I sent a book...my first book in this site...did not know to use the delivery confirmation cuz I was thinking folks are honest. Well this book is still MIA and the requester will not even answer me. So I did a research on her activity and found in over 2 years there IS no activity. I am thinking this person received my book and is keeping it quiet. How negatively can this affect me? I have a great record in another book site and hate to see my first mailing is probably being ignored...

deborah

Even if you mailed out a book the very first day you joined, it would not be declared lost in the system yet.  Have patience, the book may not have been received yet.

Welcome! Now breathe and have patience, books can take a little while. A book mailed by the 22nd is not going to be considered lost in the system until the end of next week. If this person has truly not been around for a long time, the system will automatically give you your credit when the book goes lost.

Also - there really is no way to tell if someone has been inactive or not. Some people quit posting books because of the postage costs or whatever reason, and just hang around to get their WL books, or buy credits to order books. Some people get to a point where they only post WL books, so their shelf will have only older books on it, all of the more recently posted books are gone right away. There are a lot of reasons why someone doesn't maintain an active shelf, but are still going to mark everything received when they get it.

The system also has some safeguards in place to help with inactive people. If a person doesn't sign in for a long time and has transactions going unanswered, they will put that shelf on hold so that no more orders can go to that shelf. If they find that someone is not marking a lot of books as rec'd, they will look into it and shut down the account if they think someone is getting books and not marking them. It is the cardinal rule of the club the books must be marked as recieved when they have been. The PBS staff won't tolerate repeated offenders on that one.

Media Mail can take a month or sometimes more.  Like a previous poster said-you haven't been a member long enough to have a book go lost.

Also you can hide your transaction numbers. So just because it has a - under books sent and received doesn't mean they haven't done anything in 2 yrs. It just means that they've chosen to keep the numbers private. 

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Yep, I just got books ordered back on the 22nd or 23rd of last month. Not unusual for books to take 3-4 wks. I'm surprised you don't already know this, since you say you already belong to another swapping site? Anyway, Welcome to PBS and good luck with your order!

and every book I sent or received has been very speedy

deborah

The media mail really has gotten a lot better this past year, but it's still not uncommon at all for them to take 3-4-5 weeks easily. I've had them with DC on them and watched them sit in my regional bulk center for over a week at that PO alone! I've had a book that came from 2 towns over go to the next state and sit for a week and then start it's way back to me, and then have another from clear across the country come in two days!!! :(  Weird PO service, is all I can say!

Media mail can be nutty... sometimes books move really fast.. and other times they get in a backlog somewhere and take ages.  Hang in there!  You don't need to worry about your account.  One or two books going lost isn't going to damage your standing.  I'll bet they books do eventually get there safe and sound. 

I would say that out of the 250 books I have ordered... only 4 have gone lost in the mail,  So... it does happen occasionally, but not too often.

Don't let one book phase you.... just jump in with both feet and you will have a great time.

Hang in there- this is why the system gives about a month for books to reach their destinations.  Most of the time, they take less time than that, but sometimes they do.  A lot depends on where it's coming from and what mail centers it clears through- there are some media mail centers that are notorious for being a "black hole".  I have been expecting a book that was shipped to me on 3/27 from one state away, and it's not here yet.  This morning, I checked the DC details, and it was scanned a couple of days ago in Bell, CA, so that explains it- that's one of those black holes.  I wouldn't worry about it until it actually does go lost, but you still have plenty of time.

Lesley

Yep, you need to learn to be patient around this place.  I think I was the one that got a book after a year.  Surprised the heck out of me!

I think Media Mail packages are going to be sitting around a lot longer.  With the last price hike in stamps, it's cheaper to send packages PM than a lot of the traditionally cheaper options. 

I can picture the post office truck filled with PM packages from eBay sellers.  And my poor, little book is being left behind waving good-bye from the loading dock.

How long ago did you send it?  Media mail sometimes takes up to 2 weeks(occasionally longer--and sometimes a lot less time)

From up above: If she hasn't answered you after a week, you can to to the links below to the "Contact Us" link and get the email address for the PBS team.

Great advice, except that they respond much more quickly to the "feedback" link there than to e-mails.  You can also contact them through the "contact the PBS team" button in the Help Center.

Great advice all around here! :-)

I just sent a book *first-class* and it took 8 days to get from Illinois to Maine.

It feels like tha mail really has slowed down in general, lately (maybe the speculation in this thread about fuel costs somehow making for fewer truck runs or something is correct).