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Getting ready to reapply to Verified Merchant Program for the 3rd time

susansoaps
Just visiting
Labels (1)

@PinterestBrad 

I know you can't give specifics but maybe you can tell me if I am on the right track.  I have applied twice for the VMP and been rejected twice.  Both my catalog and my tags have a green checkmark and my shop is showing on my Pinterest page. 

Before I reapplied the 2nd time I reached out to support and received this message:

Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to offer appeals or specific reasons on denied Merchant Guidelines. Taking a look at your account, your descriptions, Shipping and Returns pages, and saved Pins all look compliant to our Marketplace guidelines

Unfortunately, I was still rejected again. The message I received from support was:

Hi Susan's Soaps & More,

Unfortunately, your business was not approved to be part of our Verified Merchant Program.

Disapproved verified merchant:

Susan's Soaps & More

susansoaps.com

 

The message showing under Rejection notice in Pinterest is this:

Account does not meet the brand reputation criteria for verification

So based on the above the only thing I have come up with is that they are not happy with my profile name being Susan's Soaps & More when my website is susansoaps.com

I have changed my Profile name to Susan's Soaps.

My date to be able to reapply is October 24th.

Do you have any other suggestions where I need to try and make my account name better match my website url?

Do you think I am on the right track here?

I already have my catalog and Shop tab showing but I would really like that blue checkmark both for brand credibility and additional analytics.

I hope you are able to provide some additional insights for me.

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

Susan Svec

Susan's Soaps & More (aka Susan's Soaps)

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7 Replies
PinterestBrad
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Susan,


You're right, unfortunately I'm not able to provide any specifics on what directly is causing the disapproval or what exactly would need to change with your business/website to be approved by the Policy team.

However, you do appear to be on the right track with the updates you referenced to account name & url. I can't guarantee that is the exact issue that was causing the disapproval or if you'll be approved during the next review as the final decision is up to the Policy team and they look at many data points during their review.

All the best!
Brad

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susansoaps
Just visiting

@PinterestBrad Hi again,

Well I was rejected a 3rd time for the VMP.  Sigh!  

My thought at this point is that on my profile I had my company name plus a brief mention of what I do -- ie.  Susan's Soaps l Handmade, all natural soaps & skin care.  After looking at the VMP approved listings I could find - it appears that they just have their company name listed.  So I have changed my display name to just be Susan's Soaps & More.

I have tried to search for VMP companies to verify my conclusion.  However, apparently that is not a search term that Pinterest recognizes.  Do you have any suggestions regarding a good way for me to pull up a larger number of VMP companies so I could see if my hypothesis is correct?

Another thing I have heard is that companies doing ads and working with an ad account manager have been able to get some assistance getting approved that way.  Do you automatically get an ad account manager when you place ads or do you have to reach a certain spend for that to happen?

Do you have any other suggestions to offer regarding the approval process?

Thanks for your help!

Regards,

Susan Svec

Susan's Soaps & More

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PinterestBrad
Moderator
Moderator

Hi Susan,

 

Unfortunately, we aren't able to provide any more context on the specific disapproval reason or offer any more advice on what updates are required. I know this isn't the response you want to hear from me and confident you're just looking to get your business the badge. However, this process has continued to evolve this year as we've continued to grow the VMP program. If the process updates in the future, we'll be sure to share all details that are available and help you get onboarded to the program at that time.

1 Kudo
smiledrinkwareusa
New member

Mr. Moderator,

Do you feel good about your response?  WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE TREATED LIKE THIS? Pinterest is going to NOT approve people but they are going to keep the reason for not approving a SECRET.

I think you are so worthless and Pinterest is SOOOOO worthless.  There are SOOOO many other social media platforms that DON'T treat their customers less than dirt.  I will be disconnecting my account today and will never go on the Pinterest site again and I will make sure and spread the work about the most awful customer service in this world.  Make sure and press the "Accept as Solution" button above.  I'm sure you can understand.

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smiledrinkwareusa
New member

I hope one day you are treated the way you treat your customers because obviously you haven't walked in those shoes yet, or you would NOT find it acceptable to work in a department who wants to treat their customers like absolute crap.  You want your customers to guess what the problem is?  Your company disapproves and then your customer can guess if their Pinterest doesn't like their company name.  Oh...maybe Pinterest doesn't like the color of their logo.  Oh.  maybe Pinterest doesn't like the font of the text that was used.  Oh, maybe they want the logo on the website to be centered instead of on the left.  Oh, maybe they don't like it that the phone number's area code is 619.  Oh, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe....maybe this reason I'm not approved.  Maybe that reason I'm not approved.  Are you phucking kidding??????  This is what you expect your customers to go through because they wanted to have a verified merchant account with Pinterest???? BELIEVE ME....I DON'T EVER WANT TO DO BUSINESS WITH PINTEREST.  YOU ALL ARE THE WORST COMPANY OUT THERE.  

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joopinfashion
Just visiting

Hi, just being curious, have you been approved for the VMP after the third apply? 

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shopfocaldecor
Posts regularly

@susansoaps @smiledrinkwareusa @joopinfashion @PinterestBrad @PinterestLucy @PinterestPeter 

I suggest that anyone that comes across this post check out my other post here: Copyright Issues and URGENT Verified Merchant Account Issue

There is a reason Pinterest won't tell you why your account was denied Verified Merchant Status: verification is shady, inconsistent, and rotten.

Our team has tracked down multiple websites that stole copyrighted content directly from our website. Pinterest almost immediately approved this criminal group's new websites for VM status. Furthermore, we have reason to believe someone or some group at Pinterest is directly benefitting from providing VM status to illegitimate websites (Taking bribes? Selling data on legitimate and successful stores to bad actors overseas?).

Here is a snippet from my other post, but I recommend reading all of it:

Our team has made additional disturbing findings on Pinterest related to Verified Merchant status.

We have since found two accounts, @XdecorShop and @TidecorShopp, both of which are verified merchants, and share the SAME ADDRESS listed on galioo.com. To remind you, we originally reported Galioo for stealing our entire product collection including all of our copyrighted work. Pinterest had also approved Galioo (@galioolighting) as a Verified Merchant. See below that the address on both xdecor.us and tidecor.pro match the address listed on Galioo.com:

shopfocaldecor_0-1657649492009.png

 

shopfocaldecor_1-1657649492016.png

 

Not only do these websites share the same address as Galioo, but they also have domains that were created incredibly recently. @XdecorShopp became a Verified Merchant in under a month and @TidecorShopp received Verified Merchant status in UNDER 8 DAYS:

shopfocaldecor_2-1657649491803.png

 

shopfocaldecor_3-1657649491794.png

 

This timeline similarly matches how quickly galioo.com received Verified Merchant status. @galioo achieved Verified Merchant status within a maximum 17 DAYS of their domain existing:

shopfocaldecor_4-1657649491812.png

 

Here is a post from Galioo's Facebook page letting the world know they received Verified Merchant status on Pinterest on July 27, 2021:

shopfocaldecor_5-1657649491787.png

 

 

@TidecorShop also received Verified Merchant Status without ever creating a pin:

shopfocaldecor_6-1657649491809.png

 

 

xdecor.us and tidecor.pro also EXCLUSIVELY advertise / connect with potential customers via Pinterest. Neither website lists any other Social Media or sales channels on their respective websites. I have reason to believe someone or group at Pinterest is involved with these illegitimate accounts and businesses considering the speed at which they receive VM status, and the clear Pinterest Merchant policy violations that are littered throughout these websites. Someone is clearly ignoring the issues with these websites and verifying them anyway. Pinterest is hurting both consumers that use the platform and legitimate businesses by ignoring these egregious issues.

This is extremely suspicious and suggests that perhaps something else is going on at Pinterest akin to what happened at Amazon where legitimate sellers were blocked from the platform while parasite seller accounts flourished and were promoted by rogue Amazon employees , while legitimate merchants were stonewalled, as we are now:

shopfocaldecor_7-1657649491877.png

 

Something is rotten at Pinterest. It is clear that illegitimate overseas scraper websites are being approved as Verified Merchants in incredibly short timelines and without regard for the policies laid out by Pinterest. Someone or some group at Pinterest must be involved with Verifying these illegitimate accounts given these incredibly suspicious circumstances. I have reason to believe someone or group at Pinterest is also involved with removing our account's VM status. Again, our account was stripped of VM status out of the blue and without prior notification, and now Pinterest will not provide us with a concrete reason as to why we lost VM status. Pinterest also has not taken action against websites with clear VM violations (see previous post from 6/28), and continues to approve websites associated with a group that has already illegally infringed upon our website's copyrighted content.

I encourage your team to take a look at the articles regarding what happened at Amazon where legitimate merchants were deplatformed and stonewalled while parasite merchants were promoted. There are simply too many obvious and egregious inconsistencies in regards to how Pinterest's Verified Merchant program is being conducted to believe that Pinterest is acting in the best interests of legitimate businesses/accounts and Pinterest shoppers/users.

shopfocaldecor_8-1657649492020.png

 

This issue must be escalated on Pinterest's end.

 

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