Unwanted Brand New "Recently Viewed" Emails and Phone / Windows Push Notifications Removal

[dragonsi2]

1.) I've been on Ebay for over 26 years now, since 1997 or 98, when Paypal was required for each transaction etc.  Ebay has always been a casual experience for me. I'm a calm, mellow person, and I may casually view items, but may take a few weeks or months to finally decide to buy something, or else I purchase it immediately. Sometimes I stay off of Ebay for a few months at a time since I'm not in need of my specific categories: video games, books, men's clothing or men's cologne.  

2.) Apparently, Ebay just changed notifications recently and FORCED "Recently Viewed" emails and phone push notifications onto me, and have them automatically set to "ON", against my wishes. It's actually working AGAINST Ebay for me. They are passively aggressively attempting to remind us of our CASUAL viewing habits, to help the seller sell their item, whereas, I take this VERY OFFENSIVELY, and now completely lost interest in these items. If they would have added this feature in the "OFF" position, and sent an email giving us a choice to turn this ON, I would have declined, NOW, I have to go out of my way to ask for help in turning these off and completely lost interest because of these offensive unwanted reminders.

2.) My old phone, which I retired as an "in use phone and only use it for WiFi games", correctly alerts me at the 15 minute mark when items that i placed a small, tentative bid on days ago, is about to expire. But my current phone does not. I have to carry both phones with me in order to alert me to ending auctions. I went under app notifications and they both look the same selections, so I am confused, what am I missing to setup? Also, as a side note, I have never once accepted any webpage push notifications among the 100s of websites I use. Does Ebay have Windows website push alerts available for end of auctions notifications so I do not have to rely on email or phone notifications? I have resorted to actual alarm clocks over the years, in order to watch the last few minutes of important auctions I definitely wanted to win.  

3.) When I do 100s of general searches, the default is set to "Soonest Time Expiring", but I don't care about that, I want to default every single search to "Lowest Available Price". I don't care if the auction is ending in 9 1/2 days, 5 days, or 10 minutes. I have no problem throwing out a very low bid to put it on my bidding list instead of my watch list, but 5 years ago, Ebay said "No, there is no way to change the default set by us."  I do know that if you save a search to your "Saved Search" list, it saves your preferences "US listings only, Lowest Price First." etc, but I would prefer to set a default setting instead of forcing me to save a casual search to set it to lowest price every time.

Can anyone help answer any of my 4 questions (with #2 being a double question)? I am over 50 now, fairly intelligent computer programmer, but Ebay makes some really DUMB decisions by forcing notices on us, instead of having a popup, after not visiting for weeks or months, letting us decide and directing us exactly where to optionally turn new notices on and off.

[shipscript]

@dragonsi2 

Every once in a great while, eBay will do something that resets basic defaults. Resetting buyer-notifications is likely one of those. Mellow people just shrug, fix it, and move on.

In general, the fresh-faced eBay programmers are moving forward to address the next generation. More specifically, that generation is glued to smart phones. But eBay still recognizes that there is a desktop customer base, so there is some compromise. That compromise is the root of many site issues and inconsistencies.

Search parameters should be fully in control of the buyer.  eBay can start with a most-used recommendation for the new and clueless, but then the buyers' preferences should be honored. As a buyer, you can contribute to that specification.

To make recommendations regarding sticky settings, you will find that most eBay pages have a feedback, comments, tell-us-what-you-think link, or a floating widget. Use those features to let the program managers know how your eBay experience is affecting your use of the site.