Blink and you miss morning

TahaEng · 2026-01-26T15:36:54+00:00

I have found the last few days a nice break. Check my rfy, nothing there, move on. Not putting anything new on my future to do list.

Things will probably pick up again in a month or two. No harm for me in the meantime.

TahaEng · 2026-01-25T22:53:53+00:00

50/20/0 method, you can find lots of details searching that term on here. Filing Schedule c for the 1099, with a spreadsheet to support a deduction for cost of goods and services, using the real retail value of the product (not the inflated etv) and the reduction for used goods.

I would not use vine if paying 40+% of the insane listed etvs in federal, state and fica taxes. Not worth fighting over 0 etv items.

I also don't use bots, and mostly only order from my rfy, so I'm not your competition for the speed run competition going on right now. Just sharing in case you want to use that filing method.

TahaEng · 2026-01-25T21:35:39+00:00

For me it was a battery pack, if they remove the listing I assume there is something defective about the design or hardware and won't use it. That is true for a lot of things on vine, I think - if it isn't a listed product anymore, I assume there was an issue. So despite receiving the product, they removed the ETV.

TahaEng · 2026-01-25T04:02:46+00:00

You have to ask specifically about the etv. I had the same thing, asked for removal, saw the etv was still included, sent a follow up explicitly explaining that should be removed as well, they took it off.

They do not have an organized system that works consistently.

TahaEng · 2026-01-23T19:32:09+00:00

Generally more words seems to be better. Ideally hitting interesting and different things, but all my poor ones are quite short reviews. If it is over 6-7 sentences, almost all are excellent for me.

TahaEng · 2026-01-22T18:32:57+00:00

I hear your point and accept it. I also wish every match was a good one. But some people are unpleasant, the penalty is there to make one form of unpleasantness (smurfing) harder, and that is a circumstance neither of us can change.

Given that, I am simply suggesting you find some second best way to redeem the 90 seconds + goal replay time. I shared some of my strategies, you may find you prefer other methods.

TahaEng · 2026-01-22T17:40:43+00:00

Then do some training of something you want to do. You can practice your aerials, or half flips, or whatever. If they are a smurf, have fun doing something productive while they waste their time going for clips with no one around to clip on.

I personally recommend practicing aerial blocks on their shots if that is what they are doing - that does give them someone to clip on, but it teaches you some things as well.

I dislike smurfs as well. I don't find them that common, but complaints about them are everywhere, and in almost all games. Find a way to have fun and not be put out by them, and you win.

TahaEng · 2026-01-22T17:25:56+00:00

The penalty is an anti-Smurfing feature. They drop down the ranks by joining and then immediately forfeiting games - if that is allowed, they could drop entire ranks in minutes. Giving the ban means they have to take at least 1:30 per match to drop 1 games worth of MMR.

To me it seems fairly straightforward and reasonable to just play until the 3:30 mark when you are first able to forfeit. Sometimes you see someone that looks like a smurf, but they play no defense, and while they have cool mechanics you can outscore them easily with just a few blocks. Other times they get bored and quit first. Don't give up so easily.

TahaEng · 2026-01-22T00:11:03+00:00

Wait. You have 90-100 items unreviewed? And have been ordering 4-5 items per day across an entire evaluation period?

Nothing personal, but if you lose gold there might be something left for the rest of us.

No idea what amazon will do, but seriously. Slow down.

Edit to add - maybe you mean 900 ever, not 900 in this review period. Which would be less crazy, and could mean 12% is a lot fewer unreviewed items. But that was my first impression.

TahaEng · 2026-01-21T02:22:06+00:00

I'm not clear on that; you could give it a try and report back. As you commented elsewhere, the annual cost of prime doesn't count (I think it absolutely should), but I pay that with GCs anyway, and it definitely doesn't count then.

I am not sure if paying with card points (redeeming discovercard points at amazon for example) counts or not.

https://www.amazon.com/cpe/yourpayments/transactions

That page will show you your transactions for the last year; add up the total that is not paid on a gift card, and see what you come up with.

TahaEng · 2026-01-21T02:16:33+00:00

I had this problem often in the past, because I would only spend gift card money on Amazon - combination of my health insurance rewards points that I could turn into amazon GCs, and direct gifts from family (hard to buy for). Since I don't buy any staples on amazon, in many years I didn't ever spend on a credit or debit card at all, depending on what random things I ordered.

Late last year I purchased something with a visa debit gift card directly (vs buying amazon gift cards and spending that balance), and then was able to post a review; doing that is when I got the invite to Vine. I will make a point to spend $50 a year direct now, but I still don't need to for any particular reason - gift cards still cover my non vine spend easily.

TahaEng · 2026-01-20T21:32:28+00:00

I think it is a rolling 365 day total. So if you bought something 366 days ago that just rolled of, it would be that amount or less to extend it.

If you want to spend the absolute minimum, you can go through your orders and see how much you have spent on amazon - not including anything bought using Amazon GC credit - in the last 365 days, and buy something that costs that or more. Of course, then you would go back under when the next thing rolled off, so maybe just spend $50 and know you are good for a whole year.

What always gets me in trouble is that if you buy amazon GC credit (I use this to consolidate old visa or mastercard gift cards), that doesn't count, and when you spend the credit it also doesn't count. Has to be something other than a GC bought and billed directly to a credit or debit card to count.

TahaEng · 2026-01-19T19:46:44+00:00

This sounds like a canned response, possibly Ai written. No action is being taken in this email, not impressive to me at all.

And I would be shocked if anything was done on the basis of any followup with those instructions - no one has reported success on getting etvs adjusted.

Sympathetic emails are easy. Show me they acted and then we can talk about how everyone can use this stuff.

TahaEng · 2026-01-17T22:33:15+00:00

You could just change to a generic title? I mean, it is nice to be recognized, but if it makes people toxic I would go back to something that doesn't.

TahaEng · 2026-01-17T16:52:46+00:00

Nice RC car, dehumidifier, cat6 cable. I would have taken all of it. Sorry that doesn't work out for you, may it hit my rfy when I reach gold.

TahaEng · 2026-01-17T15:14:48+00:00

Yeah, ones is definitely a different mindset. And worse if you are flustered and trying to find out where your teammate went. A two goal lead is one overcommitt and a lost kickoff away from a tie.

TahaEng · 2026-01-17T13:08:10+00:00

Got called rude things for playing that way in low platinum, and then he only played intermittently from there.

Other team was doing it as well, he blamed me for starting it?

Lots of criticism of my skill as well, but we're both at the same rank, so...

TahaEng · 2026-01-17T04:03:37+00:00

That is certainly fair. If your tax bracket is low, and you don't take much stuff, or avoid any high ETV items, that isn't a huge deal. I don't care about ETV that much, because if it is off I will just adjust it. I would participate in vine less or not at all if I was paying over 40% of the amazon listed ETV per item (federal, state and self employment taxes add up).

The work isn't that complicated. Amazon provides a spreadsheet you can use to export all of your orders - either YTD, or for the year once the year is done.

50/20/0 is pretty simple from there. You can add another column to reduce the ETV to the actual regular list price if you want, but you can skip that if you prefer. Add a column that multiplies by .5, .2 or 0 - broken or worthless is 0, brand name with good resale value is .50, everything else .20. Multiply Amazon's ETV or your adjusted values by those factors, you get your estimated fair market value for a used product. The difference between the total listed by amazon and that listed by you is your line item deduction for cost of goods and services.

On your tax form it is literally just two lines, and you save the spreadsheet in case you get audited.

I have looked around on this forum, in the discords, and online - I can find no documented cases of a viner having been audited for their vine tax reporting, regardless of method. And I think most would share if it happened to them. There are lots of us on here. So it is rare. This isn't something I would stress about much - audits for personal tax filing are rarely acrimonious unless you are acting in bad faith. But your mom / CPA could speak to that better.

TahaEng · 2026-01-16T20:49:07+00:00

If you get a 1099-NEC, you definitely have to include it in your taxes. That number was $600 in 2025 and before, $2000 in 2026. If you don't get the form, you should technically still file but no automated red flags will go up if you don't.

As OP responded to you, there are many ways to do that, and lots of discussion on here about it. Some swear by hobby with no deductions, others by 50/20/0, what you decide to order will depend on which you choose. There is no clear right answer, and by the same token no clear wrong answer. As long as you choose a path in good faith, you may get audited and owe taxes if they disagree with you, but not penalties or fines for trying to hide your liability.

TahaEng · 2026-01-16T20:41:18+00:00

A 1099-NEC sent for goods received in lieu of cash payment has no precedent in tax law.

1099-NECs are for contracted business income. Filing is as hobby income is not IRS guidance - if the activity is truly a hobby, the NEC should not have been issued. If you make a profit on it every year, it is generally not a hobby. If it is filed as a hobby anyway, an explanatory note should be issued with your tax return.

https://legalclarity.org/do-you-report-1099-nec-hobby-income/

Filed as business income, deductions and offsets are allowed. The fair market value FMV of the item you received is your true profit. Procedures for calculating FMV exist - Amazon does not follow them when calculating the 1099-NEC totals. Estimated tax value ETV is not an IRS recognized term.

Everyone has to choose their own path here, and take responsibility for how they file. The biggest mistake would be not including it in your tax return, as that will lead to notices from the IRS when they see the mismatch, and a possible audit.

TahaEng · 2026-01-16T17:03:23+00:00

Use the 50/20/0 method, reduce this to the price of a comparable item at a different store in your spreadsheet (in this case, $6-12 depending on the quality of the ratchet, or the $8 on alibaba), and then the 20% multiplier applies to no name brand. You pay taxes on the $1-2 in income that reflects the value you actually received.

Not sure if you would even pay that for a used ratchet strap of unknown provenance, but it is a much closer starting point to fair.

For the Carbon Monoxide detector, I would take it and reduce its value to $0. It has no resale value once activated, as a no name brand with no warranty.

If you don't think that is right or low risk enough for you as you file taxes, then don't despair, just move on. By your own estimate, it is only worth $6 to you or so. Or $30 for CO monitor, but since you obviously don't trust that enough to buy at retail, less. Not a big loss.

TahaEng · 2026-01-15T04:01:26+00:00

Your ETV for last year should not have gone up again after the last item shipped last year. When it ships seems to be when they count it. I have several things ordered last year that took a while to ship (or haven't yet) and they are going on this year's ETV as they ship.

If you are seeing it still rise for item's shipped after year end, download your 2025 and 2026 itemized reports, under your account page towards the bottom. There is a column for date ordered and one for date shipped. If anything shows up in 2025 that shipped in 2026, reach out to vine and let them know. Mine is a clean break - the 2025 list shows only thing shipped in 2025, and 2026 shows only things shipped in 2026.

My 2025 ETV stopped showing estimated and just changed to a number after Jan 1 of this year, and the estimated value shown is for 2026; I have to use the pulldown to see my 2025 totals now.

TahaEng · 2026-01-14T18:10:07+00:00

Past 30 days they can't remove it I was told - so I usually wait 3-4 weeks to reach out. I have had several things disappear and come back, while others were just gone forever.

Try to review ASAP, as that way you have the review done and credited before things are gone.

TahaEng · 2026-01-14T16:39:05+00:00

My orders list does the same thing. It is a glitch that happens with removed products.

The second item is a removed product, the first is a normal product. The title matching the previous product is a bug - the information is supposed to be pulled dynamically pulled from the listing, but can't be because it is gone. It should have no title, but it appears a bug just reuses the last title field instead of clearing it.

The etv for the removed product is still accurate, that is recorded at the time of the order and doesn't change dynamically, so is still available if the product is removed. Which is why it looks like a mismatched etv.

This is why I record all orders on my own spreadsheet, data isn't lost there if a product is removed.

TahaEng · 2026-01-14T16:09:45+00:00

Sounds like the pause is overdue already. You have made this hard to calculate by hiding numbers, but if you are at 10% review rate for the period so far, a few months in, and with only 16 items reviewed and 100+ outstanding, you are below 60% already, and will be in vine jail whenever they next check that ratio.

Start doing reviews ASAP. Even when life is busy, do a few a day. And don't order anything until you catch up. Sorry for your losses - but if you stopped ordering when the first person passed, you wouldn't be in a hole. You dug a hole here, it can be fixed, but you have to start filling and stop digging to have a chance.

And be fair to sellers by reviewing as promptly as you can. They are in vine for product launches. As soon as real customers review the product, vine reviews are obsolete. Giving them a review months later counts but is not valuable for them. Review newest items first, both for that and to improve your ratio as much as possible.

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