On Thursday I received an order for a book which was on my shelf and I agreed to mail it.  Just before mailing it off, along with a second book ordered by the same person, I happened to double check the book listing here and found a discrepancy between the book I have and the description PBS attached to the book.

The ISBN I entered matches the book I have and the PBS image is the book I have but the PBS description that attached itself to my listing of the book does not match.

The book I have is a small paperback "Betty Crocker's Cookbook".  The description that PBS put to the book is as follows:

"Help new brides make lasting memories with Betty Crocker's Cookbook: Bridal Edition. The perfect gift for bridal showers and weddings, this beautiful keepsake version of the complete 9th edition of ìBig Redî features a 34-page, full-color special section designed to give new brides (and grooms!) that extra edge. Includes tips for organizing a kitchen, menu planning, effortless home entertaining, and ways to make anniversaries, holidays, and everyday, romantic. Features memory pages to record your own precious moments and special occasions."

I did not notice this at listing time as the ISBN was accepted and the book was added to my shelf.  But that description is NOT the same book. 

I PM'd the recipient to let her know about the discrepancy and to see if she still wants the book, and offered to let her  choose another book from my shelf to make up for this discrepancy (3 books for 2 credits).

I have not received a response.    I agreed to mail in 2 days so by not mailing yesterday or today I have already broken my promise to get the order out.  I'm afraid if I mail the books, even though the situation is not one of my doing, that the recipient will be disappointed. How long should I wait to hear back? 

I wonder how this can happen.  I thought ISBN's were supposed to point to a specific edition of the books they are attached to.   I had something similar happen a few weeks ago - the ISBN's matched but the recipient informed me that the book I sent was much older than the listing stated.  Fortunately, she was OK with it but another person might not be.

I didn't think it was necessary to double-check every little detail to see if my book really matches the PBS provided details once it is accepted into the system.  That could be very time consuming when listing a lot of books and for the most part, I have had no problem with books matching correctly.

I'm going to double check with the Help Center, but I believe you are to mark the book as mailed when a problem occurs and you send a PM that shipping will be delayed.

There's been a huge rush to clean up book descriptions, and it's possible someone sent the wrong description in error to the editors.  It might be helpful if you can look up your ISBN on a book site and get the proper description and edit the data to avoid further problems down the road.  PBS relies on so many volunteers to help keep it free that I kind of figure - well, you're not going to have perfection and that's OK.  Having said that, though, I do understand your frustration - I had someone post a movie description into a book I had recently posted, which didn't make it sound enticing at all!  Luckily I was able to catch it and correct it.

I'm unable to copy and paste the information from the Help Center (dunno what's up with that) but if you go there and search under Mark Books Mailed, the information is available.  I believe in this case you can go ahead and mark it mailed, but this is the way I'm understanding it and this is only if it hasn't timed out already.

I hope you hear from the requestor soon to get it resolved.

The only things we are supposed to check when posting a book are the ISBN, binding, author and title.  We aren't required to check the book description.  I don't think this comes up very often, but I have encountered a discrepancy with the description once (fortunately I just happened to notice it when I was posting, and I submitted a request to change it).  Anyway, that doesn't help your current situation but I think you are handling it well and hopefully you will hear from the requestor shortly.

If I didn't hear back from the requestor, I'd cancel the order.   You certainly can't mail it knowing it's not what they might have been wanting and I'd hate to just let it time out.  JMO

Peggy:  did you not mail the book by the deadline that appears in red???

" I agreed to mail in 2 days so by not mailing yesterday or today I have already broken my promise to get the order out.  I'm afraid if I mail the books, even though the situation is not one of my doing, that the recipient will be disappointed. How long should I wait to hear back? "

Once you pass the date that the book was to be mailed, your transaction will be cancelled. You should click you WILL  mail BEFORE the deadline, and then PM the requester, explain the situation and wait to hear from her.  However, once you passed the deadline to mail, it is too late!   If you chose "I can mail within 2 days"  the deadline to mail appears in red.   If the book is not mailed by the deadline, it will be cancelled and credit will not be given.

Check your Transaction Archive to see if your books were cancelled. If they were, ask the member to please request them again if she would.

Always check the Help Center when you are not sure about anything, or post questions to your Tour Guide and/or this Forum. I hope you can get this resolved in your favor.  Good luck.    June