Came across this over at bookcrossing, and I have to say, I admire gg's guts... :D

Dealings with a Deadbeat

Good for her! Wasn't Buffy a member on here for a while?

I think so, the name sounds familiar...

still is, and usually accepting RABCK's, but not giving anything back that I've seen. She just recently asked about reporting a bad member I think, so maybe that's what that was about.

I'm sorry, but I do check peoples stats before I just start randomly sending out books to them, and I don't care for hers.

Way to go Idaho!

(Ok, so my kid has been watching too much Toy Story recently)

"I want to be last on bookrings and rays so I can hoard them and keep them all to myself!! MWAHAHAHHAHAHAHA"

Did anyone else read that in their mind? :lol:

Way To Go GG! Yes she was around here too for awhile.

:o some people!!!!

Awesome!!!! That's my kind of fight!

:rofl:

I am certainly anti-deadbeats and think public displays of information is helpful, but in buffy's defense she did say she would only join the ray if she was last. If you are going to add more people to the list then buffy wouldn't be last and she was clear about only joining if she was last. Buffy asked several times if she would be expected to mail the book back. It doesn't seem like GG really answered her until it was too late. Granted, buffy did say she wanted to be last b/c of the time it would take her to read it and not because of $. It seems to me like GG is partially at fault. :shrug: Am I the only one that thinks this?

I agree with you. :wave:

Nope, I agree with you, at least some of the blame for the situation falls on her. I would also personally never push as hard as she has to move the ray along.

But what I really like about GG's handling of the whole situation is that not only did she name names (which is pretty gutsy considering the atmosphere at the BC site) but she put the whole discussion out there, which is what allows us to know all the facts and judge for ourselves.

Honestly, if someone was asking the kind of things Buffy did I wouldn't add them to a ray. But then, Buffy is pretty greedy so maybe GG was knowingly trying to trap her.

Regardless, good for her for putting the actual conversation out there!

Me too. Deadbeat or not, she repeated several times that she wanted to be last, and GG had the opportunity to tell her no and not include her.

I think some of the PMs from gg are missing in the beginning - maybe telling her she cannot guarantee there won't be more people joining?

Honestly, life is too short. I usually make an effort if someone has a ray/ring of mine, but if it means that much to me, I'll just buy the stupid thing again or beg for it here or something. LOL.

But she's got some guts, that's for sure! :-)

I agree with others that Buffy shouldn't have been put on the list.

But wouldn't most people just send the dang book along after all this. BTW, that would be about $10-15 even for a HC

Hmm I think there was mis-communication on both sides here.

:ditto: Buffy did ask to be last, so she could "reap the benefits" of getting a free book in the end, and not being required to mail it on. But it does seem that gg didn't answer her question of whether or not Buffy could just keep the book at the end of the ray(there was some flip-flop of ring and ray, so I'm not sure of which the book in question was). On one hand, I can sympathize with gg, as I had one of my rays stalled by a deadbeat, so I understand her want of the book to move. :blush: I would have offered to pay half or a portion of the postage, or have buffy hand it off to someone else (locally) so that the ray could move forward, and not jump the gun saying "Oh, well she's a dead beat because she just wants to be at the end and get a free book."


But I would have the guts to post deadbeats on my profile!!

That was my thought also reading through the thread. Although she didn't specifically say that she WOULDN'T ship a book. If you've got issues, you should really be up front. Maybe GG would have been open to repeatedly moving her to the bottom of the list and adding others in front of her.

I too look at stats. I'm mostly looking to see how active someone is.

Occasionally I'll only join a ray if I'm last - if it's a big book usually, and I always say that if it can't be worked that way then just leave me out.
It really annoys me when I'm last on a ray but just before it gets to me, it's put on the forums and more people added to the list - especially when it's people in Europe/UK or somewhere else really expensive to post to. ETA: But I don't mind when people are added above me in the ray.
I don't know the situation with this GG/buffy thing but people organising rays really should be clear about whether more people could be added at the end.
Unless that's made clear, I assume that the book is mine to pass on as I see fit (either in bookboxes/trades or to local bookcrossers - I don't wildrelease books that have been on rays).

From what I read it seems that buffy made it very clear that she wanted to join, only if she was last on the ray and could keep the book. It is also clear that GG just blew off her questions and comments and never once directly answered them.

IMO GG is the one who was in the wrong because as the organizer of the ray/ring she is entitled to pick and choose who joins the ray/ring. When buffy made it clear that she wanted to be last, then GG should have either made sure she was last as requested, or she should have not included her in the ray/ring. Buffy never once in any of those pms that I read, agreed to send the book on to others that might or might not be added on after she had the book. In fact she made it quite clear that she did not want to mail the book on to anyone else.

Now I am not saying that it is okay for buffy to always take -- RABCKS offers, last spots on rays, etc. But everyone who sends her a book makes a choice of rather to send her a book or not. If they feel she is taking advantage then they should not include her in rays/rings and send her books. :shrug:

I can see both sides of the story here. It's true that buffy is very much a hoarder of books, her stats prove that, and we've seen here how she's always in line to claim RABCKs, but has never really returned the favor or participated other than in the RABCK giveaways.

On the other hand, she did state this up front, in so many words, and does have it on her profile. So if GG had just said to her, I cannot guarantee that you will remain last and won't have to send on the book. If you have a problem with this, do not join this ray. (Which then later becomes known as a ring.) So like Joy said, GG is partially to blame as well for still putting her on the list when buffy clearly said she will only join if she doesn't have to send the book on. :shrug:

At this point though, I think GG's classification of buffy25 as a deadbeat isn't exactly true, a hoarder is more accurate. A deadbeat would not even be replying to the emails. And at this point now, I think buffy is probably right to stand on principle. She said she wouldn't join the ray unless she was at the end and wouldn't have to send it on, GG added her anyway, so she shouldn't be required to send it on. End of story!


ETA - as I was composing this, I see that Wendy basically said the same thing as me right above. :D

I agree that it is not right to always take. It's nice to give something back so that you share the happiness :) Hoarding books is not right, so I can't give Buffy a full score, but:

:thinking:
Buffy did ask at least twice in January if she could keep the book. GG avoided answering by saying that the flight list was not made yet.

I also agree that it is the senders choice to include someone in a ring/ray, a very good idea would be to check the stats of the person. If GG checked or not, we'll never know, but she is the one that initiated the whole thing: GG asked Buffy to join, not the other way around. :erm:

:blink:

The way I understand rays, the last person keeps the book. And, to me, Buffy asked to be last. I guess she should have said directly that she would not join the ray unless she could be last.

I wonder if I sent my copy of the book to GG, if this would all go away? Or would I just be asking for trouble?

What is the book? She cracked me up!!!

The book is The Little Friend by Donna Tartt.

ETA: I looked up the book on gg's shelf. It seems to be that buffy wild released it. *snicker*

Well I can see both arguements. Personally I wouldn't let B25 join any rings or rays I had. Her stats are terrible. I don't play with people with stats like that. It's unneccessary. Lets just say for arguements sake you are really that broke and there is no library near you. Since you are getting all these free books at least you could release them back into the wild. 440+ found and only 87 released thats just not good. I admire GG for putting it all out there and letting people make their own decisions. Although I doubt it would do much good, every time a scammer is exposed over there someone is always there to defend their rights to send books to these hoarders. I think it's kind of like fighting a losing battle.
My final comment, I had to laugh at Buffy's forum posts: (The list)
I'd like to join
please add me
please add me
congrats please add me for...
happy birthday please add me for...
Merry Christmas please add me for..
etc. etc. etc.

Just another interesting note. Who keeps e-mails for a year??

I enjoyed that too :giggle:

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Um... I have PMs from June 2005.

:shrug:

My emails are downloaded into Thunderbird, and if I don't delete them right away, they likely don't get deleted ever.

I might, but only out of laziness. :lol:

Gmail, baby! You never have to delete a thing! :lol:

That's right! Archive it baby! I have a bajillion emails that are many years old. Laziness mostly...

I delete everything. If I need it, it goes into a save file, otherwise I trash it. When a new month starts, the old month's trash gets completely deleted. I hate having old crap in my inbox. It just annoys me.

:ditto:

I'm known as an email packrat. People I used to work with contact me years later (last week it was for an email from 2004).

But I don't keep PMs.

I dont keep pms here because the inbox is so small but since BC PMs get sent to my email, I end up keeping them also. I have better things to do generally than go through and delete emails. :shrug:

I agree that GG probably should have made it clear when Buffy first asked whether she could keep the book or not, but at the same time Buffy just comes off as greedy. Her shelf is crazy! She easily has nearly 700 books on her shelf but less than 150 appear to be registered by her. I know she only comes here to ask for stuff, but I'm glad that she doesn't do more. That way I wouldn't have to think of a nice way to tell her I wasn't sending her anything of mine. And what does she have against putting a space after a period??

I've pushed lately o:) Not quite as forecefully but several ISOs and PMs . Person never answered me but at least there's an update on her shelf. I'm pushy with these because she has not one but two of my well-travelled rings.

I'm bitter on rings lately, way too many stallers out there.