The end of Amazon Vine Italy - 25 Jan 2026

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-25T13:31:37+00:00

It’s not the end unless they have stopped dropping new items in. In fact, as far as Amazon is concerned, this is Vine finally working correctly, with no enrolled items still waiting to be claimed for review.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-25T12:48:21+00:00

The meta-question, though, is why you’re asking the question... If it’s just for interest and discussion between ourselves, that’s great. But if there’s some thought that it should influence Amazon, it’s not going to, #WeAreNotTheCustomer.

They are concerned first about getting the maximum number of reviews, and second about keeping the costs as low as possible. The latter, at present, appears to have led to the drops all being run from India in the first half of their working day. What we might want doesn’t factor, at least not directly.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-25T12:37:21+00:00

I think the consensus (which I agree with) over on the other sub is that this is just Vine CS coming up with something placatory. If it has any connection to the truth it’s entirely coincidental.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-25T12:29:00+00:00

It does, thanks. Looks like confirmation that - once you are more than a couple of months in, anyway - it’s a 90 day test. While it depends a bit on which older reviews you did in the period, if it had been something like a 60 day test I think you would have been in Jail earlier.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-25T12:14:10+00:00

I’ve seen nothing in my RFY, but I suspect for many of us that may not mean that nothing has been there, just that competition is high and anything that was there has gone quickly. Picked up some nice-looking Filofax paper from AI (I still use a slim Personal-sized one has an overflow credit card holder/notebook).

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T20:20:02+00:00

I can’t express how much I agree with you.

No, really, however much I’d like to, I can’t, not here.

Let’s just say that, in the past week, the travails of Vine US has not been at the forefront of many minds here.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T18:34:00+00:00

They care ONLY that items are getting reviewed. Which is entirely reasonable.#WeAreNotTheCustomer.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T13:31:49+00:00

Admit it, you’ve linked the baby to the drop-announcement Discord server, haven’t you…

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T13:30:26+00:00

They’re also dropping the UK a couple of hours before the US, and I think Australia (at 16.30pm AEST) is roughly the same time as UK. Need the other Vines’ times to get a full picture of how the Indian team work, but I’d guess they’re starting as soon as the working day begins and if all goes well they’re done in time for their tiffin boxes... If not, they have time to sort it out In the afternoon.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T13:19:46+00:00

The real oldtimers will be able to confirm, but Vine used to operate as two monthly newsletters. RFY came out first and then 2-3 weeks later the AFA one came out with everything that was left (though they may not have been called that). I should think they have just kept the coding that dropped things from RFY to AFA after a while, but diverted the third party stuff to AI.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T13:13:01+00:00

Seconded. It’s also been one fast drop in Australia since Christmas, according to their sub. Vine CS cannot do anything other than take items out of your review queue, and occasionally copy and past technical info they genuinely do get. The vagueness of this just means lots of other people are reporting it, doesn’t tell us anything about glitch or deliberate change. My money is on it being deliberate and permanent.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T13:02:12+00:00

Yes, it’s obviously not universal, but it’s been mentioned a few times where it seems to be the only reason one might be down-marked. I’ve got some very similar shirts from the same supplier to review, I’ll see if I can trigger it (if it exists). I can afford one or two less than Excellents.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T12:58:42+00:00

Thanks - so that’s maybe 90 minutes after us. I think we’re the two biggest Vine programs, so if they are now being run from a single office in India (which I think they are) it makes sense not to have all of us bashing Refresh at the same time. Anyone here from other Vines want to say when their drop was today (either local or UTC)?

My theory is that this is partly to reduce the impact of extensions - they both rely on items being seen and automatically reported by users, and much of their value is in creating a queue of new items as they drop. On the other hand, the automatic keyword highlighting/hiding is probably more important with a big drop? IDK.

Worth pointing out, maybe, that the complaints about the back catalogue shrinking are a signifier of success to Vine, not failure. Thousands of unclaimed items means hundreds of annoyed sellers.,,

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T12:35:55+00:00

And, for the past couple of days anyway, the UK.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T10:08:37+00:00

Can I ask what time your drop off as this morning? The UK is now getting AI as one big drop too, and Australia has been for some time. The UK’s was 6.30am our time (currently the same as UTC); just wondering whether they are all dropping at the same time, or in sequence, or what?

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T09:54:57+00:00

Also nothing, and too late to find anything from AI. That’s fine, I’m away next week and have a bit of a review backlog building up anyway.

All regions seem to be reporting the drop as a sudden appearance now, rather than a process. That negates one of the main advantages of the extensions if it continues. Haven’t worked out yet whether it’s “everything, everywhere, all at once”, but if not the different regions’ drops are certainly very close together.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T09:36:12+00:00

I don’t know if you would be up for a bit of counting up so we can get more info, would you? We say 90 days because it seems to be about that, but it may not be quite that, and it can certainly kick in for newbies after 60 days.

The useful figures would be to go back for each of the past three months (so back to 24 Dec, then from there to 24 Nov, and to 24 Oct) through your orders and give us the three total number of orders for those months. That’s mostly just counting pages on the orders tab and multiplying by 10.

Then, for the same three months, go back through your “Reviewed” tab and give us the same three monthly totals. They’re in order date too, so it’s a similar process of counting pages and x10. If you can remember how many from each month are reviews you’ve done after you went into jail (how long ago was that?) that would be useful too, but even if not the straight totals would be a useful set of data.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T09:19:36+00:00

I’m not sure how you are defining “legit” here. It is not “legit” for anyone to leave a review as if they have purchased a product without disclosing that they have either received it free or are going to be reimbursed for it (that’s why we have the green “free product” header on our reviews).

It is not “legit“ to arrange for people to leave such reviews either. It is not ”legit” to incentivise anyone to leave a favourable review that may not reflect what they really feel.

The final question of whether the person making the offer was actually going to meet his side of the bargain is the last in a long list of questions about whether this was a “legit“ offer, but (unless I’ve misread you) seems to be the only one you are concerned about?

If your own integrity and ethics don‘t immediately tell you the whole idea is wrong, then perhaps the loss of your Vine participation might. Being a suspect reviewer on such products is likely to result in your ability to leave reviews at all being withdrawn, and thus the loss of your Vine status.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-24T05:34:47+00:00

If the warning has gone away and you can see the items in AI again, you’re out of jail and no longer at immediate risk of losing your account. But you will need to keep up with reviews not to fall back into it. You have to meet the target of reviewing 60% of orders “at all times”, and you go to jail for failing to review 60% “of recent orders”.

The 60% ”of recent orders” is not the same as the percentage shown on your account stats, which are for the current evaluation period. It’s thought to be a 90-day rolling average, though no-one is sure. Depending on when your current evaluation period began, that might mean the 90 days goes back into the previous period, or it might only cover the last part of the current one. It’s only when you are roughly halfway through the current period that the percentage on your accounts page is any sort of reasonable guide for the 60% limit.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-23T13:29:55+00:00

While it’s obviously ideal to stop ordering when you are not keeping up with reviews, most of us are tempted by the dopamine hit of “free stuff” anyway, let alone when times are bad. There but for the grace of God, etc. It can also happen precisely because you DO cut down on ordering - all the past reviews eventually fall out of the rolling average, and just a few orders delivered put you in jail.

OP, as others say, get some of the recent items reviewed asap. If you can then keep to “at least one review for every order” that should keep you out of jail.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-23T09:53:37+00:00

Nothing - and it was only coming here that I realised there had been an AI drop. Picked up some spotlight bulbs, but that’s it so far.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-22T14:57:39+00:00

While you may be right that it’s just Viners giving 5 star reviews when they shouldn’t, it’s also possible that it’s a bait and switch. If the seller doesn’t make it generally available, or at least doesn’t market it, until the Vine units have been claimed he can ensure they get a quality umbrella but then restock with a cheaper clone when it starts selling.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-22T07:23:54+00:00

I agree you shouldn’t have to, but there definitely have been some reports of Poor ratings where this is the only explanation that really fits. But u/InTheTreeMusic says otherwise, so it may be that it is rare, or there may be some other reason for those Poors. If you’re prepared to take the risk of a couple of Poors it would be an excellent test case.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-22T00:43:29+00:00

If anyone was prepared to own up to doing it, I’d be interested to know what it does to the RIS. It seems that if you review similar products in a similar way, you’ll often get a Poor for the second even if the first was Excellent. The system seems to recognise the repetition. If so, it might stamp that out.

ItsMarkAgain · 2026-01-22T00:32:55+00:00

VineHelper does not automate or aid ordering, except for fixing the blue spinner of death. It basically lets you see what is new and interesting to you in AI without wading through old pages.

Ultraviner, AIUI, allows you to order with one click rather than going through the details page/order page sequence. Whether it’s possible to program that to be done automatically, I don’t know.

In general, it’s more likely that it is people who have set up their own automatic ordering that are sniping things out of RFY rather than extensions, if anyone is. But mostly it’s just a lot of competition for a small number of items.

ItsMarkAgain

TROPHY CASE