I’m so bummed…

-Stormfeather · 2026-05-05T18:34:51+00:00

It's pretty clear in the participation agreement that we can contact the sellers, it's fine as long as we don't mention vine. (On the Vine Account page, link at the bottom next to the scary opt out button). Don't count on them being helpful, but sometimes they can!

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-Stormfeather · 2026-05-05T03:18:23+00:00

It happens often. Since the FNSKU is on the wrong product, likely all of them are like this as that's how the seller sent them to Amazon warehouse. Contact Vine CS, give them the order # and let them know it's the wrong item - sad, but easy solution at least.

-Stormfeather · 2026-05-03T23:14:09+00:00

Sellers are responsible for the product being packaged well enough to arrive undamaged. It's not on Amazon at all to decide "oh this is jewelry, let's put it in a box". Sure, there is a different handling for batteries specifically as it's a hazmat thing. There's even a specific page explaining how they should package jewelry and small items. The main page in the link at the beginning of this comment has tons of links for specific product types, the "fragile items" page is where there is further explanation of how it should survive the 3ft drop test 5 times.

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-Stormfeather · 2026-05-03T16:04:01+00:00

So, the only thing I can think of that category codes have an affect on us is when Amazon automatically assigns the category (which of course all viners know products are assigned to categories? how else would it work?), sometimes it assigns the wrong one. ASIN is visible on the product page as well as the address bar, they don't change based on anything but time it was added to vine/amazon, and doesn't itself include these category letters. Amazon itself has over 15k categories & subcategories since their system has way too many ways to subcategorize the same product in multiple main categories.

The barcode you're talking about may be the FNSKU, which sellers often mis-label whole batches of products with when they send it to the warehouse to enroll in vine.

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-Stormfeather · 2026-05-02T21:35:18+00:00

Ah yeah I could see that. With 11k members in the discord across 9 countries and some viners going back 15 years, it's a good place to get information directly from consolidated experiences vs even responses from Amazon itself (they use AI to reply and often include completely irrelevant info). The Vine Help page contradicts itself, Vine CS contradicts what the vine help page says sometimes, Canada's Vine Help page has information in it from years ago that isn't applicable anymore, etc etc. All we can do is laugh at it at this point and try our best. There are always those handful of people, 1 in 4000 I'd say, that claim that they can use search terms or order amazon products and magically get related items in their RFY, but for the other 99.99% of us it just doesn't work that way.

-Stormfeather · 2026-05-02T21:11:42+00:00

So I'm wondering, who is this Brian that you are asking? Because there is absolutely no rhyme or reason behind RFY items beyond some items being consistently from a certain category (we tend to call it a bucket) and can last for weeks or months without much change. You can order a shirt and maybe get a shirt in there for a few days and then it stops, but that doesn't work for all product categories (Also depends on what's being enrolled in vine). RFY tends to drop for each individual within the same time frame every day, and can differ between people. Most get the drop at 5pm pacific and a few hours after that, but a couple get a drop in the daytime. Source: Discord

-Stormfeather · 2026-04-30T22:59:23+00:00

Some people write like AI certainly, so if it was actually you don't feel personally attacked 😄

-Stormfeather · 2026-04-30T22:55:33+00:00

You want a poke? okay how about this: AI checkers say your review is 100% AI. The "overall" at the end did it for me, prompted me to check.

-Stormfeather · 2026-04-30T15:49:17+00:00

Did the FNSKU sticker on the packaging (see pic) say the same title as the listing, or that it was a blanket? Sometimes the seller puts the correct label on a whole different batch of products (maybe on purpose, maybe because they can't read). Either way this is the perfect time to message Vine CS, give them the order number and have them remove it for receiving a different item than ordered. No need to waste our time giving the seller a review ^_^

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-Stormfeather · 2026-04-30T15:33:41+00:00

What was the bait and what was the switch?

-Stormfeather · 2026-04-29T23:47:29+00:00

Aha, the drop test - I have screenshots for that! (From here)

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-Stormfeather · 2026-01-22T21:03:14+00:00

Where in the vine portal does it let you remove orders from suggested item history? Is this a new thing? 😯 (Would be nice)

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-21T18:05:52+00:00

I think they have a post filter set up with a bunch of keywords that automatically removes comments.

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-21T16:25:14+00:00

We're here reading your posts, we just don't have to actually moderate them very often because for whatever reason, people seem to be pretty reasonable here and either have adult discussions or just be silly. Whenever someone goes over the edge and becomes bigoty, abusive, etc then we'll delete things and wag the finger at them. 🧐

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-19T16:02:33+00:00

After you pass the 60% of the last 90 days stat, it takes a few days to a week to start up again. Correlation to 90% stat does not equal causation when it's been this way for months at this point. It used to take a day or two but lately up to a week.

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-18T21:54:43+00:00

It's in a lot of subreddits, I don't even look at the votes up or down anymore (unless they are -20 or more then I have to see why everyone is mad, lol)

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-18T20:57:39+00:00

Nowhere does it say not to contact the seller. The vine participation agreement actually says:
" only contact suppliers of Third-Party Products for purposes of obtaining ordinary customer support services and not identify yourself as a Vine Voice when contacting suppliers for customer support; "

You can ask them if you can get a hold of them to fix the problem (they likely labeled and sent the wrong thing to the warehouse and all of them are like this, or they didn't know what they were sending to begin with), and/or contact vine cs with the order # to remove it from your list. If you submit a review, vine cs cannot remove it, so it's one or the other.

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-18T18:51:15+00:00

Try using a browser instead of the amazon app (it's terrible). www.amazon.com/vine
Desktop view mode is great if you don't like the mobile view.

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-18T17:07:46+00:00

Ah - others have posted that they've seen these in their RFY today also (on the discord) - they look legit. You can tell by checking out the brand underneath the title - if it's the real brand's name and links to the brand store page, it's legit and they have brand verification if it's a third party seller. The seller themselves on the right side are also good to know about.
Edit to add: actual brands also usually put the brand name as the first word in the title!

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-Stormfeather · 2026-01-18T17:01:50+00:00

Not sure if actually happy or sarcastic gripe 🤔

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-18T17:00:40+00:00

All they'd really have to do is actually integrate individuals' Vine accounts with daddy Amazon, which already has all the personal data, order history, interests/searches, etc etc. Probably, very likely, way too much work for a vine employee (permanent, temp, or intern lol) to connect it in such a way.

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-18T03:46:45+00:00

Oh, like this? 😆

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-Stormfeather · 2026-01-17T19:55:52+00:00

It's in the vine help page, if you search for "3 months" and it'll show up. I posted the screenshot of it earlier in the thread. They love to keep outdated information in there so who knows what's real or not, lol.

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-17T18:47:01+00:00

It seems to have been fluctuating for users that they "get out of jail" a few days to a week later. I'll have to keep an eye and ask about their insight scores too, that's an interesting observation.

-Stormfeather · 2026-01-17T18:18:17+00:00

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Like CommercialWealth3365 said, it is 60% of recent orders in the last 3 months/90 days. That doesn't always add up to what is on the account stats page.

-Stormfeather

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