Another member requested a book from me on Saturday Nov 27. I accepted the request that day, and selected a mail later date of December 1 ( I had a houseful of Thanksgiving weekend guests). I mailed the book Dec 1 with PBS shipping. The other member received the book on Saturday Dec 4. Today I got a pm from him saying "A little slow in shipping the book, but it's in great condition."  Are you kidding me? What a jackwagon. Getting a book exactly one week from requesting it is great. I'd be really happy. Is there any way to block this person so I never have to deal with him again? I'm tempted to put my bookshelf on hold for awhile. I have plenty of credits.

When you use printable postage, you can set the "date" on the label ahead, so sometimes members who aren't familiar with the postage think you didn't mail the book until the date on the label. 

The chances of the same member ordering from you again are very slim -- I'd put it out of your mind and continue your swapping activities ;-)

The wise move is to just ignore it and move on.  However, I probably would have replied by quoting the shipping rules for the site and pointing out that I shipped exactly when I said I would.  Furthermore, I'd point out that media mail can take several weeks to arrive at its destination, so a book mailed on Dec. 1 and received Dec. 4 made pretty good time. 

His comment sounds like he's leaving feedback on eBay! lol

Donna, PBS has no feature to block specific members.  Some people keep a list near their computer for this purpose, but fortunately PBS membership is large enough you are unlikely to run across this member again.

Accepted, shipped, and received in 7 or 8 days at this time of year (or any other time of year) is IMO excellent.  You were easily within the shipping window, what a whiner.

Chances are that you probably won't get any more requests from the person as people have said because PBS is so large but I would take the time to educate the complainer about how PBS works.  You may save the next person an irritation.  I'd tell them a thing or two about how MEDIA MAIL works.  What do they expect during this time of the year anyway.

Thanks for your replies.

That is funny Susan- he does sound like he's leaving ebay feedback!

I replied to him that I had mailed the book well within the amount of time required by PBS. This is really the first whiner that I've had to deal with in almost a year as a PBS member- so I've probably been lucky. It just amazes me that especially at this time of the year, someone would complain that a book wasn't mailed instantly. I will take your good advice - put it out of my mind and keep swapping.

 I just got this reply back from the requestor.

"I requested this book on 11-17, on 11-18 I got this message from PBS:
This is just a friendly email to confirm that your request for the book *******  has been accepted into our system at PaperBackSwap. In the next couple of days you should receive an email stating that the book is on its way!
The book didn't ship until 12-1. I cannot find in the rules what the time for shipping is. I did not mean to be rude, still think 13 days is "a bit slow" for shipping."

It looks like the request rolled over twice and he didn't understand that. Instead of being annoyed, I'll try to explain what happened, so maybe he won't be mad and complain to the next person.

I was going to suggest that maybe what happened was what he said happened: he ordered the book earlier and it timed out on other(s) before it came to you. I would just politely respond that you didn't receive a request for the book until 11/27 and his wait for the book had nothing to do with you but with other members not responding.  And that before he makes a comment like that again he should check the dates on the transaction (it would show the date requested and accepted which would be a clue that it wasn't accepted by the 1st person).

It he looks at his "credit registry", on the yellow bar on his My Account page, he'll see where his order was canceled and then "passed on" to a new sender.  Kudos to you for using this as an opportunity to educate!

Time-outs can be annoying    Good if you help him learn to read what's happening in his account (so as not to whine at the wrong members).

Some people are just never satisfied with anything.  I agree with the others about pointing out to him when you actually received the request and the fact that the first two timed out has nothing to do with you or the timeliness of your shipping.

Agree with the above posters that its highly unlikely the same person will pop up again.  You could always make a list for yourself of all the folks you've traded with and rate them.  Then when a request comes in you can check the list.  Sort of like that "bad check" list that some stores still post on registers.

-RD

Thank you for taking the time to educate him, hopefully this will prevent him from being a pill to someone else.

Why is everyone flaming this poor guy? I didn't find anything objectionable in his original message...he mentioned that delivery seemed slow and then complimented the OP on the excellent condition of the book. Obviously he didn't know that a request can roll through more than one member so all that the OP had to do was explain this to him. Instead he gets a reply from her accusing him of rudeness (as evident in his second message where he states that he didn't intend to be rude).
 
He seems honestly confused and not rude at all so why accuse him of being "mean" and "a pill"? The extreme over-reaction of the OP is more of a head scratcher to me. Being accused of slow shipping warrants her banning him from ever ordering her books again? It's her right to do this, of course. I also have a small list of people I won't mail to, so like I said it's within her rights. It just seems that he could have been given the benefit of the doubt.

(edited for spelling)

Anne, I agree with you that it's a good idea to give people the benefit of the doubt. Somehow the true explanation for his annoyance didn't occur to anyone when the OP posted, so everyone assumed that he was in fact annoyed at the one-week turnaround time. I'm sort of surprised that no one thought of it, since people here are so often amazing at coming up with alternative explanations for unexpected behavior.

But I don't notice flames here. The OP got the message from the recipient and believed that he had accused her of being slow when he'd gotten the book less than a week after ordering it. (Which would indeed have been unreasonable, had it been true.) Other posters, not realizing the correct explanation, assumed that he was being rude too.

After his misunderstanding was clarified, I don't find a lot of assumptions being made that he is anything other than unaware of the rules. One person encourages the OP that she should not worry even if he is mean from now on (but that hopefully he won't be), which doesn't strike me as a slam, just encouragement to the OP for every eventuality (which is typical of these forums, and is generally fabulous). And someone else says that if he now understands, that will prevent him from being "a pill" to someone else. I didn't take that as flaming, either - because we can all be a pill sometimes, without meaning to, and ignorance sometimes causes that. Certainly the OP found him a pill, even though it was inadvertent.

The recipient certainly didn't deserve to be accused of being rude, and I hope he wasn't. I also hope that he learns a little more about the site from this experience!

IMHO, on a website that operates primarily with Media Mail, where it can very well take up to three weeks for a package to reach it's destination, complaining about slow shipping when a book arrives 3 days after it is sent IS objectionable. Obvioulsy we now know that he had been waiting longer than three days, but I stand by my assertion that someone complaining about getting a book three days after it was mailed is being a pill.

Nothing said in this thread has come anywhere near to flaming.