Hi,

I just received notification that a book I sent was damaged by USPS.  The sender also PM'd me and told me that the mail man stuffed the book in a small apartment mail box and damaged it.  He was very nice and was just letting me know I guess.  My question is this.  He marked RWAP - Damaged by USPS and that it is Unresolved.  How am I supposed to "resolve" this.  I don't feel like I owe him a credit yet the wording from PBS says I need to resolve so I don't have a problem transaction on my account.  Please help.

Thanks,

Sandra

I suppose you could PM back, say you are sorry the USPS damaged the book, and then simply ask the receiving member if he could mark the transaction resolved since it is obviously not your fault.

I didn't even realize that Damaged by USPS transactions triggered the resolved/unresolved flags on a sender's account. That doesn't really seem fair to me. I suppose it's because sometimes USPS damage really is the fault of the sender - but the majority of the time I would have to guess that it probably isn't.

Yes, ask him to mark it Resolved.

You do not need to refund his credit, as per PBS rules.

Actually this happened to me awhile back, except I was the receiver of the damaged book.  I posted a question in this forum about the resolved/unresolved issue, and was told by a TG that it was not necessary to mark it resolved.  PBS knows that it was not the sender's fault that the book was damaged, and this will NOT count against them.  So even if the receiver does not mark it resolved, it is not a problem- it won't count against you.  You don't need to refund a credit in this case either, unless you want to.

Just quote the PBS guidelines:

Damaged by USPS

A book is considered Damaged by USPS if it was damaged in transit (while in the mail).

• If the requestor gets the book damaged by USPS, the requestor assumes the risk.  The requestor does need to mark the book received and does not get her credit back; the sender does get credit in this case.

Christina