I’m a new seller on Amazon and I wanted to share this experience and get advice. I enrolled my product into Amazons Vine program - which is where you can get honest reviews in exchange for a free product. I then joined a vine social media group (I’m not a viner, but wanted to share that the product is enrolled) and I naively responded to a post where someone was open to reviewing new vine enrolled products. This individual offered to provide an honest review of my product…. After seeing my product (I sent the link of what it was), he then said the comission was very high for this. I said NO THANK YOU - unfortunately, I don’t think his first language is English because he then shared a screenshot of the order. He also said that he claimed a vine unit and also made a “real” paid order… I was …. Shocked?! I said, please cancel because I’m not going to pay you comission. I was then harassed throughout the day and night - not only that, I also had 7 sales in a short time span (hours).
Please bear in mind that this is a new product, no reviews and I’ve sold 2 so far. I’m at a particularly vulnerable time as a new brand.
Low and behold, I find another message in my spam folder from someone else, with screenshot of all these other order numbers… I told them to stop harassing me and to contact Amazon customer service for support on cancelling their orders. All of their orders are in “pending status” - except for 1 normal and 1 vine unit.
They didn't like my response - I received more threats that they will share my product with their extensive team and give me a ton of terrible reviews. They used horrible vulgar language towards me and were awful. I ended up blocking them and reporting this to Amazon (over the phone). I have screenshots and videos of the messages - so at least I have evidence of the abuse.
These people worked together to target me. They were very experienced scammers. I am not sure where they live, but they either have a network of buyers in the US or they have a network of dodgy payment methods because most of their orders are still pending.
I am now anxiously waiting for terrible reviews that could tank my business.
I was advised to report it through the “abuse by buyers” form. Unfortunately, the form does not recognize my order number, or the vine order. What else can I do? Report the fraud and harassment to the authorities?
Advice needed
