What happens if book trade is not accepted within 5 days?  I would really like the book but I don't want to keep getting the same person if they can't or will not send it to me for whatever reason...I know there is more than one copy in the system.

If there are no other copies in the system, the book is moved to your Wish List.

If it's not accepted within the timeframe, the system cancels the order from that sender and automatically requests the book for you from the next person in line.  So as long as you aren't cancelling and reordering & allowing the system to do it for you...then you won't get the same person.

PS...I'm under the impression that if it times out, that sender's copy is removed from the system until they relist it.  If they do relist it, then it goes to the bottom of the FIFO pile.  I could be wrong, but I believe that's how that works.  But either way, let the system time it out for you.  This insures you don't request it from the same person.

Good luck getting your book.  I know it can be frustrating to wait :)

Kellie

Thanks for the help Kellie.  I was uncertain how to go about it, to not get the same person.  I didn't realize that the system would reorder the book for me.  That is great, and now I can still get the book.  : )

Deanna

Your very welcome.  Good luck getting your book!

Kellie

I am having a problem with lots of non-responsive members, like this person below

(name withheld due to rules, eventhough I think it should be shared as an alert to other people) - but will follow the rules, so as not anger the site

I ordered a book five days ago, and this is the last day - when I go to click on the name to see other books or activity,  it finds no books posted at all - yet this book I ordered is linked to this person? what is going on?

I'm really fed up with these people who have accounts and abandon them ,  because they waste our time, when we could be ordering another book from someone that actualy cares about this site and giving and getting books! 

Isn't there something we can do about these non-responsives,  like if they fail to respond within the five days,  that they be removed or given a warning that their account will go null.

someone please give me some help or advice , because it's happened so many times to me and I am very frustrated,  it has also cost me some wishlist offers too.

Brenda - Please edit your post and remove the link to that member's bookshelf. It's fine to ask questions about problem transactions provided you don't mention identifying details about the member in the public forums. Just think of how that person would feel if they came in the forums and found other people discussing them by name.

Brenda, I understand your frustration and I am sorry you are facing this, but it is generally not acceptable to name names on the forum.  You may want to edit your post and remove the name and link of the person involved.  We don't know what is going on with this person and although it is 99% a case of an abandoned account, that might not always be the case.

TPTB do monitor the number of non-responses and will put a person's account on hold if they frequently fail to respond.  They don't publicize the exact number of times it takes to get your account put on hold, but they do monitor and take action.

Hopefully this one will time out and the next person will be more responsive.

ETA:  oopps....DG is obviously a faster typer and less wordy than me! I didn't mean to be piling on you, Brenda!

Now regarding Brenda's question...

You can do your part to weed this unresponsive members by letting the offer time out. When that happens, the system will cancel this person's request, remove the book from their bookshelf and your request is moved to the next person in the system (if the book is available) or is added back to your WL.

If a member doesn't respond to several requests, their account is put on hold, so by letting the offer time out and move to the next person, you are helping identify these unresponsive members.

Actually I think Brenda is doing us a public service by naming names.  Now we know our fate if the name comes up when we order a book. 

Its highly unlikely said person would be offended as they have disappeared from the PBS Universe.

2Cents Worth.

-RD

It's even more unlikely that anyone seeing this thread would order a book from the same person right around now. Anyway, it's against the rules and for good reason.

Not only that, but you can't DO anything about it. If they did come up and you cancel, if you reorder before someone else does, their book will STILL come up. If not, you're waiting the same amount of time (likely) as you would be if you just let it time out.

Trying to get around the "issues" rarely actually helps. Just let the system do its thing.

Actually I think Brenda is doing us a public service by naming names.  Now we know our fate if the name comes up when we order a book. 

Its highly unlikely said person would be offended as they have disappeared from the PBS Universe.

2Cents Worth.

-RD

thank you Rob - I feel the site has some sort of right to know who the deadbeats are so their time is not wasted.

but rules are rules,  thank you for all the comments and advice

and the information - I had no idea what happens to these people - so now I know

I still wish there were some offender list  that people could look at.

Actually I think Brenda is doing us a public service by naming names.  Now we know our fate if the name comes up when we order a book.

Seriously?  With FIFO, how in the world is public shaming of any help?  If one encounters the person named above in a trade, one's actions would be the same - wait for it to time out until the account is flagged.  We have no idea what's going on in anyone's life.  It's an ugly slippery slope.  Shall we post people's acount info every time we are unhappy with a trade?  How about the people who send the unbelievably nasty PMs that are posted here occasionally? Would we be pleased if they were able to call out members in the forums without repucussions?  There's enough lack of civility on the internets without making it worse.  /rant

thank you Rob - I feel the site has some sort of right to know who the deadbeats are so their time is not wasted.

The site owners don't look at the forums.  They know the account is likely inactive when the transaction times out.

I figured I would jump in here and play devils advocate for a second. 

We really don't know what's going on with that other member's account.  Having no books on their bookshelf and taking 5 days to respond to a request doesn't necessarily mean they have abandoned their account. 

I keep my own account on vacation hold most of the time lately because of a limited postal budget.  When I'm getting low on credits, or I have some money for books come in, I take my account off hold and post a few additional (usually wish listed) books.  When I've gotten a certain number of requests, I put my account on hold again so I won't get any more than I can afford to send out.  Therefore my shelf looks empty most of the time, but I am in fact a very active member. 

As far as the five day hold, some members (including myself in some circumstances) will wait until the 5th day to accept the request because it gives as much  time  as possible to make it to the Post Office to send the book.  Usually when I get a request I will pull out the book immediately,  but will wait to accept the request until right before I sent it out. 

So although the combination of those two facts looks like an abandoned account, it can possibly be a completely different circumstance. 

As previously mentioned by others in this thread, the best thing you can do is to let the request time out.  If they really have abandoned their account, then the system will record it and the account will be flagged eventually by the system. 

@ caviglia

WOW!

2cents gets you a lot around here.

-RD

2cents gets you a lot around here.

Ah, yes.  That's the internet for ya! 

2cents gets you a lot around here.

Just imagine what you can get if you throw in a bag of chips.

@caviglia  

Good One!

-RD

excuse me you didn't have to attack me

I was just expressing my opinion and frustration

     I've even imed this person and there was absolutely no response

I will let the request time out and hopefully this will not happen again to others with this person.

I still thank Rob for agreeing with me - I didn't want whole profiles exposed,  I just wanted a general list of offenders that was all

I've seen other sites alert others like this.

anyway I'm sorry if I angered anyone with my posts

but It felt good to talk to others and express myself.

B

excuse me you didn't have to attack me

I was just expressing my opinion and frustration

You weren't attacked. You were warned that naming names is against the rules so you could edit your post before TPTB had to do it for you and warn you for it. We've seen it before. The people that warned you were doing you a favor, hoping you'd do it before it was done for you.

TPTB are very serious about this.

(TPTB = The Powers That Be or Those people that run the site.)

I didn't want whole profiles exposed,  I just wanted a general list of offenders that was all

Which TPTB have vetoed when ever the suggestion comes up. With a FIFO list it wouldn't work anyway.

As pointed out by others, you don't have any idea what's going on in someone else's life. People go on vacation, get ill, have emergencies, lose their internet access (Tonados? Floods? Massive snow storms, anyone?) and the five days is really not unreasonable to ask. We don't want to have people have to be glued to their computer. TPTB understands that things happen and people have lives.

And it's also not fair to judge people by what they have on their shelves. I don't have any books on my shelves now, and didn't for some months. Yet a couple of weeks ago I posted 48 books, 45 of them were WL'd books. Then three were ordered from the few I put up on my shelves. Now I have none, since I did just spend almost $100 in postage costs! And some new people also get hit with large postage costs at first then have to back off. Nothing wrong with that.

Just because I don't have books listed doesn't mean I'm not active. Just like it didn't mean I wasn't active those other years when I took all my books down during December. For me, not a good month to ship or order, because media mail slows way down because of package deliveries.

Making a list of 'bad' traders just because they missed a deadline would only hurt the site, and hurt a lot of people who may be dealing with bad times through no fault of their own. So I agree with TPTB to not have such lists created publically.

Brenda -

 At this point the person you are dealing with hasn't done a thing with your request that would land them on a bad swapper list. There's nothing wrong with not maintaining a shelf, many members only post Wish Listed books, or ones that just went off of being WLed. The have 5 days to accept the request, they don't have to accept it any sooner and though the site doesn't like non-communication, I'd say they don't have to answer PMs asking why they haven't accepted a request when they are still within their alloted time to do so.

PBS requires patience. Nothing is required to be done immediately when a request is received and many members are not on here daily. If member is truly are inactive, their account is put on hold after very few missed transactions.

Although it's sometimes tempting to agree with that idea Rob, I'm going to respectfully disagree on this one (did someone mention chips?).

The way this site is set up, 99.5% of the time the bad swappers will be weeded out automatically (although it can be frustrating waiting for the transactions that will make it happen).  OTOH, the forums here are very friendly and TPTB are committed to keeping it that way.  We sometimes see threads such as this, and the suspected 'bad swapper' recognizes their 'anonymous' self and chimes in with their own version of events.  You'd be surprised how different the two versions can be.  It's easy to throw mud when we only know one side of the matter, and there's often a legit reason we are unaware of.

Last year I had a transaction nearing time-out, when the sender pm'd...she was in one of those regions hit by winter storms, with intermittent power outages and very bad roads.  My book was packaged and ready to go . . . when it was safe for her to drive.  I returned the pm, for her not to hurry that her safety was way more important than prompt mailing.  I asked her to just mark the book mailed and get to it when weather permitted safe travel (which she did 2 days later).

Now consider the same sending member without internet access...she's not deliberately ignoring me, she honestly has no good options.

If you really must mention names, send them directly to TPTB and do not post them in the threads.  Outing what appears to be Bad Swappers may seem like a good idea while you're frustrated, but only causes more problems down the road.  And after a few hundred swaps, you realize there's a good chance you were mistaken anyway (or maybe that's just me LOL). 

I think it would be a good addition to this site to have some sort of a rating system for traders.  This is the only "tradeing" site I use, but doesn't e-bay and other similiar sites have some sort of a rating system?

-RD

This is the only "tradeing" site I use, but doesn't e-bay and other similiar sites have some sort of a rating system?

They don't use the FIFO system.

It would just create problems in the end. Just look at how this thread started, with someone posting a name as a 'bad trader' when they didn't do anything wrong? There have been threads before where one member accused another of something, only later to find out they were 100% wrong. How many volunteers do you think the site would need to 'mediate' between the sender and receiver for each black mark?

And if there's no way to undo a black mark, (like those who mark receiving Hardbacks without Dust Jackets as a RWAP when they didn't even bother to read in the rules that D.J. are not required?) then how many people are going to stay very long when they get publicly listed as a bad trader for something the sender had no business marking as such?

And how well would the FIFO system work if you could pick and chose between everyone having the same book?

It just sounds way too messy, and would gum up a system that works. Let TPTB handle it behind the scenes, and keep the FIFO running smoothly. Because part of the appeal of the site is knowing your turn will eventually come, and you don't have to wait for someone to chose you out of a long list of 'allowable' traders.