u/DiscoverMyBusiness

Hey everyone, I wanted to share a crazy situation I’m currently dealing with regarding Instagram/Meta, DMCA strikes, and a viral licensing agency. If you are a creator who reposts or curates content, you need to read this because these agencies rely on you not knowing copyright law.

The Setup: Recently, our business Instagram account got hit with multiple copyright strikes all at once from a licensing agency called BVIRAL (via their enforcement arm, IPSHIELD). Meta’s automated system instantly flagged me as a "repeat infringer" and deactivated my account which we run ads on for over a decade.

BVIRAL emailed me demanding a $4,000 for 3 videos "settlement" to retract the strikes. They told me they had "registration documentation" with the U.S. Copyright Office and that they don't negotiate. Pay the $4,000, or lose the account forever.

The Loophole (How I caught them): I asked them for proof of their copyright. They sent me their U.S. Copyright Office documents, hoping I would just see the official seal and get scared. But when I actually read the paperwork, their claim status was listed as "PENDING."

How I fought back: Because they only had pending applications, they had zero legal leverage to actually take us to federal court. Their only leverage was bullying me with the Instagram account suspension. So, I went over their head.

I filed formal DMCA Counter-Notices directly with Meta. Under the DMCA, when you file a counter-notice, the reporting party has exactly 10 to 14 business days to prove to Meta that they have filed a federal lawsuit against you. If they don't, Meta is legally required to restore your content.

In my appeal to Meta, I literally attached BVIRAL's own "Pending" paperwork and stated: "The reporting party only holds pending applications and lacks the legal standing to file the federal lawsuit required to uphold this DMCA takedown."

Where I am now: I am currently waiting out the 14-day clock. Because Meta's bot deactivated my account for the simultaneous strikes, I had to reply to the deactivation email letting the human IP team know that the underlying strikes are legally disputed.

Since BVIRAL can't legally sue me with a pending application (and wouldn't spend $20k in lawyer fees over an IG reel anyway), they will be forced to let the 14 days expire. Once it does, Meta has to clear the strikes and restore my account.

The Takeaway: If a licensing agency hits you with a strike and demands thousands of dollars, ask for their issued U.S. Copyright certificates. If they only have a "Pending" application, they are bluffing. Don't let them extort you, and don't be afraid to use the DMCA Counter-Notice process to call their bluff.

Has anyone else dealt with BVIRAL or IPSHIELD before? I’ll post an update once the 14 days are up and my account is restored!

TL;DR: Copyright agency hit me with strikes and demanded $4,000 to save my IG account. I realized their copyrights were only "pending," meaning they can't legally sue me. I filed DMCA counter-notices using their own paperwork against them, and now I'm waiting out the 14-day clock for Meta to restore my account.

Historically, Meta has been a solid channel for us, but lately, it feels like the lead quality has fallen off a cliff. We are still getting leads coming through, but the vast majority of them are completely unqualified, tire-kickers, or businesses that have absolutely zero budget for high-ticket services. It feels like we are just burning cash on junk volume.

We are trying to clean up our clients URL structure for SEO and overall aesthetic purposes. We want blog posts to sit directly at the root domain, like this: mainwebsite.com/post-name/ However, by default, Shopify forces the blog and article structure into the URL, so it always ends up looking like this: www.mainwebsite.com/blogs/news/post-name/

I know Shopify has a strictly enforced URL routing system (/products/, /collections/, /pages/, /blogs/), but I am wondering if anyone has found a reliable workaround for this?

We just started using Instantly for cold email outreach and turned on the warmup feature. The problem is our primary inbox is now completely flooded with all those automated warmup emails - not , but ours someone's ... (the ones with the random tracking codes like C0QGJT5 in the subject lines). Did we miss a step during the initial setup?

Any help or filter setups would be hugely appreciated!

Hey everyone, we're setting up an integration for a client and need some advice. Which app is better for order routing and catalog management: Amazon MCF and Buy with Prime or the CedCommerce Amazon Channel.... keep in mind price is important for this startup =)

Which option is the easiest to use, scales well, and won't break the bank?

A few weeks ago, Shopify rolled out that new feature allowing direct selling and checkout natively within AI LLMs. Before this update, we were actually seeing a solid, consistent stream of sales and traffic being driven to our store directly from ChatGPT. But almost immediately after the new Shopify integration went live, our sales from AI channels absolutely plummeted. It's like a switch got flipped.

Has anyone else experienced a massive drop in ChatGPT-driven sales over the last few weeks?

Would love to hear what you guys are seeing on your end.

I’ve been doing some competitive research and decided to audit the Meta profiles and ad accounts of 20 local businesses in my area where I live...

I went in expecting the organic pages to be terrible, but I was actually surprised by the results. However, the deeper I dug into the paid ads side, the more of a nightmare it became.

Here is the exact breakdown of the 20 businesses I audited (framing, dental, roofing, windows replacement, handy man):

• 16 out of 20 had surprisingly good, active organic profiles
• 11 out of 20 were actively running ads on Facebook/Instagram.
• 4 out of those 11 did not even have the Meta Pixel installed on their website... wtf almost half of the businesses spending money on ads LOCALLY have zero way of tracking conversions, retargeting website visitors, or feeding data back to the algorithm.

But here is the part that actually makes me mad.

Out of the 4 businesses running ads with no Pixel, 3 of them are paying a marketing agency and the other 1 are paying a freelancer to handle their ads. I looked at the actual ads these guru's were running. Out of the group, only 1 agency and freelancer was actually writing good copy and designing decent creatives with lead from submissions.

The other agencies... Absolute, generic garbage learned from a coach or guru... none of this agencies have even a google map profiles - no wonder why....

Worse yet, some of the claims in the ad copy are so misleading that if a consumer actually submitted a complaint, the business could face massive FTC issues and get absolutely crushed... is any attorney here.... is whistleblower on misleading advertising paying good?

Has anyone actually successfully broken out of this completely f***ed up Seller Support loop? I’m convinced I am talking to a wall of bots pointing fingers at each other.

My listing got taken down for a restricted product policy violation (pesticide claims). I have the correct EPA Establishment Number and the clean text ready to go, but I am currently stuck in an infinite loop of bureaucratic hell trying to update the listing.

Here is exactly how the last 10 interactions have gone:

1. Seller Performance: "You must update your detail page to remove the prohibited claims before we can reinstate your ASIN."
2. Me: "Okay, I'm trying, but the ASIN is deactivated so the edit page is locked and my changes won't save."
3. Seller Performance: "If you cannot edit it, please contact the Catalog Support team to update the detail page for you."
4. Me (to Catalog Support): "Please update my title and bullets to this clean text so I can get reinstated."
5. Catalog Support: "We cannot overwrite or change this detail page because the ASIN is currently deactivated by Seller Performance. You need to ask them to reinstate it first."
6. Me (to Seller Performance): "Catalog Support can't change it because it's inactive. Please temporarily reinstate it for 24 hours so they can update the info."
7. Seller Performance: "We cannot reinstate this ASIN until you update the detail page."

Its been going for over 30 days!!!!

Has anyone survived this specific circle of hell? Do I just keep opening cases until a human reads it?

We have a proven offer with strong unit economics, and we recently set up our affiliate program. We are offering a very generous, strictly commission-based payout (high percentage MRR). We do have few consultants and bus developers works great, we want to scale program with Influencers and possibly coaches, any thoughts?

We are dealing with this failure team t Amazon Seller Support and Amazon Logistics teams. An entire shipping container of our client's inventory was confiscated because Amazon's internal logistics team failed to properly submit the required container documentation. It is unacceptable that our client is being penalized for Amazon's administrative negligence... they did refund a shipping fee for a container but they were not refunding the $$$ for actually container of goods!

We were dealing with this problem for over 2 years now (for ourselfs and some of the local clients). We are seeing real customer reviews get ghosted on both GoogleMyBusiness and Yelp... but when some scammer leaves 1 star or 4 star it keeps on the profile...

The spam filters across all these local SEO platforms are completely out of control right now. Here is what we finally figured out: direct review links are triggering the spam filters. For whatever reason, when a customer clicks a direct link sent via text or email, the algorithm seems to view it as suspicious or incentivized, and over50% reviews just disappears into the void...

but its still showing on the client account side that she/he left review to us...

The best workaround we've found simply STOP sending direct review links entirely. Instead, change your process to ask the customer to do it organically:

- Ask them to open the Google Maps (or Yelp) app.

- Have them manually search for your business name.

- Have them click on your profile and leave the review from there.

It takes one extra step for the customer, but it mimics natural user behavior. Ever since we switched to having them search for it manually, the reviews have actually been sticking.

Good luck! and let us know what was working for you, or if any of you found other solution?