I mailed 24 books yesterday all had pbs tracking, I know the post office scanned them when I paid for postage. How long does it take to get the instant credit???

If you use PBS postage and DC then you get credit as soon as you mark them mailed.  The help docs say that if you just use DC then you get a quickcredit when USPS transmits the scanning to PBS.  I never use just the DC.  I always print the postage too.  That way I don't have to go to the post office.  I just put the books in my outgoing mail at home or work.

Bertie, you should have quick credits within 24 hours but not always. Last week I went to the PO with D/C tracking on several books and some of the quick credits came through within 24 hours and some didn't.  The other quick credits came when the books got scanned along the way, most at the sorting facilities. So, you will eventually get all of them at some point.

You get it when PBS gets the information. That is dependent on when your local PO uploads the information. Some do it multiple times a day, some once a day, some may take longer. If I get them scanned at the counter and don't see the credit 24 hours later, I check the USPS.com to see if the scan is there. If I don't see it there I know it is not a PBS issue, it is a USPS issue. If I see the scan there I give it another 24 hours to show on PBS. If it hasn't triggered the quick credit 24 hours after I've seen it on USPS I'd PM the site and ask them to trigger it.

Once in a while your scan can get uploaded before you mark it mailed and in that case, the first scan won't trigger the credit, you'd need to wait for another scan or contact the site.

Instant credit = PBS postage

Quick credit = PBS DC only

The "quick" credit just means it (generally) happens quicker than waiting for the person to receive the book and mark it received, but that won't happen until the book has been scanned AND there has been communication between the USPS and PBS computers.

Cheryl

ok I will wait and see what happens. I always just use tracking and get postage at the post office. They always scan the packages as soon as the package is weighed and the postage is put on package.  I took them to the post office yesterday at 10 a.m. thought for sure I would have my credits by now

Thanks all for your help

I don't use just the DC option because my books need to be put into the blue mailbox.  But even though I buy the PBS DC my area PO doesn't scan the books from the blue boxes - they go directly on the truck to the regional distribution facility.  The last 3 books I mailed didn't get scanned anywhere along the way until 2 of them reached the destination PO.  The last one never got scanned anywhere.  I only knew it got there when the requester informed PBS that they got the book.

Ruth