PaperBackSwap

This used to be a quality site & chock full of trades. Now? Ads. Nothing but ads. Hardly any trading.

I gave away five books and I paid for their shipping. I was promised I could receive five books for free in return.

After one year, the swap credits EXPIRE. So I paid out of pocket to give away my books and received nothing in return. Apparently Paperbackswap thinks this is okay.

They basically charge people to waste their time on forums when you can just go to city data. Com or purse forum.com or goodreads and chat with like minded people for free. I paid for a membership and went to a library book sale to find lightweight books and audio books to exchange on the site because shipping is expensive and most of my books are heavy and I don't really want to part with and audio books are 2 credits. Each book you exchange gives you a credit which you can use to order a book for "free" and the audios are 2 credits. So after I got my stock of books and audios and went through my personal collection of books I was will to get rid of and that I could ship at the cheapest rate - I listed them. People swamped me like they'd been in prison without access to reading material for a decade. So after I shipped all my books out - I wound up being in the hole $20 for a membership fee - plus they charge you an administrative fee to PAY the membership fee - seems almost like a fraud to me - I was now about $100 out in shipping costs plus the $20 or so I spent buying the books to exchange. I used the USPS with tracking because you can print the labels from PBS - but they don't give you much of a discount - a free swap here and there - but CHARGE you like 55 cents to PRINT the label you just bought from them. LOL. A rip off all around. So my "free" book exchange cost me like $5 a book already. I felt like an idiot when I realized I could have just sold them on Ebay or donated them and BOUGHT what I wanted there or on half.com or any number of other book sites like bubs books or even exchange on bookmooch. So now I'm ready to get my expensive and hard earned "free exchanges" except most of what I wanted they didn't have, or there was a waiting list with like 100 people in front of me or I would request it and find out the person is not even active on the site anymore and never bothered to unlist their inventory. SO if I wanted the books - I had to buy on betterworldbooks or where ever else I could find. Worse is that I made a comment on one of the forums about feeling ripped off and the arrogant people who run the site suspended my account - LOL. They wouldn't let me use my earned credits. I had to promise them I would "be nice and not talk bad" like I was a scolded child before they let me sign on again. I just used up my credits buying crap books as fast as I could before they got mad at me again for some ridiculous reason. They are arrogant and think nobody will ever sue them or close them down. And you get nothing unless you are a lonely old lady who likes to play games online then you pay for the company in the chat rooms but has nothing to do with PBS or books. LOL

I haven't been a part of paperback swap for long, and I won't be a member for longer. I have a great many books I'd like to pass on to appreciative readers and had found the site through a web search; I thought initially that members paid shipping for books they wanted which would make it ideal for someone living on disability to get a couple hundred books to other readers. While reading through the site information I discovered that members actually pay shipping to SEND books to other members, but, as the site explained, members received "credits" for each book sent and could then request a book themselves which the sender paid to ship --in effect each member paid shipping forward to get books themselves. Unfortunately, I don't need a couple hundred MORE books, but I joined anyway with the idea that I could probably at least find a dozen or two I would like to get and so send out the same number of mine.

That ended today, when I was informed I had to pay a "swap fee" to request any more books AFTER I had already paid to ship another book out to another member. I had just finished her very nice thank you note and tried to request a book myself when I found a notation on the request process that I now had to pay a "swap fee" or BUY a membership in order to have "free" swaps. Did no one ever tell them "if you have to BUY something to get it, it ain't free"? I had to search a bit to find out that paperbackswap WAS free when I signed up and read through all that information a month or two ago... but they changed to a fee service basis a couple weeks before I sent out that last book. There wasn't any indication that this was in the works when I signed up, I received no notification of it, there was nothing on the site when I logged in at any time between when it went into effect and when I sent out the last book. I feel quite cheated at this point --it doesn't matter how much or how little it costs to BUY what was free until so recently, it matters that they did not tell me this was happening and that because of that failure I paid to send out something with no idea whatsoever anything had changed to force me to pay more to request a book in return. You have to wonder what they'll do next... perhaps suddenly increase the fees, or slap on more of them, with no notice at any time? And what about the books they sell outright?

Paperbackswap works some of the time. The problem is if someone complains about you, your account is automatically shut down and you lose your credits. You do not get a chance to share your side of the story. In my case, I ordered books that never came. The sender claims I received and read them. I was told to contact the post office to find out what happened. Before I could do any of this, my account was closed. I lost 164 book credits. I had offered to credit the sender anyway because I had enough credits. This was not good enough for them. I also lost credits on their CD and DVD sites. After years of trading, one complaint ended my account.

You can rarely get current books. My account was fine for 15 months until I started trying to use up my credits. I had about 108 when they froze my account, accusing me of reselling their books "on my storefront". I tried to explain to them that I order a lot of books for friends/acquaintances who want books but do not want to join the club. Apparently my account activity over the last couple of months flagged my account. I received a nasty email telling me "Don't try to deny it; we can see the books on your storefront." What storefront? Their terms of use forbid anyone from reselling books either in person or online. I don\'t see how this can possibly be controlled or enforced. I feel that if I am in possession of an item, then it becomes my property to do with as I wish. There is no way to prove any one book came from their website, anyway.
Damage Resulting = 108 credits with approximate value of $2.38-$2.77 each, which is the average price to mail a book media mail.