On Vacation....

I just set my BM page to 'on vacation'. This is the first time I've ever done that and I was wondering.......Will people still be able to mark the books I sent them as received?

yup.

Thank you, MrA! I know it was a silly question, but I had to ask.

There are no silly questions.

Only silly people. I should know.

I've been waiting for a book to be sent for some time. Now their account has been set to "on vacation". Should I give up and cancel?

Oooh! I need help with that too.

I mooched a book, which the person promptly put into Delayed status. Then they went on vacation.

They've been on vacation so long now their account is "possibly inactive" (over 50 days).

I sent a reminder e-mail this past weekend, but there has been no response.

I'd like to cancel, as I found out a friend of mine has the same book. Any recommendations?

I would go ahead and cancel. If they aren't responding after that amount of time you will likely never receive that book from them. My delays have been more in the nature of accepting the mooch then they never send or don't respond to inquiries. Unfortunately, it's always with books that I really want that are hard to find. I've learned it's not worth it to waste my time on these jokers. Cut your losses.

I agree with varielle. Waiting a couple of weeks for a response is one thing; more than that is reason to cancel absent some prior communication. I assume that these people have lost interest in BookMooch, at least for the time being, so they shouldn't be upset about cancellations. If they return, someone else can mooch those books.

yup. If they haven't even accepted, go ahead and cancel. If it's more than a week, since the request, don't feel bad about cancelling and getting the book somewhere else.

I have a question on the vacation setting. I am currently on vacation. I set myself on vacation but when my boyfriend (who is back home) told me a specific book came in, for me to mark it received, I had to go off vacation to receive it. I forgot to reset myself and more people have mooched off me. I have delayed the books and told them what was going on. Is there a way you can be "on vacation" but still active?

put a message that you are on "vacation" in your bio info (the writing on the page... I'm not awake yet)... letting people know you are not "on vacation" but can't get to your books immediately. they can choose to mooch from you if they really want the book or not mooch from you if they want the book right away.

I'm back! I missed LT and BM and everyone here. I'm so glad to be back.

#11: put that kind of info in your status message, not your bio, that way people see it when they try to mooch from you. You only see the bio part when you go to the bio page.

And it's a good idea to put in your status message that you're on vacation whether you you use the BM vacation status or not, because then you can say when you expect to be back, and you can also show that you're on vacation voluntarily, and have not been put "on vacation" for lack of response.

You can see if someone has been put on vacation for lack of response by going to their points page and see if the last one is a cancellation. If it is, you can check in the history if it was cancelled for lack of response. But you don't have to, if someone goes on vacation and still has books to send to you, it's OK to cancel. Either they chose to go on vacation without sending your books, or they haven't responded to some mooch for over a week.

After many years on Bookmooch I checked this morning to see that I've been placed on vacation. Someone recently gifted me a large number of points that I've been busily using. Now I'm shut down until an admin reviews my account. I realize other people can place you on vacation if you aren't doing anything, but what gives? I've always been very active. There was a juicy one I wanted to mooch this morning. :'( Has this happened to anybody else?

>14 varielle: yeah, happened to me last week. I got a mooch request from a friend, and I didn't respond to it right away. A few days later I got emails from Bookmooch stating that this request was cancelled and that my account was put on vacation. I messaged my friend who confirmed that he didn't cancel the request; the BM system must have done it automatically.

I was able to just log in and set my status back to current though.

Unfortunately, I never could get back in. It’s been a month. I never got any response from tech help so I finally sent a pleading email to John and got no response from there either. I’ve been a member since nearly the beginning, at least 15 years and never had any trouble. I’m really sorry to tell Bookmooch goodbye. 😢 are there any other similar sites? I looked at Paperback Swap but they want a credit card. 🤷‍♀️

ETA- what’s even more of a shame is I was recently gifted points from an LT member and I can’t even access them to pass along.

>16 varielle: unfortunately it doesn't seem like they are very well staffed anymore so probably aren't getting around to fixing problems. It's probably easier for them to leave you hanging until you either quit or just open another Bookmooch account and set up your inventory over again, which still screws you out of your accumulated points....

I've been wondering for some time if anybody is looking after the BookMooch site. I had a problem with one of my e-mail accounts a couple of months ago and changed the sequence of the two addresses in my settings so the "good" account came first. This was apparently a change of e-mail address and since then I have been unable to send e-mails except through responses to a mooch request, and I hope those actually are going through (each time the site says the e-mail has been sent). I've been trying to reach another member about a "lost" book that was eventually returned to me by the Post Office, and every time I try I get a message saying I am not allowed to use that function until my e-mail has been verified. I keep e-mailing to Tech Support to send me a verification e-mail, but nothing happens. I haven't tried to mooch anything so don't know if that works, but I have received e-mails saying that books I sent have been received, so I'm not sure where the problem is. As I understand it, John has not actually been directly involved with the BookMooch site for a number of years, so I'm afraid it will just gradually continue to deteriorate as there are fewer and fewer people to take care of it.

Varielle, I've been on PaperBackSwap for years and was never asked for a credit card. A few years ago they changed their procedures so that (at least if you have a "free" account with a maximum of 100 titles in your request list) you pay 55c for each request, so you have to have an account. I just send them a check once a year or so. I'm annoyed about the charge, but on the other hand the site continues to work and somebody answers you promptly when you have a question.

>18 mirigall: Thank you. I will take another look at Paperback Swap. It’s going on two months now with no explanation so I guess BM has permanently banned me. I believe I joined around 2007. So this is kind of distressing.

Does anyone know if BookMooch is still "alive"? I had a problem with one of my e-mail accounts several months ago, and since then have been shut out of almost all the functions on the site until Tech Support "confirms my e-mail address". I've sent I don't know how many requests to Tech Support, using the e-mail link on the site, and not gotten any response. I still get mooch requests, so BookMooch has both of my e-mail addresses and they're working, but I can't add to my inventory or mooch anything myself. I guess it's PBS or nothing from now on.

>20 mirigall: Same here. After having been active since around 2007 I was placed on vacation without cause pending review months ago. I’ve sent pleading emails even to John and never got any response. So I finally opened a new account. I sent out a couple of books, have yet to receive any, and now I’m locked out of that account as well ‘pending review’. I was supposed to receive a confirming email for the new account within 24 hours which of course never came. If they are going to shut out good members for no reason they might as well take the whole thing down. Heartbreaking really.