Okay, I ordered a deal off of the BB, BUT I had to buddy the credits. It's been over a month, so I emailed the person and haven't heard back from them. There's nothing I can do, right?

Have you checked to see if their account is still active?  I think you're right, if you don't go through the system to order, you really don't have any protection. 

What a bummer for you!

I would say you are right, there is nothing you can do.  The site does not have a record of the transaction for the deal other than the buddied credit.  Sorry :(

If you kept any PM's relating to the exchange, you could contact R about it.  I don't know that there's anything to be done, but it certainly couldn't hurt to copy and paste your communication and ask for their advice as to how to proceed.  Sorry that happened to you.

I would contact the site and let them know what happened. They won't get involved in individual transactions when they are done through the system, let alone ones that are not. But, if this person is in the habit of doing this, or a lot of people go shafted on the same deal, they may suspend the account until the member does right by the other members. They can look at PMs so they can track the orders and see that the person promised books for the credits. I would send the info as an FYI-you-might-have-a-bad-member more than a can-you-do-anything-for-me. They don't like transactions that go around the system, but they will like people taking advantage of their members even less.

The member still has an account and they have been online, because it said so on their profile. It sucks that I'm out of 2 credits and they won't answer me. But,  thanks for the help.

Holly, the next time that comes up this is what I do.  If I order say 5 for 3, I just order the 3 and they send my order including the 2 free ones.   That way the credits that you do "pay" with are in the pbs system and if something goes wrong they do help out.  

Holly, if you ordered books for credits and the member is not responding to PMs, use the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page to let the site owners know.  They may choose not to get involved but, as others have mentioned, if this member is scamming others, they'll shut them down.

Cheers,

Catt

I sent someone 21 audio books once, in a BB deal.

She sent me one credit, and i sent her all the books, and then she Buddied me the credits when she received the box. I understood her reluctance to just send me all 15 credits at once.

I am sorry if you got taken, i hate it when people act like that. I hope PBS helps you out!