Hi!

 I just started here, and have a question!  When you "order" a book, how long do you wait for the member to respond? I ordered one, and waited 3-4 days and still did not get a response. So, I cancelled that order, and ordered a different copy of the book from someone else. It has been almost 3 days since I ordered it and it's still waiting.

Should I just wait longer?  Practice some patience? :)

Thanks for your advice!

Krista, I have been a member of the Paperback swap for almost two years now and have only had this happen to me a couple of times.  I wonder if maybe the member is on vacation and forgot to put her books on "vacation hold".  At any rate, don't give up.  If you cancelled your original order and then immediately tried to order it again, the request probably went to the same member because the PBS requests the book in order that it was posted.  There might be 50 copies of the same book up for swap.  If you still haven't had a response regarding this book, I would suggest you cancel your request and wait a week or two and try it again.  Sorry you had this experience as a new member.  Please be assured that this does not happen often.  Hope I have answered your question.

Hi,

Welcome to PBS! 

Don't cancel your order.  The member has 5 days to respond and if they don't it will automatically move your order to the next person.  If you cancel and order again you are just ordering from the same member every time.

Good luck!

What Shannon said. 

Thanks! I did order a different edition, so it should be from a different member, right?  I did not know about the 5 days.

Thanks for the great advice!

I have a book ordered that has been on order for five days....that order was automatically cancelled then my order went to another member so I am waiting to hear if that order is sucessful. So you dont have to do anything as long as there is more than one book in the system. After the five days your order will just go to the next member with that book......I hope this makes sense...lol

Some people need those extra days to get them to Payday or their once a week go to the post office day. When I go to visit my mother I don't put my account on hold. I have computer access there. If a request comes in, I let it sit for a few days to get the mail by date to when I'll be home again.

Plus letting requests time out helps weed out the inactive people.  Cancelling the 1st request left a possibly inactive account open longer.  No biggy-but it you had let it time out it would have removed the book from their shelf and put a red flag that the account was possibly inactive. This would also help someone who went on vacation and forgot to go on hold-the timed out request could cause PBS to put their account on hold for them and then save them from missing WL offers and other book requests.  They can unhold when they get back.

A few weeks ago I ordered a book. I did the same thing as you and canceled it before the five days were up. I soon wished that I hadn't. A couple of weeks ago I ordered it again. The same person came up. I decided to look at her profile,bookshelf, and wishlist. From what I could see there had been no activity from her since May of 2008 in any of those areas. Everything that she had done last was on one certain date in May. I decided to let the book go the full five days. It went off my list marked as sender did not respond in alloted time. This did not surprise me as I'm assuming she is an inactive member and needs to be looked at. Then the book went to another member. Everything that happened with the first member happened with this member, except her last date of activity was on a certain date in July, 2008. Then the book went to another member, but unfortunately, I needed  the credit to get a WL book that came up, so I cancelled it. I will try again next week. The first two members never returned the book to their bookshelves, either. I'm assuming that's another indication that they may be inactive.