....getting someone to respond to a book request! I just looked at the transaction archive and I put in the book request 10/11. Three people haven't bothered to respond! I just PM'ed the person who now has the request and asked if she would be able to get to this somewhat quickly, as it's a book my daughter needs for a book club in a class at school. Good grief! There were (obviously) tons available, so I didn't think twice about using Paperbackswap to obtain it, but I'll be rethinking THAT in the future. Because now this new person has until 11/9 to accept the request and then, what....a week to actually mail the dratted thing? At this point, it just makes more sense to save my credit and buy it. :) I still love the site.

Okay, actually it was FOUR people who didn't bother to respond. I went ahead and canceled the request just to save myself the drama. I can understand occasionally having an issue where you can't get a book sent out, but FOUR PEOPLE?! And they didn't cancel the request: they just never responded, so PBS canceled the request and went to the next in line. Cracks me up....

Sounds like you just helped PBS in its efforts to weed out inactive members.  Sorry for the frustration.

-RD

Yeah you can't count on PBS if you need a book quickly.  Even if the first person had accepted  and mailed if fairly quickly-it might have taken weeks just to travel.  Especially if it was media mail.

I'm not sure what's been going on lately.  People are just getting busy I guess.  I'd never really had this problem before, but just in the last month or so I've had 3 books that have timed out waiting on a member to respond.  One of them is also now on the fourth request.  Most of the time I've had quick responses, but not lately.

I have noticed that whenever I request a book that has hundreds in the system I usually have to go through a number of people before it is accepted because of the number of abandoned accounts. Very frustrating! I wish PBS would adopt a more proactive method of addressing abandoned accounts.

It happens that people sign up, post their books and then abandon their accounts. Once they don't respond to a few requests in a row then the system suspends the account so this person's books don't show up in the system.

While this totally sucks, thanks for weeding out the inactives! 

Have you tried posting in the bazaar asking if someone has the book and can mail it quickly?  Also, post the title and ISBN here to see if anyone can help you out.

I just went ahead & ordered on eBay. :) No big deal, just venting as I found it very odd & curious. I'd say 99% of my transactions are fast & trouble-free. And most of them have absolutely no time constraints. Well, this one had over a month lead time (she doesn't need the book quite yet and I ordered it the DAY I found out she needed it, Oct. 11), so I thought it'd be safe. LOL!!

There's a whole chunk of New England (millions) that have been w/o or are still w/o power since Saturday.  Which could explain the most recent person.

I also thought I'd been seeing an increase in timed-out transactions.  Wishlist transactions also.  If it's offered from my wishlist, obviously it's just been posted into the FIFO system.  Merely to let it time-out in a few days...I've had this happen several times in the last several months.

And yes Wendee, ordering a non-wishlisted book from PBS over a month before you needed it should have been adequate lead time.  Like Melissa suggests, you could post in the bazaar for members willing to send a non-wishlisted book ASAP.  I would have checked my book box if you had listed the title 

you also could try searching box-o-books & see if you can identify someone who looks more active.

If the books you want isn't wishlisted I would suggest asking for it on the Book Bazaar.  I posted that I was looking for some older books in a popular series  and wanted to get multiple titles from one person to help them save postage and ended up with 4-5 pms within a day or two.  The two members I ordered books from mailed quickly as well and offered deals I hadn't asked for. 

As mentioned above, I'm sure there are tons of abandoned accounts full of heavily posted titles that are in everyones home or in high circulation which does jam the request flow for everyone.

Lots of good advice, but I just wanted "quick & dirty." :) eBay worked this time.

"I wish PBS would adopt a more proactive method of addressing abandoned accounts."

I agree!! It would be a relatively simple program - something along the lines of if a member hasn't logged in within the past 30 days, send them a reminder they have 30 days to log in  - or their account gets put on hold. Run the program yearly. JMHO

"I wish PBS would adopt a more proactive method of addressing abandoned accounts." 

something along the lines of if a member hasn't logged in within the past 30 days, send them a reminder they have 30 days to log in  - or their account gets put on hold.

 on this.  A lot of the online forums I've been a member of in the past had this set and it worked great.

There was also a snow storm went thru the NE recently that knocked a lot of people's power out and they were unable to log into accounts due to power outages. SO that could contribute to not having requests taken care of quickly.

Sorry you've been impacted by Murphy's Law of PBS, Wendee -- the sooner you need a book, the longer it will take for that request to get accepted.

I would encourage those of you who have constructive suggestions for PBS, such as the membership issue, to tell them directly, so they can consider your ideas.  You can use the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of any PBS page, then the Feedback button.  They can't implement everything instantaneously, but they do frequently make changes based on member input.  

If is frustrating, I have the same problem when I order books with many in the system, and have had the exact same issue when ordering for my daughter's book club.  And it is so irritating when the book is heavily posted and you know some active member would love it get if off their shelf.  But I have had good luck with posting in the Bazaar or in a certain genre, once I needed Judy Blume’s Forever fast for my book club and I posted in  a forum requesting a "quick shipper" and I had it in less than  a week (1^stclass postage b/c it was  small book). 

I'm certainly not blasting those with legitimate "issues." It's just that I ordered the book looooooooooooong before all this snow stuff. LOL. I get it....people have problems once in awhile. But FIVE PEOPLE for one transaction? That is kind of funny. And, again, just venting and it's ordered AND received, which is good because she needs it Thursday. 

Next time I need something fast and see that it's readily (hahahaha) available, I'll follow some of these suggestions. Or just skip it & go to eBay. LOL. THANK YOU!!! 

Oh...I also LOVE the idea of weeding out the inactive accounts. Because, frankly, I do believe that was MORE the issue than power outages.