I don’t normally do this, but I’m really irritated.
Once again I was spending too much time on Paperbackswap and Bookmooch. I *know* I should avoid those sites at all cost, but I’m addicted. So yesterday I submitted one BOB offer on PBS and a few requests on Bookmooch. Yesterday evening the BOB offer was declined without so much as an explanation. Maybe I’m asking too much, but when the system sends you to a PM page immediately after declining an offer, wouldn’t send a short message be the polite thing to do? I have declined many offers in the past, and I always send a short “sorry, there’s just nothing that interests me right now” or “sorry, but you’ve got a lot of romance and that’s just not my cup of tea.” I understand that people are busy, but seriously, is it really too much to ask for? It made me truly wonder if she even looked at my shelf, or if she just denied it out right. I guess I’m really irritated because it was for books I *really* want, but I don’t want to spend a PBS credit and they aren’t available at Bookmooch.
Then today one of the three Bookmooch requests I put in for yesterday was rejected because she “no longer had that book”. Okay, I understand that. I know it is hard to keep track of your books if you’re swapping in multiple places. But in my four years of swapping books online, I have only had to cancel two times due to me no longer having the book in question. TWO TIMES. The one thing I like about Bookmooch is that you can see how many times they’ve cancelled, how many times they’ve rejected, etc. Well, trust me, this lady had a high rejection rate. When I received the rejection e-mail, it said that Bookmooch doesn’t consider “no longer have the book” as an acceptable reason for rejection. I was surprised by this, but I was glad to see that. Because it’s really not acceptable. I know it happens, and like I said, I’ve done it myself before, but when I looked at this person’s profile there was, as I said, an unusually high amount of rejections. Bookmooch is right … it’s not acceptable.
Maybe I just expect too much out of people. I’m kind of a perfectionist when it comes to certain things and trading books tends to be one of them. And I know that I have a high expectation. I want my books to be in better than average shape. I don’t expect them to be new, but I don’t want them to be falling apart either. But I think what really irritates me is that people are just plain rude sometimes. Personally, I have met some really great people here on my blog and on the various swap sites and Yahoo reading groups. For the most part everyone I have come into contact with have been really nice, good people. But when someone can’t even keep track of their bookshelf or send me a short message as to why they’ve cancelled a BOB offer, I get really friggin’ irritated.
Tales of a Book Addict 
Tara I have had this happen to me on PBS, no message and no explanation as to why my book request was turned down. Also have had the same thing happen where once or twice they had already sent a book out and did not take if off their shelves (or gave it away to someone not on PBS and did not remove from swapping shelf). I have also found once that had inadvertently added a book to my shelves without meaning to and had to turn the person down because I had not read it yet, that taught me not to hit put on hold on shelf anymore, and also have had one book that I gave away and forgot to take off my bookshelf. However I always PM the person involved, no reason not to as for sure I get plenty of messages in my email from PBS notifying me of what my account is doing.
In today’s electronic age there is no excuse for not using common courtesy, it does seem more and more that Please, Thank You and Sorry are words that have no meaning to many.
Oh I totally agree with you. People aren’t as considerate as I was raised to be and it just boggles my mind more and more all the time. An explanation about the BOB just would have been appreciated. I tend to prefer dealing with the same people on there if I have a good experience, so it’s really her loss because I won’t be requesting from her again. I know that sounds petty but it reflects my irritation right now.