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Help Center - If you think you are not getting your PaperBackSwap emails...

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If you have changed your email address in your Account Settings recently, did you mistype it?

  • Check by logging into your account and going to Account >> Settings.  The email address the account uses is at the top of the Settings page.  You can edit it there if necessary, and click Update to apply the change.
  • Make sure that the address is correct  - including no extra spaces at the beginning or in the middle of the email.

Sometimes an email provider will block (= not deliver) some or all of our emails.  This is a misguided attempt to block spam.

  • Please note that not ALL PBS emails will be affected - usually the provider will start by blocking one or two "types" of system emails (request notification emails and Wish LIst offer notification emails are the most common). 
  • So, you may be getting some but not all of your PBS emails.

A reliable email connection with PBS is crucial to managing your account.

  • Email mishandling is most common with yahoo and hotmail, but it can happen with any email provider.
  • This problem is sometimes caused by members who mark PBS emails as "spam" as a way to delete them from their email inboxes
    • When one (for example) Yahoo user does this, it can affect ALL Yahoo users' reception of PBS emails
    • This is fairly common with AOL users, since the "Mark as spam" button is right next to the "Delete" button on their webmail interface
    • Always use the Delete button emails when you have read an email, and don't use the
      "mark as spam" button to remove the viewed email from the inbox.
  • After holding PBS emails for a while, sometimes the email provider's email server will dump a bunch of outdated PBS emails into user inboxes; usually they just won't be delivered at all.

This is what we recommend if you suspect you are not receiving all of your PBS emails:

  • First, check your Email settings to be sure you have not opted out of any optional emails, if those are the ones you are missing.  You can get to your Email settings from My Account >> Settings.

  • Then Check your Club Communications file to see what emails PBS has sent to you:
    • Click My Account in the toolbar at the top of the site
    • Click the "Club Communications" link in the yellow bar at the top of the My Account page.
    • Here you will see all messages sent from between PBS to your User Email address during the last 45 days.
  • If you find items in your Club Communications file that you never received in your email inbox (or that were delivered to you later than they were sent by PBS):
    • you may need to adjust your spam filters in your email account
    • you should check to be sure that "librarian@paperbackswap.com" and "noreply@paperbackswap.com" and "market@paperbackswap.com" are on your list of "safe" or "accepted" senders for your email account.
      • One way to do this is to add those email addresses to your email account address book or Contacts list, or "whitelist" (whatever your email account calls the list of "safe senders" or "accepted senders" list)
    • Look at your list of "blocked" senders if your email account has one; if any of the system email addresses above appear there, remove them from the "blocked"  list.
  • Check your spam (or "junk") folder
    • If you find any PaperBackSwap emails in there, click "NOT SPAM" or "MOVE TO INBOX" on ALL of them.
    • That will help to tell your email provider that you want to receive all PaperBackSwap emails.

If this does not work:

  • You should contact your email provider to find out why your PaperBackSwap emails aren't getting through.
  • You should consider choosing another email address to receive your PBS emails while the matter is getting sorted out. Gmail is a good option - gmail has a good track record of handling PBS emails.
  •  You should consider putting your Wishes on auto-request, so that you don't miss Wish List offers of books that you want.  You can read about how to do this in the Help doc What is the auto-request feature on the Wish List, and how does it work?.

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Do I have to check email every day to belong to PaperBackSwap?