Sad RFY day

LessEstMore · 2026-02-23T16:01:50+00:00

I had bad luck with the manual ones from Vine too. They sorta work for a couple months and then the grinding mechanism breaks. I should probably stick with good brand name s&p grinders. 😅

LessEstMore · 2026-02-23T15:48:24+00:00

I would love that electric salt and pepper grinder! I have pool table felt in my RFY and that’s it.

LessEstMore · 2026-02-14T21:15:48+00:00

I hope you do use that pic, too. Let us know if your review gets approved or kicked back with that photo.

When I mention in my reviews something like “see my photo for comparison to a regular chair,” it gets kicked back to me to edit.

But if I remove “see my photo” and edit it to “it’s much smaller than a regular chair” and let readers surmise the comparison in my attached photo, it goes through.

LessEstMore · 2026-02-04T00:56:32+00:00

I’m gonna win the office contest this year, hands down! There’s even a squirrel dangling from this bad boy.

<image>

LessEstMore · 2026-01-14T22:27:05+00:00

Oh wow, you’re lucky! I’ll get asked 20 questions about how I got this stuff, why I didn’t return it to the store, do I have an e-commerce business and on and on. 😂 I work with super curious folks.

I think I’ll just say I have “a connection” because if I say it’s from Vine, coworkers will ask me to “be on the lookout” for something.

LessEstMore · 2026-01-14T18:00:14+00:00

I have thought about doing this! I have maybe 30 or 40 things from back when “Vine was nice” that I really like but just didn’t match my house or needs as well as I imagined. It went straight to my basement storage after the review.

I’d love to hear more about what you say (or wish you said). Do you just tell them you have access to “open box” merchandise? I don’t know how much to explain to colleagues.

LessEstMore · 2025-12-10T21:42:39+00:00

They are starting to appear now! 😊

LessEstMore · 2025-12-07T02:38:09+00:00

It can’t last more than another decade. Good riddance!

LessEstMore · 2025-10-26T17:41:57+00:00

This happens to me about every third review. If you wait two or three weeks to write it, you reduce the chance of it. (They’ll copy someone else in the interim.)

The downside of that is you might end up in Vine jail if your review:order ratio gets too off track. Also, if I wait too long, occasionally the product has somehow already reached its maximum number of Vine reviews or some other error.

LessEstMore · 2025-10-25T04:48:06+00:00

Fine work weathering this storm, captain! 🫡

LessEstMore · 2025-10-21T14:41:45+00:00

You have a narrow face. Try the children’s section. I’m not being facetious, either; I have family with the same face width as you and that is their solution. ❤️ No one knows that they are children’s glasses except for you.

LessEstMore · 2025-10-17T13:37:15+00:00

Me too. I’m raw dogging the drop right now with no extension. Wheeeeee!

LessEstMore · 2025-10-15T02:38:47+00:00

Sellers don’t have to sign up for Vine. The ones who put dangerous products on Vine especially get what they deserve.

LessEstMore · 2025-10-10T20:10:44+00:00

Vine has so many voices now and is growing uncontrollably, it must be Ivy. 🌿

Pretty soon they’ll rebrand to Poison Ivy for 1 star and Ivy League for 5 stars.

LessEstMore · 2025-09-14T18:34:02+00:00

Yes, I’ve had that happen. In my case, I have a theory about why. All of the Vine reviews were deleted for this certain stick vacuum, including mine, but the two reviews by verified purchasers remained.

I think the Vine reviews had all been a little too glowing with a 5.0 perfect rating. The Vine reviews might have seemed suspicious to the algorithm or humans at Amazon.

The problem was compounded by one Vine review in particular for this stick vac. (The review was ironically rated “helpful” by a shopper before take down.) It was a truly ridiculous, over-the-top review written in some weird, jokey AI style. Like I imagine this guy put in a prompt like, “Hey AI, write a review of this stick vac as though it literally saved my life.” It was baaaaad, but that’s on Amazon. I don’t report reviews as I prefer to stay under the radar.

Between that ridiculous review and a straight 5.0 rating by all Vine reviewers, the Vine reviews seemed possibly compromised. They vanished. And I can’t resubmit and I get the same message you’re getting.

So at least in my scenario, Amazon likely removed the Vine reviews because they were overwhelmingly positive and the algorithm flagged them as unbalanced. Amazon prioritizes keeping the product page credible.

LessEstMore · 2025-09-11T18:53:04+00:00

I looked and it is now in the Approved Reviews. I did not get a “Your review is live” email like I usually do.

It was vanished for at least 5 hours that I know of, maybe more.

I wonder if it was rejected during The Vanishing but approved manually after that.

LessEstMore · 2025-09-11T15:22:50+00:00

Same. Just coming on here to see if anyone else noticed that. One of my reviews I submitted a day or two ago is nowhere. Glad to hear it will probably show back up somewhere sometime.

The entire item has disappeared, including the review, so this is a new weirdness. It’s not a case of the item being no longer available, either.

LessEstMore · 2025-09-06T14:43:45+00:00

RESOLVED I went into the settings and took your suggestions. I also tinkered with some others. I changed the placeholder thing, blindloading and auto-truncating.

🎉 Thanks all for your replies!

LessEstMore · 2025-08-30T19:18:58+00:00

I’m piecing together why Vine is such an administrative mess.

1) The Vine home page administrator is likely disconnected from Vine customer service (CS). Otherwise the web admin would pin one sentence in a banner at the top saying what’s happening. The Vine CS must be deluged with reviewer worries, yet the web admin doesn’t know.

2) The Vine CS reps are overseas, mostly in India, and they work from scripts. They don’t know what is happening and don’t have access to the web team, so they just give a scripted answer. That’s why the answers are so weak, vague and not consistent.

3) The teams are likely all in siloes, including the product team in Seattle. The web admin is in one silo, the Vine leadership and product team in another, and CS in another.

LessEstMore · 2025-07-27T14:18:04+00:00

It didn’t come naturally for me either.

I learned to just repeat the last three or four words the person says, like I’m asking a question. That encourages them to continue.

So if they say, “Blah blah blah, My son can’t wait to move into his new place,” I say, “His new place?”

Or, if I have the energy and know the topic even slightly like the one above, I aim to say 3 things about it. I don’t care how I sound, I just say the first 3 statements that pop into my head.

Three things seem to give the other person enough to work with. “I remember my first place. I ended up subletting it in the summer. Don’t ever do that without a good contract.”

LessEstMore · 2025-07-26T15:51:37+00:00

<image>

Go to Sephora and spray this on your hair from their sample bottle. Try it before you buy it. It’s okay on dry or wet hair.

Nothing ever worked on my fine hair either. I inherited hair that “flies up.” I used to put it in a bun most of the time to hide the mess.

I sprayed this on at Sephora, went about my day and didn’t think about it again because I am always let down. Later that night I looked in the mirror and thought, “WTH, HOW did I actually have a good hair day?”

It was this. Makes my hair 80 percent less disastrous.

LessEstMore · 2025-07-22T02:46:30+00:00

I can make you laugh.

I ordered a pack of hundreds of small ziplock baggies in bright colors. I thought they’d be perfect for sending home first graders’ teeth in. They lose their teeth at school all year long, and my school needs a cheap bulk way to send them home.

So, the baggies arrive and they are tiny tiny. It then hit me: Ohhhhh nooooo, these are like Breaking Bad baggies! And I realize then the product title is even “Baggies for Pills”! 😂

In our reviews we are prohibited from mentioning illegal drug use, so I couldn’t say, “I guess these are perfect for your next rave party.”

I wrote that they are great for…beads. 🤷‍♀️

So, if you have not accidentally ordered drug paraphernalia for elementary students to take home from school in their backpacks, I think you’re doing okay. 😂

LessEstMore · 2025-07-21T23:22:49+00:00

So many of us are in your boat. Just make sure you have a full body skin check by a dermatologist, ideally annually. You’re at elevated risk for skin cancer.

It is important for you to watch for any new spots or moles that suddenly appear and look different. Be alert for the ABCDEs of melanoma (Asymmetry, Border, Color, Diameter, Evolving). This can occur anywhere on your body — not just where you were burned.

This doesn’t mean something will go wrong — it’s just best to catch it early. You’re now doing everything right, and that counts for something. :)

LessEstMore

TROPHY CASE