I think pbs is great. I ordered a cd from your sister site, transfered a pbs credit and THEN I was told I have to PAY about 50 cents per cd. Why? This makes no sense. I like PBS because I do not have to pay any fees other than shipping. I transfered my credit back to pbs.

This would probably be better addressed SwapACD. Here is a link to the Forums there: http://www.swapacd.com/forum/index.php

On SwapaCD, if the CD sent to you is lost or damaged in the mail, you get your money and trade credit refunded.  The $0.49 fee helps to offset that cost to the site.

Also postage is much cheaper for lightweight CDs, so even with the 50 cents, costs are low.

The 49 cents is like insurance.  If a CD is lost or damaged in the mail (CD's are damaged by PO more often than books) the sender gets the credit and the requestor gets a credit back.  I pay 27 cents to use PBS DC just as insurance that I will get the credit even if book goes missing.  49 cents is a pretty good deal to guarantee a credit and it's very cheap to mail a CD.

The 49 cents is like insurance.  If a CD is lost or damaged in the mail (CD's are damaged by PO more often than books) the sender gets the credit and the requestor gets a credit back.

Exactly what Sarah said.  Since swapaCD doesn't require a case, CDs are more easily damaged in transit than DVDs..  The 49 cents is insurance on each CD, guaranteeing your credit if the CDs is cracked, skips, etc.

Sorry to butt into this thread slightly off topic, I have not used the sister sites yet, but from this post I am taking it you can transfer credits from one site to another? Like I have hundreds of DVDs we are phasing out as we bought an apple TV so could I use the credits from the DVDs to get books here?

The credits don't swap at 1-for-1 through all the sites, but it is very equitable. The transfer option page gives that information.

2 SwapaDVD credits are worth 3 PBS credits so if you have hundreds of DVDs and they turn out to be wishlisted, you could be financing your PBS swapping for a long time!

Yep, I had hundreds of CDS I don't listen to anymore and swapped a lot of them on SwapaCD, then transferred the credits here. I was really happy to trade CDs for books.

I don't think the OP is upset at the charge so much as being upset at not being told about it upfront.  I know I was the same way.  I transfered over several credits because there were some CDs I was interested in.  Put them on my wishlist, waited and waited to get to the front of the line, finally and one offered and THEN it told me about the extra cost. 

Yes, I'm sure that info was available in the help documents but being a regular user over here I just assumed it worked the same way.  I understand why the fee is there and ended up paying it to get my CD, but like the OP I was upset at not being told that info up front.

When people join any of the sites, they must click that they have read the Terms of Use and I'm sure that fee is mentioned there.

The fee is why I have used PBS (primarily) and SwapADVD (a few times), but not SwapACD - the extra cost isn't worth it to me. To be honest I'm not sure why they include the fee - if it's about possible damage, aren't DVDs just as apt to be damaged in the mail as CDs? (I don't use the DVD site much because the weirdo ranking wishlist mechanism there confuses the crap out of me. If they ever implement it on PBS I will be outta here, more than likely.)

But, to stay on topic, I believe I remember reading about the CD fee when I first joined PBS et al, so it's not like it's hidden if you take a minute to read about how each of the sites work.

Laura,
When CDs are sent in a case, they are less prone to damage; however, the SACD system doesn't require a case and unfortunately, many people decide to just send the disc & artwork to save a few cents instead of sending it securely.  I've probably had about 10% of what I've received there either damaged in the mail or so badly scratched that it didn't play.  The awesome thing is that they do refund the credits when that happens.  I tend to not worry about the fee because I've been able to get some hard to find items for considerably less than I would pay for them on Ebay or Amazon.

I was a member of Swap-a-CD and Swap-A-DVD at one time.  I remember reading the "how it works" documents before I signed up, and the fee per transaction was plainly stated.   Is that not there anymore?

MaryF

I think they did disclose the 49 cents fee upfront on Swapacd.  Really, it's not a biggie as it is cheaper to mail a cd than it is to mail a book.  Cds are more fragile than books or dvds, and break during mailing more often.  It is nice that you don't lose a credit over broken cds. 

I don't worry about the extra 49 cents. I have credits sitting here that I've earned and I'm not willing to sell at BB price. For another 49 cents I can get something I want at a price lower than what I'd pay buying it.  Works for me. 

No one really has a complaint that they didn't know about the fee because they didn't bother to read the Terms of Use or any other site information before using the site.

I started using pbs then transfered some credits to swapadvd, and knew how those sites functioned, I was very surprised that there was a .50 transaction fee for swapping cd's. I was like, WHAT? That does not compute. I did a little math, and with 5 dollars of pbs money, I could get 10 cds, provided I have 10 credits. 10 cd's at full retail would be around 100 dollars, so on reflection swapacd additional requirement is not so bad.

I had the expectation I could trade audio cd's like pbs trades books.

You should, no NEED TO require that all audio cd's are sent in bubble mailers. I do this with audiobooks and even some books. Once you trade a few of them in bubble mailers you get a stack of them if you re-use them. As CD's age, they become more brittle, and it doesn't cost more to send cd's padded, when you factor in the cost of broken cds.

If you expect to get a lot of CDs, the 49-cent fee isn't bad, but there is a 50-cent fee to buy money, so if you're only looking for one or two it works out to more per CD.  And if you hope to get a lot, but they turn out not to be available, you can end up tying up a lot of money.

(On the DVD site, I have a reasonably long wish list.  I have *never* gotten anything off my wish list.  I have gotten four DVDs in the last year I just happened to see, but also had two other requests time out.)

And yet, I've been a member of Netflix for many years and even though their discs are sent in an inner and outer envelope only, I've had only 2 out of hundreds arrive cracked.

I think Netflix may have a special handling agreement with the USPS.  Their Red envelopes are very eye catching. 

We've had only one disc arrive cracked and that one was more shattered than cracked.  It looked like someone had stepped on it.

Although I have five DVDs on my wish list, I have not received one yet. Personnally, I think that the procedure that determines where you place on the Wish List for DVDs is only slighly less complicated than the Tax Code.  However, I have shipped numerous DVDs and almost always trade those credits 2 for 3 to my PBS account. I bet I have earned over 40 credits that way.