I've lost 2 books out of 60 in the last month. Assuming we are all packing  well, can you tell me:

Is your loss ratio worse during the Christmas season...say from mid-November to now?

Does that change your ordering habits?

Will you go on vacation hold sooner to avoid losses or delays?

Rose

This is my first holiday season with PBS, but I'm inclined to agree with your observation.  I just had one I sent out go lost, and one en route to me is about 2 days away from being declared lost.  It doesn't change my ordering habits because my WL is on autorequest and due to the sheer volume of my WL, I tend not to order outside of it.  However, I have not posted any new books in awhile and I won't until after the 1st of the year.

ETA:  In more than 100 transactions thus far, these are the only problems I've ever had with lost books.  I guess it was about time for me.

I'm coming up on my two year PBS anniversary and I haven't had a book go lost yet.    I do find that mailing times are really variable during the holidays, though.

ETA:  I haven't had a book that I mailed go lost - I've had a couple coming to me go lost, but under suspicious circumstances.    :)

Actually, I just got a book that went lost in October.     I have my shelf on hold for now, so can't speak of books I've sent this month.  The ones I've ordered have arrived quickly and none lost.

This is my second holiday season.  So far I've never had a book sent by me go lost (knock wood), although some have taken the FULL time to get there.  I've had 2 or 3 coming to me go lost (one confirmed eaten by a postal machine because a mangled envelope made it back to the sender).  None of this has happened during the holidays.

I don't order many books this time of year because I figure there is a greater chance of them getting lost around the holidays.  I've also stopped adding new books to my shelf until after Christmas.   And I haven't offered any deals at the book bazaar lately.  Hopefully after the holidays, I'll have more time for books and the post office will have more time for delivering them.

I recived some the other day from postoffice where the cove was orn to shredded and they only knw it was mine casue my address was also inside the package. strange

Actually, I had many lost during the summer. Two from this site, & about four from another.

On the other site it seemed to be neglect on the part of the sender, however.  Since the users rarely logged in except to get books they wanted, & it took them forever to even mark books as sent, it might be that the books were never sent at all. I also had about twice that many that I had to cancel due to lack of response.

Welllll, but they may not be quite "lost" either. Just checked one of my maps on a PBS-DC and I hope this link works so you can see it too....lol

http://www.paperbackswap.com/map/index.php?t=dc&r=ZjVWSWhSU2FuTUU9

I was so glad to see this topic! 

I just had my second book to me to lost, but get this, it's the SAME TITLE that got lost 2 months agao!  I waited a month before orderring another but it never showed.  I have had paperbacks arrive late so I knew there was still a chance.  I wanted to give my friend a copy of Jennifer Cruisies 'Don't look down" for Christmas, and now the SECOND hard cover copy is lost in the mail. 

I'm so sad.......................and I feel bad for the senders.  I'm afraid to order another one!  Not sure what I'm going to do now.  How many copies of the same hard cover can the post office eat???