I trade a lot of audio books on PBS.  I have never had a problem until now, and I'm not sure what to do.

When I recieve an audio book I always check the CDs to make sure the right ones are in there, then I mark it as received.  Unless I was to listen to the entire book I wouldn't know if it was damaged or not unless there were tons of visible scratches.

So, I received one back on 11/8.  I marked it as received.  I finally got around to listening to it late last week.  First cd was ok, a couple of minor bobbles, but not bad or unusual.  Then from disc 2 thorugh 6 there are TONS of problems.  The first few tracks on all of those cd's are ok but anything after about the 4th track is horrible with a lot of skipping and repeating and such.  There are 6 more cd's to go through, total of 12, but I'm not willing to spend my time listening to all of them since there is already a ton of problems.

I tried other cd's I own in my player and they were all fine.  I inspected the cd's I received and the ones I've listened to do have some scratches.  The ones I haven't listened to yet appear to have even more scratches.  I took one of the cd's to a local gaming store because they have a machine that can help erase or lessen scratches.  No luck, their machine couldn't make it any more listen-able. 

Is it too late to do a RWAP?  I'm guessing it is, but what other options do I have?  I guess I can ask the sender for a refund since this is definitely not post-able according to PBS rules.  But then I don't have the book to listen to.  And it's a WL book - I can WL it again but then I'm at the back of the line again and have to wait God knows how long (I was on the WL for several months the first time around).  Anything else I can do? 

I'll be inspecting audio books much more closely now.

Is it too late to do a RWAP?  I'm guessing it is, but what other options do I have? 

I'm afraid it is too late, and I can't think of any other options you have. You can always just explain what was wrong and ask for your credit back, and maybe ask TPTB if you could get back at the front of the line, but I don't know you'd have luck with either.

With a book, once it's marked as received okay, I wouldn't refund later. Receivers have the ability to look it over before marking it received. With audio books people may give you more slack since it's hard to tell whether even small scratches will make a difference or not.

All you can do is ask and see.

Debbie- look at each disc, are the scratches on the bottom or the top of the CD? If on top, then they will not work no matter what is done, if on the bottom, given some skill at using the fixing machine 90% of all discs can be saved. Alot of those gaming stores just have basic 'cleaning, minor scratch" fixing machines, there are better ones, which can take medium scratches out but the process takes around 7mins PER disc.  This is something I do most days at work, save talking books :) I find alot of talking books have scratches on the top of the disc.  I wish PBS had a rule about that because this makes the discs unreadable if they scratch is more then just very light.

I would say it's probably too late. I had someone complain about an audio I sent weeks after they marked it received.  It had played fine for me (it wasn't scratched-I personally don't send any that are really scratched up even if they play good for me).  So when they complained that it wasn't playing for them I kind of  wondered what they had done to them. Because they left me in good condition.

It doesn't hurt to ask them for a refund but they might be skeptical.  I don't think PBS will put you back on top of the line.

You might have to chalk this up to a lesson learned to not mark any audios received until you've done a thorough inspection and if they have any scratches-to listen to them first.  Sometimes when I get ones that look kind of scratched-I put each one in and kind of listen to a few seconds of various tracks to see if it's skipping anywhere.

Thanks all!

I would definitely ask about the credit back.  I've bought a few at garage sales that have looked good that I've sent out without ever listening too.  I would refund that since I could not guarentee they were working for me.  Mary's situation would be different. 

Update - I went to my transaction archive to see what was what and I noted a way to send a message.  I thought the message was going to PBS.  I was asking about the WL status and if it was possible to be moved up in line since I received a book I couldn't listen to.  I know it was a long shot but i figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Anyhow, the messages apparently go to the senders, not PBS.  The sender PM'd me back a few times apologizing and she refunded my credits.  She was so nice!  She trades a lot of audio books too but she just downloads them to her ipod and she hadn't listened to this one yet so she had no clue it was damaged.  I feel bad for her now as she is out credits too for the book.  But I made a new friend!  :)

Debbie--Good to hear everything worked out so well!  Most of the people I've met here at PBS have been wonderful to deal with!!  It really is a great community!