My Thoughts on Swaptree

I first heard about Swaptree from some readers of this blog. They mentioned that it was a place to go to trade books/CDs/DVDs with others. Great idea for a site. I looked it over, and thought about it. I decided to give it a try.

When you use Swaptree, you list the items that you have available for trade. You then list the items that you want. Hopefully you see a little “GET NOW” button next to an item under your want list. When that happens, you can initiate a trade of one of your items for that item. If the other party accepts, you can print a shipping label directly from Swaptree and pop your item in the mail. Your credit card on file is charged for shipping and you also pay a monthly fee for using the Swaptree service for postage.

It’s a very easy system. I sometimes have a hard time getting to the post office during business hours but I can easily print the postage from my computer and walk out to my mailbox. The algorithms on the site determine your available trades from your have/want lists so you don’t have to go searching for trades. There is some work to do research on your trade parter (or partners, if it happens to be a three-way trade), but that is fairly easy to do as well.

I’ve done a few trades and received some great items. I was hoping to do a few more before doing a review but it didn’t take long before I was scammed. I participated in a trade and sent out my item. I didn’t receive one in return and the user is not answering my messages to them. It looks like they may have scammed a few others as well. From the sounds of things on their discussion boards, not receiving items is becoming a problem and Swaptree doesn’t appear to be doing much more than just trying to contact the user themselves.

Getting scammed so early was not encouraging and I decided that I would not participate in any more trades right now. I’ll keep checking out the discussion boards every now and then to see if Swaptree changes some policies for items not received. It is a great idea, but a few bad apples can ruin it.

Do I regret trying it? Nope. I am very happy with the items I did receive and I traded things that I attempted to sell for dirt cheap at our garage sales. I did pay some money in postage, but the price for postage was lower than what you would pay for a used book at Amazon or a used book store. Like I said, it’s a great site if you don’t get scammed. Once that happens, it can put a bad taste in your mouth.

For those reading who use Swaptree, how are things going for you?

Posted by Tricia on December 17, 2008 at 11:52 PM in Saving Money | 21 Comments »
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danielle responded:
Posted: December 18th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I’ve never heard of swaptree, but had a love/hate relationship with freecycle. Sorry you got scammed.
Tina responded:
Posted: December 18th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Thats to bad tricia. Ive done 344 trades on Swaptree and so far have only not received 2 items.

For all i know those 2 items were lost in the mail. Not sure I can chalk it up to being scammed.

All in all i love the site, and got my entire book club on it.
frugalscholar responded:
Posted: December 18th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I signed up for an acct with Swaptree and was so confused that my head started to spin. Bad sign.

I’ve been so happy with paperbackswap (and my husband loves swapacd) that I’m not going to “diversify.”

See my frugality blog–it’s fun:
Tricia responded:
Posted: December 18th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Tina – that’s awesome you have had so many successful trades. Some of my trades had issues (late shipping, etc.), but I was contacted from the users about it. Or they replied to my messages. This one, unfortunately, isn’t replying.
Craig responded:
Posted: December 18th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Sounds like a cool site, will have to check it out next time I want to get rid of some stuff.
Meg responded:
Posted: December 18th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
So sorry you had a bad experience, I would strongly consider signing up for paperbackswap if you still want to trade books. I love paperbackswap.com

I love getting “free” books in the mail. I’ve always gotten everything I’ve requested and if something should happen they have a great system for dealing with it. The system relies more on your than depending on another.

I just blogged about it again actually … Here

I’ve received a ton of books in great condition that I wouldn’t have otherwise purchased for myself.

Meg

onourwayonline.com
tamaraOK responded:
Posted: December 18th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
hey….i love swaptee. im 64 trades (4 months) in and no problems.

i tried paperbackswap and had problems, never getting the things i wanted and people never acknowledging that they received my item, hence no points for me (and no points deducted for them…get the probs). in that sense i disagree with Meg above.

give swaptree another shot…my advice.
Maniac responded:
Posted: December 18th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Hey Tricia,
I was one of the people who told you about Swaptree. Sorry to hear about your bad trades. I have made several trades so far and had no issues. However, anytime that there is a good thing going on the net, there may be someone who will try to ruin your day.
Never let the scammers keep you down.

Have a Merry Christmas.
young snowbird responded:
Posted: December 19th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I haven’t used swaptree, but have used lala.com for music cd’s and its been great. $1.75 covers the shipping and the item. You have to list many cd titles to get even number of swaps, and they have to be originals (no copies!)but overall its a Great deal.That reminds me that I need to go add an Elvis album to my wants list.
Jason Kuiper responded:
Posted: December 21st, 2008 at 9:24 pm
I went on and checked out this site, and love it! I will be swapping all kinds of junk now!!
Brad responded:
Posted: December 29th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
If you use the method in PaperBackSwap to print the postage, you can remove the danger of “not getting credit”. Anyone who doesn’t get something doesn’t lose their credits. I don’t know where they are at now, but they gave several initial credits when I listed my initial 10 books. These were not state of the art ones either and I have shipped out at least 4 or 5 of them as well!

I just listed a bunch of books on tape, figuring that it would be worth trading those than the alternatives, since I am now into books on CDs and/or mp3s.
patty responded:
Posted: February 25th, 2009 at 10:35 am
I have so far done 2 successful trades on swaptree, but it is still confusing me. Why one day can I have over 1,000 choices for one of my “have it” items, and then one day later no choices at all? Now with other’s scam stories I am a little nervous.
Jess responded:
Posted: March 11th, 2009 at 10:50 am
I’ve been a member of swaptree since May ‘08 and have completed 27 trades so far. The only issue I’ve had is receiving two books that smelled like smoke. (I am allergic to everything and it bugs me that people don’t write “smoke free home” when they list their items.) I love, love, love the site. Granted I try to sell my books on half.com first, but if they don’t sell there within a few days after listing them, I will list them on swaptree as well.
Pudding4me responded:
Posted: April 8th, 2009 at 4:54 am
Well I used to use swaptree and it was all fine for a while until I realized how incredibly easy it is to scam someone. All you do is make the trade, get the item you were sending, go on swaptree, change all your info, your address, email, name, password, never log in again, done. So then I stopped using it, even after they suspend your account you can still change all of this then they can’t do anything they’ll sit there sending mail fraud letters to non existent places. So after I figured this out I stopped trading too much hassle to get scammed, so I suggest if you do use swaptree write down all the persons personal info so if he changes anything you can sue his pants off.
DENM responded:
Posted: June 25th, 2009 at 6:04 am
swaptree is full to the top with scammers and the majority of the people on the site are so anal that you cant enjoy trading from fear some moron will neg you the site is really going down hill fast
Larry responded:
Posted: August 27th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
to Pudding4me. Swaptree sends fraud letters to the same place the item was delivered. And if you change your addresss, its just more evidence that you committed fraud.
ch responded:
Posted: September 28th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
I started using Swaptree and at first enjoyed it. I could get my nephew the books he likes to read. Then it all changed quickly. It’s based on everyone sending out their items. Yet it should place just as much importance on the one receiving the item. I sent out 4 books, at the exact same time. One was received on the 14, next one received on 21. Next commented that they received the book, yet never marked it as received. One never showed up, I offered another book in it’s place. I keep getting letters about mail fraud. I’ve e-mail them, I’ve went to the contact site. I never here anything back from them. There’s no number that I can find, to call them I hate getting these threats. I’ve looked up their address, guess what. NOTHING! Says there is no business in Boston MA with the name or address swaptree uses. I even copied from their own site- the posts showing where they admitted getting the book. The lost book, the trader said she’d pick another book and let me know. It’s the mail service and no big deal. She even marked received and posted that I offered another book in it’s place. I’m a very honest person and thought that this was a great way to save waste. I read a book 1, and then it sits on my shelf. now I can swap and everyone wins. (Ha) I don’t smoke, and books always look brand new. I believe in trust and honesty – yet where you find something good – the bad is sure to follow. I still think it’s a great IDEA, just don’t think it’s worth the hassle. Someone lies about receiving the item and now you not only are out an item – but are accused of fraud. I think supporting the local S.Army and Childrens thrift store is a safer way to go. Good luck to those of you who give it a try. Just remember – you’ve been warned. Sorry about anyone else’s bad experiences – I think we are all having them.
Bob responded:
Posted: October 6th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I was very unhappy with my swaptree experience. Over a period of just 2 months, there were 5 trades that I never received. The users I swapped with all had high ratings, but that wasn’t enough to ensure that they would actually send my trade. I ended up paying to ship my quality books, receiving nothing in return. The issues were reported to swaptree, but the last communication from swaptree I received was to be told that they would “pursue every avenue available” to them to try to contact the user to send my books. Apparently you can swindle people on this site and get away with it, aside from having your account suspended. I have deleted my account and WILL NOT be using them again, as there is no way to know whether you will actually receive anything in return for your items.
Wallace Roark responded:
Posted: October 13th, 2009 at 10:12 am
I have seventy trades with Swaptree and have been completely satisfied. If one in a hundred were to fail, I am still well ahead. As someone wrote above, I’ve gotten many excellent books I would otherwise have never known about.

Most book people are honest people. The risk of scammers seems very low.

It is simple and fast.
cody responded:
Posted: October 29th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I got badly ripped off on Swaptree for a $60.00 video game. I’d made 4 or 5 trades and made another with a user who had a 100% rating and 35 trades under their belt and they straight up ripped me off. Won’t respond to any messages even though they’ve logged onto the site. It’s been 2 months since then and all Swaptree has done is send them an email. I will be deleting my account tonight.
GregPC responded:
Posted: November 20th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
I’ve been a member since January 2007 and have done more than 100 trades. Only two have been problems. The first was a book that was lost in the mail. The post office eventually did deliver but it was the wrong book in a badly mangled envelope. The trader offered the purchase another copy to resend but I was cool with it. The other time was a damaged disk. Disappointing but not the end of the world. I had traded a paperback for it . . .