I hardly ever post in the forums, but we've had a problem come up and I'd like some input.  My sister-in-law had a very unpleasant interaction with another PBSer.  Yes, she is a member, but she is not willing at this point to seek the advice of the boards.  She has sought the advice of me and my husband (also members) and we are stumped.  Hence, this post. 

A while ago-- at least four weeks if not longer, a member sent her the wrong book.  She (my s-in-law) acknowledged that she had gotten this book but it was wrong.  The sending member said that she would arrange to have the correct book send and did.  My s-in-law acknowledged that and it was recorded in the TA.  So, weeks later, the sender wants to know what my s-in-law had done with the original wrong book, and sends a nasty email when told that she gave it away. The sender did not offer to pay for postage or give extra credits or anything.  In fact, until the recent message, she did not ask for the book back.

Our question is:  what is the informal etiquette about these problems?  My sister in law is beside herself and we're inclined to shrug and say, "Obviously this person is having a bad day, as she did not let you know she wanted the book back."  What is the sense of the community on this?

well- your s-i-l is under NO obligation to send the book back. there was no offer of credits to cover the postage (and honestly the pain) for sending this book back. (especially when the lady did not indicate she wanted the book back...) and furthermore- even if she wanted the book back, and even if she had offered credits to cover the cost (and trouble) your s-i-l would be under NO obligation to return the book......

i once sent the wrong books to 2 people. i coordinated the entire effort to have them send the right books to each other. i refunded each original credit, plus 1 to cover postage, plus 1 for the trouble (3 each for a total of 6)...

so- unfortunately your s-i-l ran across a bit- i mean a witch...

there is some info in the help docs covering this but alas i am too lazy to find it.

please just advise your s-i-l to find the info, cut & paste it in a pm to the rude witch, and be done with it. if the rude behavior continues after that i would contact tptb with the problem. and also send the witch a cease and desist pm...

hope this helps.

so sorry you s-i-l ran into a not nice (or educated about the system) person...

If the sender wanted the wrong book returned, she should have offered to give your SIL a credit or offered to cover the postage for the return of the book.

The sender should have discussed this with your SIL early on.  Since so much time has elapsed, the sender should chalk it up to her bad and be done with it.  A lesson learned.

If a member (sender or requestor) is rude or abusive during a PM exchange about a book, we can be notified.  We will review the PM exchange and take action commensurate to the offense.

This is what she needs to do.  She did get the book sorted out.  As I understand it she is not required to send back the book without a credit for the postage.   This is qualified as an "official" problem and so far she has met the requirements as I understand them.  since this person was abusive she needs to send a PM to the PBS team about this documenting the PM's the sender sent and the transaction as it occurred.  If she didn't want to come and ask us or the PBS team about this - I'm not sure she will want to do this either.  But she should.  Rude and abusive behavior is not allowed here at PBS.

Ruth

Here is what the help center says.

If you put the wrong book into the correct wrapper:

• You can simply offer to send the correct book, or
• Refund the credit the requestor will give you when she or he marks the book "wrong book received"

• When a book is marked "received, with a problem" (and in this case the receiver would choose "wrong book" from among the options), the sender does get credit for sending the book, even though it was the wrong one.
• One of the options of correcting this error is for the sender to give the credit back to the requestor, using the Buddy List crediting feature.

• The requestor who received the wrong book in the correct wrapper is NOT obligated to send your wrong book back to you, but may agree to do so.

She was under no obligation to send the book back to the sender, even is she had offered to send a credit for the postage. Yes, it would have been a nice thing to do if the sender had offered to send a credit but in this situation no.

To be honest I would of at least asked her if she wanted the book back before I gave it away. It seems to me that maybe the sender should have mentioned it when she sent the correct book but if you look at it in the sense that your sister got her book while the sender is minus a book and postage. I'm not saying your sister should have paid for return postage after all it wasn't her mistake. But the weeks that all this took could be her awaiting the return of the book although to expect your sister to eat the cost of that is unrealistic. The sad thing is they could probably come to terms if she still had the book where she could get the cost of shipping and send it back.