BookMooch discussion

How long should somebody wait for an answer to a Mooch request? Is it safe to say that after 30 days I should just cancel the request.

I would cancel it, choosing the "Owner never responded" option. That will put that member On Vacation, & remove their inventory from view, so no one else will be frustrated by seeing books they cannot get from that person.

Personally I only give a week or two. I would say after 30 days to report it for no response. I don't mind a book being delayed if they accept and say that. But to just ingore it and hold my credit hostage-no.

Thanks Gail I will do that seems fair to put them on vacation if they are inactive.

Monica,

I agree. Plus, it's not as if it's hard for them to get off Vacation status. All they have to do is to log in & voila - they're back.

I use another swapping site now and am very rarely on BM but if I remember right there is a way to flag the account also. Because most of the time when you encounter something like this it's not the members first time. Hence my using another swapping site.

Yeah the lack of system deadlines is a downside of BM to me. I still use BM and it's much better now that they've made the forums more accessable. I also figured out how to quickly add books to my WL w/o it taking 5 seperate clicks each time. But a pro of PBS to me is that the system does a lot of stuff for you-like sending out reminders to mark a book mailed or received, marking a book received by a certain date if the requestor has gone AWOL, closing accounts that miss a few transactions and reordering the book for you if the sender doesn't respond within 5 days.


But at least on BM you can report them as possibly inactive and it'll even say Last Log on x days possibly inactive to warn you off.

♥Eva♥ wrote: "I use another swapping site now and am very rarely on BM ..."

May I know which site that is? I'm looking for another swapping site that is not limited to one country only? I'm using BookMooch because of its worldwide membership.

I agree with you on the pros of PBS for sure. I do wish they'd make a few changes but they can't make everyone happy.
One of the biggest things I wish they'd change is that they're not world-wide. I think they'd get a ton more traffic and they could do like BM and let people choose wether to send out of their own country. And they could even make an out of the country transaction more than one credit. I love sending overseas when I can afford it.

Fairlita wrote: "♥Eva♥ wrote: "I use another swapping site now and am very rarely on BM ..."

May I know which site that is? I'm looking for another swapping site that is not limited to one country only? I'm using..."

Hi Fairlita, the site we're talking about above is paperbackswap.com but that's only in the U.S. sadly. I have a good friend who loves swaptree.com (have you ever tried that one?) From what I understand it works a bit differently but she's not the only friend I have that uses that site. I'm actually wanting to try it myself but just haven't had time. I know there are a few others also but I can't think of the names. bookswim.com maybe. If you Google book swapping sites you'll probably come up with some more too.
Good luck, I really wish they'd open PBS up world-wide. I'd love it a hundred times more then!

Well PBS has a couple hundre thousand members and I get a lot more WL books from them then I do from Bookmooch even with the WL cap of 200 on PBS. I don't ship international though. The extra pts just aren't worth it to me to fill out the customs form and pay the extra postage. Not when I only get a couple of WL books a year on bookmooch as to several a month on PBS. I also rarely mooch international because if I'm going to pay 3 pts for a book, I might as well buy it new if think of 1 pt being 2.38 in postage.

They are having this inactive discussion on the bookmooch boards. People have said that they've taken a chance and mooched from people who haven't logged on in a long time and actually got the book. It wasn't so much that they had gone inactive as they just hadn't had any transactions to deal with in a long time.

But if there's more than 1 listed, I'll mooch from the account that looks active.

I agree, the only time I sent international (besides now for friends) was when I was 100+ points and mooching all the time. Then it fell off and stayed off.... for me. I get far more books on PBS like you said, even with the cap. I haven't used the market yet but I plan to also. I like the reminder list there also - I've gotten a lot of books like that just by happening to look.

i put mine for 7 days