I'm thinking of making a suggestion to R&R, but wanted to see if you guys think my idea would work and be easy to use before I do it.

I would like R&R to make a form letter/survey that you can fill out when you have to mark a book as received with a problem. A form like the  received book survey where you can fill in the blanks and describe the problem with the transaction.

My reasoning behind this:

This past week, I received 3  obviously damaged books. I only marked one as received with a problem because I do not want to take the time to agonize over a polite, but factual note while begging to get my credit back. Now, I know that by doing this, I am contributing to the spreading around of damaged books, but I hate writing these notes! If there were a form, I'd have no problem reporting the people that are mailing books that are against the rules. I should mention that I did send a pm to the person about the first book and she very kindly offered a free book from her shelf which I declined. I do appreciate her offer though and respect the fact the she made the offer even though I hadn't asked for anything. She was very nice and pleasant! When I marked the second book RWAP, the member wrote back and said the book was fine when she mailed it and would not be giving me a credit for it. Now, how this book got a large brown mystery stain while inside a clean, unstained package, I don't know! So, after that, I let the third book (water damaged) go and didn't say anything at all. To tell the truth, yesterday was the first time in a long while that I've marked a book RWAP, even though I have gotten damaged books. I'm not very picky either - if the book isn't stained with nasty, unidentified substances, obviously water damaged, and has all of the pages, I'm a happy swapper.

I'm not writing this because I'm upset about having lost $10.85 in credits ( I buy a lot of my credits), well, maybe I am a bit upset, but my main issue is the writing of the note. I feel like I have to lay out the rules without sounding terse or rude and also be nice so that I can have just a bit of hope of getting my credit back. A short survey/form would make this so much easier and I'd also be more likely to do my part in weeding out the bad books/swappers. I really do feel bad when I don't say anything because I know that if I had said something they may not send a bad book to the next PBS'er who requests a book from them. By not using the RWAP option, I'm an enabler of bad swappers. I don't want to be a bad book enabler! LOL

Does anyone else agonize over the writing of the note? Do you think a short survey would work? Would you be more likely to mark damaged books correctly if you didn't have to write the "begging for your credit" note?

P.S. - Sorry this is so long! I seem to be rambling this morning, need coffee!

Valli - my normal solution to this is just to mark the book RWAP and only write a very brief description of what is wrong with the book in the appropriate place. Unless the book is very bad, I don't even try to get my credit back. I don't even try to write a personal PM to the sending member unless I am very upset with the condition of the book.

I do agree a survey with radio buttons or check boxes where you can mark what the problems are would be nice, as long as you could mark multiple things if necessary and as long as there was still a spot to describe the damage in detail if you wanted to. Maybe there could even be a spot where you could choose "I want to request my credit back" or "I do not want to request my credit back" which would take you to a screen to PM the sender if you selected the first option, and back to your main account page if you selected the second option.

However, although this would be nice, I always hate to ask R&R to make programming changes b/c I know they are already swamped with trying to make the system work as perfectly as possible for us...

Vali, go for it, I really like your idea.  Some people out there are also really oblivious to things going on.  I think I already told you this, but over the summer I got a hardcover wl book I'd been waiting over a year on.  The front cover was barely hanging on, it was just mesh holding it to the rest of the book.  I ver y nicely pm'd the sender of what state the book was in and she wrote back saying, "super, I hope you enjoy the book!"  ??  I like the form idea.