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Topic: late mailing
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I never have had problems from anyone on this website. But it makes me mad that a book I really wanted was marked mailed three weeks ago. I get it today and it was postmarked a few days ago. Does this happen often to other senders.?
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Happened to me once - be sure to report it as such. Late mailings are frowned upon and a member with a history of late mailings may be putting their membership in jeopardy.
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Last Edited on: 5/12/12 6:22 PM ET - Total times edited: 3 |
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I do use PBS postage, and sometimes it can take three or four days to see the Post Office acceptance scan of my package. I put my books in the blue box outside my office. From there, they almost always go to Bell Gardens, CA in southern CA. ( I live in northern CA.) Most often I see the acceptance scan the next day, but not always.
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It is easy when you see the DC scan of acceptance days or weeks after the mailing date. I am to believe that the book sat at the post office for days or weeks. Well, it can sit in a blue box. And people mailing from college campuses have reported delays in mail transitioning from the campus mail office to the USPS. I don't see why it is hard to believe that a package might sit for several days before an acceptance scan. They quite often seem to sit for days AFTER an acceptance scan. I don't know why it might take 3 weeks for a properly mailed package to be received .... but the proof would seem to be in the pudding, and I've received plenty of packages that have a 3 week old postmark. I think the USPS does a great job, in general. But I don't think you can blame all the mailers when books "seem" like they might not have been mailed on time. |
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Yes- what Sara said. I've had books that I know I put in a blue box myself not get acceptance scans for a few days. I've also mailed books from campus or work and had those take even longer in the transition. I try to assume that most people make an effort to do the right thing without overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Also, as long as I get the book before it goes lost, I don't worry about it. |
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It is easy when you see the DC scan of acceptance days or weeks after the mailing date. I am to believe that the book sat at the post office for days or weeks Yes, yes you should. I am seeing this A LOT lately with the new internal barcodes. I will leave my books in the mail box or bluebox them and I will see an acceptance scan days later. Sometimes the acceptance scan is for WF, sometimes for Fargo and not always for the town I mailed the book in, my suspicion is that it is the sorting facility scanning them when they send them out and randomly deciding to scan based on the return address or their location. I've seen acceptance scans done at the sorting facility in IA, clearly I did not drive across states just to mail my book. The USPS appears to be using the acceptance scan as the first scan a lot now, even when it is not even remotely close to the time or location of the mailing of the book. There is no reason to assume wrong doing on the sender's part. Unless there is a verifiable postage stamp on it, there is no way to know if a book was mailed late. |
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A couple days, yes I can believe that. Not all postal branches are as efficient as my own. Weeks later? Unfortunately, I've seen more of that this year than in previous years here at PBS. I don't mark the printed postage ones because I have no real way to know when they were actually mailed (ive never seen one with an actual postmark). But I've received a number of books mailed late with counter postage...doesen't get much more incriminating than that. And yes, sometimes it is the the fault of USPS...I've seen a couple this year that were scanned enroute, dropped off the radar for a couple weeks, then resumed their journey just in time to squeek in under the 'lost' date.
I find it's best not to assume anything without proof Last Edited on: 5/11/12 1:12 PM ET - Total times edited: 2 |
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I don't really seem to mind if someone doesn't mail something soon enough. It gives me something to look forward to when I finally get my books, but then again, I have hundreds of books already so I am not in any quick need of getting my books very quickly. There are those times when I can't wait for a book to come (especially if it's in a series that I am waiting for the next one, for instance) but for the most part, I am okay with the books coming a little late. My main concern is that the books will go lost. It would at least be nice for the person to contact me to say they'll mail the books a little later than usual, just to give me a heads up but not everyone does that. |
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When I use the APC machine, my packages never get scanned until the sorting hub. But that would NOT be a three week delay. More in the range of three days.
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Was it postmarked with that date or are you talking about the APC date? The last book I received like that was mailed the day before it went lost in the mail. And I didn't use the postmark, I went according to the APC date on the stamp. That's not waiting in the blue mailbox for days on end. That is someone actually mailing the book that day. |
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I put books with PBS DC/Postage in the blue bin all the time and frequently it sits there and there are no scans usually until it gets to New Jersey. NJ is only about 5 hrs from me in heavy traffic and it frequently takes book days to get there. If I get a book before it goes lost, I don't even pay attention to the postage date. I have plenty to read and I realize that sometimes life gets in the way of mailing books. |
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I had one like what the OP is talking about. I don't recall what the date was on the postage, but it wasn't 4/1. I was pretty wiped out when I marked it received, so I really didn't want to spend too much brain power figuring out when it had actually been mailed. Now that I'm thinking about it, it might not have even been metered postage, it may have been APC. But it's been a month so I remember exactly jack.
Mailed From: KS
Mailed To: VA
Request Date: 3/29/2012 3:30 PM ET
Generally, I know shit happens at the PO and things sit, especially with media mail. However, if someone uses the APC or metered and the date on that is closer to the day it actually started moving than the date the person claimed they mailed it, I'm really not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt that it sat in a sorting bin for a week before postage was applied to it. People who mark mailed and then mail late would probably be viewed in a better light had they showed the least bit of common (or not so common now) courtesy to give the recipient a heads up. It's like they don't want to be held accountable for forgetting the book on the mantle or it falling out of the bag in the car, they're just hinging on hoping the recipient won't log the postage date. And yeah, I know shit happens at home too. But the odds of each of the people I've received late books from is really so low, I'd have better chances at PowerBall. |
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See to me that seems like a perfect PBS transaction. You ordered a book on 3/29 and 13 days later it was delivered to your door. (You marked it received 4 days after that). I think 13 days from "date of order" to "delivery on doorstep" is fantastic. Considering that some transactions take up to 12 days just from "date of order" to "book mailed". This is why I don't even start to look at what's going on with book orders until at least 3 weeks have passed. Last Edited on: 5/11/12 4:03 PM ET - Total times edited: 1 |
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Sara, are you saying that we should ignore people who mark mailed then mail later than acceptable because it still arrived within the window? Because I can see people who don't get warned for it sliding into longer and longer time frames. A book that is mailed a week past the date they said it would be is NOT, IMO, a perfect transaction, as it deviates from PBS's mailing guidelines. It may appear to be perfect because it arrives within your acceptable timeline, however the majority of what I receive arrives in about 7 days, so 13 is a substantial deviation. Between DH putting our mail in odd spots when he gets it (I'm still boggling over the toaster) and mail occaionally being misdelivered to a neighbor, after 12 days I would be chastizing DH about the mail again and knocking on doors.
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Michelle your post shows EXACTLY why making assumptions about scans without verification by a metered postmark are not allowed for PBS late mailings. This is one from my Archive. Looks very much like yours.
And I have ALOT of these since the PO started their internal tracking. I mark my books mailed after I've mailed them. The lack of identification on the scan at least shows WF was being honest enough to not call iftan acceptance when they took it out of the bluebox, though they frequently scan it as an ACCEPTANCE scan too now. This book was mailed prior to being marked mailed. So was this one. West Fargo post office isn't even open at 8:46 at night and I've never mailed a book from that actual post office anyway.:
equest Date: 1/3/2012 8:38 AM ET
Date Mailed: 1/7/2012 12:22 AM ET
And this one:
Date Mailed: 5/7/2012 10:19 AM ET
I can tell you I was at home in my pajamas at 10:34am on 5/8, I put the books in their interior bin the day before. I can't control what the PO does with their scanner. You don't ignore people who mark them mailed and then mailed them later, but you don't assume that's what is happening either. If you have a post mark that says they are - you fill in the date and mark it Problem - late postmark. But a late postmark is the only determination, not an assumption based on scans or how fast a book should have travelled. |
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I am waiting on a book that was marked mailed April 27th. The sender used either DC or printable postage. It is now May 11th and the book has not been scanned. I know from reading posts here that sometimes media mail books can sit at a post office until someone decides to throw it on the truck. I just think it's odd that all this time has passed and no scan. But, I can't imagine someone paying for DC or printable postage and not mailing the book. I will just have to wait and see what happens if or when the book shows up. |
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Michelle your post shows EXACTLY why making assumptions about scans without verification by a metered postmark are not allowed for PBS late mailings. This is one from my Archive. Looks very much like yours. I never said that the scans themselves were an indicator that a book had been mailed late, I even indicated that the date on the APC/Meter did not match up with the mailing date (and they didn't match in a good way). So I really don't understand why I'm getting this impression you're trying to slap my hand for saying something I did not. I do not mark postage as late unless it's right there on the package in B&W. Stamp cancelations I often do not bother because they are too smudged to read. I said I didn't waste too much brain power on it, which meant I left the one I posted above be when I marked it received. I was tired, I'm still extremely tired, and I've all but been told I have Lupus.
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Sara, are you saying that we should ignore people who mark mailed then mail later than acceptable because it still arrived within the window? Because I can see people who don't get warned for it sliding into longer and longer time frames. Other people should pay attention to whatever they want to. But, yeah, I'm saying I don't bother examining postmarks for items that arrive well within the 4 weeks allotted. So, I wouldn't be marking them late postmark because I don't even check the postmarks on packages that arrive so quickly. In the case of something that arrives within 2 weeks I would not even be aware that there WAS a late postmark on it. I don't pay attention to that until after about 3 weeks go by and I'm still waiting. Then I get curious and check. More than half the time, it really did just take 3 weeks. Sometimes, I can see that it was mailed later than claimed. Usually when it has a late postmark, it's still within a couple or several days, so I don't worry too much about that either. If it really, really late, then I will mark it. As long as it arrives in good shape, and it hasn't been hanging around on my account page too long, I don't really notice it. If I only got 3 or 4 a month or something, I might pay more attention to it, I guess. But, I get a lot of packages. I mean, multiple books a week. Every single week. I've got 2 packages that did arrive that I'm going to mark received tonite, another 5 in the mail to me, and 2 orders waiting to be accepted. That's about average. |
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Wow, peeking through some of my transactions is rather uplifting. Although a week seems about average for me to receive a book (I live in Washington State) and USPS claims a 9 day average...I'm getting some much sooner:
And another from Texas to Washington:
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I have been having problems with this, too. Several times the book was postmarked AFTER PBS canceled the transaction & returned my credit!
Here is a current transaction where the sender shipped on May 2nd but JUST reprinted the label today.
The DC only says Electronic Shipping Info Received on 5/1. Somehow, I don't think this was caused by the PO
Request Date: 4/27/2012 12:24 AM ET
Will Mail By: 5/3/2012 11:00 PM ET
Label Print Date(s): 5/1/2012 9:22 AM ET 5/17/2012 9:39 AM ET
Date Mailed: 5/2/2012 2:36 PM ET
Estimated Arrival: 5/29/2012 ET
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SavMom, just a quick note: sometimes members will call up a wrapper label to look at the information, and the only way they can do this is to click the Reprint Wrapper button. So they may not actually have reprinted the label on the 17th but instead just accessed it in order to look at the information on it... |
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I am not slapping your hand in any way, just pointing that that DC scans really can't tell us anything about whether a book was mailed late. You said you didn't remember what kind of postage was on the package and were posting DC scans. I was pointing out DC scans I have in my TA that look pretty much the same on books I know I mailed on time for people to see that assuming anything on DC scans would be judging the sender in error. Yes, there are certainly people marking books and then sending them later (some with reasons they can't avoid), why not give them the benefit of the doubt. Last Edited on: 5/17/12 4:15 PM ET - Total times edited: 1 |
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FWIW, I live in Kansas, always use DC and frequently see my books "sit" for several days to a week after I've mailed them. I've asked our local postal folks, they said "we're a small post office" and shrug. So, yes, in some cases, it really is the post office, not the sender. |
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With very few exceptions people are truly responsible who participate in PBS, AND they don't want to jeopardize their own good will and good rep as a member. One or two times when books have been tardy AND had a late postmark, I send a polite PM to the sender, and ask them, did you realize that you said you mailed it on the 5th but it was postmarked the 17th? One gal replied that her flat mate said she'd mail it on the way to XYZ, and the book slipped off the seat and was rediscovered a long while later, and then she mailed it. Stuff happens. It is a VERY good idea to let the sender know that the postmark varied greatly with the date they say they sent it. THis way they have the opportunity to make their excuse, and it's good to let them know you noticed (in a nice way.) If you live in a small town, or mail from a branch postoffice, there are often delays. The post office doesn't have to carry media mail with any speed (it is NOT priority); they may wait till a lot of mail (going in one direction) accumulates and THEN your book will move along with others going that way. 10-14 days is the norm for my small town. I think someone uses the books to hold the doors open at the transit station, and then they remember, oh, we'd better move this one along. |
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