I requested a book from a member the first part of January, no later than January 8th.  I am still waiting to for the member to respond to this request.  How long do I have to wait and what to I do to get the member to respond.  This is my first problem with PBS so I am new at trying to resolve problems.  What should I do.  This has cost me a credit so I want to know what I can do to get the member to respond to my request.

Without knowing the circumstances this doesn't excactly make me want to request more books from their bookshelf.

Help Please!!!!!!

Members have 5 days to accept a request. Unfortuntately there are some dead accounts on PBS. People who have stopped participating and didn't bother to close their accounts.  The request will time out and get offered to the next person in line.  So you are helping to weed out an inactive person.  The time out will put a red flag on the accoutn and PBS will put it on hold if they deem it inactive.  Thus removing their books and WL books from clogging up the lines. 

If there is not other copy posted then you'll get your credit back and the book will go on your WL. 

And don't cancel the order and re-order, because then it'll go right back to the same person and you start the 5-day waiting period over again.

When I first came to PBS I ordered a book.  I waited and waited, and it timed out.  I thought it went back to the same person and they'd been given a second chance (hadn't read that part of the rules then), so I canceled it.  Shortly I realized that it had rolled over, so now I check the date and time I request a book, and keep checking it, and I can then see if it's rolled over to the next person in line.  Pat

If you order a book on the 1st of the month, the sender will have until the 5th (or sometimes the 6th, depending on the time of day you order) to accept that order.  If the sender never responses, then the book is automagically moved to the next sender in line and the ticking clock starts all over again.  If the sender sees the offer and declines before their 5 days is up, the book will move to the next sender sooner.  If the first sender accepts the book offer on the 5th, they can choose the latest possible mail option and gain 5 additional days, so the 10th.  But, senders have 2 additional days before they have to mark a book as mailed.  Thus putting the book in limbo until the 12th. 

If you ordered the book on the 8th, you could still be dealing with the first sender.  They would have until tomorrow to mark the book as mailed.  It is more likely that at some point in the wait process, this book has been moved to the second sender and you will just have to keep waiting.  It is very important to understand that the only way to remove a book and abandon accounts from the system it to wait out book requests.  Some people just don't have the patience to sit and wait, so they cancel requests after so many days and look at the bookshelves of active member to find the book they want.  Many people, like myself, believe that one of the best things I can do to make PBS a better place is to help eliminate the abandoned accounts (which helps in other ways, because it gets rid of the abandoned wishlists too), so we sit it out and let the book come to us when it's good and ready.  Of course, you find many of the people with this attitude are those with more books than they can read in a year sitting around the house in their TBR pile.  :P

Kerry

I had a couple that have rolled over to the next person.  Check the dates.  That's the only way I was able to tell what was going on.  I was getting upset that they hadn't responded.  Then realized the first had in a way - they didn't do a thing!  The second got the book out in no time at all.