How do I get rid of those "outbid" reminders

[johnyaya123]

Yeah, so I know this has been asked before, because that was the exact same title I found on a web search in THESE forums.  But when I click on it, I get this (as usual) unhelpful message from ebay:

"The content you are looking for has been archived. View related content below."

Below is 1131 pages of - nothing related to the content I am looking for.  Because, well, ebay, of course.  I suppose it's good to know that ebay is not about to slack in any area of unhelpfulness in any facet of their business model.  They are unhelpful everywhere.

Now, before any of you karma farmers gives me the smug but wrong answer, yes, I have gone through this process:

"My Ebay" --> "Communication Preferences" --> "Buying Activity" --> "Outbid" unchecked.

Now, I'm no genius, but even a simpleton like me would think that this would end the stream of

🔴Outbid. Raise your bid of ...

email messages clogging up my email box.  But then again, these are the same geniuses that keep changing my Shipping and Handling "ZIP Code:" field to a zip code from an address that I have not had for a year now.  Randomly.  Even though I keep entering a new zip code.  Every now and then I find that I have a vastly reduced list of auctions because they keep resetting the ZIP code to my old Hawaii ZIP code and then helpfully screening out every clown seller who can't or won't figure out how to ship to the 50th state.  Thanks for nothing, ebay.

[downunder-61]

AFAIK you can not stop particular eBay notifications.

You can turn them all off, but I don't think you have the option to pick and choose what you want to receive.

[kathiec]

Now, before any of you karma farmers gives me the smug but wrong answer

You've gotta love it when someone thinks the best way to get help is to insult the very people you're asking to give it to you.

[downunder-61]

I am off my game today, I did not read the entire post, evidentally I should have 😂

[johnyaya123]

I see that you have helped as much - I guess that's how you become a superstar.  You're probably just the kind of person I was thinking of.

[mudshark61369]

@johnyaya123,

Are you absolutely sure you properly changed the notification preferences properly?  When you went to Account > Acount Preferences > Communication Preferences > Buyer - Buying activity . Edit, and selected the notification preferences you wanted did you remember to click on the Save button?  Did you make the changes using the app or by logging in the classic way with your username and password?  The classic way works best.

As for your address change again Account > Personal Info - Addresses > Shipping address > Edit > Sign in screen >  Is your new address the Primary one which should show at the top of the list?  Any chance you accidentally entered your old zip starting with 96 when entering your new address? 

Try check `em before get all pilau!

[anasazirose]

What is a karma farmer?

[woodland_gnome]

"Communication Preferences" are for email notices only.  There used to be a way to turn off the onscreen notices but that page (or at least the link to it) got lost when they reformatted My eBay: Account about a year ago (unfortunately reformatting and losing important things in the reformat are far too common at eBay).

[johnyaya123]

Yes, absolutely sure - I'm looking at it again, right now, for like the 20th time.  I don't use "an app" for anything, just the plain vanilla web site just like when I first signed up for my ebay account 22 years ago.  And yes, my addresses are correct, which would explain why I receive 4 to 5 items per day.

I'm not 100% sure but it doesn't seem that I am getting EVERY outbid notice for EVERY auction.  It might be only SOME for SOME auctions.  Like there is a race condition between ebay getting excited to tell me that I've been out-bid, and ebay checking to see if I want to get an email telling me that I have been outbid.  In other words, more nondeterministic behavior from the software quagmire of ebay.

[johnyaya123]

They're the kind of people that sit on user forums like this, used by companies as a substitute for actual customer support, and try to answer every question based on their superficial knowledge, in order to collect "points" or "badges".    Like "Superstar".

Yes, some questions are common "FAQs" from people unable or unwilling to search for the same answer to the same question.  But sometimes there are problems that are not so common that even ebay's outsourced, offshore, discount "customer apologists" can't answer.

[johnyaya123]

Yeah, got it.  As I described the problem, I do know the difference between "on screen" and "in my email box."  I have successfully defeated "on screen" notifications. For the time being.  Because I have had the same email settings for years, and only recently have these outbid notifications begun been dropping into my email box.  As I have mentioned in another response, it does not seem like I am getting 100% of the outbid notifications.  I recently found a seller for some memory DIMMS, he posts a dozen new items a day starting at one cent, so I low bid on them to keep my eye on them.  They are all quickly bid up to a few dollars afterwards.  So I don't think I'm getting all outbid notification, it's just that I'm being outbid more frequently than usual, and it seems like SOME notifications are slipping out when they should not be.

[mudshark61369]

@johnyaya123,

Hey, we have to ask, since sometimes it is like an appliance not working. You check every thing, but the circuit breaker. 

There is one way to stop getting outbid notices, and that is to only place one bid, for the most you are willing to pay, as late in the auction as you can.  If you snipe in the last seconds you will not get one.  If you bid in the last couple of minutes you may get one.  

"Like there is a race condition between ebay getting excited to tell me that I've been out-bid, and ebay checking to see if I want to get an email telling me that I have been outbid. In other words, more nondeterministic behavior from the software quagmire of ebay". 

Since ebay is neck deep in "intuitive" search results. You may get the notices on items you have searched for a lot. Their thinking being that you want to know if you've been out bid.

[dryophelia]

I don’t understand why one would come to a karma farm with a question, only to berate the karma farmer for being willing to provide an answer. 

What a magnificent show of character. 

[johnyaya123]

I'm sorry, I thought that I might accidentally get a response from an adult.  My mistake.  This is the reason I don't bother with this forum very often.  Twenty two years with ebay and I have posted, what 16 times- and  5 of them are here?  Yeah, that's my character, avoiding karma farmers.  But nine feedback on ebay, and 10,000+ posts on an ebay forum.  LOL.  You are the poster child for ebay karma farming.  I see that these forums are not about solving ebay issues; they're about karma farmers and their egos.

[johnyaya123]

"Their thinking being that you want to know if you've been out bid."

Well clearly my indicating in my preferences that I do not, in fact, wish to be bothered with outbid notices, must be ambiguous to ebay.  "Are you reeeeeallly sure about that?"  Well, yes, yes I am.

And yeah, I know all about sniping.  I operate GPS stratum 1 NTP servers to keep my local network time aligned to ebay's.