Has Anyone Heard of Amazon Vine?

[Amp360]

I have been a customer of Amazon for years. I pretty much buy anything I need on there because it's easy. I always make sure to leave a review so that people shopping for something can get some more information. For example, I bought a Mac Studio for my Studio a few weeks ago. I wanted the display to go with it but it was $1400 so I tracked down this little box that lets you use the old 30" Cinema Display perfectly.

Anyway, today I get an email from Amazon asking me to join Vine. I clicked the link and it asked me for some personal information so I figured it was a scam. My friend's wife works for Amazon in Seattle so I sent her a message and she told me it was 100% legit.

So I signed up and basically, you get free stuff and agree to write a review. To start all the items are worth $100 or less and then when you do a bunch they make you gold and the value is unlimited. I ordered a guitar cable that is selling for $50, one of those door locks that opens with an iPhone ($99), and an alarm clock with a radio. Tomorrow I can go back on and order three more things.

From what I've read/been told you can't request to join and people are selected at random based on the quality of their reviews. I never knew this existed.

There are no shipping charges and you get to keep everything. I guess the sellers pay Amazon a few thousand dollars to put their products in the program so they get some reviews.

Is anyone else a member of this?

 

[ADP]

Nothing's free. I avoid Amazon like the plague.

 

[J.D.]

I know what Vine is. I haven't been invited, but if I was invited I'd definitely accept.

 

[J T]

My wife has been getting lots and lots of stuff from Amazon vine for a while. The stuff is free but you are responsible for tax value. You'll get a note from the IRS on the total value of what you ordered for the year. You have to put the tax value for everything on your taxes.

You just have to write a review after you get it.

They have everything from kitchen stuff, food, furniture, to snowblowers. Most of the stuff she ordered is good stuff and I have actually seen an Epson printer she ordered appear in stores for over three hundred bucks. She gut a queen size mattress from there too. We got it for free and pay only the tax value in the tax year.

Be aware that some things Amazon says quantity one, but they delivered one CASE which was like 12 or 24 or whatever.

Amazon delivers two or three packages here per day. They know this address pretty well I suppose. Maybe they should just extend a conveyer belt right to this address.

Yeah the stuff is good stuff. Some name brands just want people to try out their new items. It's easy to fill you home up with stuff from them.

 

[jb_abides]

The bar to get invited seems prohibitively high for someone not making it a 'thing'... thoughts?

And perhaps I need another account, like 'Vigneron-Amazon' to start writing reviews. I avoid anything tied to my personal account because of PII privacy concerns. Maybe a business account backed with an LLC.

 

[Amp360]

I just started getting things today. So far, I've gotten some nice stuff. Right now, I'm working on two master's degrees (an MBA in Data Analytics and my MM) because it's my off-season, and I enjoy taking classes. It looks like I have about ten more reports to write for Amazon