DJ B.

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?