five times in the last few months i have requested a newly posted book, but never received a response (positive or negative) from the seller. i know the credit and place on the wish list is returned. but what's going on here?

=Sometimes people post books accidently (I have), but then I always explain why I can't send a book.  Don't know why people don't give some sort of explanation as to why they posted a book and then decided not to send it.  However, having said that, to respond with "I just decided not to send" to many times might get you in trouble, so it's easier to say nothing.  I feel your frustration though, as it's happened to most of us at one time or another.  Good luck. Pat

Just because it was a book posted that day does not mean that the poster is the one who received the request because of FIFO. In my experience, if a book has lots of copies, the odds of it timing out are high. But having said that, I too find it frustrating to request a book and it just sits there and finally times out.

I'm not sure if you ordered a newly posted book or accepted a wish list offer.  If it was a newly posted book, then as Sally said, when you placed your order it would have gone to the member who was first in the senders' line rather than to the person who posted the book that day.  If there are a lot of copies posted, the member at the front of the line now may have abandoned his account.  You're doing the site a service by waiting out the five days, because when the sender doesn't respond the book is removed from his bookshelf, and if it's his second consecutive non-response his account will be placed on hold until he logs in again.

But the server normally wouldn't return your credit and place the book on your wishlist, unless you ordered the only copy of the book posted here.  Normally it would pass your order on to the next sender in line.

If it was a wish list book, it could have been a new member who posted some books and then decided the site wasn't for her.  Or maybe she posted a bunch of books, and lots of them were wishlisted, and she was overwhelmed by all the requests.  Frustrating for you!  But again, you may be helping to weed out an abandoned account.  After two days, the book would be returned to your wish list, as you said, and your credit would be returned to you.