These types of members are put on hold, just not after only one missed transaction.  PBS has built in safeguards, but they also have allowances for life circumstances and personal emergencies. 

I'm sure the site has a number of missed requests where they will take action. They don't tend to tell members such numbers though.

Missing one book isn't that big a deal. The member may be on vacation and forgot to put their account on hold, or are sick, or missed an email. It happens.

Sometimes it happens.  I know people are put on hold after a certain number of missed requests, but  an occasional one can be an accident.  I know that I've accidentally had timed out  requests twice in the 4 years I've been here.  I've also sent out hundreds of books.

I don't like to think that someone else may request one of this person's books and be let down, just because the (non-)sender hasn't met some set quota of consecutive fails yet.

But how would you know that this is not an one-off? As others have already mentioned, this person could have had an emergency or other issue that wouldn't allow them to respond to your request but they could still be perfectly able to respond to others.

I trust that the PBS Team has implemented whatever safeguards they have in place after careful trial and error - after all, they can see the membership as a whole and not only specific transactions. Maybe they tried putting acounts on hold after members failed to respond to one transaction and they got hundreds of emails of people who complained thinking only one missed transaction shouldn't be enough.

Yeah, life really does happen sometimes. If I remember correctly, one member here had her entire house burn down, including the books listed on her bookshelf. She also lost her computer, so was unable to immediately access PBS. And I highly doubt that PBS was very high on her priority list at that time.

I myself, had a death in my family recently. As I was very emotionally devastated, I forgot to put my account on hold. I had a couple of request time out as a result. It happens, but I don't make a habit of it and I assume TPTB can see that.

I hope you get your book soon. I know how waiting for a much anticipated book can be. Good luck.

BTW, what was the title of your book, if I may ask?

Pam

I've had requests time out because I use the printer at my college and I'm not there everyday... sometimes I think I can get to them in time only to arrive at school and find they've expired. And sometimes I just plain forget.

I've also had some of my requests from other members time out, and I try not to get worked up about it, since we're all just human and have regular lives.

We kind of assume this is probably a one-off (or close to it) Jordana, because if it was a pattern then TPTB would have the account on hold or suspended.  Per PBS guidelines, RWAP is the only situation that requires the other member to respond/pm.  So you have no real way of knowing if the other member is off-site for whatever RL reasons or merely choosing not to respond to your pm.

I've mailed hundreds of books thru PBS, but I too have missed one transaction that timed-out.  In my case, I learned the hard way that PBS counts Sundays as a acceptance/mail day...thought I had until Monday and instead it timed out

RL happens, even to good PBS members.  Probably best to just consider it your contribution to weeding out inactive members...you don't know if this is strike one on an otherwise good member (with an unexpected RL situation), or the last strike on a 'about to be former' PBS member.

ETA - FYI, there have been discussions on the forum boards on the subject of whether or not PBS should require members to check-in every few days (weeks, months, etc) to keep their account active.  Whether there should be more conditions under which accounts are suspended, etc.  But there's such a wide variety of people and lifestyles that are good & active members, it's difficult to make the box smaller without loosing some excellent members.

The book was "Album of Horses" by Marguerite Henry (supposedly an original 1951 copy, not a reprint). As the book is so old and therefore uncommon, the odds of it being listed again on PBS anytime soon are not good.

If the sender still has it, they can easily repost it once they check back in.

How does anyone know this IS a one-off? Why on Earth would someone not be able to respond to my request--even just to say they can't send the book--but still be "perfectly able to respond to others"? That makes absolutely no sense at all.

It is also possible that the person WAS put on Hold and returned and reactivated their account before you attempted to look at their Bookshelf. There is really nothing but assumptions here on what is going on and what happened with the other member's account.

The site monitors inactivity and Hold's accounts when they feel someone is causing undue problems to other members. One timed out transction is not really that big of a deal. It is not a sign that they have abandoned the account. It is not a sign they are rude, unattentive members. It is just one missed transaction.

Hopefully all is well in the sender's life and they aren't experiencing anything too drastic or heartbreaking and the book you were looking for will be reposted soon.

Why on Earth would someone not be able to respond to my request--even just to say they can't send the book--but still be "perfectly able to respond to others"?

There could be hundreds of reasons why a person is not able to access a computer today but may be able to access one tomorrow: their computer could have died, they had to take their cat to the vet, they had to take care of their mother, go to the hospital, stay late at work, etc.

If you feel strongly about this, by all means send in Feedback via the Contact Us page but keep in mind that PBS membership has over 100K members and not every rule is going to please everybody. The most important thing is to make sure that the club runs well as a whole and sometimes, that means that some people won't be 100% happy with everything.

Why on Earth would someone not be able to respond to my request--even just to say they can't send the book--but still be "perfectly able to respond to others"?

You are asking the wrong people.  If you want the right answer then you should use feedback under contact us and ask the site owners.   The rest of us are volunteers or just other members and have no more information than you do.

Hm... Posts erased. I didn't initially respond to this thread because I had a feeling things were going to start going south. Getting so huffy and worked up over a timed-out book request is a bit extreme. We may have a flounce.

She may have just gotten the answers to her questions, or had time to think about it and decided it wasn't worth the stress she was putting into it.