What happens if I can't send a book out? I know it hurts other people, and really, I'm more than willing to see these things go. But right now, I don't have the money (I'm a teenager with a broken leg and without a summer job, so my money is dwindling fast). I probably should have waited before joing, but this site is too amazing for me to sit and watch it go by. What should I do with all the requests I'm getting? Thanks, and sorry!

Put your shelf on hold so you don't get any request.   It's not fair having books listed that you know you can't send.   Keep your shelf on hold until you have the ability to send them again.  If you already have request and can't send them then you need to cancel the request.   It's not a good thing to make a habit of but if you can't send them, you don't have much choice.

Well, if you are getting lots of requests that you can't fulfill, you'd better let someone on the PBS team know it before you get suspended.  Use the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of the page to tell them your problem.  then you need to at least go on Vacation Hold.  If you have credits, you need to put the books you want on your WL on auto-request so you don't miss them, otherwise they will just skip you until you can come back and be active.  It really isn't a good thing to ignore or decline requests.

ruth

Definitely put your shelf on hold - that way you don't lose you place in the FIFO line!

Hope you get back on your feet soon :)

Since you will miss out on lots of credits if you can't mail out requested books, could you arrange a small loan from somebody?   Postage per book isn't TOO great, and you would get them out, get your credits, and still put yourself on vacation hold to avoid any more requests until later, say after you pay back that person for the loan.  But meanwhile, you will collect the credits, too.  I know I was thrilled to have requests coming in right away when I first joined!  It is always fun to get the requests!    Hope you are better (and working) soon!   :)   D.

If you go to your Bookshelf list page and look on top of the list you will see a Vacation Hold button.  That will allow you to stay on PBS and keep you place in the books lines until you can afford to mail out more books.  Lots of people use this on a weekly basis when they have mailed out their weekly book budget.  Do this right now.  I will sometimes look at the members that have just joined on the home page.  I have seen recently alot of people joining that have added bookshelf that have over 100 books posted.  Sometimes that will make for overwhelming postage bills.

Good Luck with that broken leg. 

Bonnie

Thanks! I'll put my account on hold and try to bum some money off my brother. Thanks for the advice.

I checked to see this one's profile b/c I saw the words "I'm a teenager" and thought they weren't allowed (unless they were of the 18 or 19 variety) and this account has been closed/suspended.

Many 18, 19, and even some 20 yro think of themselves as teenagers, where many adults do not, and read "teenager" as someone between 12 and 17. PBS will contact the member and be sure they are at least 18. The OP did put his account on hold, shortly before PBS suspended it so that they could make sure the "teenager" is 18 or more.

They could well be able to convince PBS that they are 18 and be back in hours or a day or so, or not be able to and have to wait until another birthday or two to participate. Sometimes it takes a day or two for PBS to contact or finish the investigation, so it may be that they are not back in a day or two simply because PBS isn't satisfied yet, or couldn't contact them yet. It's not absolutely because they are under 18 for several days.

It's also possible that he waited too long to ask what to do and let some requests time out which prompted PBS to suspend his account until they contact him.

True, Mary, the system is set with some automatic flags that will automatically put an account on hold, and one of them is most likely a high number of cancellations within a specific amount of time/days.

How on EARTH do they "confirm" that a member is at least 18 years old or more? I would close my account before I would send this or ANY web site a copy of my driver's license or birth certificate.

I've seen another member post that they had to fax their driver's license.