Hey so I ordered 2 books from 1 member and they marked that they'd mail them by 08/20. Well they never marked them mailed and the orders got canceled and moved on to 2 different people and they accepted them, yada, yada, yada. Well just now I got a PM from the 1 person who said that she mailed the books, but forgot to mark them as mailed, could I mark them as received when I get them?  I wrote back:

"Hey. Unfortunately when you didn't mark them as mailed the orders from you got canceled and directed on to someone else's copies. It's done automatically so it's not like I was unwilling to wait :) So I can't mark them as received by you to credit your account. I CAN mail you back your copies when I get them though as that is the only solution I can think of."

Is that too harsh?  Or can anyone think of any other ways to do this?  I'm fairly new here (about a month) so is there a mysterious way to fix this that only long time members know of?

I think your offer to mail them back is perfectly reasonable.  That way the other member can repost them for credits.  This process is totally automatic.  There is nothing else you could have done on your end.  If the other member had told you ahead of time that she wasn't going to actually be able to mail them until after 8/20, but she was going to mark them mailed so she would get her credits blah, blah, blah, that's a different thing, and it sounds like you would have been fine with that. 

ETA - This is contant-reader's DH, lurking on her account.

I'd ask her to send a stamped, self-addressed mailer.  Otherwise YOU are out the postage for her mistake.

Or, get her to buddy you a credit to cover the postage.

You are not obligated to give a second credit for a canceled copy of a book when you submitted only one request

• You are also not obligated to send the book back (although this is a nice thing to do if the sender is a new member).

If she doesn't want to buddy you a credit or send the postage then you do not have to mail it back.

While it's your decision, there is a way to mark the canceled transaction's book as received.  In the Transaction Archive, to the right of the canceled title, there should be a button that asks if the book has been received.  You can click that and select Yes, which will give a credit to the Sender.  On top of that, however, it also makes official note of the way in which the transaction was completed, i.e. the expiration of the request itself. 

edited to add: the protocol regarding credits per the Help Center (from I received a book from a canceled transaction!) is apparently this:

If you received (or will receive) two copies of the book, you are not obligated to give a credit to the sender whose transaction was canceled.  If you got (and will get) only one copy, you should mark the book received so that the sender gets credit.

Also if the other 2 senders hadn't printed the labels out yet you could have cancelled the transactions.  Not sure if this was the case or not.  You're being very generous offering to mail them back.  Really you don't have to mark them received or return the books since she made the mistake.  You are obligated to try and cancel the 2nd transactions if the 1st person pms you that they mailed but forgot to mark it as such-assuming the other people have printed the label and mailed their books already. Once a label is printed only PBS can cancel a transaction. 

You went above and beyond offering to send them back to her. It is made very clear on the site that you need to mark them mailed on time or you may be out books and credits of the other person gets other copes from the system. IF I had lots of credits to spare AND they had a good reason AND I could repost and resend fairly quickly, I might be generous enough to send give them the credits too.  Sending them back seems very generous and the cheapest out of pocket for you.

I have had this happen before with lost books.  But the latest is I had a WL book come up available to me.  I accepted.  Weeks go by.  PBS emails me to ask if I had received my books and forgotten to mark them received because they had no idea what was going on.  They gave me options and the option I took was to get my credit back and cancel the transaction.  Then I PM'd the sender and asked if she'd mailed them and forgotten to mark them as mailed.  Another long while goes by - then a PM from that sender telling me she hadn't been on this site "for months" and had no idea what I was talking about.  I know that's not true either - but I was glad I took my credit back!  I also marked her as someone I didn't want to try to swap with inn the future.

Ruth

Rather than paying to return them couldn't you just refuse the package when it arrives?

<<is there a mysterious way to fix this that only long time members know of?>>

Crystal--

There's nothing for you to fix.  The error is the sender's, and thus the loss is to the sender as well.  You don't need to spend your own money mailing the books back to her -- the loss is hers, which is unfortunate but at least it is a mistake she's not likely to make again :-)

Cheers,

Catt