Boost recurring donations this giving season with the upsell prompt!Most reports of a missing text turn out to be one of two things: the bidder never opted in, or they are waiting for an alert the Auctions app sends by email rather than by text. If the missing text is a checkout link your team sent, start with the first section below. The numbered checks after it don't apply to checkout links.
Is it a checkout link?
A checkout link your team sends by text doesn't depend on the bidder's Mobile notifications setting. It goes to the mobile number on the bidder's record whenever you send it.
To check what happened:
- Open the Auctions Manager.
- Click the title of the auction you want to manage.
- Click the Checkouts tab.
- Click the bidder's name, or click Open on their row.
- Look under Communications & activity.
- "Checkout link texted for" followed by the auction name means the text was handed to your text message provider. It doesn't confirm the phone received it.
- "Checkout link SMS failed for" followed by the auction name means the text couldn't be sent.
- No entry at all means no text was sent. Check that Text was ticked. If the pane said "Contacted N min ago — inside the 30-minute cooldown.", nothing went out until someone clicked Send anyway.
Right after you click Send link, the result also names any channel that failed, for example "Text failed:" followed by the reason.
What to do: check the number shown beside Text, correct it on the bidder's record if needed, and send the link again. Or send it by Email instead. The link in an earlier text stops working once a newer link goes out. See Why doesn't a bidder's checkout link work?
1. Are they expecting a text that is never sent by text?
This is the most common cause, and no amount of checking their settings will fix it.
Sent by text — to bidders who have opted in:
- The auction starts in about an hour
- The auction ends in 30 minutes
- The auction ends in 5 minutes
- They have won an item, or bought a fixed price item
Sent by email only — to everyone:
- Registration confirmation
- They are now the highest bidder
- They have been outbid
- The reserve price has not been met
- Their win or purchase confirmation, with next steps
Important: There is no outbid text message. A bidder who says "I wasn't told I'd been outbid" is describing an email they should have received. Check their email, including its spam folder, rather than their phone.
2. Did they opt in?
Text messages go only to bidders who agreed to them when they registered. The opt-in is a checkbox below the phone field on the registration form, and it is cleared by default — a bidder who registered quickly will not have it.
A bidder can check and change this themselves: sign in, open the account menu, click My Preferences, and look at Mobile notifications under Mobile Phone.
You can also check their record: open the auction's Bidders tab and click their name.
3. Is their phone number right?
On the bidder's detail panel, check the Phone Number, including the country. A number entered without the correct country will not reach them.
The panel shows a Verified indicator when the number has been confirmed. You can correct a number on their behalf from the same panel.
4. Was the auction actually within the window?
The three reminder messages are tied to the auction's own start and end times, in the auction's configured time zone. An auction whose end time has been changed, or which was created in a different time zone from your own, may have passed its window already.
Still nothing?
Text delivery depends on the mobile network, and carriers occasionally filter automated messages. If a bidder has opted in, has a correct number, and is missing texts other bidders received, raise it with support with the auction name and the bidder's number.
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