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Thread: eBay Being a Little Over Ambitious

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    eBay Being a Little Over Ambitious

    Not sure if this is a new thing or if it is happening to others, but this is the first time for me. I read on this Forum about a horn for sale/auction on eBay and there was a link to it. I think the listing on eBay had it as "Besson 3-Valve Compensating Euphonium. Well used but plays well". I clicked the link to eBay and took a look at the pictures in the ad.

    Well, today I get an email from eBay with the title "Besson 3-Valve Compensating Euphonium. Well used but plays well. is ending soon, John". So, it now seems that eBay decided to send me an email because it said in their email that I had browsed this item.

    I don't know about others, but I am not a happy camper getting unsolicited messages from eBay informing me of ending auctions/sales on something I just looked at. I felt I had just walked into a car dealership! I already don't do Facebook, haven't for years. I may have to add eBay.
    John Morgan
    The U.S. Army Band (Pershing's Own) 1971-1976
    Adams E3 Custom Series Euphonium, 1956 B&H Imperial Euphonium,
    1973 F. E. Olds & Son Studio Model T-31 Baritone
    Adams TB1 Tenor Trombone, Yamaha YBL-822G Bass Trombone
    Year Round Except Summer:
    Kingdom of the Sun (KOS) Concert Band, Ocala, FL (Euphonium)
    KOS Brass Quintet (Trombone, Euphonium)
    Summer Only:
    Rapid City Municipal Band, Rapid City, SD (Euphonium)
    Rapid City New Horizons Band (Euphonium)

  2. #2
    You might be able to disable any newsletters or email notifications on the eBay website (or the email itself) to stop that. I understand the frustration because the advertising does get annoying The same thing happens with me on of course Facebook, Ticketmaster, and so on. But usually you can disable those notifications as they do annoy the majority of people.

  3. #3
    Has happened to me as well John, several times now, will look at disabling as suggested by aloliva.

  4. #4
    Interesting, because I never get such emails and I browse eBay every day (mostly to watch for stuff to list here if it is interesting enough). The only time I get emails is when I have clicked the link to "add to watch list" for an item.

    I just looked at "My eBay" -> Account -> Communication Preferences and saw the screen below. It appears I have previously unsubscribed in the top section (boxed in red) and that must override all the other choices that continue down the page.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Dave Werden (ASCAP)
    Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
    Adams Artist (Adams E3)
    Alliance Mouthpiece (DC3)
    YouTube: dwerden
    Facebook: davewerden
    Twitter: davewerden
    Instagram: davewerdeneuphonium

  5. #5
    Join Date
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    Summerfield, Florida Sturgis, SD (summers)
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    Hmmm. I went to eBay and My eBay. I looked at the "bazillion" choices for notifications (really) and I have "unsubscribed" checked as you do, Dave. Mind you, I have gone to eBay a bunch of times to look at auctions (from your Forum as I did on the one above) and HAVE NOT ever got this kind of email. I didn't change anything, but something must have changed for me. There was an option to unsubscribe from this message in the email that I did receive from eBay, which I promptly did.
    John Morgan
    The U.S. Army Band (Pershing's Own) 1971-1976
    Adams E3 Custom Series Euphonium, 1956 B&H Imperial Euphonium,
    1973 F. E. Olds & Son Studio Model T-31 Baritone
    Adams TB1 Tenor Trombone, Yamaha YBL-822G Bass Trombone
    Year Round Except Summer:
    Kingdom of the Sun (KOS) Concert Band, Ocala, FL (Euphonium)
    KOS Brass Quintet (Trombone, Euphonium)
    Summer Only:
    Rapid City Municipal Band, Rapid City, SD (Euphonium)
    Rapid City New Horizons Band (Euphonium)

  6. You could set a filter in your email account to automatically delete unwanted emails. I've done this with my Gmail account, and it's very effective.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by jkircoff View Post
    You could set a filter in your email account to automatically delete unwanted emails. I've done this with my Gmail account, and it's very effective.
    This is the ultimatum that I usually take if they are websites continue to somehow send emails.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Central North Carolina
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    2,369
    People don't realize that a huge number of companies (almost all, to some degree?) are doing this sort of thing. My wife and I joke about all the commercials on TV now about "AI / big data / in the cloud" -- in large part because since about 1997 until I retired in 2009 I was doing fundamental commercial work using AI and big data (and most people have no idea how pervasive and capable this sort of software now is). On TV it seems like either marketing hype, some sort of magic, or futuristic science fiction stuff. It's not. There are a LOT of very smart large scale AI applications in the world that no one ever hears about (unless you're in the industry, into the publications, go to the conferences, etc. - and even then a lot of it is proprietary and semi-secret in terms of the details). And they're using their powers for good -- mostly. Sometimes they use their powers to sell stuff. What you're seeing is only a minuscule part of all that.

    A big part of this is the price you pay for ease of access and easy browsing and search capabilities. It's a trade-off, and is normally disclosed in part of your registration process (which of course no one actually reads before clicking the "Accept" button). Also, it's a quid pro quo. [Editorial comment: While Facebook is detestable in several ways, to a significant degree the people who use it in the way most do were really asking for something like they got in the recent case. People were surprised? Really? Okay ... done on that.]

    One thing you can do if you want to take a programmatic approach is to either disable cookies in your browser(s) (and see how you like THAT result in terms of the "user experience" -- one of those trade-offs) or start tinkering with with your cookies on a domain or site basis. (Some programs/pages can get access to cookies stored by other programs/pages, depending on how things are configured in your browser and what steps you may have taken to prohibit this.) That can be a fun thing to do if you're looking for a way to spend your time or if you want to experiment with various browser features and extensions. For my own part, I'm generally mildly careful with what I put out on the web, and sometimes extremely careful, and otherwise I just use "delete" aggressively, click the "unsubscribe" links (which are usually those microscopic things at the bottom of the email), or occasionally take more specific actions.

    I grant you that it's amazing (almost to the point of being laughable when it's not annoying) how much you're unintentionally sharing things through your browser(s). Example: Yesterday for the first time I visited a Honda sight since we recently bought a new Pilot and I wanted to order the full owner's manual. This morning I got a car-related (though not from Honda) advertising email. It's possible that Honda shared the visit information in an automated way with some other companies, but it's also possible that this was just a cookie-mining thing.
    Gary Merrill
    Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
    Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
    Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
    1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
    Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
    1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)

  9. #9
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Central North Carolina
    Posts
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    Quote Originally Posted by jkircoff View Post
    You could set a filter in your email account to automatically delete unwanted emails. I've done this with my Gmail account, and it's very effective.
    True, but the success of this depends on the intelligence, adequacy, and precision of your filter (and on the software that your provider is using to do the filtering), and opens you to the danger of deleting emails that weren't genuinely "unwanted". There are situations when a filter will work well and as intended. And then there are cases when it may end up deleting emails that fit the filter but which you really would have wanted to see. I NEVER use 'delete' as part of the automated action for this reason. But we all have differing goals and concerns. Also, you have to maintain those filters over time, and if you manage to accidentally pick a pattern which is not quite what you you want, you can be missing some important stuff. Again -- a trade-off.

    I've had (in running several different web sites and email installations) WILDLY different experiences with different email filtering software. Some were so buggy that they were worthless. Some just didn't work. Some were mind-numbingly difficult to configure in any sane way. Etc. And don't assume that the filter is doing what you think it's doing just because it says it is. Unfortunately, these are virtually impossible for a normal user to test in any adequate way.

    But sometimes they work well.
    Gary Merrill
    Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
    Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
    Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
    1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
    Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
    1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)

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