Over the last week I have been trying to get a hold of a GRE test prep bookl (eg. Kaplan etc.) 

I have ordered four and each time the member who listed it has sent and "unable to post mesage" and I get 

"We wanted to let you know that the book you requested on 7/27/2010

'Cracking the GRE, 2007 Edition (Graduate Test Prep)' by Princeton Review cannot be mailed."

From PBS.

Four for Four.

What is going on? Why are people listing books if they don't want to mail them. It's not like they are worth much on half.com or amazon.

Does anyone have a >2005 GRE prep book that they WILL mail.?

For a combination of reasons: people post books and then they don't get ordered for a long time and the book gets given away, misplaced or damaged and forgotten about until it finally gets ordered.  Or people join and don't get many orders so they forget about PBS until they finally get a book order and they'd rather cancel at that point then do anything more with PBS.  At least they're cancelling quickly and not letting it sit for the full 5 days to let it time out.

Real Life happens sometimes David, and occassionally we find a previously un-noticed book defect or can't find the book when ordered (regardless of how carefully we set them aside after posting). 

But 4 for 4 . . . I'm surprised also     Hope you find a copy soon!

I had a pile of books to post once....and accidentally posted a textbook that I was supposed to sell back (and was worth $87!!!).  Unfortunately (and OF COURSE!) this text was wishlisted so I had to wait until the member requested it and then I had to decline.

Another time I had to decline....my husband gave me a pile of books to post - I just took his word that they were in postable condition and I didn't realize until I went to mail one of his books that the spine was broken.

It happens.

I post books at night, when my local server loads faster.  But prepare to send them in the daylight.  Have often noticed stains or other problems that did not show up in the dim light.  But I do explain it when I cancel.

And a GRE book is used by someone in a transitional state of life, so makes sense to me that it might be canceled more than others.

Just an arrggh to add to this thread...someone posted a WL book that has over 1000 people waiting on it (of which I am first) and then WENT ON VACATION!

I just got a "Can't mail note" saying "I'm away from home for 2 weeks, guess I should have used vacation hold."

I just had a wishlist book posted (I've been wishing for it for a long time), accepted it right away, and then get a message that they can't send it because they gave it to a family member. . .So why did they post it yesterday?  It wasn't in the system until then, and several hours later it was given away?  I find that very annoying.

In a way, I can understand when people have a book on their shelves that has been making its way through FIFO for a long time, and then discover when it does get ordered that they can't mail it for a variety of reasons.  It does seem more frustrating when it's a WL book, because you know it was just posted to the system.  For whatever reason I have had 3 WL books offered to me, which I have promptly (usually within 2 hours) accepted and then have them time out.  Which is a bummer not only because you don't get the WL book but you've been tied up waiting for it when other copies may have been offered (yep, one of them I've been waiting for for a LONG time).  That baffles me more - I understand that stuff happens, but the timing out after offering a WL book is weird.

Anyway, to the OP - so sorry that has happened to you 4 times in a row.  Maybe you are just using up all of your bad PBS luck in one go!

I just did this actually. I received, read and posted a book before taking a closer look. It turns out the spin and cover are separating. So not only did I lose my credit because I didn't realize it was a RWAP, I lost another credit because I can't mail it out. If it means someone is going to be ticked off at me so be it. I'd rather have that then knowingly send out a book that doesn't meet PBS standards. 

I am sorry it's happened to you 4 times in a row though. I had one book I wanted time out 3 times before someone agreed to send it, only to have it get lost in the mail! I did eventually receive a copy through PBS though. 

I had to cancel a wishlisted book as I was going on vacation. I had posted it along with other wishlisted books the week before I was leaving. The one kept going from one member to another on the 48 hour holds. By the time someone accepted I was leaving to go out of town.

Rebecca--

If you put your shelf on hold, it won't roll over to the next person. I only take my shelf off vacation hold every month or so for a few days. If a WL book doesn't get accepted within my window, it sits on my shelf until I am ready to try again.

My shelf was on hold when the book was finally accepted. It must not have been on hold when it kept rolling over. If it had been accepted a day earlier I still could have mailed it. But that is good to know that if I put my shelf on hold it wouldn't have rolled over. I felt really bad not mailing it as it wasn't that member's fault it had rolled over for so long.

Maybe it was the same member each time...

Something similar happened to me, I thought it was odd because I had been #1 on the WL for a certian book, it was posted and I accepted within an hour of getting the WL offer. And within the next 3 hours, I got the cannot mail message, saying they don't have the book in their possession right now. It wasn't a big deal, it was just kinda funny to me because it all happened so quick, it was like, why on earth post something you don't even have?!?!

i think i'm going through this right now. 2 WL books were listed to me by the same person within 2 minutes of each other. i immediately accepted 5 minutes later as i REALLY want these books.  i checked the person's profile to see if there was anything else i wanted.  well, their account is on hold. no biggie, i think well maybe they just wanted to list these two books only because they are on the WL. then i check their WL just to see what other books they read. well the two books they just listed are on their WL as well.  which makes me a bit suspicious because why would you post books to be listed that are on your own WL?

anywho, it's on the 5th day, and they have done nothing to about the two books they listed to me.  they haven't even accepted the requests. i have a feeling that tonight they are going to just go back to my WL, which will make me very disappointed as i was really looking forward to them. i understand life happens, but i think in this case, it looks like they posted them accidently. oh well.

I am guilty of this. At a yard sale I found a bunch of Terry Pratchett disworld novels,  all of them wish-listed.  I posted them and they were accepted at once.

When I was getting them ready to mail, I noticed a gab in one book.  I found that someone had deliberately and very carefully cut out the last four pages of the book.  The damage wasn't noticeable at first glance.  That was true of every single copy.  I had to PM seven people and explain why they weren't getting books they really wanted.

That's like perverse.   I can just see someone going in their best evil laugh "tee hee, they're going to read the book and then bammo-find the last 4 pages missing bwahahahah" (ok so I'm not good on the evil laugh part)