This, thankfully, hasn't happened recently, but I was just reading another discussion on unpostable books and people's reactions to receiving them... and was wondering about something.

This happened in the past, and I remember being stumped as to how to handle this situation and wanted to get some opinions.... Normally, when you receive an unpostable book, it seems to be pretty black or white whether or not you should mark a book RWP.  After all, you essentially paid for the book with a credit and have every right to receive a book in good condition.  But what about if you received an unpostable book through a deal (and the rest are in postable condition).  Should you still apply those same rules if you receive, for example, a water damaged book?  After all, you used one credit on a book but then got X number of books as "freebies"...

How would others react to this?  I think I ended up working something out on the side when this happened to me, but I also remember feeling stumped at first...

When I get minor damage, such a water damage.. if it was in a deal with freebies, I let it slide.  Should the sender have had the book on their shelf to begin with? No... but I just let those go.

Same here. If I order multiple books in a deal and one of them had minor water damage, no biggie, I would let it go. Yes, this doesn't make it okay really but I figure I was getting other books with it. I would definitely report it if I spent one credit for one book. 

Unless the deal specifically states that the freebies are unpostables, I've always expected that they should be in condition that satisfies the Guidelines.  I don't mark it RWP, though, if the freebies are in less than acceptable condition.  Usually I just include a kindly worded line or two in the message I send when marking the book received. 

Its happened to me and I've let it go.

I had that debate with a CD over at SwapaCD actually.  The freebie CD broke in the mail.  I had no idea how to mark it and just ended up marking that the CD was received without a problem (because the one I ordered was fine), and PM'd the member to nudge her to use better wrapping next time.

ETA:  Now that I am thinking about it more, I remember being a bit bitter about the whole thing because I am not sure I would have ordered the one CD if I was not able to get a freebie with it.  So, it's a good topic for discussion and I can see both sides.

If a freebie is chosen from my bookshelf, it is in postable condition.  I list my unpostables in my profile and exactly what is wrong with them.

If you chose the freebie from the bookshelf, you should expect it to be in just as good of condition as the one you actually piad the credit for.

I would expect all books in a deal to be in postable condition (unless told otherwise at the time I place the order).  Having said that, how would you mark one RWAP in a deal unless the book you ordered (and paid a credit for) were RWAP?  You couldn't because the 'freebie' wouldn't show up in the system.  You could send a 'friendly' PM to the sender, but if  s/he sent the book knowing it was RWAP, s/he probably wouldn't care anyway.  Pat