I requested a book last week. It needs to be mailed by 11 pm tonight to meet the mailing guidelines.

I just got a PM from the person, who marked it mailed, to say they were mailing out in the morning!  This seems very dishonest to me! 

I have no way of tracking now because I won't be able to tell if it's really mailed tomorrow or not.

I hate that.  Did they at least have a good excuse?

No excuse!  Just a PM saying "I marked this book as mailed and will send it in the morning.  Enjoy!"

I completely understand why you are so frustrated, but I just wanted to point out that according to the help section this is what they are supposed to do.....  (edited to add....I don't mean "supposed" to do really..I mean if this situation comes up then this is the best way to handle it, but I totally understand getting frustrated in this situation.)  :-)

A book must be mailed within 48 hours of marking it mailed

• It is okay to mark your book mailed before you have mailed it if:

  • The deadline date falls on a postal holiday
  • Your computer/Internet access is unreliable
  • You plan to mail the book on your way out of town
• It is not okay to mark your book mailed and delay Mailing it for longer than 48 hours
  • We understand that sometimes circumstances interfere with prompt mailing!  But this should not be a habit.
  • If your mailing is delayed, you must inform the requestor as soon as possible, so that she doesn't think the book is lost in the mail if it was merely mailed late.
  • To contact the requestor from a book transaction: click or on the transaction, to send a Personal Message.

double post

You are right, Sarah.  Thank you for reminding me of that!

I have one book coming.  I requested it on the first, but the it says on my account page that the book would be mailed by the 6th which is tomorrow.  This is over 48 hours (which is fine with me since I don't need the book fast), but I didn't realize a longer time span could be entered into the "book sale".  This is all new to me so I'm still learning.

They should have talked to you first and gotten your OK to do that. Hopefully they keep their promise to mail it in the morning.

I think it gives you up to 4-5 days after the ordering date to send it out.

If they hadn't PMed you to tell you they were mailing it out in the morning, you wouldn't have even known you had a problem there. You would have thought it was mailed within the guidelines.

When the book arrives, make sure to fill out the optional book survey and put the actual postmarked date into that field -- if this person is habitually marking books mailed before he/she mails them, the system will flag the account.  Also, I believe that if the recipient marks a book as postmarked after the date it was marked mailed, the system will automatically generate an email to the sender. 

I have to fess up... I will click "sent" the night before only if I can't get to the computer the same day I mail. I will also click "sent" right before I leave the house to go to post office. ai yah!

It's possible this person prepared it at night and then marked it because they needed to mail it on the way to work, or something. I know that in my job I have NO access to a computer, so I probably would be marking it the night before, or morning of the mailing, especially if I was so close to the deadline that I would miss it if I waited until after work. Fortunately school's out for the summer, so I am home, but when I do work I don't have computer access. While your sender shouldn't make a habit of mailing late, it sounds like they just waited until the last possible minute. Mark it as an unofficial problem when you receive the book.

Because of the problems I had with PBS a couple of weeks ago when they were updating and I couldn't get on for a couple of days, I've taken to marking my books to be mailed at the farthest out date possible.  They always get mailed before then, but I mailed out 21 books then that were on the either mail now or lose the credit time and I was panicky.  I did get them posted, but it taught me to leave myself some room. 

It is frustrating though when people don't mail the books out timely.  I had one where it was marked mailed, and didn't come and didn't come and even PBS sent the message, 'Did you receive the book,, etc.  and the book wasn't even sent until over 2 weeks after the cut-off date.  Just in time for it NOT to be marked lost.  Pat

I have one book coming.  I requested it on the first, but the it says on my account page that the book would be mailed by the 6th which is tomorrow.  This is over 48 hours (which is fine with me since I don't need the book fast), but I didn't realize a longer time span could be entered into the "book sale".  This is all new to me so I'm still learning.

It's not 48 hours from when you order it, or even from when it is accepted, but from when they mark it mailed. You will notice when a book is requested from you there are two buttons to choose from "I can mail within 2 days" or "I can mail later". Your sender probably just pushed mail later.