I received a book today. I am wondering would you mark this as a problem book?

• Request Date: 1/14/2014 9:18 PM ET
• Will Mail By: 1/24/2014 11:00 PM ET
• Label Print Date(s): 1/19/2014 5:01 PM ET
• 2/5/2014 5:03 PM ET
• Date Mailed: 1/24/2014 6:35 PM ET
• Estimated Arrival: 2/20/2014 ET

When I looked at the details for the book on Monday it said the member had printed the label on January 19th,2014. And they marked it mailed on January 24,2014. Today when i received it the printed postage stamp which according to the package was printed and marked at the member's post office says this book was not mailed until February 5,2014. Is this considered a problem book? what would you do? This member clearly did not mail this book out on time per PBS rules. so do i Marked is as a problem swap if i can do that or just mark it received?

You can mark it RWAP, late mailing.  It will generate an email to the sender telling them late mailing is against the rules. PBS will have a record of the late mailing and can see if the sender has a history of late mailings.  I assume a sender could have their account suspended if they consistantly mail late.

May I just interject to say that, at least in my part of the country, we've had one snow or ice storm after another--many of the population in my area is, as we speak, still without heat or electricity after over 4 days. Might it be possible that the sender suffered similar problems? Of course it's hard to say, not knowing where the book was mailed from. But I can say that in my area, this has been a tough winter that has thrown many off of their normal routines.

just my 2 cents....

The late mailing RWAP will mark the book as received, just brings a little extra pow to the late mailing.  It triggers a message from PBS.  We can just enter the date in the received form.  That will record it. 

Getting one of these is not an issue.  PBS realizes that life and weather happen.  PBS watches for repeated late mailings. 

• Late Postmark
  • You will have a text box - the text you type in will be included in an email, and sent as a Personal Message, to the sender.
  • You will be able to choose the postmark date.
  • The sender will get an email reminding him or her to mail promptly - so if the late mailing was agreed upon, or the sender got the book back in the mail and had to re-mail (and alerted you to this), you should not choose this option.

I agree with Janet E, but... I'd have at least taken a moment to pm the requestor as soon as the lights came one, to let them know about the delay.  I think anyone can understand someone not wanting to risk damage to self or property over a book!

MaryF

Here's a link to the Help Doc

Books that arrive with a late postmark should be marked RWAP

The book was mailed from illinois to wisconsin. and I understand weather because we here in wi have also had a harsh winter this year. but in saying that I always mark the latest date to mail by. this member marked the book mail with dc on the 24th of jan. and then on february 5th the labeled was printed again and according to the postage label the postage was paid and sent on february 5th a full 2 weeks after the member  marked it mailed and received their credit for this book. I don't mean to sound rude about this or anything but isn't this a little misleading to me as the receiving member? and no they didn't pm me about mailing late because of weather or other reasons. I would have understood that as where i live in Wisconsin we have had beloved freezing and a lot of negative temps in the last few weeks. 

Yes, RWAP for late mailing.  PBS rules clearly state that you must pm the receiver if you have a mailing delay. 

Couple years ago I received a pm that the sender was in the midst of a nasty winter storm and couldn't (or didn't wish to risk life and limb to mail a book).  I assured her that I was happy to wait until she felt safe traveling to her PO, and to remember to mark the book mailed so it didn't time out.  A few days later she pm'd that the book was in the mail and all continued as expected...no problems and no RWAP.  <--  this is how TPTB expect weather (and other legitimate) delays to be handled.

In skimming these responses I'll throw in a thought that just occurred to me.  A while back I requested a book, said it was mailed on one date but then the wrapper was printed again after the mailing date.  It took forever to get here (don't remember how far away it was coming from).  My thought is maybe they put their own postage on (whether stamps or through PBS) and the book was returned either for insufficient postage or because it was too heavy to not mail through a trip to the post office.  When I first started mailing books I tried to skip the post office and just use stamps and had a few books come back to me.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't bother.