It's not a scam; you just managed to hit a couple of deadbeats.

When you request a book, the credit is deducted from your account.  The person you requested it from has five days to respond.  It would be polite if the person who no longer had the book immediately declined the request to speed things up, but in any case when that request times out, one of two things happens:

1) You get your credit back, and the book is added to your wish list, or

2) Your request rolls over to the next person who has the book.

After the person responds affirmatively, they have another five days to mail the book.  If they do not mark it mailed by the deadline, you get your credit back.  When you get the book, you have to mark it received, then they get the credit.

It's annoying enough to people who have been around for a while to have stuff time out, but it does make a bad impression on people who have just started.  (It's also annoying to have a book you posted "assigned" to a requestor who doesn't respond, since it sits there for several days before it times out and rolls over to the next one.)

Welcome to PBS!

As Evelyn said, sometimes you just have to wait for inactive accounts or senders who cannot send, it's a process, but it really does work. Sometimes a book has been listed so long that we lose track of it, remember some folks have huge libraries and boxes and boxes of listed books. Orders will roll over until someone will eventually send what you want and it's like getting a present in the mail! It may take a while, but you will eventually get what you want. And as far as waiting for books on your own shelf to be ordered, some will go fast and some will take some time. I can tell you every single book I initially posted is long gone because I just kept waiting until someone ordered it. I've done deals too, for those that would not move and although I just keep adding more and waiting, I do have room to store them. And the longer you're here, hopefully the more books you will discover you want to add to your WL, which makes it even more fun. I bumped up my membership to GoldKey in August  and adding that extra 100 was amazing, I've had almost 30 wishes since then. I'm at point where as soon as I have all the books in a series I want to read I re-post as fast as I can read them. I can only read a few books a week though. Even still, I have hundreds more TBR and I promise to post them as soon as I can. I love PBS; I have never had such good access to get any book I want and these last few years I've been reading more than ever in my life. I find it better than the local library or stores.

Welcome!  There are hundreds of books mailed every day on this site, you will definitely get books! I just mailed 2 myself. Sometimes there are just some messed up listings or members that aren't paying attention to their account anymore.

As for the start-up credits, are they still tied up with active requests? Because PBS will continue to request that book for you as long as there are copies available. So even though that person didn't have the book, your order may have rolled to the next person with a copy of it and you will have a credit reserved on that request. You can see active orders on your main My Account page. You can see the credit activity by clicking the blue word Credits in the upper right of the screen if you are on a computer or the Credit link on your main My Account page.

If PBS did remove the 2 startup credits from your account, this is usually done because they are only granted one time ever to any household. So if you or anyone else in your family has ever set up a PBS account before and gotten the credits you wouldn't be eligible for them, they would remove them as soon as you entered your address. If that happened and you don't believe anyone else in the your home has ever signed up for an account and gotten the credits, you can send in Feedback via the Contact Us link and ask about it.

Hang in there. The 1st book I ever received from PBS was not a book I ordered. I freaked thinking that this must be a scam. The sender just swapped the labels on 2 books and fixed the problem. 

DRose,  my first book order was declined, them I tried 2nd time but  it timed out .  Third time it was lost but 4th time I got the book. 

Not a scam.  I agree members should keep a dedicated shelf at home for the swap sites and delete if you give stuff away.    

This site isn't a scam site, and many of use have successfully ordered and received hundreds of books over time. Mine is over 1,500 books received, with only problems on a very, very small percentage of them.

Thing is, that PBS doesn't have the books, individual members do. And since this is a hobby for people, sometimes real life gets in the way. So sometimes people are slow to respond, or find their dog ate the book, or that a friend borrowed it and didn't return it. And sometimes bad weather hits and people have trouble getting to the P.O. or highways get closed and mail is delayed.

And, sometimes, people just make mistakes on listings, and sometimes they don't read all the rules and don't realize they're doing it wrong.

But most times, once you get past the people who don't use the site correctly, and those who just have life get in the way or those who posted to shelves and never came back, will be good trades. The majority of people here are nice and send out some really great books.

So hang in there! Browse the site and maybe open yourself up to books you might like and fill up your Wish List! : ) One you get going, you'll see how great a site this is.

New member - listed my 10 books & received the first 2 I ordered with the initial credits then immediately someone ordered 1 of my books which I sent and when the person got it they immediately marked it received so I ordered my 3rd book which I got too - I already read 2 out of the 3 books and am working on the 3rd so am pretty happy with the site and only on it maybe a month or two. I like to keep the books I read or I would be listing a lot more and hoping people want them so I can order more because there are so many good ones listed and so far I have not had any problems. Glad someone mentioned only 1 membership to a household though because I didn't know that and we were going to three separate accounts because my mother, my husband and me all have different tastes in books and keep our own libraries so we were going to each have our own account but I guess you can't do that and didn't realize it until reading this thread.

You can have two accounts per street address. But they must be separate people. Only the first household member to list ten books will receive the two free credits. 

You may think about being all under one account if only one member will be mailing out books and checking the messages. 

You can transfer credits between accounts once you have used the first two. There is a limit of 50 credits a month that we can transfer.

Do check out the DVD and CD sites. Be sure to have the memberships under one email if you wish to transfer credits between the three sites. 

I agree.  This site isn't a scam.  You just have to give it some time to work.  I have been an active member since September of this year, and as of yet, (knock on wood) I haven't had any problems.  I hope you give it a change and happy reading!

I have sent and received many books through this site with few problem trades from members who no longer had the book or who sent an incorrect book or a book in poor condition.

Sometimes members lose track of a book they posted, loaned it to a friend, or donated it to a library or thrift shop if it has been sitting around for a long time after posting and has not been requested. But in my experience this is not common.

Also, keep in mind that PBS is designed around a queuing system. When multiple copies of a book are posted the first member who posted it will be first in line, the next member to post the book will be second in the queue, and the next member will be third in line, etc. When a book is requested it goes to first member in line. Although many members respond to requests quickly, each is given up to 5 days to respond -- either to accept the request, cancel the request, or let it time out. If a request is canceled or times out then it automatically moves to the next member in the queue, if any, and that person has up to 5 days to respond or let it time out. If this happens, your credit will be held until the process completes.  If the book is mailed the credit is transferred to the sender when the book is marked received. If your request is ultimately canceled or times out the credit goes back into your account to and can be used to request another book.

In addition, when a member sends a book he or she is removed from the top of the queue and everyone else who has the book posted will move up a notch. Overall the system works well and the large majority of members mail the books requested from them. Some members are very prompt and send books out within a day or two, and some may push the deadlines and not get a book in the mail for 10 days from the time of the request, and many members are somewhere in between.

If you stick with it and give the site a chance I think you'll be happy with finding and getting books you want, and sending books you have read or no longer want.

Welcome!

Several days went by & nothing was marked so I PM one of the book owners & she now gets back to me saying well I cancelled the order because I don't have the book anymore.

There is no need to PM somebody you request books from. They will either respond to the book request by you, (by mailing the book, or cancelling the order), or they won't respond, in which case the book order rolls over (after 5 days) to the next person who has a copy posted. In the event an order is cancelled by a prospective sender, the book order also rolls over to the next member in line who has posted it. This happens automatically. So, there is no need to monitor that kind of stuff ... PBS makes it easy and orders will just keep rolling over until someone indicates that they can mail a copy of the book.

The vast majority of book orders that I have made (more than 1500 at this point) have arrived in a reasonable amount of time and without problems.

Meanwhile if I didn't PM this woman- I'm wondering if I'd just be sitting around waiting for a book that was never going to come. Are you supposed to report a member who says that they don't actually have a book they listed anywhere?

Nope, there is no need to report it. And, nope, you wouldn't just be sitting waiting for the book, as explained above.

Stuff happens, I mail almost every book ordered from me, but there have been a couple of times where I couldn't find it, or discovered it was in an unpostable condition and so couldn't mail it out after all. I've been a member for almost 6 years now ... sometimes you lose a book or 2 along the way.

And I also see that even though I'm not getting the books I ordered - my initial credits have been deducted from my account? Somehow that doesn't seem very fair - is there anything I can do about this? Seems more and more like a scam to me.

Either your book order rolled over to a new potential sender and is still pending, or PBS discovered another account as described by others.

If the book order has rolled over, in the event that you cancel the order or the system has no more copies to try to order, etc ... you will get the credit back.

In the meantime, there are many members in the Book Bazaar selling credits for a little bit over $2 each. In the event that PBS deducted the credits because of multiple accounts ... you would have the option to purchase a credit or a few credits from other members to order books with until you start getting orders of your own to earn credits with.

Merry Christmas, DRose and welcome.

 I have belonged to other Bookswapping sites and now only belong to this one because it is by far the best.  Recently I reposted a book( from my on Hold bookshelf where books are placed after you get them) that was sent to me on a swap some time ago because I decided I didn't want to read it anymore and it was on someone's wishlist.  When I was getting ready to mail it I noticed that it appeared to have some water damage not obvious from the outside of the book.  Well water damage is not postable and I'm not sure when or where it occurred so I had to cancel the order.  I felt bad about it but as mentioned above unexpected things can happen.  I have had over a thousand great  trades.  

I also wanted to mention that with this site it appears only 1 copy is available at a time because of the first in, first out system..  If you place it on your Reminder list and then go and look at your Reminder list you will actually see how many copies are in the system.

I know you're going to love the site once you get going.