The PBS system is designed so that each member manages his or her own book transactions from the My Account page. It is important to mark a book received as promptly as possible after you receive it, so that the sending member will get credit for sending it.

When you receive a shipment (containing one or more books) from PBS:

• Log into the site and click My Account on the toolbar at the top of the site to go to your My Account main page
• Click the En Route to Me tab under the Message from the Librarian
• Scroll down to see the transaction for the shipment in question
  • If the transaction for the book is not on the En Route to Me tab, read this
• Select from the options below the book cover image(s) on the request:

• Received in good condition  - OR -  Received with a problem
  • For bulk (multiple-book) requests you will have the "Problem with 1 or more" option, and the ability to mark each individual book received in good condition OR received with a problem
• If "received in good condition" was chosen, click  to go to the next page - on which you can choose to put the book on your TBR Pile, put the book on your Bookshelf on Hold, provide optional information about the shipment (amount of postage and postmark date), and also send a message to the sender.
• If "Problem" was chosen - choose the type of problem from the dropdown menu, select whether you want to ask the sender for a credit refund, and type in a message to the sender.  You need to do this for each problem book in the shipment.  Then click  
  • The problem options are
    • Damaged by Sender
  • • Damaged by USPS
    • Requestor Conditions not Met (this option will show only if there were RCs attached to the request when it was submitted)
    • Wrong Book - Different Title
    • Wrong Book - Wrong Binding/Version
    • Late Postmark
    • Book Missing from Shipment (this option will show only on multiple-book shipments)
    • Empty wrapper
    • Insufficient Postage
  • You can read more about Problem swaps in There is a problem with a book I received!

• • Note: When you click the system will mark the shipment received and send the appropriate email to the sender.  It is important to be sure you have chosen the correct options before clicking , as you can't "go back" after you have clicked .
  • Note: You can mark only one shipment received at a time.  When you click  on a shipment, that shipment will be marked received -if you have chosen options for any other shipment on your En Route to Me page, those choices will be reset to the default options.

When you have done this, the book(s) you marked received will move into your Transaction Archive and the sender will have gotten credit for sending the book.

If you are trying to mark a book received using your mobile phone:

• Use PBS Mobile to do this. To access PBS Mobile, just open your browser on your phone and go to the PaperBackSwap site - on the upper left of the browser page you will see the link to PBS Mobile; click that. Read more about PBS Mobile.
• Note that you will not be able to mark books received "with a problem" from your phone - you need to use a computer to do this, as the programming is too complex and is not supported by the mobile browser software.

If a book was declared "lost in the mail" by the PaperBackSwap system and you did receive the book, you do need to mark it received from your Transaction Archive.

• This can happen several ways; for example, if the book was delivered to you while you were out of town and by the time you returned home the book had been declared "lost" -OR- you live outside the contiguous US and books take a long time in transit so they are declared "lost" before you get them - OR - the sender got the book back and had to re-send it to you for some reason, lengthening the transit time) - etc.

You do need to mark a "lost" book as received from your Transaction Archive, if you receive it.  To do this:

• Click Transaction Archive under My Account at the top of the page
• Scroll down to find the book in the list - the big ? to the left of the book signifies that the book has been declared "lost in the mail"
  • an alternative would be to sort the transaction archive by Requested by Me - Lost in the Mail - Date Requested - Descending and click Re-Sort.  This will show only the books that have been declared "lost" en route to you.
• Click the button and read the popup that comes up - click on it to mark the book received, then click on the next page to complete the process of marking the book received.
  • If the book was received with a problem, you can indicate that.

It is important to mark books received as promptly as possible after receiving them. This is a cardinal rule of the club.

Related Links:

I got a book I requested, but I can't mark it received!
I received a book that was 'lost in the mail'
I received a book from a canceled transaction!
There is a problem with a book I received!
I received 2 copies of the same book!

I received a multiple-book shipment, but one or more books was missing or problematic!