Ive ordered this book Horselords by David Cook. Anyway it has gone through two members already that have not responded and tomarrow it will time out again. Does this happen alot? Luckily there are 24 copies in the system so eventually someone should respond......right? lol .....I dont see any need to pm these people if they are not responding to PBS's e-mails. Ley me ask this question what is the most time you have ordered a book and had the request time out (for the same book).....ok gotta go to work.....

For me, it's two. It was annoying because it was a book that people in the "Classics" forum had decided to do as a group read, and I was supposed to lead the discussion. But the third person responded, and quickly.

Funny you asked this question. There is one book I requested  that went through 3 people and the 4th one finally responded. Now, the real kick in the *** is that it will go "lost" this weekend if it doesn't show up. The name of the book is "Bad Luck" Wedding Night! LOL

It doesn't happen to me very often, but most of the books I order I either WL books or through deals.  But some books seem to attract more problems than others, and the more copies of a book that are posted the more likely people who have it on thier shelf are inactive members, i.e. law of averages.

ETA - and as Rick indicated, the Second Law of PBS seems to be that the amount of time you must wait for a book will increase exponentially according to your urgency to acquire said book.

Caviglia, who is your avatar of?

Me. 

ETA - the Brightness/Contrast tool in Photoshop is everyone's friend.

You could've been a silent movie ingenue.

I thought it was a silent movie star as well.

I think the most I've ever gone through is 3 people.  Just remind yourself that you are helping PBS weed out the inactive accounts.  Whenever an account has a WL offer or book request go with no response it sends a red flag to PBS.  IF they see more than one of these or that the person hasn't logged on in a log time then they put the account on hold.  Which takes them out of any WL lines and FIFO lines and moves everyone else up a notch.

I ordered one book a few months ago that cycled through four members before being accepted by number 5 on the last day. She picked the last date to mail by and , you guessed it, took advantage of that extra 48 hours to mail. When I actually got the book three weeks later I nearly died of shock.  I have had to develop patience on this site. LOL

I guess I've been really lucky, I don't remember ever having a book time out with more than one person.  But there was one instance when it timed out with someone, then the next person took every last minute allowed to send it, and this one was for a book club reading too!

Debra,

That sounds like my last experience with cycling through requests.  I requested a book, it cycled through two members, neither accepted, and I cancelled the request (to pursue something I wanted more).  Then I waited a couple of weeks, went back and re-requested, the book cycled through two more people (different than the first time, I remember what their bookshelves looked like!) before the fifth accepted, who then took as long as possible to mail.  It makes you a little crazy...

I have learned not to rely on PBS if I need a book quickly-unless I'm getting it from a buddy. Most of the time I get a book in a reasonably amount of time. But you just never know if that book you really want immediately is going to be the one to time out repeatedly, show up too gross to read or go lost.  

It doesn't happen to me very often anymore, but only because most of my PBS "shopping" is done via my wishlist these days. But occasionally I'll need a series book that has many dozen copies in the system, and often those will cycle through 2 or 3 people before it finds someone who is still active and wants to send it. But as I'm not in a big hurry to get it, it's not a big deal for me--I typically order one or two books ahead in a series, and I never read them all in order, so I can be patient.

Any book that I really NEEDED for a class or book group or whatever, I would not rely on PBS to get it to me in time.

Cheryl

I just had Stolen by kelley armstorong on my wish list.  It offered it up to me twice and i accepted but the person never said they could mail it, so it went on to the next time it was put in the system.  So now on my third try it being offered to me the person accepted and its on its way.  So it can still get timed out even if you use wishlist. 

This has happened to me a few times.  One book went through 3 people before the 4th finally accepted it and I got it--the day before it was due to be lost.  I think it took about 6 weeks to get a book that had 20 or so copies posted.

It's happening a lot to WL books I post.  About 25% of them don't go to the first person because they never respond.  I had one WL book that went to person #5.  At least the wait is shorter before it rolls over on the WL.  It's frustrating because I tend to post several WL books at once hoping that I'll be able to mail them all in one trip to the PO.

If PBS uses the response info to weed out non-active members, I've been helping them do the culling!

cool my book finally got accepted........so now I will have all three......lol book two and three came first so I was waiting on book one....I love this site....

This has happened to me more than once fer sur.  One book went through 5 people before the 6th finally accepted it and I got it the day before it was due to be lost. 

It's happening to many of my WL books, even a couple of FIFO requests I made went through more than one person before they were accepted. 

I'm definitely assisting PBS weed out non-active members!