Susan,

It should be marked as RWAP - damaged by post office - since it sounds like the packaging may have been caught in the mail handling.

From the Help Forum:

Damaged by USPS

• You will have the option to describe the book condition problem in a text box - the text you type in will be included in an email, and sent as a Personal Message, to the sender.
• You will have the option to request a credit refund - this is UNchecked by default for this problem type.  If you check this option (if you believe the Wrapping contributed to the book's damage by USPS), the email the sender gets will include the request for a credit refund. If you leave this unchecked,  the email sent to the sender will NOT mention or request a credit refund.
• If this was a Wish List book (and there are no other copies available), you will go back in your previous place in line for the book.  If there are other copies available, the book will go onto your Reminder List.

Actually you will Mark it RWAP - Empty Wrapper as discussed below:

• Empty Wrapper
  • Again, this means that no book was received at all - just some packaging material, with or without a note from USPS about the damaged shipment
  • For a bulk shipment, you will see a box pop up with the following message:  "Choosing 'Empty Wrapper' will set all books in this shipment to 'Empty Wrapper'. If you change your mind later, you will have to click in the 'good condition' column and the page will reload. Are you sure you want to set this shipment to 'Empty Wrapper'?"
    • Choosing Cancel on that box will reset the transaction to "received in good condition"
    • Choose OK if you got no books that you requested in this shipment. This will not mark the books received.  They will stay on your En Route to Me tab.  If you don't get the books by the system action date, they will be declared "lost in the mail" - if you get them after that, you need to mark them received from your Transaction Archive, as described in I received a book that was 'lost in the mail'.
  • If you chose OK and want to undo that afterward, you just need to choose "received in good condition" to reload the options for that shipment.
  • If you don't want to wait for the system to declare the books "lost" you can ask the sender to contact us to cancel.  You can contact the sender using the PM button on the request on your My Account page. The sender can contact us using the "send us feedback" button on the Contact Us page.

Ok, I did choose, RWAP empty wrapper, I also mentioned to the sender (politely I hope) that I didn't think brown paper bag wrapping was up to the task. So I guess I will wait and see what happens next. Thank you.

Heavier weight brown paper bags work well, in my experience, and are one of the suggested alternative wrapping materials here.  The key is to wrap tightly (no room for the book to shift around inside) and to use packaging tape on all corners, edges and seams.

Susan, as a Marine Mom, that just made my eyes a little leaky.  What a sweet thing for you to do.  

Brown paper wrapping actually seems to do better than manilla envelopes getting thru the PO as long as all corners are taped. The only damaged packages I have received have all been in big envelopes--and sometimes wrapped so tightly that corners of books are bent when you open them.

 Last spring I had a similar problem with PO, but the envelope had been wrapped with 3 books in it and only one was still there when it was delivered.  We filed the missing contents report with PO but they never responded.

Kath, Your comment made me feel good. But I know what you mean. I'm an Army mom myself.

susan/vt