eBay

thines · ‎03-08-2015

I follow a number of things. When a new listing that matches any of my key words is added, I get a little picture of this item. There is a small "X" in the upper right of the picture that can be clicked on if I'm not interested in the item.. It used to be that when I clicked on that "X" the picture went away. And stayed away. But not any more. Now even if I click the "X" the pictures reappear the next time I come to Ebay. There must be 100 picture of things I have no interest in. I can't make the things go away. Anyone else have this problem? Is it an error or another stupidity from Ebay? Perhaps thinking that iof they badger people with things they might like sooner or later they'll bid on a few.

Terence Hines

jaywild · ‎03-09-2015

thines...

eBay has a very silly sales mentality, born at the middle-management level, you know those guys in any organization that are terrified of losing their jobs if they don’t keep coming up with new ideas. Doesn’t matter if the ideas stink, or are useless, or drive customers away…as long as the schlub with the bright idea can convince someone higher up (equally myopic) that it is brilliant then his job is secure—for a week maybe. Then he has to come up with another new idea.

You are right. eBay policy now is to bombard buyers relentlessly with garbage totally unrelated to their customary purchases, in the insane hope that someone will be zombie enough to bid on things they have no interest in. I buy “October 5” postal history items, and after each successful win the stream of totally unrelated junk begins at the bottom of the screen, the side of the screen, even sometimes at the top of the screen. You can’t defeat this. eBay is Exhibit A proving the maxim “You can’t make anything idiot-proof because they keep coming up with better idiots.”

sheryll*net · ‎03-09-2015

Hmmm, jaywild, I have been seeing totally unrerlated junk offerings recently. Then I noticed that I was "following" 3 weird things. I since purged them down to 1, and am no longer plagued by them.

malolo · ‎03-09-2015

I love it when I buy something unique, and at the close of auction eBay tells me I can sell it! Or buy one just like it. Then I'm offered abunch of things which I have no clue how it's determined what I'm shown.

Once I bought some drip irrigatiopn supplies from a company in Oregon and from then on every Youtube, google page there was an ad for that company. I finally emailed them and said that if they were only getting ads to people who had already bought, they weren't getting their money's worth. They thanked me and I noticed very quickly that those ads stopped.

eBay hasn;t a clue what I'm interested in because most of the time the reason I'm buying is in the images, not the seller's description! Many sellers don;t have a clue either!

antonius-ra · ‎03-09-2015

I pay as little attention to Ebay as possible anymore. If I need something usually a gift I'll have a look see, otherwise I ain't shopping.

As bad as Ebay has become they are almost saintly to a place I found from an article from CNN (no they can't possibly no what they are promoting,can they)

If you haven't yet, checkout Quibids. Whatever you do don't waste your $60 for 100 1cent bids. Just watch whats happening and you should be completely disgusted. They should be drawn and quarterd

billsey · ‎03-09-2015

The way I read the Quibids info is you pay $0.60 to place a bid, if you place a second bid you pay another $0.60, and so on. It doesn't matter what the bid amount is or if you win the lot, you still pay for each bid placed. The minimum purchase is 100 bids for $60.00. Quite a racket! Kind of like eSnipe except on steroids. 🙂

antonius-ra · ‎03-10-2015

Bill, You buy bid points for 60 cents each. However each bid point you use only increases the price by 1 cent. Every time a bid is made the clock resets to 15 seconds. Say something is bid up to $10.00 they get $600. For example an $800 retail Flat screen will get bid up to around $40-$50. They get $4,000-5,000 and buy one for around $400-500. They don't even have to handle the merchandise.

wolfb · ‎03-10-2015

Yep, it's a fools game. I can't believe auction sites like that can stay in business, even with the "buy-in" of $60 to sucker the bidders in. I doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the scam. Say you assume "I'll get my minimum contingent of bids and wait till an item gets to a few dollars and then throw in a one or two bids and win it with my few bids" Once again, false logic. The guy who already spent his 100 bids and possibly many more isn't going to let the item go for one more bid. A vicious cycle designed to dupe the unsuspecting. Actually, when you think about it, it's a pretty good scheme. Not illegal, but certainly unethical. Stay away!

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Addressing all of eBays showing you items that you have no interest in is king of annoying. If you kill all your "searches you follow" I suspect that would be cut to a minimum. It really doesn't bother me much as all you have to do is got to your "my eBay" and that takes care of it, for me at least. Cheers! Wolf-==-