... but I actually did it... I switched two books and sent them to the wrong people.  They had the correct wrappers but wrong books in them.  I've received one RWAP reply already, and they were really nice.  They other book hasn't been delivered yet.

My question is what is the usual way to deal with this if you are the sender?  What I did so far was offer to either try and switch the books back by refunding a credit for postage and waiting for them to be returned and re-mailing them, or just refunding the credit and letting them go back into line for the book.  I also sent a pre-emptive message to the second person letting them know they were going to be receiving the wrong book and giving them the same options.  I haven't received replies yet.

What is the best way to make this right?  Thanks!

-Cynthia S.

I'm assuming that these weren't WL books, right? The easiest solution is to just refund the credits and allow them to just re-order through the system, keeping the wrong books to post on their shelves. You can try to have them each send to each other, but if one doesn't follow through, then what do you do?

If you had the only copy of the books, you could try to have them send to each other. The problem is that there's no real incentive for them to do so, because there's no real record in the PBS system for it.

So that's my suggestion. Refund the credits so that they can re-order as per normal. (WIth your sincere apologies, of course.)

This happened to me once, only I was the recipient of one of the switched books.  The sender gave each recipient a credit and the other recipient's address and we sent off the books to each other.  I just edited an older PBS label using Adobe with the other person's address and sent it out just like any other book.  I didn't mark the book received until the other recipient sent me the copy I actually ordered.  I guess I could have posted the book to my shelf and sent it as mail to a friend, but either way, it was a quick and painless transaction and a great testiment to the caliber of the membership here.  Here's the text of the PM's (edited) that we exchanged (mine's bold):

Hi, I just got a book from you, but it's a HC titled "The Supernaturalist" by Eoin Colfer and it's not the one I ordered. I ordered "Not Exactly the Three Musketeers" by Joel Rosenberg.  Did you have more than one order going out at the same time and possibly mix up wrappers?
Or do you still have the book I ordered?
Thanks!

Thanks for the info.  I have refunded their credits and asked them what they want to do.

I did this once and it was 2 books that were the only books in the system.  I sent poly mailers pre-addressed and pre-paid to each person, addressed to the other person.  So all they had to do was drop the book in the bag, seal the bag, and drop it in the mailbox.  Both people did it within a few days of getting the bag from me.  It didn't cost much to send the mailers to them, they are very lightweight.  I felt like since it was my mistake I needed to make it as easy as possible for them to get the book to the right person.

Carmen, that's a great solution to the problem! I know that the number one issue that happens with this sort of thing is when one person forwards the book, but the other just never quite gets around to it. :-/

Carmen that's a great solution!

I've done something similar - I had one order for one book, and one order for 3, and of course mixed it up - the person who got the 2 extras was very kind and sent them to the other person - I sent her a couple of credits for her postage and trouble.