Hello. I hope someone can give me some advice on what to do in this situation.

Back in April, I requested three books from the same person. They never arrived so they were categorized as "lost in the mail."  The titles were added to my wish list I was able to get all three books within a short time.

Guess what showed up today? YUP -- the three books.  The package was postmarked July 29.

If I go into the transaction archive and mark them as "received" -- even with a problem -- the points will be substracted from my account and frankly, Frankly, I don't want these duplicate books. 

Just ignoring the fact that they arrived seems rude, though.

Should I contact the sender and offer to return the books to her (in exchange for 1 point to cover postage)?  Is that the normal operating procedure in these cases?

What should I do?

Wow! 3 months!

This is from the help file:

"Lost books must be marked received when/if they arrive, to keep your account in good standing."

But 3 months? I wonder what the statute of limitations is.

Help Center says this www.paperbackswap.com/help/help_item.php

• *If the book was mailed late and had already been declared Lost at PBS before it was mailed (and you re-requested the book and got it from someone else), this is an exception:
  • If a sender wants to mail a book that has been declared Lost at PBS already she needs to contact you with a Personal Message asking you to confirm that you still want the book from her, and
  • You would need to have confirmed that you still wanted her copy of the book in a Personal Message in reply to hers before she mailed it.
  • If a sender sends a book this late without getting confirmation from you that you have not gotten another copy in the meantime, the sender has made the mistake here; in this case,  you are not obligated to mark the lost book received nor are you obligated to return the extra copy.

But her books weren't mailed late, they were received 3 months late.

I don't know -- if the postmark was July 29th, that would indicate to me that the books were mailed VERY late.

Not if they sat at the originating PO that long....but that is strange as you'd think 3 books would have had to have been mailed from the PO and they usually stamp them immediately.

Dang it but I can't spell today.

Somehow, I get the feeling that they were not mailed until July 29.  When they were overdue, I remember PMing her and she said she had asked her "assistant" to mail them and would check into it, but I never heard back from her.

I had looked for the help rules in this situation, but I didn't find them.  The rules that Jody posted were very helpful -- just what I was looking for!

Thanks y'all!

was the postmark the round stamp or was it the date on the stamp (that the PO prints out)? 

it is possible that it sat somewhere for 3 months before being processed but rather unlikely. 

A late postmark isn't a guarantee that the books were mailed on or near that date.    There have been cases where the delay in postmarking a package IS the Post Office's fault, but as far as I am aware those are few and far between.

I think that in the large majority of these cases, the books were actually mailed that late.

I am assuming that this was a package where the postage was applied by the PO (not prepaid) and that it was sent Media Mail, right?

If that was the case, I find it very hard to believe that the packages just sat at the PO for three months, with no postmark.  Every time I bring packages to the PO for MM, they apply postage with the date on it right then and there. So if that is the case, they were just mailed VERY late.  Could be wrong of course, but this sounds very suspicious.

I can thinlkof several scenarios exonerating the PBS-er. For example, she gave it to her assistant or someone else to mail and the parcel fell under the seat or somewhere. Stamps were already on it and someone just found and mailed it. But policy is clear that you just don't mark it mailed. If you don't want them, re-list them.

My guess is her assistant forgot to mail them and then rather than tell her boss-she just mailed them late hoping no one would notice.

SInce they're WL books, I would go ahead and mark them received, with a polite PM to the sender that PBS states that I didn't have to, but since I can post and send them right away for credit that I went ahead and marked them. I'm pretty sure she'll pay closer attention next time. A little good karma will go a long way.

Now if they had been Grishams, I wouldn't mark them received because it would take a LOOOOONG time to get my credits back.

Why would she bother to mail them 3 months late? If it was 3 weeks late I'd be more inclined to believe they just got around to mailing. 

As others have stated, just because it has a July 29th postmark does not mean that's when they were mailed.  I had a book take several months to get from CA to TX. I dont know that the receiver and I discussed postmark dates, but I can tell you that I mailed when I said I did.  I have *no idea* where that book sat for 3 or 4 months, but it was not at my house..USPS had it in their possession (sp?)  *somewhere*.

I agree, I'd give her the benefit of the doubt and mark them recieved. They were recieved, albeit late, but better late than never. I've had a couple books go missing at the PO that turned up late, and I know that I posted them when I said I did. I've also had others disappear before the DC was scanned. Who knows where those went!

I don't know about anyone else's PO, but mine puts the sticker on the package while I'm standing there, so there would be no way that they'd be sitting anywhere in the PO system waiting to be stamped.  However, if she put stamps on them and then dropped them in a mail box that's something else, but in this case the 3 books would be over the weight limit to do this and would have had to have been taken to the PO.

If it were me and the books were still WLd, I'd accept them with a note to the sender and repost them.  If they weren't and I didn't want them and had replaced them, I wouldn't expend the time and would mark them RWAP and ask for my credits back, but that's just me.  Pat

I would not mark them received and contact the sender. Since the books are post-marked in a way indicating that they were mailed later than the lost date in the system, you have no obligation to mark them received. If the sender is willing to talk it out with you, maybe you can work something out where you do not have to be out $$ to resend these booksto other wishers and she isn't out credits. I myself would not eat $7 of postage to get rid of the books AND give the credits I am not obligated to unless the sender gave me a good reason as  to why they didn't follow the rules on mailing (and at least the rule on contacting you before they were mailed).

Pat O said:  I wouldn't expend the time and would mark them RWAP and ask for my credits back, but that's just me. The Help Center says you are not to mark books as RWP for late mailing. It is an unofficial problem and you are to mark them as received normally.

I'm with Melanie on this one.  It seems pretty clear that the books were mailed long after they "went lost", and you got other copies, and thus are not obligated to mark them received or give credit for them.  Just repost the duplicates and do nothing else.

<<I would not mark them mailed and contact the sender. Since the books are post-marked in a way indicating that they were mailed later than the lost date in the system, you have no obligation to mark them received....I myself would not eat $7 of postage to get rid of the books AND give the credits I am not obligated to>>

Cheers,

Catt