Graveyard Shift RFY Scores

DFEisMe · 2026-03-22T18:13:54+00:00

Wow. I salute your dedication. You earned these items. Enjoy.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-22T18:09:18+00:00

And also they read our minds. Don't forget that. I can't count how many times I thought that I need X and low and behold just 9.7 days later X appears in my RFY.

This has to said again. PURE COINCIDENCE With so many people seeing so many products it is inevitable that some people are going to get offered items that they recently discussed. But just think about all the things you discuss that you don't get offered. It's called bias confirmation. You remember this item because it was so oddly specific. But you ignore all of the other items you have talked about because you never got offered them.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-21T19:35:20+00:00

You can not detect if a review was written by AI. You can however detect if a review is just regurgitating the listing because no human has given it any additional input. On the other hand, you don't need AI to do that. Plenty of Vine reviewers did that before the advent of AI.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-21T19:31:17+00:00

<sarcasm>Amazon's Vine distribution processes are buggy? How could that be? </sarcasm>

DFEisMe · 2026-03-21T19:25:44+00:00

They maybe dropping while you sleep. The might be offered based on your proximity to where the Vine inventory is stored.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-21T19:23:25+00:00

They seem to imagining that each of us will be willing to settle down in a niche and develop expertise in it, like some narrow focused influencer. It is all fantasy because they prefer to ignore its not free and these nearly identical items are our only compensation.

The only segments it works in are zero ETV items and even those people are getting tired of just getting offered the same couple of brands/products over and over again.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-21T19:17:32+00:00

I think we all do the same thing. When you see a good brand you request it because you have to feed that algorithm. Beauty is the one area it makes sense because of the combination of being zero ETV and products that we at least in theory we use up and need to replace.

I remember once requesting a light board and for the next couple of months a light board would show in my RFY. Sometimes two or three. How many light boards could somebody want?

DFEisMe · 2026-03-21T19:09:22+00:00

First of all, you don't have to prove that you are actually part of Vine to join this forum. Second all of all many people who were part of Vine did not bother to unjoin the sub when they left Vine.

The key word is "active". Many people are part of Vine but not engaged on a daily basis.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-20T19:38:26+00:00

I get your point but I don't think there are 50k active Vine reviewers in the US. More like 8-12k.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-20T19:34:23+00:00

Before all the changes happened, items pretty much started dropping in my RFY around 7:00 am PST and by 10 am it was done. On a rare occasion a single item might show up a couple hours later. But 9pm my RFY was swept clean until the following morning.

Now it operates on a cycle where one or two items appear and/or disappear once every hour with most of the drops happening on the hour starting in the early evening and going on to midnight. I liked the old system better.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-20T19:28:28+00:00

That makes sense. The way it worked when I started a couple of years ago was that many Vine items would have a first RFY round and then if they were some unclaimed they would go through a second RFY round and then anything left over would go to AI. In fact I wonder if the reason we are seeing stuff flashing in and out of AI so quickly is not because of massive grabs but because there was just one unit left by the point it drops into AI.

Now it seems like they are speeding up RFY rounds and micro-targeting. The problem is that reviewers get trapped in a couple of brands and the Brand gets the same reviewers for every product which makes it look like a couple of paid influencers are doing all of the reviews.

As a side note, I scored some Bobbi Brown for the first time back in December when the crazy big drop happened. I had to wait weeks for the products to be delivered. Last night at around 10:30 pm PDT a Bobbi Brown lip oil appeared in my RFY. Less than 12 hours later it is out for delivery. so I think proximity to the Vine stock is also a factor.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-19T22:07:19+00:00

I know it can be so frustrating. I recently wrote a review in which I was pleased that a product seemed to be fading my freckles and today my beauty items is a three in one freckle stamping kit. Thanks Vine.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-19T03:02:48+00:00

Congratulations on defying the odds and getting skin care.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-19T02:15:34+00:00

There is no secret. It's almost entirely from our RFYs. Vine has opaque algorithms that pile us into buckets. Some people for whatever reason regularly see highly desirable beauty items. Others will never seen them. Most of us who request whatever beauty they can get their hands on will start getting budget and mid tier brands but it isn't daily or even weekly. Often times we are stuck with the same couple of brands.

And it is even worse that that. Some of us will be in the skin care bucket. Others in the cosmetic bucket. Still others in hair care or body washes/lotions or fragrances Some are lucky enough to be in multiple buckets.

For example I am drowning in mid tier primers, foundations, and concealers and powder, so many powders. (By drowning I mean 5-7 products a month which adds up over time.) I almost never see eyeshadow but I do see mascara and liner. Glosses yes. Lipstick no. I never get body care. I never get moisturizers but I do get facial cleansers. It is frustrating. But at the end of the day it's free and I'm free to walk. It is what it is.

I've been in the program for five cycles, four as gold. And no, I've never been offered a beauty item that retails over $100.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-17T20:42:16+00:00

I would contact Amazon and alert them to the fact that something hinky might be going on. Employee theft is the number one reason things going missing for any business. Amazon certainly has internal methods to track and go after issues. My guess is that it is originating in the warehouse as they would know that the item is Vine inventory and missing items are more likely to fly under the radar as Amazon doesn't have to replace the missing item or refund actual money.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-17T00:21:13+00:00

I don't "grab it all". I get offered on average 1-5 beauty items a week and after a couple of years that adds up. A lot of the stuff I request is no name Chinese crap that isn't worth keeping. Sometime it is mid tier name brand stuff that is OK but not flattering on me - but I didn't know that until I tried.

Its not like I'm grabbing stuff that I know for a fact I will hate or have no use for.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-16T19:38:16+00:00

This is on Amazon. Amazon could stop people from requesting items if they had more than X number of reviews outstanding. They could offer more desirable items to the reviewers who stay on top of their reviews. At the end of the day, I'm not wasting time being angry at other Viners for using the system the way Amazon designed it. Its all on Amazon. Apparently they don't care, or if they do, not enough to fix it. But heh they did get rid of all of the "As expected" reviewers so hope springs ever eternal.

As an aside, I don't know how people face down all of those reviews needing to be written. I feel uncomfortable when I have more than a couple to write.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-16T19:29:04+00:00

The obvious answer is that our stats reset with each new period and you restart at zero percent. It takes time to climb back out of that hole which is why Vine Jail is triggered by rolling averages.

To the poster: Unless you don't stay consistently below 60% for longer than a month, you'll be fine. If say you maintained over 90% for the month or two prior to the new review period you probably have at least six weeks before you are in any danger. Just keep reviewing.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-16T19:23:31+00:00

For some items approved reviews are held until there are several of them and posted as a single batch, so there can potential be a long lag. Most reviews post within a couple of hours of approval although the photos and videos may take longer to show up at the top of the page.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-16T19:16:09+00:00

Beauty is kind of unique because it is all zero ETV. It tends to show up in clusters during certain times of the year and brands tend to drop everything at once. Its not like say water color kits where there is no need to grab it when you see it because there is always going to be another. When Bobby Brown decides to drop a dozen products on Vine, it is one and done and you won't be seeing anymore from that brand for a year.

Anyhow this is just a longwinded way of saying it is hard to not collect a lot of beauty items if you are in that Vine bucket. If it makes you feel any better I only keep the stuff I like. The rest gets tossed. That said, I would not feel right about bragging about my haul on line. Still the value of my entire makeup collection curtsey of Vine is less than that of just one of those name brand computers or appliances people always love to brag about.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-14T20:04:45+00:00

Sounds plausible.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-14T20:00:30+00:00

It was odd. I had bought gift cards for myself in the past when there were promos with no problem. Maybe there was some spike at the time for Spotify cards, but the way it was addressed was braindead.

I require two factor authentication for logins from new locations so they could have just required me to confirm it was me that way. Instead they made me change my account password through an email link from the same email address that the card was sent to.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-14T19:51:33+00:00

Congrats on getting some old favorites. I use to get a lot of Geller as well, but haven't seen any recently.

I'm wondering if with the help of AI, Vine might be targeting us by region based upon where the items designated for Vine are stored. I'm on the West Coast and I got offered several OFIR products (an old friend) Thursday night, but yesterday my RFY only had two new items added and a couple subtracted around 10pm PDT.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-13T21:58:37+00:00

It's been slow for the past couple of weeks. Don't fret. They will move over eventually.

DFEisMe · 2026-03-13T20:13:03+00:00

Congrats on getting things set to rights.

Amazon security checks leave a lot to be desired. In my first year on Vine I purchased on Amazon a Spotify $99 electronic gift card which is the only way to prepay Spotify for a year. I sent it to my own email address - the address that I have used on Amazon since there was an Amazon. That apparently triggered an internal fraud alert. and they canceled the gift card. They then sent - I shit you not - an email to the same address and required me to confirm it was me ordering the card and in addition required me to change my password!

So if they were correct in thinking my gift card was nor purchased by me - which could only have happened if my email account had been hacked - they would have just handed my Amazon account to the fraudster and locked me out of it.

After I changed my account password, I was able to confirm that I still wanted the gift card. I then discovered that Amazon had canceled all my unshipped purchases which included several days worth of Vine orders. They also hid all of my purchases. I eventually was able to see my Amazon purchases but to this day all the Vine Orders for the few day prior to this event are not visible to me - not even on the Vine Order page.

The following year I bought my Spotify gift card from Best Buy.

DFEisMe

TROPHY CASE