I received a book. It arrived with a ripped page; not caused by improper wrapping but was obviously done beforehand. I have no way of knowing if the sender knew about the rip or missed it before shipping (and I'm more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt)  but the fact is they sent an unpostable book. I requested my credit back which sender refunded, along with a somewhat snarky note about how after sending X number of books without a problem she finds it hard to believe there was anything wrong with this one.

Sigh. Why does it seem that so many RWAP responses have to be nasty or snarky or passive/aggressive? Honest, I don't go RWAPing books just for the heck of it. I have enough credits, I'm not looking to scam you out of one. You sent a book that was unpostable and I follwed the club rules in marking it as such. Can't you just say sorry and move on? Sometimes it just makes me sad.

Yeah, it definitely stings when someone gets defensive and snarky.  Luckily, she returned the credit so you don't have to go through any more stress over it.

I received a book yesterday that had been wet. pages were wavy. also had library stickers on the front and stamps on the interior pages. I indicated the problems with the book but as far as I can see the person who sent the book still got credit for it and I am out a credit.

I think the person who sent this book must have known what they were doing was against the rules and yet they got a credit for the book they sent. I am thinking of deleting all my books and closing my account here. I can easily find stuff the read without going through this sort of aggravation.

and now this morning I got an e-mail notice that a request I made on May 27 was finally canceled late last night. So it took 10 days for somebody to decide they did not want to send a book they had. I thought it was 5 days.

I don't think this site is very well controlled.

I so rarely have problems that they would not be worth bringing up. I love the site and have found it the cheapest way to get my books. We have no decent local 2nd hand bookstores and the library has very few of the books I have on my W/L.. It has been a good match for me.

Charles, the stickers and stamps are probably okay as ex-library books are allowed to posted, unless you had a no library books RC or the stickers obscured any text pages. But, if the book had water damage and you indicated RWAP when you got it then the sender should have replied in some way. They need to respond, either to deny the problem or apologize/refund your credit and then you can mark the transaction resolved or not. If they don't respond then you need to contact PBS. This is one of the important things that PBS requests members do - reply to a RWAP or PM, one way or another.

As far as a request taking ten days, it probably went through more than one person. Once you make a book request the sender does have five days, but if they turn it down or it eventually times out, it goes to the next person, where the five day clock starts again; it can happen over and over. You can find posts here in the forums where members cite how many turndowns they get as they weed through members, it can be something of a bragging story. Sorry this happened to you, though. Sometimes, if it's a highly posted book then please realize some people have abandoned their accounts if the only books on their shelf have hundreds/thousands of copies (since they get frustrated that they're not getting requests right away). After several such requests time out like that PBS looks at the account and can close it. So in that way you are helping the club become more efficient as it helps move up the lines for people who are still active.

PBS is a great book club. Sometimes it simply takes patience; there are just so many members and so many books and it may take a while to make the right connection.

thanks for the info.

I guess I'll have to add no library stuff to my conditions. I am surprised a withdrawn library book would be considered in good condition.

PBS doesn't have "condition" levels.  It is either postable or not postable.  It is not like a book sale site, where a book might be graded New, Good, Average, Poor.  It is either postable or not postable.  Then if a person decides that just "postable" is not good enough, they can put on Requestor Conditons.  So that gives some flexibility.

when I put in an isbn to post a book this message comes up to the right side of page.

I am surprised a withdrawn library book would be considered in good condition.

Withdrawn library books are explicitly allowed to be posted in the PBS rules. (As long as they meet the other book conditions, no water damage, no ripped pages, etc).

You can find the full rules here: http://www.paperbackswap.com/help/help_item.php?id=205

If you don't want to receive ex-lbrary books, then the proper thing to do is make a RC.
PBS also allows for dustjackets to be missing on hardcover books, so that is one more thing that people commonly make a RC for, if they want to require the dustjacket.

I have never received an ex-library book that was in poor condition. Of course, I mostly trade in hardbacks which tend to be more durable than paperbacks. Most of the hardbacks I have received (over 200) look like they just came off the bookstore shelf. I prefer to buy my paperbacks from rummage sales, book sales, and used book stores so I can avoid books in poor condition.

I don't have an RC against ex-library books and I've got some that were in great shape.  But I do have to say that in my experience, ex-library books do seem to be a lot more likely to have problems--stains, water damage, and broken spines.  I'm talking about hardbacks I've received. 

I have received numerous ex-library books and they have all been in excellent condition. On the other hand, I have received many stained, smelly, banged up books that weren't from the library. So it certainly can work both ways. I do agree some ex-libary books I've seen at their sales were poorly taken care of and shouldn't have been sold, but my used bookstore sells some disgusting used books, too.

Some people take it personally and get defensive when a book is reported as having a problem, and their first reaction is to lash back or deny there was a problem to defuse the criticism of them.

I usually get library books in good shape, but they often have stickers and numbers and such taped to them, and some people don't like that. It's not really bad condition, but it won't look so good if it's going to be kept.  

I occasionally have gotten a book where I wondered why they thought they could send it, and the reasons vary, usually that they didn't look close or had someonen else send it. I just got one in which the last half of the book was twice its normal size and all wavy from water damage and clearly wasn't postable. I RWAPed it, and the sender was very apologetic and said she'd had her daughter send out the books when she got busy,and it apparently got damaged waiting to go out. 

People don't always pay as much attention as they need to, figuring everything is fine, and a lot can happen to a book that's sitting around for awhile..