How long should someone wait before contacting the recipient of books to request the credits for them? I know the books were received by the recipients because I sent them out via UPS and tracking, which I PMd to the recipients, shows delivery to their residence but I also understand that people have things to do and may not get around to crediting the sender with credits right away. So I was wondering if there's a standard timeframe someone should apply to this situation.

The system will do this for you automatically. If you sent with PBS Printable Postage, then it will send an email telling the person that USPS says they received the book a few days after the delivery scan (5 days?) For all transactions, the system will send a "Have you received this book?" about two weeks after the mailing date. It will send another one of those about a week later, and a final one a day before the book will be declared lost in the mail. Then it will also send a "Book Lost" email.

So if you're on the receiving end of a transaction, you get either 4 or 5 emails from the system which cannot be turned off. If you want to add PMs to the mix, you can do it any time, but I'd suggest waiting until the next Tuesday after the delivery scan. Then if they're away on vacation for the week or the weekend, it gives them time to get home and collect their held mail from the Post Office on Monday.

The Help Center says to wait a few days after tracking says its delivered to contact the member. I usually wait for 7-10 days after a DC is scanned delivered and then send a polite PM asking them to confirm whether they'd received it or not so that if it was delivered incorrectly I can start a trace on the package while the carrier still remembers what they did with it.

Keep in mind that even with UPS, a delivery scan doesn't necessarily mean delivered to them. Our UPS guy will leave stuff with neighbors. The carrier may have also left it on a porch or in an entryway that would be succeptible to theft so I think a PM letting them know the book is marked as delivered is helpful to the receiver.

"Keep in mind that even with UPS, a delivery scan doesn't necessarily mean delivered to them. Our UPS guy will leave stuff with neighbors. The carrier may have also left it on a porch or in an entryway that would be succeptible to theft so I think a PM letting them know the book is marked as delivered is helpful to the receiver."

That's how they were marked as delivered, one as porch the other as front door. I sent them a PM letting them know and to contact me if there were any problems. Hopefully theft isn't an issue.

There's a help doc called

If a book you sent hasn't been marked received yet...

It's a little long to post here, but has some good info in it.

I usually wait a couple of days.  Then I send them a canned e-mail I have saved asking them if they received the book and if not, perhaps they might want to check with their neighbors to see if it was left in the wrong mailbox.  I have never had anyone respond negatively to my requests.

I don't mind when people PM me to ask if I received a book because on occasion I will forget to mark a book received and always appreciate the "heads up".

@Patty P. - I can't access that link. I'm using Firefox 3.6.8