Someone has requested one of the books I posted, but says to PM them if the book has any tears, smells, or underlines so they can decide if they want it or not. The book has small tears around the corners but is in great condition otherwise. My question is, how do I PM the person at this point? My only option right now is to select whether or not the book meets their conditions. There's no option to PM them and I don't know who it is. Can you help?

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Yep - what Stacey said.

And welcome to PBS!  :-)

Thanks!

underlining is against PBS rules so a books shouldn't be posted with those.

tears on the cover are ok if under 1", anything more makes it unpostable

smells...well that can be subjective.

so really I don't know why they would ask you to PM them if the books meets PBS guidelines (except for the smell part).  You can either accept and PM them at their request or decline the order.

I'm thinking, I would pass on this one.  I pass on any requests that ask me to PM with a detailed description of the book and how it smells etc...  What might smell all right to me might be bad to someone else.  I only post books in postable condition but it's not going to look brand new.  It's a used book.  If a book is iffy to me-it goes to the UBS, the Thrift store or gets offered as a freebie.   I don't know where the book was before I bought it or if the mail man is going to chain smoke while driving my book around.   If you accept and then describe the book and they decide they want it-keep the PMs until the book is received.  Incase they make a complaint you can say that the book met PBS guidelines and you PM'd them with a book description before mailing it out.  Give them a deadline in which to respond and say you are either mailing the book out anyway or cancelling the request.  But here's the thing: if you cancel the request-you have to repost the book again and work your way up the FIFO line.  If there's a lot of them in the system-that could be a while. If they don't want the book, suggest that they cancel the request. When the re-request the book, it'll come to you again and you can decline because of conditions.  That'll keep your place in line and move their request on to someone else.  Just make sure you don't access the address because once you do that, it can only be cancelled by PBS.

That's interesting, MrsLefty. For the very first book someone requested from me, the requestor had a huge list of conditions and I thought that's what every other requestor would say from here on out. Glad it's not like that and that my book met all the conditions anyway.

I wouldn't do business with someone who assumes that I'd post a book in poor condition. 

I would decline if they want a PM and don't include their nickname in the RC so I can PM before I click that my book meets their conditions.

If it seems like your book meets their conditions, just accept the order and PM that there are small tears in the cover. Have them cancel the order if they do not want you to send it, then deny the RCs if the order comes back to you. I prefer to send the book if it meets the RCs instead of judging them for having them.

From the Help center:

Remember, the sender will see exactly what you type! Choose your wording carefully: most senders err on the side of caution. A vague notation like "Nice books only" is not easily interpretable, and will probably result in a lot of your requests being declined.

• Asking the sender to "PM me if you are unsure" is not a good idea
• There is no mechanism for the sender to PM the requestor from a request without accepting it
• If you want the sender to communicate with you about the book, you should phrase this "If you are unsure whether or not your book meets these conditions, please ACCEPT this request and then send me a Personal Message about the book."
• Ideally, your conditions should be clear enough not to require Personal Message clarification.

Thus, based on this, I decline all requestor conditions that ask for a PM.  I will accept most RC's, but not those that ask for a PM.

Stephanie,

In your original post, you indicate it has "small tears around the corners".  Are these tears only on the cover or also on the inside pages?  As I read the guidelines, small cover tears are postable, torn inside pages are not.

Karen

Karen -- I checked last night and actually the book this person wants is in perfect condition with no tears; I was thinking of another book. That book only has small tears on the book jacket at the corners. There are no tears inside the book.