No, it's not a normal problem here. There are a very small number of people who have a lot of problem swaps. You can read the past threads in this forum to see their issues. The rest of us have none or very few problems. When we do have a problem, the other member apologizes and refunds the credit about 80% of the time.

You have 2% problems and a 50% refund rate. That's not too bad.

It seems like a bigger problem than it is because people usually only post here about the bad transactions.

Not much you can do about the one who refused to refund the credit. In your transaction archive you can mark the problem as unresolved which makes a double mark against them.  If they are being extremely rude in their responses to you, you can report them to PBS.   

I hope i dont ever have a problem like this again im to the point i just give up and eat the credit.

It looks like it will remain an unresolved issue. She clearly believes the book was in postable condition when she mailed it. You clearly believe that the book is unpostable as you received it. There are times when the two never to meet. Cleaving of a spine is also (in my opinion) an area that can be this way because handling and cold temps can cause a book to cleave. I would mark it as unresolved and move on.

I may have thicker skin than most, but I do not see her Pms as rude, just matter of fact.

If someone is returning a credit for a transaction, they should use the Refund Credit button in the details of that transaction in their archive. That way the credit is following the transaction in the system.

Spines always seem to be a gray area.  Pages falling out already are not a gray area.

 I have to agree w/ Melanie though, I myself didn't find the sender's original response to be quite as rude as you obviously did.

I do wish people wouldn't bring up the issue of are you keeping it or are you reposting.  It's none of their business.  The only issue is whether or not the book was postable in the first place, not what you are planning to do with it.

Sara

I have to agree I didn't find any rudeness in her messaging! However pages falling out, is pages falling out, unpostable!

I'll play devils advocate here for a second...is it possible that the book got crushed or something in transit?  I don't know what the packaging looked like but if she said that only 2 people read the book, pages shouldn't be falling out unless they were bending the book back (where the outside covers were touching or close or something like that).  But as has been mentioned here before, books seem to be more cheaply made and don't hold up as well as they used to which is a darn shame