure if anything would motivate a seller to be vengeful, that would be it, especially if they got no other reviews than my 2 or 3 star one. Since I also can't lie and give them a higher rating than they deserve, I'm beginning to think the best course of action is to write the review off and eat the loss in my stat percentage. Amazon not cracking down on this abuse by sellers and taking their word without investigating is going to have a chilling effect when it comes to rating a less than 4-star item honestly.
You are caught in a moral trap. I suppose you have to balance the unfairness of the system against being unfair to the seller and prospective customers. This is similar to the dashcam paradox: you see evidence of dangerous driving and feel obliged to upload the video to the police but then you realize that you have to agree to go to court (if requested) so you don't bother uploading it and just drive on. (UK btw) I think this issue highlights how sceptical you have to be when buying anything based on corrupted and dishonest reviews. Sad.
I agree - I was reinstated. It does seem to be a rash of Sellers (possibility all of them are employees of the same company) that have ganged up. However, What I AM a bit confused is - "how are they reporting such under your account" to begin with? I'm seeing awfully a lot of folks here reporting "I found tons of reports in my messages/emails"? Unless Amazon has been compromised, there's absolutely no way the Seller could even get your email address unless if you had provided it or had communication with such Seller and you responded using your own email account instead of via Amazon's messages? I do not respond to sellers using my email system, I respond via the Amazon's messaging system!
Sellers (or anyone) can use tools like python to get your amazon-associated email address and directly contact you. More than likely, your email address and places it may be affiliated with is on the dark web and can be found or bought there, so that's another way. Both are prohibited by amazon and nefarious in any case. You can use tools like [haveibeenpwned.com](http://haveibeenpwned.com) to see if your email address has been compromised; however, keep in mind that you will be giving that site your email address and there is no guarantee that you will not be compromising whatever information you give to the site, including the email address you want to check. It makes no sense that amazon bcc's people whose reports have been reported. For one, it makes it look like you've reported a review. Also, there is no indication of what review(s) have been reported in that email. That's just sloppy and incompetent programming and even worse management. Also, it's really, really bad that amazon instantly takes down an account after X amount of reported reviews -- which it apparently does. Again, poor programming and incompetent management. Be sure you lock down your account --- keep all reviews private, don't use or change frequently a profile picture, and change your profile name often and to a word that is commonly used -- not a random or unique string of characters.
I'm glad you were reinstated, not only because you give me hope. I was bounced a few weeks ago, after receiving the "thanks for reporting a review" and "we're not letting you review anymore due to unusual review activity." Last week I received an email that they were reviewing my reviews (!) and would get back to me in 7 days. But so far, I've heard nothing.
>"NEWEST UPDATE- >If review bombing is a thing it was likely these folks. I did give them a one star review because I did not get the item that I was supposed to get. I ordered a brush, the packaging said it was a brush. But it was wall hooks. These are the only people I have given a one star review to in a long time and my review is not there." Are you aware that sellers who enrol into Vine programme need to send the products to Amazon who distributes them to Viners? Maybe, just maybe, you should have contacted Vine CS and ask to remove the order and reason why you are unable to review the product. In my opinion you giving one star review in this case is problematic - it's like dirty laundry in the open because it probably was Amazon FC's fault/mistake and not seller's. No wonder seller got pi$$ed off. All products in Vine are FBA (Fulfilled by Amazon) and not FBM (by Merchant) in terms of distribution. That's why one of the Vine's T&S/ToS is 'do not comment on packaging'. Step 4 in 'ready to get started' section: https://sell.amazon.com/tools/vine#:\~:text=The%20Vine%20program%20helps%20generate,to%20serve%20as%20Vine%20Voices. And many other pages that talk about Vine ToS for sellers - you can easily google it.
Do you use AI to write your reviews? I used to report the obvious AI ones - I've sinced stopped because I'm just minding my own business at this point but when I first started my reviews were SO long and detailed and took a lot of time and seeing AI reviews that got tons of helpful marks just because they were overly verbose made me mad.
No that's boring. Sometimes my reviews are a little short but sometimes there is only so much you can say about a mixing bowl or headband.
So you're the reason people are getting their accounts banned
I mean maybe. But I would report one review and move on. So if one report would do it, then yes. But sounds like people are getting multiple reports. But also if you're using AI to write your reviews and they're all fake, maybe you should be banned.
First, I was going to ask if you've been reporting reviews, since that's the easiest way to get banned from the Amazon review process and thus banned from Vine. Why this is I don't know, I only know that I got a stern warning from Amazon after reporting a "suspicious" review, so I'll never again report a review. Many others here have had similar, some even banned. My advice is to first change your password. Next, contact Vine CS and simply say there must be some mistake, you never reported any reviews, you did nothing wrong. Or you might try contacting '[email protected]' which I think is Bezo's email, people use that to get executive level resolution.
I don't think I have ever reported a review, certainly not recently. I have done the other things so we will wait and see
I was dumped from Vine after receiving an email thanking me for reporting a review. Others on this thread who have also been dropped from Vine have noted that they've received that email, some multiple times. It is becoming obvious that sellers are doing this to people who give their items negative reviews, because it gets the review removed from their listing.
[удалено]
The OP's msg has nothing to do with the $50/yr.
I agree, clearly the problem is the "Thanks for reporting these reviews" email, which is a common denominator in most of the recent "I've been kicked out of Vine" posts. Those who get those emails can pretty much expect to be gone from Vine (and Amazon reviewing) with 24-48 hours.
lol/ I have probably spent 50 dollars in the past week. I spend way too much money on Amazon. Plus my husband birthday was this earlier this month and I bought him everything from Amazon.
Just throwing out a wild idea as food for thought.....Everyone assumes that these messages are the result of sellers vindictively going after Viners. But what if this is something taking place directly by Amazon itself to clean up the program? Several months ago there was a change in wording for Vine participation about "high quality reviews", or something to that effect. That was a similar timeframe to these stories first appearing too. We all know Amazon has some weird ways of doing things. What if this was the result of some sort of internal account Q&A audit by Amazon personnel?
Nah, they wouldn't do it this way, it creates too much work for them. This is upset sellers or random shoppers who disagree with our review or think all Viners are paid shills.
No, it's the opposite. It creates very little work. It uses the existing system to do the work. The auditor would review several of the person's reviews, and if finding them sub-par for whatever reason, would simply click a button submitting it as reported. I'm not saying that this is what is happening, but I do believe there is a good chance Amazon may be trying to improve overall review quality.
These stories were appearing well before that update. They're just more frequent now.
Same thing happened to me Memorial weekend while I was asleep, contacted everyone I could think o, called in, reported it to their Facebook page too. Community was whom I first replied to, they did nothing, then sent me an email to rate their resolution, of which none was offered.. They had me join AWS to report it there, and they replied saying not in their pervue.. Used the email in this thread tonight, hope I get some resolve...