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→Membership requirements/restrictions: Fixed facts on membership costs. Tags: Mobile edit Mobile web edit |
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Membership ranges from zero to $20 per year <ref>https://secure.paperbackswap.com/kiosk/primo_pricing.php</ref> and is offered to individuals residing at addresses served by the [[United States Postal Service]], including APO and FPO ([[military mail]]) addresses. Commercial enterprises are prohibited from membership. Membership is restricted to adults 18 years of age or older. Membership restrictions are covered in the site privacy statement.
In February 2015 PaperBackSwap began charging a fee for their services.In the beginning, you posted books you were willing to swap to your bookshelf for other members to request. When requested, you mailed the book to the other member (for about $3 in postage) and got a credit you could then use to order a book from other member's bookshelves for yourself. Everybody got a 200 book wishlist.
Then PBS added a 33¢ fee for using their postage system, so you paid the postage plus the 33¢ so you got an instant credit for shipping your book and it included tracking. Not a problem... I had no issues with this fee. Because if you didn't want to pay this fee, you could mail through the post office and the requester would have to mark the book received for you to get your credit. I always paid the fee because I wanted the instant credit.
A few years ago, PBS suddenly added a 55¢ to every monetary transaction. So if you bought postage, add 55¢ (went from 33¢ to 55¢), add money to your account to pay for postage/fees add another 55¢. There was no warning about this fee, they just added it one day.
About 4 years ago, they came up with a "Gold Key" membership, which was $12/year and was supposed to give you perks: Wishlist increased from 200 to 300 and first book mailed each month using PBS postage the 55¢ fee was waived. The Gold Key membership was optional.
Out of the blue, PBS decided to add memberships. With about 3 weeks notice, you have to have a membership or become an Ala Carte member. There are three options: Standard Membership - $20 a year. Comes with a 500-item Wish List and the most new features, you still pay 55¢ per postage transaction (get one free per month) & per transaction fee. Limited Membership - $12 a year. Comes with a 200-item Wish List and some new features, you still pay 55¢ per postage/transaction fee (get one postage fee waived per quarter). A La Carte Membership - no annual fee. Instead, you pay 49 cents (or use a "free swap" that you can earn by mailing with Printable Postage) when you submit a book request. 100- item Wish List. All active members are A la Carte automatically, unless they enroll in Standard or Limited Membership. A La Carte members lose access to the Forums including the Bizarre and PBS questions forum.
The most recent insult to members, PBS suddenly and without notice declared that any credits sold in the Bizarre had to be sold at $3/credit. Anybody selling/buying credits for less is automatically booted from the site. Credits were selling for $2/credit prior to that. Most buying credits STOPPED and folks who were selling suddenly no longer had buyers. PBS claimed this change was to force people to post more books. All it did was make a lot of people leave.
== Operation ==
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