Can the sellers give an honest assessment as to how sales compare as yet?  It has been six (6) days since the change.  To me it certainly seems like an extraordinary amount of "bumping" of the posts?

As a buyer, I've always bought my credits between $2-$2.50. I'm personally not wanting to stock up on credits as I have before when they're now $3. 

Also, why force a price for credits when members can make the credits worth as many books as they want? Book deals are always available and therefore reduce the value of credits anyways. Why change 1 and not the other? 

Ive only sell a couple before and now with the price change. nobody is messaging me to buy any. 

Cheaper to mail a book and get my credits that way!  you will start seeing more peeps asking to borrow credits instead in the feed, since PBS allows that.., so people can get em free or pay back when its conveient, I mean why not? Right? Right! Im angry at the change PBS

Cheaper to mail a book and get my credits that way!  you will start seeing more peeps asking to borrow credits instead in the feed, since PBS allows that.., so people can get em free or pay back when its conveient, I mean why not? Right? Right! Im angry at the change PBS

Asking to borrow credits is very limited in the amount and frequency. If people are caught doing it more than allowed, they can get their account suspended.

Cheaper to mail a book and get my credits that way!  you will start seeing more peeps asking to borrow credits instead in the feed, since PBS allows that.., so people can get em free or pay back when its conveient, I mean why not? Right? Right! Im angry at the change PBS

2lbs media mail is more than $3.00 now plus you need to add in your cost of packaging materials, time to package it, time to go to Post Office (if you don't leave it in your mailbox with the flag up, etc. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, the acquisition cost of your book itself (has to be at least 50 cents at a garage sale).

How do you ship it for less?  Give us some tips, please.

The writing is on the wall, and I wouldn't be the least surprised if the next step is to ban credit sales entirely. Which would result in more members leaving.

When you raise the value of a currency above its real value, the only way to counter it is to devalue the price of goods, meaning that nobody would order one book for a credit, they'd expect to get 2 or 3 as a deal for that price. What's next, banning deals?

Currency controls are a tricky thing that even highly skilled entities like the Fed have a hard time managing. The more you micromanage, the more it blows up in your face.

There were no problems with members selling credits for the prices they chose. Demanding control over something like that doesn't make any sense. Deals are the same concept as selling credits for cheaper. If they continue to put controls on everything they are going to make this site fail and shut down. Too much power and micromanaging for no reason except TPTB are wanting people to buy credits from them and not other members so they turn a profit. Unacceptable. 

no reason except TPTB are wanting people to buy credits from them and not other members so they turn a profit. Unacceptable.

If that were the case they would totally ban selling credits and we'd have to buy for a dollar more in the kiosk...

Cheaper to mail a book and get my credits that way!

That was the original purpose of the club, earning a credit by trading a book

and when people realized they could buy a credit for less than trading a book they stopped keeping a bookshelf and just bought cheap credits, which meant less books available to trade

I dont know what to do with the credits I already have , I mean who will buy them for $3.00 ?  I'd sell if I could.  If I was getting WL offers , that would be great I would use them for that , i post ALOT of Wish list books. but really dont get them in return.  I have a book shelf and dont get any orders.  This membership , I may be re-thinking.

I would sell my credits ( when I had then, which was not always)  to buy WL books from amazon that I would pass on here when I finished them., looks like I wont be doing that as often....Oh , well

It is now cheaper for me to buy and sell used books at my local book store than it is through PBS.  I used to see more value here, but now I'm paying for a membership fee on top of the fees that I was already using to pay for shipping.  I was using the selling of credits in order to make up some of that loss, but now that they are worth more than a used book costs, then they aren't selling either.  So, I'm shutting down my bookshelf and hopefully selling these last credits and moving on.  The same thing with the sister sites.  It's now cheaper for me to buy the new DVD or digitally download music.

Why does everyone act as if the bought credits come from nowhere?

If someone has a credit to sell they either bought that credit or shipped a book to get it.  I'm willing to go with they probably shipped a book, because triaging between credit sellers seems unlikely at this point.

So now, the person who bought a credit might buy more expensive ones, might ship books might just request fewer books.

And the person who had shipped a book to get the credit they sold--will stop shipping books if people stop buying the credits. They clearly had more credits than they had books they wanted to request.  So now, they still have credits, but no way to sell them, so now they may as well sit on them.

>> now that they are worth more than a used book costs

Where are you getting your used books??? I would TOTALLY ransack my bank account and buy all 495 WL books if I could get them for under $3. Do you mean the tiny, paper pulpy romance novels? Beat up stained kids books? Even when I troll the used book sections in stores, they're often way more than a credit costs. Even the lowest price on the used books sites like BN.com, Half.com, and the one I always use and totally forget (the one where you buy a book and they donate a book, starts with a B) are at least $4 (they try to get you with 1-cent books but shipping is $3.99 and they DON'T combine. I would literally die of happiness if I could buy the used books on my list for $3 each. Heck, I'd bomb out and buy them at $3.95 - the kiosk price, if I could! 

I liked it before. I think they call it "Free Enterprise". I can't sell my credits now and I need them for sending books out that are requested. I think it was fair before, when we could set our own price. DId people complain that everyone was setting their own price on credits? This is a trade and swap site. I liked haggling for deals!!! Now that is gone!

I bought my last load of credits the day before this happened. And once I use them up I will have to leave. As I've said before, I'm buying books for my five kids, and they definitely aren't in good enough shape to spend $3 each. I do find an occasional deal, but not that many on the books I'm looking for. On top of paying for a membership, no thanks. 

An enterprising person with credits they wish to dispose of would take this conversation over to goodreads or a similar site and then make good use of the buddying of credits on PBS to complete transactions arranged elsewhere.

Which is exactly what usually happens when a governing body messes too much with an economy: a black market arises. The governing body then tends to react to that with even tighter controls (in this case likely banning credit sales all together) and what you end up with is Venezuela where you can't even buy toilet paper anymore.

Better to just let members behave like adults on this site and transact their business as they see best at the prices that work for seller and buyer. A free market. No capital controls.

Heather, I think those of us who live in lower cost of living areas forget how high your cost of living is in California.  I've been watching old Let's Make a Deal shows and they emphasize the prices they are talking about are manufacturer's retail price on the West Coast which tend to be higher than in many other parts of the country.  Actually here in Atlanta there are a lot of used book, goodwill, thrift, dollar stores etc where I can still get a lot of books at low prices albeit they may not be books on your Wish List.

I'm in NC and most of the books at my local used bookstores are $3-8. They do have a $1 discount bin, but there's never anything that I want to read there (and that's not just looking for recent, big titles). The Goodwills and Salvation Army shops sometimes have titles for $1-2, but almost never anything I want.

Goodwills here   ( south jersey) charge $1.49 for a paperback and I have yet to find a title I want to read and have never seen a book that meets pbs postability requirements.  Same thing at yardsales, 50 cents for stained and torn books, forget about anything on a wl.

At first I thought it might be a good thing since credits were selling for way below the cost of shipping a single book. Now I've changed my mind. Everyone has them for $3, and they aren't moving. We're going to see the old supply and demand problem, only it's way too much supply and no demand. I hear talk of people getting fed up and leaving PBS. I would sell some extra credits to help with my shipping costs, but if PBS fails, I won't be shipping anything anywhere and a lot of credits that are useless. I've really enjoyed this site, because I've found a ton of books for myself and friends that I couldn't afford to buy new and would never find if searching sales and thrift stores. Even with the shipping cost, I do enjoy finding books others want and getting them to happy new owners. I'd rather go back to the way it was before with the seller's determining their price than to have PBS fold over this.

I never used to have a surplus of credits; but I think books circulated better than they seem to now.  I was one of those that was always looking for credits to buy. That's not the problem now...it has flipped the other way. Now I seem to have more credits than I'm comfortable with owning.

My wish list is a trickle and I use my reminder list to try to order a second book from the member who makes a wish list offer...that isn't working very well now. Usually those people only have small bookshelves or none.

I have recently put all my books on hold (including wish listed books that I have posted). Why...it leaves my wish list active and I control how many books I send. I release a wish listed book when I am offered a book from my wish list. Fair?...probably not, but I can't continue to send out books if I have to go to Amazon, Thriftbooks or somewhere else to get the books on my WL. Buy them from PBS...price + credit + shipping...no bargain there.  I did a couple of times when I first joined.

I sold credits (first time) last month. Posted them one evening and they were gone the same evening. Used the Amazon gift card to purchase wish listed books that haven't been posted for 3 or 4 years. They will be posted here when I've read them. I wasn't the only wisher...

I thought I'd do that this month; but no no no...that's not working...not a nibble. Think I'll have to abandon that idea and just hold all books for a while.

The nature of people, when a new mandated rule is posted, is to look for a loophole.  Reading the previous postings, one has already been found. If you think about it enough...they are there.

I'll abide entirely by the rule, because...that's who I am!

Thanks...Sandy

I have two boxes full of books that are wishlisted.  I try to sell them on the multiples forum, as credits were selling for less than shipping fees and I purchased the books new.  If the credits sell for $3, I would be more prone to just list the books to the next person on the WL, but if they are not selling at all, I don't know what I will do with my membership, as I order very few books from the site and was mainly using it to find a good home for my books

I use to buy a lot of credits. It isn't that I don't mail or books also, I just read more than people order. But now that prices have gone up almost a dollar, I can't afford it. At least not at the amount I use to buy. I use to also get books for my elderly mother, but that is slowing down also. Right now I have 0 credits but have shipped 4 books. I guess I just wait. Why did PBS mess with something that was working. Is it because it brings the price closer to their price, so they can make more money?

I was buying lots of credits but since they are now $3.00 will not be doing that. I will just have to wait longer to get books that I need as I list books that others need so I can use my own credits. Bummer!!

Evidently i missed the notice that credits have gone up.  Are you saying that I cannot sell them for the price I wish?  Thinking come Oct., will not renew my membership.  if I have a few credits left at that time, am I able to give them to people who have purchsed credits from me before.