Hello! I'm fairly new to this site.

Today, I received a book with some water damage. There are no stains, but the pages are curled like it usually happens when books had water spilled on them. The book is very much readable and not massive water damage. However, there were other signs of poor condition like the back cover was slightly bent. And, the dust jacket is wrinkly, I can go on. I accepted it and sent the member their credit, because I didn't see most of the damage until after. 

For future reference, should I have said there was a problem? I figured this was normal, but so far all the other books I've gotten were from good - like new condition. This isn't a book I would have sent to anybody in the club. For now, I have set requestor conditions.

Yes.  If you can determine that the problem is actual liquid damage (vs. ripples caused by humidity and cheap paper), then you can RWAP the book when logging it in.  At that point you are requested to describe the damage (be polite b/c the message is forwarded to the sender) and request a credit return or not.

Hi,

The other things that you mention are postable. (bent cover and wrinkled dust jacket). Books do not have to be like-new to be posted here. Well used is OK, as long as the book is basically intact and without specific damage that is called out in the rules.

Water damage is never postable, however, books can sometimes appear water damaged even when they are not. There are a lot of paperback books being produced where the binding itself appears to be making the pages wrinkled. Also, humidity can make the pages appear slightly wavy without any actual water damage occurring.

So, sometimes the water damage can be a judgement call. If the only sympton is slight wrinkling all over (and there is no water stain or texture change that can be seen) then one might guess that the book has a bad binding or maybe was exposed to humidity. If there is a texture change, or water marks, or the waviness is very apparent in some places and non-existent in other places, then that might be more likely to be water damage.

I just had this problem too, received a paperback with water damage.  I RWAP'd it, but didn't ask for the credit back, just sent the message that the sender should be aware.  Got a snippy response of "I got it that way, it didn't smell or have mold.  Sorry it bothers you".  Ummm, well, it doesn't meet the minumum conditions for posting, so yes, you got a RWAP.