I know I am at the top of the list for one of my wishlist books--GOOD. But my wish was granted and taken away from me within 30 minutes. Why post a book and then say you cannot mail the book? Why did they post that book; if they were not willing to send it?

Maybe it was a mistake and they never meant to post it at all?

What Melanie said.  Maybe they meant to post to a friend, or to their wishlist and hit 'post' instead.

*hugs* hope you get a copy of the book soon

The good news is that you'll get the next copy that's posted! It is frustrating though to be so close yet still not be getting it.

I hate that too! I think maybe those people don't realize it's wishlisted & will go out right away, so they freak and back out.

That's happened to me with books and it drives me crazy. But the worst was on Swap-A-DVD when a movie I had been wanting forever was granted to me. The next day, it was taken away because the member opened up the box to find that the DVD wasn't in there! What the heck! How can you post a DVD without noticing that the disc isn't in the box! I was so pissed...

When I first joined and didn't read all the instructions thoroughly I would be surprised to find books I had just received a few weeks ago suddenly appear posted to my bookshelf and in a pending WL request.   I didn't realize there was a system default that would automatically put any book you received through the site on your bookshelf for request, wishlisted or not.   I cancelled one or two and mailed one or two before finding out how to turn off the repost option.    Could be an honest mistake.  

...books I had just received a few weeks ago suddenly appear posted to my bookshelf and in a pending WL request.

I was thinking "It's been years since we had that process on the site", but I see you joined before I did.  I remember being glad when they stopped doing that a short while after I joined.

Back to the OP, I do get live help questions from people saying, "I posted a book I just bought with the plan of putting it on hold on my bookshelf.  But it's already being offered to someone!" 

They aren't able to cancel the transaction at that point.  They have to wait until someone accepts it, and then they can cancel.  Or, if the wisher doesn't respond, they can place their bookshelf on vacation hold.  That way when the 48 deadline for responding passes, the book won't be offered to the next wisher in line.  Instead it will go to their bookshelf where they can place it on individual hold or delete it.

The way to avoid that is to place your bookshelf on vacation hold before posting wish list books you don't want to send right away.  Then place them on individual hold before removing the vacation hold.

But I understand how someone could make a mistake like that.

I've done this a number of times, especially when I first joined.

I'd post a book that had been sitting unopened on the shelf for years. My husband would see it there and suddenly declare a huge attachment to it. Oops.

I once posted a book and then remembered that it had only been loaned to me.

I've posted books and then realized that they were unpostable for some reason.

I've learned to mostly avoid these problems now, but I do think that it's frustrating to know that there's a copy out there, that almost is being offered to me! It's even more painful since so many of my books are the sort of book that is posted once every year or two, if at all.

I just did it this week and I've been here a long time and know better.  I received a book and I knew I wanted to read it soon.  I looked it up and there were a couple of copies in the system. Since my bookshelf is on vacation, I posted the book because I had planned to read it soon.  Well a few days later I came off hold jsut long enough to post an audiobook I had just finished and knew was WL. Well low and behold that book was now on WL hold.  I waited 2 days to accept and then chose the longest mail by date. But it was really tempting jusf to cancel the transaction.